My Mother and Her Ocean Antics

It's summertime and I'm 2400 miles away from the ocean. The Atlantic, that is. It's the one I feel connected to. Did you know that people who are born and raised by the ocean have body rhythms that are in sync with it and that no matter how far away they may travel or even resettle these rhythms are always a part of them? 

Okay, I made that up, but it's a theory I have.

 Could there exist in another dimension an umbilical cord of sorts that reaches from me to the Atlantic?

Just another theory. 

 I know that your sweat and tears are salty, but I'm convinced mine are saltier.

My mother was neither born nor raised near the ocean. She's originally from Indiana. She moved to Cape Cod at about the same age I was when I moved away.

But let me tell you about my mother and the ocean.

My mother is so at home in the ocean that you would think she had slipped out of a fish egg case at the bottom of Cape Cod Bay.

When she's ready for a swim, there's no pussyfooting around, no matter how cold the rest of us may think the water might be. She plows through until the water reaches just above her knees and then immediately performs her signature shallow dive into the oncoming waves.

At our neighborhood beach, we usually swam in a boat channel that leads out to Lewis Bay. My mom would do the signature shallow dive, surface, turn and tell the rest of us how beautiful the water was, then proceed to swim across the channel. When she got back, she'd swim in far enough that she could touch bottom. The rest of us would be swimming around or just treading water. If you watched my mother, you might notice after a while that her shoulders would alternatingly (pretty sure I just made up a word) move to and fro, to and fro, to and fro. Just slightly. Then suddenly she would bring her feet up to her hands. And you knew she had one. Yes, my mother is expert at digging quahogs with her feet. I don't know anyone else who can do it. (Except possibly my Aunt Peachy, her sister, who also slipped out of a fish egg case in a strange rebirth as a young adult.) Then she'd drop her haul into the top of her bathing suit and finish her swim. She'd take the loot (yes, loot, because shell fishing is only allowed on Sundays) up to the house and put it in the fridge.

From the time we were babies, our mother took us to the beach every summer day. She'd pack a lunch. We'd spend the entire day swimming, playing in the sand, eating, and napping on the beach. We'd go back up to the house at suppertime.

This is me with a strategically placed shovel.

my big sister and I at the beach

She took us to Nauset Light Beach, part of the National Seashore, in Eastham. The water is cold on that side of the Cape and the waves are big. She taught us to body surf when we were just tiny children. She was perfectly comfortable playing in the undertow and so were we.  

When the grand kids came along, she spent hours in the water with them. She made sure she had enough of those foam noodles for everyone and she'd ride the current down the channel with them. They loved to swim through her legs. Over and over. They also loved to have her throw them from her shoulders. She would completely submerge herself. While underwater, a grandchild would climb up her and sit on her shoulders. Then she would rise up out of the water, sometimes with a handful of seaweed she'd found under there for the child to put on his or her head. She'd bend at the knees, and on the count of three, hurl the little swimmer off. She would repeat with each grandchild until they all had had several turns. She allowed them to do this until they were way too big. 

My parents began spending their winters in Florida after they retired. (They eventually sold their home and moved there.)  My mother took up snorkeling in the Keys. She loves it. But swimming around looking at the beautiful tropical fish is not enough for her. She likes to explore.  She takes a stick with her when she snorkels. She calls it her tickler. She pokes at stuff and turns things over. She's looking for those warm water lobsters they have in the South.

"I just tickle them out," she says.

She just tickles them out.

She doesn't keep them. It's just for sport.

Sometimes she likes to relax in the water. She has an inflatable raft that has arms like a chair and a cup holder, I think.  She likes to take it out a ways, moor herself using a rock tied to a line, and just float in the swells and read a good book.

But she'd better not get too comfortable. Her first two great-grandchildren are due this summer. They are currently practicing their swimming in utero.  Just a few years from now, they're going to want her to swim with them. She'd better stay in shape because I'm not sure any of the rest of us, born and raised by the ocean as we were, will ever be up to her speed. 

Nine out of ten grandchildren.

                                              

This one's for you, John. Ten out of ten.

(Somewhere I have a picture of my daughter Carolyn on my mother's shoulders in the water, with seaweed on her head, right before being hurled off. Of course I can't find it.)

Summer Nights

I love summer nights. All winter long I dream about them. I have a few stock memories that I draw on.

When our kids were little, the boys used to sleep out in the fort in the backyard all summer long. I'd go out back, climb up the ladder and check on them after they'd been asleep for a while. I remember one particular very special summer night. I'd awakened in the middle of the night to moonlight streaming in through our bedroom window. It was brighter than I'd ever noticed before and I was drawn to it. I slipped out of bed and down the stairs and made my way through the not-very-dark house and out into the backyard. That night was not even pretending to be dark. It was almost as bright as day only with a different kind of light. It was silver light and it was reflecting off of every surface. The lawn was silver, the flowers were silver, the trees and the trampoline were silver. The air itself was sliver. I could see it all around me. I could touch it. I walked across the grass, cool and silver underfoot, and began to climb up the ladder to the fort. I glanced down at my arms. They were radiating silver light. I was silver. Was the moonlight making my skin tingle or was the thought of the moonlight on my skin making my skin tingle? I wanted to soak up as much of it as I could.

I tried to wake up the boys.

"Come see," I whispered. If whispers were visible, it would have been a wispy cloud of silver breath floating around my face.

I think one of the  boys woke up enough to stand and look out the doorway. I think he even said something about the shimmering light. But in the morning, he didn't remember.  

One summer way back when I was forty, I was training for a marathon. In order to work my weekly long run into one busy weekend, I had to get up and start at about 4:30 in the morning. Technically still night. Again, it was almost as light as day. The full moon lit up the running trail as I began at the mouth of Provo Canyon. The air was perfectly still. I listened to the river as I ran alongside it and watched the moonlight twinkle and dance on the surface, as if trying  to dip only the very tips of its moonbeams into the icy water. A family of raccoons crossed the trail up ahead of me, the mama stopping briefly and turning her head to look at me, eyes glowing, then hurrying her babies off the trail and into the bushes.

Moonlight is magical, but I also like to see the stars. The best place to see them is up in the mountains, away from the light pollution of our towns. Up in the mountains on a summer night, you can see billions of stars.  Some twinkling and some steady, densely packed into an endless blue-black universe. And you can see the Milky Way. And the constellations make so much more sense.

I remember another summer night, back when the kids were young and before our town installed obnoxiously bright street lights. We were all sleeping out on the trampoline. It was a relatively dark night. We were watching for a special meteor show that was supposed to be visible that night but that we would sleep through. We did watch the steady progress of a tiny satellite across the sky. I like to think about us sleeping though, with silver meteors showering down around us.   

A friend of mine once told me that sometimes when she can't sleep at night, she goes out and rides her bike around the neighborhood in her nightgown. I'm fascinated by this. Can't you just feel what that would be like on a summer night? Finish this thought: As free as...(riding your bike around the neighborhood in your nightgown in the middle of a summer night.)

