Taster Spoon

Griswold Family Christmas Part II

On Christmas morning I got up early to hike to the Tenaya Waterfall.  It was a gorgeous walk - iced over and slushy when I started out in the pre-dawn, but gradually becoming less trampled-on and fluffier as I went along.  It was just 5 miles round trip and flat, but took me a full 2 hours.  I very much wish I'd brought a camera, and never had an opportunity to return. 

Untouched snow and ice.  By the last half mile, the only footprints I saw belonged to a dog.  A 10 foot curtain of icicles down the side of a rock.  Running over the rocks was water that looked clear and clean as rainwater.  Trees with shrugs of snow.  Trees in every direction.

As I returned I finally saw my first person of the day (and his dog).  I completely forgot to say Merry Christmas.

Back at the room, there was another surprise from Ace.

This is my online Thank You to Ace - for a divine bouquet (that smelled gorgeous) and fuzzy toe socks that kept me warm!

The family went to church at Our Lady of the Sierra, which might be the most beautiful church I've been in.  Not because the building was beautiful, but because it didn't try to compete with the majesty of the surrounding scenery - trees and mountains and crisp clear sky as far as the eye could see.  Not only were there windows along the entirety of the side walls, but the entire wall behind the alter was clear glass.  It reminded me of a line I heard from an artist with whom I was on a camping trip.  She was talking about trying to sketch mountains in Colorado as we went along and remarked that all she was trying to do was "make nature's masterpiece my own."  I loved that the church just incorporated the view, instead of trying to draw the eye away from it.

It was so bright out there you can't see the view in these pictures, but you can see the enormous windows.

We had a couple of hours before Mom, Dad and my brother went in for their scheduled massages, so decided to climb the 2 mile hill to the Maraposa Grove to see the giant sequoias. 

We used up all our time, but the fresh air and the common purpose did us good.

Do you know how big those sequoias are??

Do you see my brother?

Here we all are.

The way back down.

I saw this snowman on the way down.  Also very large (I made that teenager stand there for scale).

The evening was quiet, we ate dinner, opened presents, and played three rounds of Yahtzee.  My brother watched Hairspray (the Ricky Lake version) while I fell asleep.

Griswold Family Christmas Part I

For Christmas this year, my family went Semitic.  Specifically, YOsemitic.

We stayed at the Tenaya Lodge, just outside the south entrance to Yosemite, Sunday through Thursday, and good, wholesome, quality time was had.

Tenaya's a very nice place, not remotely rustic.  (Which was all to the good for my folks.)  BIG swimming pool (I bet it's 25 yards), hot tub, steam room, fitness center, sauna, day spa, three restaurants.   Everyone who works there appears to be about 17.  When we arrived, Ace had arranged to have a fruit and cheese basket waiting for us in our room.  Classy! 

The first day we did nothing but have dinner; I did a 300 after sitting in the car for 6 hours.  (152 was really bad because of construction).  They had hot cider and three youths sawing out Christmas tunes on their violins.  It was nice anyway.  We went to bed early.

Monday morning, Christmas Eve, I went out to explore the nature trails near the hotel.  It was warm and sunny, about 50 degrees out.  All I wore was a long sleeved top,  running tights, a hat and mittens, and was plenty warm within minutes.  I don't think I walked more than two or three miles, but it took a long time to wade through the mushy snow.  I hurried back so I could join my family on a sleigh ride.  A what?  I know!!

It's been unseasonably warm in general this winter, so I was doubtful that we'd actually get a sleigh (you're cautioned that lack of snow = wagon ride = LAME), but as we got to the pick up spot, that jing-jing-jingling sound came out from the woods and sure enough, two huge Belgian draft horses came prancing out of the woods, tugging a big, 12 person sleigh.

They took us to their farm, or whatever you call it, where we warmed ourselves by an oil-barrel fire and drank (more)hot cider.

Christmas Eve we enjoyed Tenaya's buffet extravaganza, which featured a jazz band and dancing. 

It was almost exactly like a wedding.

They had the most delicious salads, though.

My family takes terrible pictures.

They just need a little prep time.

Warm fuzzies in Sacramento

I guess we're still in the 12 days of Christmas (take your time, Wise Guys, I'm still enjoying my tree) so I'll continue to share my seasonal photo album.  (Remember when I was so busy?  At least I was taking pictures!)

