Tis the Season...to be jolly?

Hello.

I know, I know. I’ve been a very bad girl. And I appreciate those of you who’ve missed me. I have a LOT of excuses, but do you want to hear them? I think not. So let’s just jump right into the real news.

First, I feel duty-bound to report on our family’s Thanksgiving festivities. We had a truly lovely four-day-affair, with the traditional CORNUCOPIA (yes) of over-the-top great food and fun. We ate, shopped, and gamed, into the wee hours of each night, and then we got up and did it all over again. I, for one, developed a serious post-holiday hangover, which lasted for about a week after I got home. I’ve never had a true hangover (because I don’t drink) but I feel that my post-Thanksgiving experience was surely close to the real thing. The exhaustion, the headaches, the regret. It was all there in full force. But now that a bit of time has passed, I only remember the highs. Isn’t that why we’re always driven back to our addictions? And so I’m sure I’ll be right back over-eating and over-playing by Christmas.

And while I must confess that our holiday fare was mostly prepared by my hardworking and dedicated sisters and husband, please understand that I was not slack in my contribution to our Thanksgiving festivities. In fact, I had perhaps the most grueling of roles, because I was assigned to write, direct AND produce a holiday family film for my nieces in Zambia. The working title was "It’s a Wonderful Life, Uncle Paul," but you will find the uncut and unrated DVD version styled a bit differently. And I don’t like to brag (seriously) but I must admit it was a first-rate script, and if the acting and camera-work had received the same attention to detail that my script did, the film could probably win some kind of award. Instead it had a few...shall we say...technical difficulties? But we won’t go into that. I’m sure the Zambian screening will go well, and the crass American market has never been known to embrace these international films anyway.

Following Thanksgiving, we hit the ground running with the DREADED basketball games, Nutcracker business, and Christmas parties. Oh sure, these particular activities SOUND harmless enough. But lurking beneath their innocent facades lie all sorts of evils for a person like me. I mean here is my laundry list of personal problems associated with these seemingly nice, normal events:

First, we have basketball. I’ve enjoyed watching Emily play her, okay, not so stellar game for many years now. And at other schools and on other teams, she may have only warmed the bench (prettily, but still) and that would have been only natural given her abilities. But here in our small town, thanks to certain "circumstances", she’s been given the opportunity to play and play and play. And consequently, improve! And sure the team was "0 and what? 0 and 21" last year. But still, she played and I loved watching her.

So now we come to her senior year, and what does she do? She decides to try-out for cheerleader instead of playing ball. And she makes it...and takes her sister’s spot on the cheer squad in the process. And as if that weren’t bad enough, the team decides to get better and actually WIN a game. But we aren’t part of it, the team you know, and so I have to feel angry and bitter. I know I’m sounding hover-crafty here, with the word WE, but I cannot help myself. And of course, Emily says the team is SO much better that she would have been sitting the bench anyway, but I see the pain in her eyes when she says it. Or at least I IMAGINE I see that pain. And that makes me sad, so then I have to cry and carry on. So I think you can see now why the basketball thing is dreaded by me.

Then there’s the Nutcracker. I’m a person who gets conflicted just picking out a can of beans, so imagine how stressed I get when I’m asked to weigh-in on decisions about dresses, hair, makeup, tiaras, and such like? And then I was expected to fix costumes, sew up toe-shoes, and worry about my child being dropped on her head. It’s a wonder I survived and am here to tell you about it. But we did survive (there’s that WE again) and don’t tell anyone but I did enjoy it a tiny bit. Especially the part where Rachel twirled...and looked like an actual ballerina. I mean what mother wouldn’t enjoy that?

And by the way, I also enjoyed the parts of the show where I didn’t have to worry that those safety pins I secured wouldn’t hold those straps up. Like the part where the Mama girl comes out on stilts and little dancers come popping out of her giant skirt. And may I just say that we went down to Amarillo this past weekend and saw the Lone Star Ballet do their version of the Nutcracker, and our mama was far superior to theirs, which may be just my opinion and based solely on the fact that the "mama" in Amarillo had a giant Adam’s apple and therefore we suspected HE wasn’t really a "mama" after all. But that’s neither here nor there.