I'm waiting for the sun to go down so I can go out for a mid-summer night's run. I've been running at night on and off for decades. I like running at night for two reasons: in the dark, it feels like I'm going faster than I really am, and I've had all day to warm up. Our neighborhood block is a nearly perfect half-mile track. I've run a lot of miles around it over the almost twenty years we've lived here. I could smell popcorn coming from the Barretts' house most summer nights. The extra buttery kind. And the Daltons' house always gave off a fabric softener smell. Vern Henshaw was always out watering his front lawn at night. Did he ever water the back lawn? Barretts have moved. Henshaws have moved, and the Daltons' kids have all grown up  and Linda has retired, so she probably only does laundry once a week now and probably during the day. But some things are the same. You can still smell the honeysuckle over on Main Street. It smells sweeter in the dark. The scent seems to be magnified at night, sweet and thick in the evening air. But I miss the popcorn and the fabric softener.

I have a plan for a staged valley-wide blackout. Imagine if at two o'clock in the morning on a specified summer night, we shut down the lights. All the lights. All over Utah Valley. We could see the stars. Billions of them. The same ones we see when we go up in the mountains. They're still there, I remind myself. We just can't see very many of them.

There's a fire on a mountain across Utah Lake. It started a couple of days ago. We can see its red glow from the front porch at night. It starts up high and snakes its way down and across the mountainside in a wide path. My son Joel told me today that he got up on the roof last night to watch it.

Why didn't he get me up?

Apricot Pepper Jelly

I made a batch of apricot pepper jelly a few weeks ago. I meant to make apricot jalapeno jam, but the peppers I used obviously weren't hot enough. I was a bit disappointed, but it's still delicious.

My neighbor, Amie, came over while I was in production. While I was telling her what I was making, my son, Jeff, came into the kitchen and heard me.

"What, Mom? You're not really doing this, are you? Again? Making a whole bunch of some weird thing that's going to turn out disgusting and go to waste? I can't believe you're doing this."

"Jeff, apricot jalapeno jam is not weird," I defended myself. "I'm not making it up. It's very gourmet."

And then

"And what do you mean again? Jeffrey, name one time I made a whole bunch of some weird thing that turned out disgusting and went to waste? I defy you to name one thing."

He still hasn't been able to come up with anything.

Apricot Pepper Jelly
(makes nine half pint jars)

4 cups smashed apricots (use potato masher)
1 cup yellow and red bell and some red chili peppers, finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
7 cups sugar
1 box pectin (like Sure Jell)

I bought a box of apricots at Costco and let them get nice and ripe.

No need to peel the apricots. Just slice in half to remove the pit and then smash them with a potato masher.

Roughly chop the peppers and put them in a blender with some water. Pulse six or seven times and then strain.

 Sterilize half pint jars by running them through the dishwasher. Keep them hot in there until ready to fill. Place lids in a small saucepan of water. Bring to a boil and then turn down to low heat. Have rings ready.

Measure exactly four cups of smashed apricots and one cup of peppers into a large pot. Stir in lemon juice.

Measure the sugar carefully and have ready in a bowl.

Add the pectin to the fruit and pepper mixture. Stirring constantly, bring it to a full rolling boil on high heat. Quickly stir in the sugar and return to a full rolling boil. Boil for exactly one minute. Remove from heat and skim off foam.

Use a large measuring cup with a pouring spout to quickly fill the hot jars. Fill to within 1/4 inch of top. Wipe any spills from the rims with a clean, damp paper towel. Put lids on jars. Screw on rings using thumb and two fingers. (Not too tight.) Immediately turn jars upside down on the counter top. Time for ten minutes, then turn them right-side-up. Lids will seal.

Next time, I'm going to use HOT peppers. My friend Judy has a recipe for a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with apricot jalapeno jam. I want to make one for Jeff.

Because guess what.

Jeffrey loves the apricot pepper jelly.

Ha!

Really.

He and I have already gone through three jars and a few boxes of Wheat Thins.

Rambling On About Names

So I'm going to be a grandma! Actually, I think I'm going to be a Grammy - at least until the little guy is cool enough to shorten it to Gram.

And the little guy?

He's going to be Jack Sargent. I know - sounds more like a middle-aged man than a baby boy. And when I picture Jack Sargent, I picture a middle-aged man. Then I focus, and I'm able to visualize a tiny newborn baby boy with lots of dark hair and eyes that will soon turn brown like his dad's.

My niece, Emma, is expecting a baby boy, also. He's due to be born about the same time as Jack Sargent. He, too, already has a name. He's going to be George Mantzke.

I know, right? What's with the old man names?

When I picture George Mantzke, I picture a full-grown man, maybe in his late sixties-early seventies, plaid Bermuda shorts, striped shirt, black socks, glasses, an over-sized belly, and golf clubs.

If I focus, I can picture the beautiful little baby boy that my rational mind knows he will be. A sweet little guy with blond wisps and true blue eyes.

We named our kids pretty basic names - Carolyn, Kurt, Jeff and Joel. Carolyn always accused us of giving her an old lady name. I told her that some day she would be an old lady and I just wanted her to be ready for it.

As Jack Sargent will be ready for middle-age.

It used to be that people named a boy John and then called him Jack. My mother went to a Catholic nursing school affiliated with Catholic hospitals. Sometimes they'd get women in there having babies and wanting to give them names like Jimmy or Eddie. But the nuns wouldn't let them. They told them they weren't allowed to use nicknames on birth certificates. They made them put James or Edward on the birth certificates.

Today a lot of the old-time names are making a comeback. When I was a kid, Sophie was not only an old lady name, but a crazy old lady name. If your name was Sophie, you were a crazy old lady. Now when I picture Sophie, I picture an adorable little girl, not an old lady who missed with her lipstick. How about Sadie? Old lady? Not anymore. Ava is popular these days. So is Naomi.

I know a young mother who just gave birth to a new baby daughter - Clementine Inez.  

When was the last time you heard of anyone naming their baby girl Debbie? Susan? Michelle? Julie? Cindy? Those were the standard names for girls when I was growing up.

 Guess what?

They're old lady names.

Then there's the whole make-it-up phenomenon in naming children.

 Our nephew just got engaged to a girl named Tayten. It's cute. Pretty sure her parents made it up. Pretty sure there were no nuns present at the signing of the birth certificate.

I substitute taught in Kindergarten this week. Between the morning and afternoon classes, there were a Ky (boy), a Kya (girl), a Kaya (girl), and a Kyser (believe it or not - a girl).

Crazy how things change. And I'm glad they do. I like the name Jack Sargent. And I can hardly wait to meet him.   

And give him a nice firm handshake.

(Just kidding, Carolyn!)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Good Driver/Bad Driver

Are you a good driver?

Of course you are!

We all believe we are good drivers, don't we? We may admit to other weaknesses, and readily:

"I'm a terrible cook."

"I can't sing."

"I do not run."

Many of us don't want to cook, or sing, or go for a run. But we all want to drive. And we all think we're good drivers.

Many people who live in Utah are evidently being forced by someone to live here. (Topic for a future post.) And to drive here. And they don't like it. I hear natives of other states bashing Utah drivers all the time. Natives of much cooler places like Idaho, Indiana, and Nebraska where, I guess, people just have a gift of superior driving skills.