Our visit to Sacramento for Ace's marathon was a quick but good getaway.  We drove up Saturday, picked up his number, and managed to get away from the race expo hubbub to see the area of town near the river that's got all the Olde Tymey shops and museums. 

We (I) bought salt water taffy.  Spend $5 on taffy, and your $5 parking is validated.  So it's like free parking with $5 of taffy, or free taffy with your $5 parking.  I like the latter.  Free taffy!

I'd already seen the museum a couple of years ago with Mrs. C, but Ace was eager to have a look around, and I'm glad I went again.  I saw something I hadn't noticed before (or maybe it's new), a map of Northern California, from the Pacific Ocean to Lake Tahoe, made entirely of fabric (or I guess the term is fiber).  It was 3-D and puffy, like a topographical map, but also cuddly like a quilt, but also with features made of all different kinds of fluffy, beaded, needlepointed and stitched-together parts.  Also, it was enormous, covering a whole wall.

Check it out.

Can you guess what the features are?

That, of course, is San Francisco, with the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridges.  And a teeny tiny Alcatraz!  And Golden Gate Park!

And that is undisputably Lake Tahoe.

I think that is Davis, with all the farm produce.

  I think that is maybe the Benecia  Bridge; Sacramento has got to be that grey city on the right.

So then, I think that must be Sacramento.

Look at those adorable farms!

The museum is pretty cool; I recommend it if you have a couple of hours to kill in Sacramento - lots of interactive toys and semi-educational distractions aimed at kiddies.  Super low tech, but cool.

In the Gold Rush section, they had a fakey mine shaft, so Ace and I practiced our Zoolander.

Blue Steel and Magnum!  It's the same face!

Also charming was that they turned the railway in Old Sacramento into the Polar Express. 

There were hundreds of little kids all over that part of town, every single one of them wearing pajamas, nightgowns and bathrobes, ultimately waiting for the train.

 

I've never seen that movie, but it looks to me a lot like the picture from the trailer. 

It was a real steam engine! 

If I were that age, I'd be totally into it.   They also had Santa at the train station, offering a lap and an ear.

Around town, we saw what appeared to be a holiday horse who was really popular.

On closer inspection, we discovered it wasn't a horse at all!

Check out how his plane Jane (non-reindeer) buddy is dejected because he's not getting all the holiday love.

Harping on a theme

I guess I'd better squeeze all my holiday-related pictures in before the mood passes.

Earlier this month Ace and I traded off Christmas concerts.  I wanted to see a show called 20 Harps for the Holidays, at the Los Altos Methodist Church.  No joke, there were 20 harps (played mostly by students), including one professional who astonished everybody with an amazing medley of The Sound of Music songs.  Except for the parents of the performers, Ace and I were probably the youngest people in the audience by about 40 years.

The following week we did it Ace's way, going to the SF symphony to see a Christmas organ concert.  It was also a great show, with lots of singalong numbers.  We were again the youngest, but only by about 30 years (maybe after you hit 70 the ticket prices are too steep).  The audience got really, really into the caroling.  Symphony goers are really enthusiastic participants, laughing gamely at mild jokes. 

The conductor did that thing where he breaks up the audience into parts ("Okay, those of you left of the wreath come in with the Glorias here, and the other half of you sing this in excelsis Deo part here...") - I was reminded of that scene in A Mighty Wind when the Spokesmen make the audience make animal noises - they got it so right - cringeworthily hokey, yet there's something so earnest about these PBS types. 

The symphony did an outstanding job of getting people into the holiday spirit - they had these enormous trees sponsored by benefactor groups, and decorated by other, charity groups.  They were all lovely.

Ace took my picture by this one, because I went to a Sacred Heart high school.

The ASPCA one was adorable but also heartbreaking - each of the ornaments was a picture of an animal waiting to be adopted. 

We thought this tree decorated by See's Candy was pretty funny. 

The entire thing was decorated with their toffee pops...er, that is, except for the area of the tree within a sneaking arm's reach, which was suspiciously bare.

One of my favorites was this tree decorated entirely with mylar balloons by some party supply place. 

Balloons!  Because it's Jesus's birthday!

I hope your holidays have been as sweet as mine!

Rub a dub dub, I'll be in the tub!

Check this out, so I was feeling guilty about my super long showers.  (Vaguely Urban knows!  She could never understand what I was doing in there.)  I don't know what I'm doing in there.  It's not like I'm daydreaming, I'm getting down to soapy business. 