So back to me (oh how I do love the all-about-me blog)...and the third leg of the triumvirate of stress-inducing events in my life. The CHRISTMAS PARTY. I mean, I love a good party just like all the rest of you, but I can’t seem to get my act together when preparing for them, and I’m afraid it’s showing. For one party, I took the wrong gift, so instead of my friend getting the cute little HoHoHo wall decoration, she opened Rachel’s little black shirt which I’d wrapped for her birthday. Just a tad embarrassing. Then I stress over trying to look festive for these occasions. Because I’ve noticed this year that all of my Christmas garb is either too small or just seems to be screaming "please retire me to the rag pile" because they are either faded or jaded. So what’s a girl to do? I just keep dragging out the old black sweater, which is supposed to make me look "classy" if not Christmassy, but I think the black is looking faded too, so now I just have to hope no one looks too closely at me. Which is probably the case. But I keep getting to these parties and I look around and wonder why everyone looks better than me? And then I remember my role in life...to make others feel better about themselves, by being superior to me, and then I feel pretty good. Seriously.

Okay, I better go. I have a client waiting. Seriously.

And I had one nacho, one chicken tender, and some leftover cranberry salad for lunch. Quite tasty.
　

A word about pumpkin rolls...

This past weekend, a passel of junior-senior moms got together to make 180 of these tasty treats as a fundraiser for our after-prom event. And while SOME people might have accused me of socializing a tad too much throughout the two-day baking spree, those that are honest know I did my fair share of measuring, dumping, mixing, flipping, rolling, unrolling, powdered-sugaring, wrapping, labeling AND dishwashing. The only duties I truly shirked were the filling-spreading, the pecan-sprinkling, and the cake baking…but I did not feel my skills were up to those tasks.

And may I just say that these pumpkin-roll-making ladies are perhaps some of the greatest women of all time…well, except for maybe Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale. But still, for modern times, our junior-senior moms are an exceptional group of ladies, with sunny dispositions, warm hearts and (most importantly) willing hands, when it comes to projects such as these.

So I almost feel petty in pointing out the one major flaw of this group. But I’m going to do it anyway. Apparently they are MATHEMATICALLY-CHALLENGED…at least when it comes to bulk recipes and the buying of ingredients. I was able to detect this small problem when we came to the end of the line on Saturday and realized we were 34 pumpkins rolls short of a full load, so to speak. We quickly surmised that if we didn’t fill all of our orders, our reputation in the pumpkin-roll-fundraising-business would suffer greatly. So we decided to meet again on Sunday and whip out the extra rolls. But then our math skills failed us again, because we somehow managed to over-buy on our cans of pumpkin. Unfortunately, we didn’t discover this fact until after we had efficiently OPENED those 40 extra cans of pumpkin. And so that was fun.

And now a word about our basement. Still no staircase…but we did see the whites of the eyes of the carpenter last week, who came by and installed the windows. So now we can’t get into the basement from the outside, but Dave put an extension ladder down the old stairwell, so we were able to climb down and check to see if anyone was living down there. Which I wasn’t worried about until Dave mentioned to me something about the possibility of men sleeping on cots down there. Why would he say that to me? I will never understand that man. But thankfully, we saw no cots and no men. Just a lot of cement and some debris.

And now a brief update on the children.

Emily made the crust for a no-bake jello cheesecake three days ago and has yet to make the filling. Proving once again that the apple does not fall far from the tree. Last night she met with a group of her fellow physics students to “study” but she reported that mostly they just played ping-pong. I guess if physics is the study of objects in motion, this was probably a good study method. Incidentally, my sister plays ping-pong at the YMCA every morning for “exercise”. I took ping-pong in college and even won some tournaments, but never thought of it as more than just a silly game. Oh, how times have changed.