One young man I'm friends with on Facebook recently complained (again) about Utah drivers. He had been driving somewhere and an Asian guy in a mini van almost changed lanes into his door. Let's see...Asians are often from Asia. But this young man seemed pretty sure this Asian was a Utahn. Then a guy in a pick-up nearly rammed him into a semi. The pick-up driver could have been a Utahn. The semi driver probably wasn't. Did the guy in the pick-up hit him? No. Could he possibly have been following too closely behind the semi?

Heavens, no!

 He's from Indiana!

I learned to drive in Massachusetts, where driving is a whole different sport. It kind of has to be. Where I grew up, we had very heavy traffic between Memorial Day and Labor Day. If you wanted to get anywhere, there were a few techniques you had to use that are not exactly permissible in some other states. For instance, if you're waiting to turn onto a road that is heavy with traffic, you might "stick your nose out" and the next approaching car will slow down and let you in. You then wave a thank you and he waves a you're welcome back. Everybody's good. Everybody's good because everybody knows that everybody has to do this or they'll never get where they're going.

I remember one time when I was teaching one of my kids to drive. My mother was visiting from Massachusetts. My son was driving. I was riding shotgun. My mother was in the backseat. We were sitting at a stop sign, needing to turn right onto a busy street. My son was patiently waiting for a break in the flow.

"Just stick your nose out a little and someone will let you in," my mother advised from the backseat.

My foot slammed down on the imaginary parent break in front of me as I hollered "NO!"

Then I calmly explained, "We don't do that here."

We would get hit.

 People simply aren't expecting it like they are in Massachusetts. I don't think it makes them bad drivers. In fact, I'm pretty sure a Utah driver would think that "sticking your nose out" qualifies you as a bad driver.

We lived in Pennsylvania for a few years. That was an interesting place to drive. I caught on fast - you'd better be prepared to accelerate as soon as the light turns green. And a little early wouldn't hurt. Everyone behind you starts honking just before the light changes. It was a bit unnerving at first, but I got to think of it as a game. Watch for the other direction's light to turn yellow and HONK! You might be the first one to honk, and then, well, that makes you a good driver. In Pennsylvania, anyway.

My son just got back from living in Germany for two years. He's very proud of his German driver's license. He told me that traffic lights in Germany turn from red to yellow to green, meaning you can leave a little early and it's okay.

Yikes.

I happen to know that many Pennsylvanians are of German descent.

And they're all good drivers.

We all are, aren't we?

The Perfect Swim

A perfect beach day. An endless blue sky is decorated here and there with gentle puffs of white and a few silent hawks that are riding an undetectable air current high above the beach. The Atlantic spreads to the horizon and beyond in three distinct jewel shades of blue and green. I sit low to the ground in my beach chair, legs stretched out in front of me, my feet on the warm, fine-grained black-speckled sand of this Florida beach. The bottoms of my feet feel slightly toasted. I draw my feet back a bit and then slide them under the surface of the sand. After only a minute, the heat has sunk deep into my skin.

I lower my book and look out at my mother and my son, standing at the edge of the ocean. A wave crawls up onto the shore and licks their feet. They take a couple of steps further in. The next wave rolls up and douses their knees. I see Jeff cringe slightly and raise up on his toes to try to avoid the chill of the water on his already slightly sunburned skin. They brave two more steps. The next wave bounds toward them, playfully splashing even higher this time. Jeff's arms quickly and stiffly go up as he braces himself against the shock of the water on his bare chest. My mother has had enough. She does a shallow dive into the upcoming wave before it can get the best of her. Jeff turns side-to and continues to endure the torture. My mother surfaces just beyond where the waves break. She's telling Jeff something and I know what it is.

"You just have to dive in. It's only cold for a minute and then it's fine."

She's been telling all of us this for years, but most of us still go along with the torture.

The next wave is a big one and Jeff's choice is taken from him. He's completely in. I watch as they dive in and out of waves, float, and swim, just far enough out that they miss the breaking point and avoid getting turned head-over-heels and washed up on the shore.

The sun continues to beat down on me and I'm getting a little too hot. I stand up and make my way down to the edge of the water. Jeff and my mom see me and wave me in. I take my two steps, squat down and dip my fingers in, then raise them to my tongue. How I have missed the taste of the ocean. The water is cool and clean and crisp. No seaweed in sight today. Not that I mind a little seaweed. The bottom is smooth and soft, free of rocks. As a wave recedes, the sand under my feet is pulled out to sea and my feet are buried with living sand that moves in to replace it. I pull them out and take the requisite two more steps - giant steps because I'm determined to take my mother's advice and get this over with. I gasp as the cold water hits me mid-thigh. I can tell the next one is going to break just as it reaches me so I just do it. I dive through it (insert closed-mouthed gasp here) and join my mom and Jeff on the other side. Definitely brisk, but so refreshing. And of course she's right - in less than a minute I no longer feel the chill. I turn over and float on my back, parallel to the waves. They gently lift me and lower me back down as they head for the shore. I often dream that I'm doing just this - floating in the ocean, bobbing in the waves. It's never cold or too rough in my dreams. Just gentle swells and clean, green salt water. Nothing feels cleaner to me or more refreshing than the ocean. Our bodies are seventy percent salt water, right? Well, after living in an arid climate for the past few decades, mine has been feeling more like sixty percent. I'm soaking up the much needed difference. The water is so clear today. I long to dive down and swim around with my eyes open, viewing the ocean floor through the jade green of the water, but I have my contacts in and I'm afraid they'll float out. We stay in for an hour, swimming, floating, treading water. We drift with the current. Every so often one of us looks to shore, locates our beach chairs, and we push our way back through the current until we are in front of them again. Finally, we decide to get out. We let the waves carry us in until we're in shallow water. We stand and water sheets off of us as we head up to our spot on the beach. The hot sun feels like a heated blanket on my skin. I skip the towel and sit down on my chair again. I stretch my legs out in front of  me.

 What a swim.

Are Mormons Christians? The Latter-Day Saint View of the Nature of God

Once in a while over the past couple of years I have written a post as part of the "Every Weird Thing You Wanted To Know About Mormons But Were Afraid To Ask Because Then The Missionaries Might Show Up At Your Door" series. In light of the current "Mormon Moment" (L.D.S. in politics, L.D.S. on reality t.v.), I am posting this piece on Mormons and Christianity. Not my usual light-hearted essay, but I thought those of my readers who are less familiar with the L.D.S. faith might be interested.


Most Evangelicals do not consider members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be Christians.

Even though we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Even though we worship Him along with the Father.

Even though our church is called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Even though we claim to hold the priesthood authority of Christ, and believe that He directs this, his restored gospel, through modern-day prophets and apostles.

In fact, we believe that He is the head of this church. It is His church.

But we're not Christians?

Oh yeah - it's that Nicene Creed issue. I'm not an expert on the Nicene Creed. I looked it up on the Internet to try to learn a little more about it and it was all Greek to me. Well, not all of it, but some of it was in Greek.

What I understand is that a couple of times during the fourth century A.D., leaders of church and government met as a council to try to come to an agreement concerning the nature of God. A compromise, maybe? Something they could all be happy with. To be fair, I think they did profess to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

But L.D.S. believe that a great apostasy occurred shortly after Christ's apostles had died off. We believe that the priesthood authority of Christ was lost from the earth due to unworthiness and corruption. We don't accept the Nicene creed as the inspired word of God.

We don't accept it, so we're blackballed from the club. The Christian club.