I wet my hair (sometimes while simultaneously brushing my teeth),

I shampoo (do you see that?  "Suave is the only beauty brand formulated for Moms."  I did not know that!  Is that why I've been thinking about having kids lately?),

I rinse,

I condition, leaving the conditioner on for a minute to work while

I wash my face, leaving THAT on to give the salicylic acid a minute to work,

I scrub all over,

I rinse.

That's it.  How long do you think that takes?

Much longer than you'd think!  Even longer if I decide to shave something.

So I instituted a kitchen timer in order to save water and resources and blah blah environment rhubarb Inconvenient Truth peas and carrots.

I couldn't get done in 5 minutes.  So I upped it to ten minutes, but to make the bell could only shave one leg or one pit.  Which worked for a while, I just rotated through over the course of the week. 

Something made me remember my junior year abroad in England, when showers were hard to come by.  (It sounds like an England joke, but it was true.  I stayed in the old section of Wills Hall where lots of students shared one room with a shower and one room with a tub.)  But just because showers were scarce doesn't mean British people don't like to be as clean as us 21st Century folks.  Hence, there was always a line for the one shower.  Nobody ever used the tub, so that became my bathing venue of choice.  I discovered that I could get plenty clean, and quickly, too, using two or sometimes three (if I wanted to be squeaky) changes of 2 inches of water.   

So one recent morning I started the timer and filled the tub.  After 5 minutes, I had way more than 2 inches of water, more like five or six.  And I discovered I could get clean and smooth-pitted and even smooth-legged - at my leisure - all with only 5 minutes of water!  (Really, a final 30 second rinse is pretty optional - it's just you and what used to be you in there.) 

So that's been my new thing.  It's a gentler way to start the day, and a more relaxing way to end the evening, than is the ol' disaster blaster. 

Spot reduction

Back to working on my New Year's Resolutions. 

I had this idea that in 2008 I would "Buy no new things."  Part of my motivation is environmental, part of it's budgetary, and part of it, I mean, let's be honest, is the excuse to find virtue in being a cheapskate.

Oh, and part of it is to use up all the bazillion toiletries and paper plates and hostess gifts and crafty supplies and whatever that have accumulated around me and trapped me in a 3 bedroom house-with-garage when my life really only requires a studio apartment-plus-carport.  Somebody once said, What is a house except a place to keep your stuff?  I can't believe I'm paying rent for my stuff!  It's like, no matter how cheap something is, when you add in the cost of storing it over the years - it just keeps costing money - so every thing you have had really better be worth it! 

I digress.  Anyway, not expanding my stuff, and hopefully decreasing it, seemed like a good goal in a lot of directions.

But then I started thinking about t.p. and toothpaste and CoverGirl and decided I'd have a budget of...100 new things.  And then I had to decide what I meant by "things."  I decided "things" just meant stuff - stuff  that would eventually turn into clutter, landfill or the Goodwill pile.  Stuff that takes up resources and comes in packaging and has to be trucked from yon to hither and stored in the closet or one of those tupperware bins in the garage. 

I don't want to limit food - that doesn't seem practical to count, and anyway, if I eat it, it doesn't add to the landfill or otherwise clog up my life.   One woman who's done the no-purchases thing didn't allow any food she didn't make herself at home, but part of her purpose was saving money.  I'm just trying to cut down on stuff.  I don't mind paying for people's effort (making me dinner, cutting my hair, entertaining me), because that doesn't weigh me down or add to the landfill, either. 

So how about, "Buying nothing, excluding consumables."  But I kind of do want to be accountable for some consumables in my 100-thing budget, so that I replace them less and limit their consumption.  Like gasoline.  And, as I said, makeup.  Maybe I'll even cut back on t.p., like some people we know. 

But then I find myself tempted to 'stock up' on things (laundry soap).  I find myself desperately shopping for a commuter bicycle so I can do my bike to work one day a week thing (which still seems like a good idea, though it's interfering with that other goal to volunteer more - time crunch issues).  Stocking up now sort of undermines the goal. 

Anyway, it's not an original idea, and I don't plan to make this a blog stunt, plenty of people have done that.  I'm just working through the mechanisms before I go with that advice, "Don't diet, change your lifestyle" and chuck the whole 1-year campaign in favor of incremental changes in awareness and behavior. 