Rachel is still spending most of her spare time at the dance studio, preparing for her role as the Snow Queen. Meanwhile, her adventures with Shark Boy continue. They are “official” now, and while she’s happy with this development, she’s also feeling guilty because he’s in the middle of two-a-days for basketball, and has to attend Nutcracker practices as well. Because did I tell you that Shark Boy is the Snow King? And she’s afraid that he’ll associate her with all this work and the cheesy white and silver costume he has to wear. But he has been a very good sport about the whole thing and so I keep telling her to relax. But relaxing is not her strong suit, poor thing.

David is busy with basketball and organizing his music on his Ipod. He can’t seem to find any of his jackets so he wears this old hoodie of mine everywhere, and even wore it to church Sunday morning. I think he might need some attention from me.

Dave got a haircut and only Emily noticed.

I am wearing blue socks with black pants and hoping no one will notice.

And I had a turkey sandwich and leftover fruit salad for lunch.

A Deafening Silence

The title of today’s post refers to what I am hearing from our basement these days. Yes, Fidel and his crew have not graced us with their presence for over a week now. Which isn’t so bad since when they’re working it’s messy, smelly and/or noisy around the house. But the problem is they still haven’t installed the staircase, so the only way we can get to our new basement is to go outside, cross a ramp, climb down a ladder, and then crawl in a window. This may be a bit inconvenient for our guests if we never hear from Fidel again. But most of our visitors don’t expect normal comforts (like heat, beds and bathroom privacy) at our house. In fact, they expect just the opposite. I think of these people as WEEKEND WARRIORS...and I just appreciate the fact that they are willing to suffer many hardships and extreme discomfort in order to spend time with us.

Our weekend was bittersweet. The girls cheered together for the last time (sweet) but our football team finally met their match against a school twice our size (bitter). And since we were undefeated up to that point, I couldn’t remember how I was supposed to act after the loss. Should I tell the boys “good game”? Should I tell their parents “I’m sorry”? Most importantly, should I take a bunch of pictures and post them on Facebook? In the end I didn’t do anything. I cowered over by the fence until the girls were ready to go and then ducked out of there...fast. I’m such a chicken...always scared of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

So then on the way home the next day, the girls were looking at my camera and they said, “Mom, you didn’t get any pictures of our last game to cheer together.” And I said rather huffily, “Don’t you think the 3,751 pictures I have of you cheerleading are enough?” And that shut them up. But then I started sobbing uncontrollably…because normally I am all about EXCESS when it comes to pictures. I take pictures of TOTALLY insignificant stuff, at TOTALLY insignificant events. Seriously. I mean, I took about 100 pictures of David at his last middle school dance...and that was about 99 pictures too many. I am over-the-top obnoxious when it comes to taking pictures and anyone who knows me, knows that.

So what was I thinking? I should have run the gauntlet. I should have gone through that intimidating crowd in order to take some pictures of my girls on their last night to be together in their skimpy cheerleading uniforms under the “Friday night lights” (even though this was a Saturday). And I probably could have cried for a long time over that spilt milk, but then I heard David in the back seat mumbling something that sounded like “mood swing” and fortunately that snapped me out of it.

Speaking of David, he had a role in our weekend entertainment as well. He sang in a district honor choir on Saturday afternoon, along with 200 other “honorees”. Unfortunately, one of those other honorees stood directly in front of David during the entire concert, so we could only see one of David’s shoulders while he sang. But yes, I did get a picture of that shoulder during the concert and will soon be posting it on Facebook.