We don't believe that God would agree to a compromise between men concerning His nature. The Nicene creed states that God the Father, and Jesus Christ His Son, and the Holy Spirit are one being. One substance, actually. Without wishing to seem disrespectful of the beliefs of others, I picture a gaseous mass of goodness that floats around the Universe, wielding unlimited power.

We believe that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate personages. Yes, personages. We believe that they look like us. Or, rather, that we look like them. Created in Their image. We believe that the Father and the Son have bodies of flesh and bone, like we have, only theirs are perfect, glorified bodies. We believe the Holy Ghost has a spirit body that is also in the form of man. They work together - they are of one purpose and because of this we can sometimes say they are one god. I think of a loving husband and wife being one with each other, but they are each their own person with their own bodies.

That is how we think of the Godhead. One in purpose, but three separate beings. Call me a nut, but this kind of Godhead (Trinity) makes sense to me.

Sometimes I wonder why people want to believe that God is an ethereal being. Is it comforting to think of Him that way? I'd rather picture God in the Heavens, in the form of a loving Father, watching over His children, knowing what it's like to be us. It just doesn't seem logical to me to think of God as a gas or whatever.

And is it reasonable to think we're the only people-looking beings in the whole wide universe?

As a Latter-Day Saint, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe that, as part of the Father's plan, Christ came to the earth, taught His gospel, suffered for the sins of all mankind, was crucified and rose again on the third day. He lives. He is the Savior of the world. It is through Him that we can return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. He is the way, the truth, and the life. 

So, am I a Christian? That depends. Is believing in Christ and putting all your faith in Him enough? Or do you have to go along with the precepts of a group of men who decided something in the fourth century?

Somebody Has to Win

I have a part time job as a substitute teacher in elementary school. It’s not a very well-paid position. Sometimes, when a child misbehaves at school, I’ll say something like, “I’m not here to baby-sit. They don’t pay me enough for that.” Invariably, and I mean invariably, several children drop their pencils and their chins.

“You get paid for this?” they ask. Incredulity is written all over their little faces.


I do get paid, but not very much.

But that’s okay because I have discovered a way to supplement my income. You know those extra-long receipts you occasionally get from places like Wal-mart or Home Depot or Rite-Aid that invite you to participate in an online survey? In exchange for your time, you are entered into a drawing for a grand prize of anywhere from $1000 to $10,000.

I take these surveys.

So far I have won a fifty dollar gift card to Rite-Aid (a third-place prize) and a free entrée at Panda Express. I haven’t kept track of how much time I have spent filling out surveys, but I’m sure it has been worth my while. There’s no way it averages out to less than substitute teacher pay.

A few weeks ago I received a voice mail message from Wal-mart. A pleasant computerized female voice thanked me for completing an online survey and informed me that I had been chosen to receive a $40 Wal-mart gift card. I was also assured that I would still be entered in the grand prize drawing that would take place this winter. She gave me a number to call to redeem my gift card. When I called the number, all I heard was the same computerized female voice tauntingly saying,

“Good-bye.”

That’s it.

“Good-bye.”

Tauntingly.

 I am now involved in an e-mail correspondence with someone named Katrina Peters-McKenzie at Wal-mart’s corporate customer service department. It is obvious that she hasn’t actually read my e-mails. So far she has only sent me form letters about contest rules and regulations. But if I spend less than four hours trying to claim the gift card, and I succeed, the pay will be comparable to my substitute teaching pay. Plus, I am kind of enjoying myself.

On a visit to my parents in Florida one time, I got my mother started. We were in the grocery store and we got one of those extra-long receipts.

“You should get online and take these surveys,” I told her. “Somebody has to win.”

My parents are retired and on a fixed income. They could use a little extra money, I’m sure, and I can’t see either of them substitute teaching.

Well, my mother has taken it a step further. She spent the past year filling out and mailing in forms for the Publishers’ Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. I’ve been encouraging her. Somebody has to win. Why not her?

Sometimes she’ll call me up and say, “I’ve got to make sure I’m home next Wednesday. That’s when they’re giving away $20,000. I told them I’d spend it on new kitchen cabinets.”

“Good!” I tell her. “Keep filling them out. Somebody has to win.”

My sister came to visit this fall. My uber-practical sister. We sat visiting in my family room one afternoon.

“Have you talked to our mother lately?” she asked me. Her eyebrows were raised.

“I talked to her a few days ago,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“She thinks she’s going to win the Publishers’ Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.”

She obviously did not approve.

“Come on,” I said, “let’s go to Panda Express. It’s on me.”

Lunchtime!

It's almost lunchtime, and I can hardly wait. While everybody else is at school or work, I like to treat myself to whatever sounds good for lunch. Often it's something that nobody else in the family will eat, like asparagus, eggplant, or any variety of squash. These days it's eggplant. It's been my most successful garden crop this year and I've been picking them like crazy.

I have three favorite lunches I want to share with you:

Peanut Butter Toast with Fresh Sliced Strawberries

This one is pretty simple. Toast a slice of whole grain wheat bread. Spread with your favorite brand of peanut butter. Top with sliced fresh strawberries. So good. Mmm. I discovered this over the summer and ate it a lot. Peanut butter and jelly? Jelly is made out of fruit, right? It's a natural next step.

Grilled Eggplant and Toasted Pine Nut Couscous

Again, this is pretty simple to make. Buy a box of Near East Toasted Pine Nut Couscous and prepare according to package directions. Slice an eggplant lengthwise into 1/4 inch thick slices. Brush with olive oil. Grind sea salt and black pepper over slices. Grill on high until black marks appear and eggplant is soft in the center. Place on a plate alongside the couscous.

Asparagus and Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Cut Tillamook Extra Sharp White Cheddar Cheese into tiny cubes and place them on a plate. Break asparagus into bite-sized pieces. Saute them on high in a little olive oil until edges blacken but asparagus is still bright green. Not very long at all. Dump asparagus over the cheese. Eat with rice crackers and a perfectly ripe pear. 

Lunchtime!

Family Vacation

I've been swamped lately, so I thought I'd post this piece I wrote many years ago about family vacations. It's a little long for a blog post, but I hope you'll read it and enjoy it!

Neither my husband nor I come from families with big histories of family vacations. The only vacations my family ever took were when every few years or so my mother and her sister would load two families worth of kids (three from ours, five from theirs) into one vehicle and head off driving from Massachusetts to Indiana to visit relatives. I'm not kidding- eight kids and two women (the fathers never seemed to make these trips) in a station wagon or a van. This was way back before seat belts, obviously, or before seat belts became widely used. I can remember each time our family got a new (or new to us) car, the first thing we'd do was stuff the seat belts back behind the seats so they wouldn't be in the way. This was also before modern minivans. When I say we sometimes made the trip in a van, I mean a Dodge van with two seats up front and nothing but empty space in the back. Just an empty metal shell.