In other David news, I feel I’ve been remiss in not telling you about the recent happenings in his health class. Because apparently they’re in the middle of a sex education unit right now, and I’m hearing some pretty interesting reports. One day he told me he had to “play” the part of a boy who had sex with a girl named Betty. And then Betty went and slept with one of this buddies. And as if that weren’t bad enough, he contracted an STD. Or something like that. I tuned him out after I realized none of this had actually happened. But anyway, he now seems to know a lot about STDs because I was talking to Dave the other day about someone with that virus thing and David pops up and asks me if the person was “asymptomatic”. And I’m thinking, should my 14-year-old son be this knowledgeable about this stuff? I just don’t know.

Rachel reports that the Nutcracker practices are going as well as can be expected. She thinks her dance teacher might have been more ready than anyone else for football season to end, because the girls’ partners are on the team and during the season they didn’t appear to be making dance practices a priority. But now they should be really focused. HAHAHAHAHA. I crack myself up sometimes. Rachel also reports being somewhat disappointed because the really good lifts are being done this year by one of the other dancers (because she’s a senior), leaving the less impressive lifts for Rachel and her dance partner. Still, she is making the best of things and is consoled somewhat by the fact that as the Snow Queen, she gets to wear a tiara during the performance.

In her spare time, Rachel sometimes hangs out at this guy’s house (we’ll call him Shark Boy) where there is usually a pack of other kids hanging out, and they watch movies and sometimes play cards. I hold Shark Boy’s parents in high esteem for their hospitality to teenagers. They are either the very best parents in the world, or just plain crazy people. Either way, Shark Boy’s family has been very considerate of Rachel’s “standards” and they always refrain from putting on R rated movies when she’s there. But more importantly, they let her hold the remote control...because they know we don’t have TV and apparently they feel sorry for the poor deprived little thing. And I have to say that’s just about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.

Last night, she and Emily both went over to Shark Boy’s house to watch a movie with a bunch of kids, but Rachel reported that it was more like Couples’ Central, with the boy-girl ratio being an even 1:1. And all the boys were football boys to boot. I’m not sure if there’s much of a difference between a pack of youth rally boys and a pack of football boys, except that football boys seem to like to shave their heads and other people’s too. What I do know is that my girls have been highly successful at scaring off both species. But they had a good time and got home early enough, so I guess I’ll try not to worry about it overly much.

And just a snippet for you on Emily. Yesterday afternoon, she put on the old musical Showboat and while we were watching Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, and Howard Keel sing and dance their little hearts out, Emily says to us, “This would be a really great movie if it was about World War II”. Folks, I could not make this stuff up.

Dave just finished assisting David with crafting an electric generator for his science fair project. After much trial and error, and much wringing of the hands, they managed to get a 0.5 volt light bulb to burn for a few seconds. But in order to get the magnets to spin fast enough to light up the bulb, they had to use an electric drill. I found this interesting…and disappointing because obviously we won’t be able to use the contraption next time we have a power outage. Because we won’t have electricity to run it.

In other Dave news, he came in from a road trip the other day and told us he thinks he had an encounter with an angel at Walmart. She came to him in the form of a lady in one of those motorized scooters and she was in the reduced item aisle. She about ran into him as she entered the aisle and he was exiting the aisle. But before he got to the next aisle he heard her calling, “Sir, sir!” He turned around and there were other people in the aisle but she was looking at him. And then she said to him, “Do you like chips?” And he said, “Yes.” So she shows him a bag of Chex Mix that she’s holding and she says, “These are $1.15 and they’re really good!” And Dave looks confused, because he’s wondering how in the world this lady knows how much he loves reduced stuff. And then she says pointing to some writing on the bag, “And look! They’re 70% less fat. This is a great deal!” So Dave is then rather stunned because the only thing he loves better than getting a great deal, is getting a great deal on low fat stuff. So he thanks the lady for the tip, and takes two bags (because the angel took most of the rest), and he gets back on the road. And it’s late at night and he munches on the Chex Mix to stay awake, and the Chex Mix turns out to be quite delicious (heavenly, in fact), and he’s pretty sure it saved his life because he didn’t fall asleep on the road. So that’s the story…exactly as he told it to me.

And with that, I must go.

I had a bowl of Lucky Charms for lunch today…but it was really just a late breakfast.

HEAT, GLORIOUS HEAT!

Yes folks...on Thursday last, our heating stars finally re-aligned and/or Fidel and his crew finally re-attached our heating vents. Either way, we now have a warm house and I am still in celebration mode. There may come a day when I will once again take a warm house for granted, but that is not this day. And so I’ve written a short poem for you:

ODE TO A WARM HOUSE

There once was a family all cozy,
with cheeks so pink and rosy;
They frolicked about
and never had gout;
In their warm little house, they were toasty.

But one day an evil came lurking,
disguised as a crew of men working.
Vents were ripped out,
of this there’s no doubt;
And in came the cold air, a’smirking.

Oh my! Mother cried,
Oh dear! Father sighed;
Whatever shall we do?
But the children were tough,
they wore blankets and stuff;
And never got in a stew.

Many a cold and frosty day passed,
With the family growing frailer, alas;
But before hypothermia set in,
The vents were installed again;
And the family cried, "Heat! At last!"

So if you are trying to weather a storm,
or find yourself sad and forlorn;
Stop your stressing,
and count just one blessing,
the fact that your house is warm!

You probably didn't know I was a poet, eh? And I can tell you're still not sure. But that's okay, because I'm pretty sure even Longfellow and Frost had their share of doubters.

I have a lot of family news for you...very interesting stuff...but it'll have to wait. Writing poetry really takes it out of me.

I had two beef and bean burritos from the convenience store for lunch. These burritos are only available on Wednesdays and are "homemade" and very tasty. They come with a little container of homemade salsa, but you have to ask for it.

Name them one by one...

Hello.

We celebrated David’s 14th birthday yesterday. And birthdays are just one more thing that I don’t do very well so it was a rather sad little affair, with one of my traditionally pathetic-looking cakes. Fortunately, 14-year-old boys seem to mainly care about the presents...and he got his Ipod Touch...so he was a happy camper.

But the highlight of the day for me was when we forced him to go out to eat with us, and while we were eating we decided to "bless" him. Which sounds weird, I know, but the "blessing" used to be one of our family traditions and while it is now defunct, basically it involved my mom forcing us to gather around and say nice things about each of her grandchildren, as they turned 13. We gave them "the blessing" so to speak. Of course, most of us thought it was a BLESSING when we stopped having the blessings, because it was supposed to be serious and my family doesn’t do serious too well. And none of us look or sound cute when we cry, so it was just one giant mess of a time. But when all was said and done, I think most of the kids liked it and I know my mom loved it, so I don’t know why we all griped so much about it, except that griping is one thing we do well.

So at Pizza Hut last night, the five of us decided to revisit the tradition. We all said our piece (actually Rachel and Dave said a bit more than their piece) and it wasn’t so bad, and I think David liked it. Everyone had something nice to say...and no one seemed to be making anything up (like in the old days). And it didn’t get too maudlin since it was buffet night, and sometimes in the middle of a speech, a Pizza Hut employee would bring out a new pizza and we would all have to jump up and run to beat the other diners to get our share.

And incidentally, it was a bit easier to come up with some good stuff for the blessing since we had just come from parent teacher conferences, where the kid got good reviews. The choir teacher actually told us, "I don’t know what I’d do without him," which we found strange until she added that he’s one of the only middle-school boys who can sing baritone. But everyone else said nice things as well. This was not surprising because our fall conferences for David are always very cordial. It's not until the spring conferences that things get ugly...where the teachers unanimously recommend a muzzle for him because he talks too much.

Okay, enough about the birthday boy. Let’s move on to the girls.