One year, when the eight of us cousins were mostly teenagers, each of our families had a foreign exchange student for the school year. We had a girl from Sweden staying with us, and our cousins had a Norwegian girl. (The Norwegian girl pretty much became a permanent member of the family and actually reads this blog!) The mothers decided we needed to go to Indiana for Thanksgiving. It would be a good cultural experience for these visiting students (even though we lived in the birthplace of Thanksgiving...). We left the fathers at home with their respective sides of the families. We took the van. Two middle-aged women and eight good-sized cousins, the Norwegian girl, and the Swedish girl, who was not happy at all to be there. She was convinced we wouldn't get back in time after Thanksgiving break and that she'd miss Driver's Ed. We wedged a cooler between the driver's and passenger's seats and the ten of us kids took turns sitting up front with the mothers. Keep in mind that Thanksgiving is in November and the only heat in the van was right up front. Everybody else sprawled out in the back with sleeping bags and pillows, trying to keep our noses warm. Everybody except the Swedish exchange student, that is. She was an only child and this was a new and most unpleasant experience for her, I'm afraid. She had brought along a a folding lawn chair, and sat bolt upright, wrapped in a quilt with a grim look on her face the whole way. And the whole way home. We got into a terrible blizzard in Ohio on the way home and were forced to stop for the night. (We usually drove the seventeen hours or so nonstop. There's even a family legend about my mother and my aunt switching off driving duty without ever slowing down the car.) So there we were, the two mothers, the eight cousins, the Norwegian girl, and one very disgruntled Swede, who was by this time kissing her U.S driver's license good-by, all packed into one motel room. This was my experience with family vacations.

My husband's family wasn't big on your typical family vacation, either. I mean like Disneyland or the Grand Canyon. The big family vacation thing for them was the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City once or twice. However, my father-in-law was an English professor, and they did, through his work, have opportunities for travel as a family. They were able to spend a year in Finland when the kids were young, and while there they traveled all over Europe in their Volkswagen bus. Five kids and Grandma, stopping at campsites, setting up the tent... They still have that tent. And years later, when the kids were older, they spent a semester or two in London. These were wonderful opportunities, but when the kids would complain and ask "How come we've never been to Disneyland?" their parents would say "Well, how many of your friends have traveled all over Europe? Hmmm?"

Somehow, as great as Europe was, it just didn't make up for missing out on Disneyland. So when my husband and I got married and started our family, we decided that family vacations would be a priority with us. And then we promptly moved vacations to the bottom of the priority list. In thirteen years of marrige we've taken only two family vacations.

I'm not counting visiting relatives. If I did, I could make it sound a lot more impressive. Thanks to frequent flyer miles my husband has accumulated during business travel over the years, the kids and I have been able to fly back to Cape Cod most summers to visit my parents. And when we lived back East, we were able to fly west and visit my husband's family. But as far as real family vacations go, we've only done two.

"We never go anywhere," our daughter would whine. "I'm the only kid in my class who's never been to Disneyland."

"How do you know?" I'd ask. "Has someone taken a survey?"

"No, but kids always say 'I've been to Disneyland three times. How many times have you been?' I've even lied , Mom, and said I've been once, but it was when I was really little so I don't remember much about it."

I actually started to feel a little sorry for her when she told me this, but what I said was "Well, how many of your friends have been to Cape Cod? Hmmm?"

"Mom, my friends have never even heard of Cape Cod."

One of our children, on the occasion of an outing to the fitness facility at my husband's place of employment, said, "I love coming here! Since I've never actually seen Disneyland, I think this is my favorite place to go."

Pathetic. Oh, so pathetic. My husband and I exchanged glances. Did we feel guilty that our children could be so easily placated?

Up until this time, we had taken one family vacation. When our three oldest children were seven, four and two, we actually planned and carried out a trip to San Diego. We went to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, and the Wild Animal Park. (We didn't feel like the boys were old enough to fully appreciate Disneyland.) We had a wonderful time, and when we returned home, Kent and I renewed our vow to make family vacations a priority.

Well, four years somehow sped by, and we had become parents for the fourth time. Our youngest was now three. Too young to fully appreciate Disneyland, but at the same time, our daughter was eleven, and would perhaps be too old to fully appreciate Disneyland by the time her baby brother was old enough. We needed to do this for her, we decided. Plus, we needed to make an honest sixth grader out of her.

"Wouldn't it be fun," I said to Kent, "if we surprised them? Just got them up one morning and said 'Get dressed-We're going to Disneyland!" This is exactly what we decided to do. We made all of our plans. We decided on dates and made hotel reservations. For weeks I worried about slipping up in front of the kids and giving the whole thing away. I even wrote in fake appointments on my kitchen calendar on those days so they wouldn't suspect anything. Finally it was the night before the big day. We got the kids to bed as usual, as it was (or they thought it was) a school night. I waited until I was certain they were all asleep, then I began the packing and we got the car loaded. It was pretty late by the time we got to bed. Kent, naturally, fell asleep right away. To me, it was like trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve, which is still, to this year, next to impossible for me. I lay there, thinking about the morning, watching the clock... When I finally did sleep, it was a sleep filled with dreams about the kids getting up, wandering out to the garage and finding the car all loaded up before we could spring it on them.

Finally the alarm went off. We had this all planned out. We got the kids up as we always did on school mornings and gathered in the family room. We are in the habit of starting out each day with a family prayer; We like to take advantage of all the help we can get, raising four kids... Our second son was his usual grouchy morning self, and collapsed on the floor near the couch. It was my husband's turn to offer the prayer. I was peeking towards the end when he asked, "And please bless us and protect us today as we travel to Disneyland."  That grouchy little six-year-old's head shot right up and looked around. After Kent finished the prayer, nobody moved or said a word. I don't think any of them were breathing. Finally, our oldest son asked, "Uhhh, did he say Disneyland?"

"Get dressed!" we yelled. "We're going to Disneyland!"

It was better than Christmas morning. And I've never seen the kids move so fast. They were dressed with teeth brushed in record time. I didn't even have to nag. We got everyone loaded into the minivan (a seat belt for everyone-imagine that) and began the thirteen hour drive. I had good intentions of helping with the driving, but was soon nodding off, aware only of my mouth falling open occasionally. It had been a short night for me, or a long one, depending on how you looked at it.

We had the best time. The kids were great travelers. The excitement kept them from complaining about the day in the car. Of course we had a wonderful time at Disneyland. We broke up the trip home, stopping in Las Vegas to visit friends.

We arrived home happy, tired, and recommitted to keeping family vacations at the top of the priority list.

The Red Shoes - a film critique

The Red Shoes

written, directed and produced by

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Once upon a time there was a young girl who longed to dance the night away in a pair of red dancing slippers. She put them on and laced them up and she was off. She enjoyed herself immensely. Once the ball was over, she found that although she was exhausted, she was unable to stop dancing. Through the magic of the red shoes and Hans Christian Andersen, she was compelled to dance or die.

In 1948, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger wrote, directed and produced The Red Shoes, a film about a ballet company's production based on Andersen's fairy tale. It is a drama and a tragedy. It has been been called a romance as well, but the romantic love that is supposed to be felt by the main characters comes across as secondary to the love for their respective arts, dancing and music composition. In a way, this only contributes to the overall theme of the film, that to dance is to live, and one must sacrifice all else, including love, in order to become truly great.

The Red Shoes is beautifully made of vibrant colors, graceful movement, and an Oscar-winning musical score. These three elements appropriately combine to lift the viewer out of real life and into a more beautiful fairy tale kind of world in both the ballet and the offstage scenes. This is a story about music, and about dancing, and about color as well; the red of the ballet shoes is strongly symbolic of danger and disaster.

The cinematography and the editing are first-rate, and to me, are the most intriguing aspect of the film. Not only is Technicolor (which was relatively new at the time) used to full advantage, but the cameraman employs other creative techniques with great success. There are several different point-of- view shots throughout the film (especially during the ballet sequences) which lend an artistic quality that is often missing in more conventional films. Sometimes we are viewing the ballet as if perched in the rafters of the theater, sometimes from offstage, and even through the eyes of the principal ballerina as she pirouettes successively across the stage. In fact, rarely do we view the ballet from where an audience would traditionally be seated, seeing the entire stage at once before us. During the twenty minute performance of The Ballet of the Red Shoes, we are treated to an experience that would not be possible for a traditional ballet audience. The combination of stage and film works magic before our eyes. Dissolving and fading and superimposition by the editors make it possible to convey the ballerina's personal feelings to us as she dances. We suddenly see the image of her lover superimposed over her dance partner, or the imposing figure of the ballet impresario attempting to force her choice between love and his promise to make her the best dancer in all the world. During The Ballet of the Red Shoes sequence, we are able to feel the conflict that is tearing Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) in half, and we realize that she is living in her real life the story she is portraying through the ballet: to dance is to live, not to dance is to die.

Moira Shearer beautifully and gracefully portrays Victoria Page, and not surprisingly, as she was a famous Scottish ballet dancer as well as an actress. In fact, many of the performers are both dancers and actors, which explains why the non-dance scenes are almost as smoothly executed as the ballet scenes. Anton Walbrook stars as Boris Lermontov, the head of the ballet company, and in spite of not being a professional dancer, manages to comport himself like one. Marius Goring as Julian Craster convinces us of his love for music and composing but not quite of his love for Victoria Page.

If one considers not just the credibility and power of the dialogue, but the plot and the means of carrying it out as part of the screenplay, one must judge the script to be exceptional. The parallel between the dancer's real life and the fairy tale of The Red Shoes is brilliant, and where it might disappoint a viewer who demands a happy ending, it doesn't disappoint one who appreciates a well-crafted story.

The editing of The Red Shoes shows great skill, not just as mentioned above in relation to The Ballet of the Red Shoes sequences, but throughout. The film flows smoothly in spite of being rather long. Various techniques are successfully employed to create fluidity, including one using shots of destination labels being pasted to wicker trunks in order to show the passage of time and the movement of the dance company between different cities.

As directors, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger had a distinct style which came through in most of their work. Known for taking risks by making films that went against the prevalent trends of their day, Powell and Pressburger specialized in passion, beauty, and fantasy, all of which sing out in The Red Shoes. Many of their films, including this one, were projected box office failures, but managed not only to survive, but to succeed with audiences. Powell and Pressburger believed in their work, and believed in the ability of viewers to recognize them as the artists they truly were.

The Red Shoes has helped impress on me the importance of the arts, and has helped me to appreciate what must lie behind the scenes of any great work of art. It reminds me to consider and value the sacrifice that accompanies great art. The theme of The Red Shoes carries over into all art forms, including the making of a great film. To create is to live. This theme may apply in another sense as well. After all, Powell and Pressburger created a masterpiece that is very much alive decades after they finished production. To create is truly to live, and Powell and Pressburger and their unique style live on in their classic film, The Red Shoes.

Sourdough Start - World's Best Pet

My husband and I have never been big on the whole pet idea. We both grew up with a dog in the house, and that was fine, but neither of us has ever felt the need to take one on as adults. Our kids never even seriously asked us for a dog. We let them know what our attitude was before they ever had a chance: dogs shed and they poop in the yard. And who almost always ends up taking care of the dog? The mom. And this mom had her hands busy with four children.

No dogs.

Cats were never going to be an option because my husband is allergic to them. Besides, they poop in the yard, too. And why would we need a cat of our own when every cat in this part of our state uses our flowerbeds as a litter box?

We had parakeets for a while. They were fun, but guess who usually had to clean the cage?

 And we did the fish tank thing a couple of times. Guess who always had to clean the tank?

I thought we were done for good, but about a year and a half ago I acquired the ideal pet. My sister-in-law gave me a sourdough start. A living, breathing sourdough start. It resides in a plastic container in the fridge. It doesn't whine to be let out. No pooping. No barking. No shedding. No obedience training. I feed it a little flour and water every couple of weeks, if I think about it. It handles neglect very well; I once totally ignored it for six months and it's still fine. And the best part is, YOU GET TO EAT IT.

Sourdough Pancakes

Take your sourdough start out of the fridge the night before you want the pancakes. (You don't even have to talk to it. Of course, you can if you want to...) Put one cup of the start in a medium bowl. Add a cup of flour and a cup of water to each container - the medium mixing bowl and what's left of your pet. Stir both very well. Put your pet back in the fridge. Cover the mixing bowl lightly with plastic wrap and leave on the kitchen counter until morning. In the morning, add 3/4 tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp. salt, 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar, and 3 eggs. Mix well and cook on a hot griddle.


Sourdough Bread (my sister-in-law Ruth's recipe)

In the morning: Take starter out of fridge. Transfer one cup into a medium bowl. Add one cup water and one cup flour. Mix well. Cover lightly with plastic wrap. Leave on kitchen counter.

Feed original start one cup each of flour and water. You can let it sit out on the counter for a little while until it starts to bubble and then put it back in the fridge.(This is kind of like taking the dog out for a little fresh air and then returning it to its kennel.)

In the evening: Add 2 1/2 cups each of flour and water to the medium mixing bowl. Mix well. Cover lightly with plastic wrap. Leave on counter overnight.

In the morning, put the contents of the bowl into the bowl of your large mixer. (You can also do this by hand.) Beat for two minutes. Add about three cups of flour and beat with paddle for five minutes. Let mixture stand for thirty minutes to let the flour absorb. Change to dough hook. Add one Tablespoon salt and about three more cups of flour. Knead until the dough is no longer sticky. (Takes a while.) Place dough in a greased bowl, turning the dough so that the top is also greased. Cover with plastic wrap or a clean dish towel and let rise until double in bulk. Put dough on counter and let it rest for ten minutes. Form into loaves and place on greased baking sheets (or in loaf pans, I guess, or bake on a baking stone) and let them rise until double. Brush with beaten egg with a little water added to it. Make slashes in tops of loaves with a very sharp knife just before putting in oven. Bake for ten minutes at 425 degrees and reduce heat to 375 degrees. Bake for twenty-five more minutes. You can spray water from a spray bottle on the sides of the oven every few minutes for the first ten or fifteen minutes. This is supposed to produce a chewier crust.

Sourdough start - the pet that keeps on giving!

Walmart Potato Salad

There are so many high quality specialty food items available out there these days that we just don't have to make everything ourselves anymore. Some things just aren't worth the hassle.

Like potato salad.