Due to some scheduling issues at the high school, Emily had to be moved out of her conditioning class and into a fashion marketing class. So no more sweatin’ to the oldies for her. Now she has to learn about fashion design. And rumor has it that this class will go to Dallas in the spring for a field trip...where they will be forced to attend fashion shows, get pedicures and eat at Wolfgang Puck’s Five-Sixty restaurant. Once again, I marvel at the changing face of education. We never went much further than the planetarium 20 miles down the road for our field trips. Except that one year when the art club went to Branson and we slept in sleeping bags in tents which were pitched on very rocky ground, and this was during the coldest weekend in October. That was one miserable weekend, but I guess I was getting what I deserved since I never took an art class and only joined the art club so I could go on the trip.

But back to Emily. She is busy practicing her dances for Senior night (she’s doing two for some reason) and I am dreading the whole night since it’s going to be cold, and sad, and my only consolation is that my brother and his family are supposed to be coming to visit. But I am feeling sort of guilty about that too because I think he thinks he has to "pay me back" so to speak because I went to see his son play ball when he was a senior. And I hope he knows I don’t think watching my daughter dance and prance about in a cheerleading uniform is the same as watching his son actually play football. Not that I don’t whole-heartedly believe that cheerleading is a sport. It’s just not a sport like football.

And one last note on Emily. Last night she watched Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? with Dave and me and she giggled through the whole thing even though we’ve seen it a hundred times. And then she came to kiss me goodnight and sat down on the bed and started talking about this and that...and I finally had to tell her to go to bed sometime after midnight. And then I felt bad because I know she’s not going to be able to hang out and talk to me late into the night for very much longer. So this mother of a senior thing is getting to be a real hassle.

I better write about Rachel and Dave and the basement next time, because this post is getting out of hand lengthwise. Dave won't mind because he doesn't like to read anyway. And I don’t suppose Rachel will mind either, since she can't be BOTHERED to read my blog. Which really hurts since I know she reads a lot of other drivel, as evidenced by the titles on her bookshelf.

And for lunch today, I had some Kraft mac and cheese, and a fortune cookie I found at the bottom of my purse from last time we ate at Pei-Wei.

Much love,

Shelley

It was the best of weekends, it was the worst of weekends.

So...have I mentioned that we are having an unseasonably cold October? And of course I have no heat on the first floor of my house...because of the dreaded basement project. The bedrooms upstairs are on a separate unit so we are toasty up there, but the temp in my kitchen and living areas is around 50 degrees most of the time. When Dave gets the fireplace going, it can reach as high as 55, but that’s still a bit on the cold side for me. Which is why I put on my leggings, wool-lined boots, and several layers of shirts, sweaters and jackets, before descending to the first floor in the mornings. And this routine is getting a bit old.

And then some of my family came in for the weekend...ostensibly to see the girls cheer at our football game Friday night...but in the end, it’s always about THE GARAGE SALE. My sisters and I are, and have been for as long as I can remember, garage-sale-a-holics. And apparently it’s a genetic disorder, because our kids seem to be affected as well. But don’t tell anyone. It’s our dirty little family secret and we aren’t exactly proud of it. But the truth is, we LIKE to set up and hold garage sales. We have the usual garage sale merchandise, including a well-stocked holiday table, a lovely array of used makeup and jewelry, and an outstanding selection of bags, purses and shoes. But then we also like to put out embarrassing things, like our sons’ boxer shorts, to see if they will sell...and they always do. And we find this entertaining for some reason.

So anyway, we held our garage sale this weekend in a rented building because the weather forecast indicated below freezing temps and sleet for Saturday. And this turned out to be a good thing because we needed a warm place to go. But eventually we had to pack up and go back to my cold house. I suggested that we spend the evening in my bedroom playing cards around my king-sized bed, but several people seemed uncomfortable with that plan. Instead they liked the idea of gathering in the living room by the fireplace so that’s what we did. We made s’mores and huddled together under blankets, and even listened to and critiqued Luke’s reading of Memorial Road’s October 10th scripture selection (via the internet of course).