Potato salad is okay. My husband likes it, but our kids don't. It's not something I ever wanted to eat a whole lot of. Two bites is usually enough for me. And making it is kind of obnoxious. (And I know I'm not the only one who thinks so because whenever I mention potato salad, my kids qoute a Spongebob episode where some random fish says, "Nice going, Buddy. It took us three days to make that potato salad. Three days!")
When you make potato salad, you have to cook the potatoes to the perfect state of doneness. I have always found that hard to do. You don't want them undercooked. If you overcook them, you end up with mashed potato salad.  You also have to think about what goes in it. Some people like hard boiled egg, some don't. Celery or no celery? A lot of people think they hate celery. Some people like pickles, but sweet or dill? Will the kids eat it if it has onions in it? My kids won't eat it if it has any of that stuff in it.

My mother's potato salad is really good. She uses perfectly cooked red potatoes, cut up and coated with a tiny amount of vegetable oil, sour cream, green onions, tarragon, dill, salt and pepper. I used to make it once in a while for extended family gatherings, but again, it was so hard to cook the potatoes just right.

So once in a while I buy a small container of ready-made potato salad for Kent. I've tried different brands and varieties. They're always okay. I have my two bites and Kent eats the rest.

But last week I discovered a potato salad that was so good I've been day-dreaming about it ever since. I got it (of all places) from the deli counter at Walmart. It was the Loaded Baked Potato variety. I had way more than my two bites. I think I ate more than Kent did. There was some left over. Throughout the next day I polished it off a spoonful at a time.

Delicious!

So quit boiling potatoes and head to Walmart.  You'll be so glad you did.

Remember - Loaded Baked Potato.

Subtitles - the only way to watch a movie

My son Joel has a friend named Emma. Once in a while over the last couple of years, Emma has come over to watch a movie with Joel. I noticed one time that they had subtitles on.

"Are you trying to earn mastery points for Spanish class?" I asked, assuming the subtitles were in Spanish.

"They're in English, Mom," Joel informed me with an implied "duh."

"I always watch movies with the subtitles," Emma told me.

Oh.

That might drive me crazy, I thought, but whatever.

Last March I visited my parents in Florida. One evening we decided to watch a movie. After messing with the remote for a minute, my mother managed to turn on the subtitles.

"If we don't have the subtitles on, we don't always get what they're saying," she explained to me.

Oh, great, I thought. I'm going to have to watch this entire movie with words strung out across the bottom of the screen. This is going to be really annoying.

But guess what?

It wasn't annoying.

It was helpful.

I made the realization that I don't always get what they're saying either. Especially if it's an action film. Or a movie with a quirky British dialect.

I realized that when I watch a movie, I'm frequently asking a fellow viewer (usually my husband), "What did he just say?" or "So what's going on?"

And the fellow viewer (Kent) usually responds with something like "Shh. I can't hear what they're saying."

My parents don't seem to have hearing loss. I don't think Joel's friend Emma is hard of hearing. I just think they've figured out something the rest of us haven't thought of:

Movies often have bad sound.

I blame it on the filmmakers.They are familiar with the movie scripts. They know what the actors are going to say before they say it. Think about it. If you already know what words are going to come out of someone's mouth, you will hear those words when they speak them. Even if it's a bit muffled. When the filmmakers preview a film, they know just what's being said because they already know just what's being said. They think it sounds fine.

Excuse me? What did he just say?

One night after I returned home from Florida, Kent and I were going to watch a movie.

"Hey," I asked him. "Do you mind if I turn on the subtitles?"

He wasn't keen on the idea. I could tell he thought it would be really annoying to have words strung out across the bottom of the screen for the entire movie.

"If I can read the subtitles," I reminded him, "I won't always be asking you what's going on.You'll be able to watch the movie uninterrupted."

He agreed to the subtitles.

It took watching a few movies together with the subtitles turned on, but guess what? Now Kent turns them on without my even asking.

Is it because he finds it helpful in understanding the dialogue or is it because it keeps me from disturbing him with my questions while we watch?

I'll have to ask him.

But not during a movie.

Jeans Quilts - Thanks for the memories, Joel Craft

I always wanted one of those really cool quilts people make out of their old jeans. Everybody loves a great pair of jeans. We all have our favorites. We break them in and they're soft and comfy. A great pair of jeans can become a dear friend. (Hey, some of us have a harder time making friends than other people do.) And then we can turn them into a quilt and cherish the memories we made while wearing them.

Yes, I always wanted a jeans quilt. Only one problem: I'm not a saver (see March 12, 2010 post Just Get Rid Of It!). When our jeans wear out, I assess their condition and then either throw them away or donate them to Deseret Industries. What I don't do is fold them neatly, stack them in a cardboard box, and tuck the box away in a corner of my basement just in case. Just in case times get really hard and I decide to patch them? Just in case we have a war on the home front and I need to rip them into bandages? Just in case I ever get enough to make one of those really cool quilts? It always seemed to me like it would take way too long to save enough for a whole quilt. And besides, I knew I'd never fold them neatly, stack them in a cardboard box and tuck them away in a corner of my basement. I'd wad them up and stick them under the bed. They'd stay there until it made me crazy to think about their being under there, and then I would get rid of them. So why not get rid of them from the start?

Then one day I was visiting my good friend and neighbor, Laurie Craft, in her garage, as she was preparing for a yard sale. I could tell she was a little stressed out about the whole thing. I've never had a yard sale (because I get rid of stuff as soon as I possibly can), but I've heard that people feel a little funny, when it comes down to it, about having strangers rifle through their personal belongings. And people can get their feelings hurt when someone offers a quarter for that precious little dress that their sweet baby girl wore just a few years ago that still looks like new. Or fifty cents for that candy dish with the pink flowers and gold edging that Aunt Sally gave them when she cleaned out and retired to Arizona. That, after all, could be considered a family heirloom.

Or that cardboard box of neatly folded and stacked jeans that were cherished friends to a family member.

"Jeans!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," Laurie replied. "They're Joel's." Joel is her husband.

She continued.

"I folded them neatly, stacked them in this cardboard box, and tucked them away in a corner of the basement in case there's ever a war on the home front and we need them for bandages. And besides, they were some of his closest friends."

Okay, I admit that I made up that last paragraph.

"Yes," she replied. "They're Joel's."

Hmm.

I was thinking about that jeans quilt I had always wanted to make. But I didn't want to stress her out about her husband's jeans.

So just how weird would my friend think I was if I offered to buy up her husband's old jeans?

On the big day I showed up early.

"I'm here to buy Joel's jeans. I want to make one of those jeans quilts but I've thrown away all our old jeans."

"Oh! How many pairs do you want?" Laurie asked me.

"I'll take them all."

I took them home and before too long I got started. I made a really nice quilt. We keep it folded up in our family room and use it when we watch movies. I can almost hear Joel Craft laughing at the funny parts. We've taken it to ball games and on picnics. I can just imagine Joel Craft cheering or asking someone to please pass the potato chips.

We like Joel Craft a lot. He's a great guy.

It's a good thing, huh?

Our daughter turned twenty-five a few days ago. I wanted to give her something special for her birthday. I still had some of Joel Craft's jeans. (I had actually saved them!) I decided to make her one of those really cool jeans quilts. The kind that will always bring back fond memories for her...of one of our favorite neighbors - Joel Craft!

"Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together" - peanut butter and chocolate

My sons often ask me those ridiculous questions people (usually boy people) like to ask that force you to choose between two stupid situations.

"Which would you rather do - cut your own leg off or be ripped apart by a grizzly?"

or

"Who would win in a fight - a pterodactyl or a guy with a jet pack?"

"I refuse to be a part of this conversation," is my usual reply.

But a few years ago, I asked myself an equally stupid question:

If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, what would it be?

I considered this for a while.

 Really, I did. 

My first thought, of course, was chocolate. But can chocolate count as one food? And I thought I might want something a little more substantial after a while. Say, after a year or two. I finally settled on peanut butter. I was in a peanut butter toast phase at the time. Crunchy peanut butter and whole grain bread. I'd have to forget the bread and eat the peanut butter right from a spoon, but that wasn't a problem. Not like I hadn't done that before.

These days I'd probably choose something different. I 'm not sure what. (Good thing it's not too late, huh?) But I still like peanut butter. And chocolate. Recently I've enjoyed a couple of peanut butter-chocolate desserts that I just love. And a neighbor told me a couple of weeks ago that she likes to make smores using Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for the chocolate. Definitely got to try that.

Peanut Butter Pie is one of our family's favorite desserts. I think a lot of people make something like this. I got this recipe from my mother. Everybody loves it - and here's the important part - even people who think they don't like peanut butter. 

Peanut Butter Pie

2 chocolate cookie crusts (I don't like the Oreo brand. I prefer Keebler.)

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese

1 cup crunchy peanut butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup milk

12 oz. Cool Whip (thawed)

1 can milk chocolate frosting

Mix together cream cheese and peanut butter. Add sugar. Add milk. Mix in Cool Whip. Pour into the chocolate crusts. Freeze. Frost and refreeze.


A young friend of mine named Kirsten brought over a yummy treat last weekend. They taste a lot like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, only I think these are better. Maybe because you get a whole panful. She gave me the recipe. I've opted to call them Kirsten's Peanut Butter Bites.

Kirsten's Peanut Butter Bites

2 cups peanut butter, divided


 1 ½ sticks butter, softened

 2 cups powdered sugar, divided

 3 cups graham cracker crumbs

 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips, divided

BEAT 1 ¼ cups peanut butter and butter in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in 1 cup of powdered sugar. With hands or wooden spoon, work in remaining powdered sugar, graham crackers, and ½ cup choco chips. Press evenly into a 9x13 pan. Smooth top with spatula.

MELT remaining peanut butter and remaining choco chips in a saucepan over lowest possible heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Spread over graham cracker crust in pan. Refrigerate for an hour or until firm. Store in fridge.


Kirsten cuts them into little tiny squares and puts them on a plate. That way you can just take a little piece. And then just one more little piece. And then just... You get the idea?

Thanks, Kirsten!

Alphabetical Order or No One Ever Said Life Would Be Fair

When I got married I moved up in the world. I used to be a W. Now I'm a G. Life is good as a G. Only six letters are ahead of G. There are only three letters after W. And they're X,Y, and Z. So really, W is pretty much last.

When I was in high school, they started what was called Arena Scheduling. In order to sign up for the next year's classes, you were forced to enter the Arena, which was set up in the gym. There you would visit a table for each class you wanted to take (or needed to take), and get signed up. When the spaces were filled, the classes were closed. Naturally they couldn't have every student in the school racing around the Arena at the same time, so they opted, just as naturally, to admit us according to alphabetical order. Well, that seemed fair, right? The kids who had been first at everything for their entire lives got first pick. For those of us who had been last our whole lives, Arena Scheduling was an emotional bloodbath. I remember finally just sitting down on the gym floor in exasperation, wanting to cry.

In high school, home rooms were assigned by alphabetical order, too. One year, those of us at the end of the alphabet had Mr. Malloy.

He was an M.

Right in the middle.

"I've read that people whose last names start with letters at the end of the alphabet are usually a little weird," he told us on the first day of school. "Experts say these people develop a complex from always being last."

He chuckled.

 Not one of us was chuckling along with him.

I surreptitiously looked around the room. Okay, I admitted to myself, there could be something to this. There could be. With exceptions, of course. I hoped with all my heart that the other kids (who were also stealthily observing their classmates) were considering me one of the exceptions.

This past spring I was substitute teaching a class of second graders. I was leading them through the hall to the cafeteria. They were in "lunch line order."

"You lucky boy," I said to the first child in line. "Your last name starts with A so you'll always get to be first."

His eyes got really big.

"Is that why?"

A big grin spread across his face. He'd been first for three years of public school and he'd never known the reason.

When the new school year starts up, I think I'm going to petition that "lunch line order" be redefined to mean alphabetical order from Z to A.

The principal at this school is a T.

He just might go for it.

Stealing Lilacs

The lilacs have been in bloom over the last few weeks - some of my favorite weeks of the year. They were a little late this year due to a very long winter. Everything's been a few weeks behind. But the lilacs finally bloomed, and I began to drive my family crazy everywhere we went.

"Look at that lilac bush!" I'd exclaim.

"Yup."

"It's huge! Look at all those blossoms!"

"Yup."

"I'd like to steal some of those."

"Yup."

I come by it honestly - the tendency to want to steal lilacs. My mother was a lilac thief for years. We had a lilac tree in our yard but it never got many blossoms on it. She didn't want to cut them because then it wouldn't have any. And besides, there would never be enough to fill up the house.

So she stole them instead.

Up behind the dry cleaners and beside the cranberry bog on Route 28 were some giant lilac bushes. Every year they were loaded with flowers. I'm sure what she took was never missed. And I really don't think whoever owned them would have cared anyway. These bushes were out of the way and I bet most people didn't even know they were there. Possibly whoever owned the property didn't know they were there. My mother would come home and fill vases and place them all around the house. I can still smell them, mixed with the damp salt air, if I close my eyes.

Once when we were teenagers, my cousin Lori and I offered to drive the get-away car for my mother's yearly raid. She put on dark clothes and we waited for the sun to go down. We drove her up to Route 28 and let her off in front of the dry cleaners. She quickly disappeared into some foliage. We made a u-turn and pulled off the side of the road to wait, ready to make a smooth get-away. After a while, she re-emerged. So much for stealth, we thought, as she came trotting across the road, a big white garbage bag over her shoulder, clearly visible, bobbing up and down in the dark. She never would have been successful in the world of serious thieving.

I have had the same luck as my mother in growing my own lilacs. They're kind of sparse. Never enough to really pick. But I've never resorted to theft. I just think about it every year. Especially when I go to church. Beautiful lilacs grow all along the fence of the back parking lot of our church. It's a long fence. I don't think it's as long as a football field. Maybe sixty or seventy yards though. That's a lot of lilacs. Every year I think about putting on dark clothes, waiting till the sun goes down, and sneaking over to the church parking lot. I would take a black garbage bag with me. I confessed this yearly urge to a friend of mine at church one recent Sunday. She was all for it.

"When you think about it, it's really kind of a waste to have all those beautiful lilacs there all week," she said. "We get to enjoy them for a few Sundays and that's it."

But I was saved from the temptation to steal from the church (which would be much worse than stealing from the dry cleaners) by my friend Judy. She grows beautiful lilacs.

"I heard that you love lilacs," she said to me one Sunday at church. "I'm going to bring you some."

And she did. I arranged them in a big vase and set it on the front hall table. They looked beautiful and they smelled so good. I could almost smell the ocean right along with them.