Then we wanted to play cards but couldn’t bring ourselves to leave the fireplace room. So Dave went outside to the garage and found David’s old hovercraft that he made for the 7th grade science fair, which is really just a big round piece of plywood and I thought we could set it on the coffee table and it would be a perfect game-table for Nertz. Sure enough, with a tablecloth, it proved to be a great surface and size for 10 of us to play what we then termed Hovercraft Nertz. So it turned out to be a nice evening with surprisingly few complaints, although a few people said the hovercraft dug into their knees and, obviously, we all could have used those gloves with the fingers cut out.

And for those of you concerned about our health and safety, you should know that Luke also read for us the signs of hypothermia (from the internet of course) and none of us ever passed from the shivering stage into the panting and shortness of breath stage. And while he was at it, he also diagnosed Susan with a few more disorders that she’d been wondering about.

Oh and I almost forgot another entertaining moment of the evening. At about 10 o’clock, David comes stumbling in (from a birthday party) and falls to the floor beside our game, moaning and complaining that he felt terrible. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our Hovercraft set-up, we were basically trapped in the circle and no one could get to him without moving furniture or climbing over things, so we all just pretty much stared at him. Finally, he roused himself and went upstairs to lie down, and soon Emily (who worries about everything and everyone, bless her heart) climbed over some stuff and went up to check on him. But she came back and reported basically nothing, as she is wont to do, and I started thinking he might have meningitis, as I am wont to do, so I moved the love seat to escape the circle, and checked on him myself. And he was feverish, but not delirious, so I dosed him up with Advil and returned to the game.

And I don’t mean to get all sentimental here, but I’ve been thinking about my family lately, and especially about the troopers that were here this weekend. And I can’t help but feel blessed. Yes, even though I don’t have a warm house or kitchen cabinets or a working washing machine, and even though my exposed pipes are freezing up and Fidel doesn’t answer Dave’s calls, and even though I have a pain in my neck, pack-rat tendencies, and unpaid fines at the library. My mom always said "everything in life is a trade-off" and although I usually rolled my eyes at her when she said it, I knew it was true. So maybe if some aspects of my life are not so perfect, it’s just the price I have to pay for having a truly great family.

And Dave made this tortilla-like soup stuff last week and I had some of it for lunch, with chips and cheese. It wasn’t bad, even though the beans weren’t fully cooked

Bierocks and other weekend wonders.

Hello.

Well, so far it’s been one great Monday...and how often do you get to say that? And I have our awesome (hello) basement project to thank for it. Because this morning, the crew actually cranked up some really great Mexican music and were SINGING down there!! Priceless. I wanted to head down and take some pictures, just in case they were having some sort of Mexican hoe down or something, but I was afraid to even let them know I was still in the house for fear they’d stop. So I tiptoed around and just enjoyed the free entertainment. Well, free if you don’t count the $35,000 price tag for the basement.

And I’m pleased to report that I had a wonderfully relaxing weekend...mostly because my sister Sally got sick at my house. Which I feel bad about (naturally) but still...it turned into one of those "dream sequence" weekends (except for her being sick of course). I should probably start at the beginning...

You see Sally was coming out for the weekend and we thought...why not have a "prequel" garage sale on Saturday? Prequel because more of the family is coming out next weekend for the REAL family garage sale. But Saturday morning when I came downstairs, Sally informs me that she can’t stand up without feeling dizzy, which then brings on nausea. (With the help of my medical book, I later diagnosed her with either Mineire’s disease, where she possibly could go completely deaf, or the less serious Labyrinthitis, where she just gets to go to bed for a few days, but all this is neither here nor there to the story of my weekend.)

Anyway, so we sat around for a little while, hoping she’d get better, but she didn’t. So instead of garage selling, I spent the day talking to her and puttering around my kitchen (which I actually LOVE to do even though I don’t really know how to cook). And I have to give Sally credit for acting like my near-monologues were interesting, because of course I did most of the talking, trying to keep her mind off her dizziness and all. I mean, sometimes I’d look over there in the middle of a story and she’d be sitting up but her eyes would be closed (which I’m pretty sure meant that she was sick and not bored), and I would carefully bookmark in my mind where I was in that particular story so when she was more alert, I could finish what I was saying.
But anyway, I baked some stuff at first and then thought I would "whip up" some bierocks. Which sounds weird I know, but I’ve had sort of a mini-obsession with bierocks since last summer when I ate some that my friend Angela made for a fundraiser concession stand. And then when Emily brought home that head of cabbage instead of the lettuce I asked for, I started thinking it was probably some kind of sign that I should make my own bierocks.

Of course, just saying I was going to "whip up" some bierocks must tell you that I’d never made bierocks before. Because honestly, now I know there’s no such thing as "whipping up" bierocks. And I want to take this time to publicly apologize to my friend Angela for thinking her churlish when she refused to make some bierocks just for me, even after I practically begged her. Because she did offer to make me some for my birthday. And seriously, after going through the ridiculous amount of chopping and kneading and dough pinching and mess-making involved in this process, I now see that she is perhaps the best friend I ever had for even offering to make me some for my birthday.

So anyway, I did in fact make 36 bierocks on Saturday. And they came out all different shapes and sizes, but since I had formed them with my bare hands, I found them to be quite beautiful and even took the pan in to show sick Sally, and I think she was appropriately impressed. And at that point I was feeling a bit like Scarlett O’hara, when she said she’d NEVER go hungry again, because I was thinking that I’d NEVER make bierocks again, not in this house or any other for that matter. But then I tasted them, and I decided, I MIGHT make them again. Because they were as delicious as they were beautiful. And I figured out why people go to all that trouble, but not for their friends.

Other parts of the weekend deserve some mention. Of course Emily lost her homecoming queen bid Friday night, but to a worthy opponent and friend. And the consolations were some nice sympathy pats on the head, and a text from her cousin Ben welcoming her to "The Club" of family homecoming losers, which includes some of her very favorite people. She told me she sang "we are the losers, we are the losers, no time for winning, cause we are the losers, of the world" to her escorts as they walked off the football field. So all in all, I think she took it pretty well. Not to mention dodging "the kiss" bullet...which had her a tad bit nervous.

There was a sweet part during the evening, when Emily was introduced and they were reading her information. They said the person she admired most was Rachel, because she was always herself, and didn’t worry about what other people thought of her, and because she was always there for Emily, blah blah blah. I was touched of course, but then they bickered for the rest of the weekend, and I decided it was like those funerals where everyone says all this great stuff about the deceased but it’s really just a bunch of hogwash.

And in other weekend news, Rachel had her first symphony concert Sunday afternoon and as I watched and listened to her, I thought this was the coolest AND weirdest thing that any of my kids have done. I mean the music was beautiful and she seemed to enjoy playing, but I couldn’t help singing under my breath, "one of these things is not like the others..." because she doesn’t exactly fit in with the other musicians, who mostly could be either her parents or grandparents. Emily came along willingly to the concert, probably because we were eating out beforehand, but we basically had to drag David with us and promise him some sort of reward for inflicting the pain of classical music upon him. But he did perk up a bit when they played the "Variations on a Sea Chantey" which apparently is a Sponge Bob favorite, and when they played some Halloween-ish song where one violinist would let loose a blood-curdling scream every so often. So all in all, it was a nice afternoon.

I believe Dave had a nice weekend too. Although I’m not sure he enjoyed having to load and unload and load and unload the tables for the garage sale, with no resulting decrease in the junk in our house. Also, he had to attend David’s cross country meet Saturday morning by himself because I was busy holding Sally’s hand and making bierocks. But David did well, placing 10th and getting another gaudy medal, so that was some consolation.

So that’s about it. I didn’t mean to drone on and on, but it’s what I do.

And I had a lovely lunch with Rachel at Ranchito where I enjoyed the single combination.