What do you think, will this be a good, eye-opening path to self discovery, or is it a self-important distraction from goals that'll have more impressive impact?

Spiced Ham for the Holidays

 

I have to say, this is one of the more well-constructed spams I've gotten. 

.

(Although the "To:" line misspelled my name, so I'm not sure how it got to me.  It looks like it was some forwarding program that zombied the email of someone at...Goldman Sachs?  Was this Ahmed character surfing porn at work?  Tsk.  He sounds British, maybe they don't get the same harassment training we do.) 

.

The "I am using my friend's email" line is pretty good.  But moreso than my misspelled name, it was the "Hope you will like my pictures" that tipped me off - with its awkward phrasing.  You'll need a more adept command of American usage to get in MY pants! 

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That leaves the only remaining question: how did she know I was a lesbian??

Hoping for a foggy Christmas Eve

Just in time for the holiday, I have an enormous red pimple on the tip of my nose.  It seems like a weird place for a pimple, but that's probably what Rudolph said. 

Paradox

The funny thing about blogging is, the more interesting and active your life becomes, the more boring your blog becomes.  Sorry, guys, I'm in the thick of things.  I may not be back for a week or so. 

Don We Now Our Gay Apparel

I'm still trying to figure out what to wear to the office Christmas party tonight.  Do I want to look funky and stylin', or boring and respectable?  I've already ruled out looking like I'm going to Prom. 

...

I have one holiday joke.  It's about this incandescent bulb who meets a Christmas tree light.  I'll tell you it if you can tell ME any holiday jokes.

...

Anyway, I haven't been to Run Club in a couple of weeks, and so was pleasantly surprised when I went this week to find that all the neighborhood holiday lights are up.  (Except ours, ahem, ahem.  I only half-heartedly want to pester Ace about this - *I* do the tree; *he* does the lights - because although I love decorative lights, I know they're just frivolous energy drains.  :o( )

So while we ran, a new gal and I got talking about my house decoration peeves, which I shall now resolve into a list.

I should note that my guiding philosophy with holiday light decoration is only partly aesthetic.  I mean, a gingerbread house done up right is a sight to behold - but some of the pleasure in something like that is that you can't cheat or half ass it.  Somebody needs to climb on a ladder and put those babies up.  So my primary criterion, I guess, is commitment to the project - effort, attention to detail.  Let's say, aesthetics over effort.  Making it as pretty as possible with the equipment and time you've got.  Some homeowners seem to be under the impression that maxium coverage is the goal, but I would much rather see one small tree with every branch attended to, than a string of lights draped across five trees for the sake of spreading it around, or the expenditure of $$$ just to fill up a lot of space.  Waste for its own sake does not impress me.

So now, the list,  from least to most offensive.

9. Those white wooden (now probably plastic) poseable reindeer.  (Or are they always in a set, one is eating and one is looking alert?)  They're not too awful, just ubiquitous.  If you must wrap them in lights, let the cords be white.

8.  Lit up, hard plastic figures.  Actually, these aren't so bad.  I include these only because when I was young they used to creep me out.  Hard plastic santas lit from within didn't seem very friendly at all. Sometimes they were just ugly - bad faces, faded, gaudy depictions of a Street Lamp at the North Pole.   I'm ambivalent about nativity scenes.  They're kind of a preachy statement rather than a design element, but I have a soft spot for nativity scenes.  And in truth, I don't really mind the  hard plastic figures.   They are old school, and they do take me back.  They make me feel like whoever's putting that thing out has lived in that home forever, and has put out that plastic Santa forever and will continue putting it out forever, not to be intimidated by the younger, faster OTT mechanical inflatable blowing snowglobe.

7. Tw0-dimensional lit up figures.  Take a three dimensional figure, subtract the kitsch and the charm, and increase the coldness and pointlessness by 35%.

6.  Icicles.  Those things with which you border your eaves, or maybe the top of your garage, or maybe the railing of your veranda, with six inch or foot long strings of lights descending from the main wire.  They just seem ostentatious to me.  Like you started out trying to enhance the architecture of your home but then thought, you know what's better?  MORE.  MORE LIGHTS.  This way I only have to do one thing, once.  It's a little lazy.  It also doesn't look anything like icicles.

I knew a girl (who knew a girl?) who went out with a guy who said his family was in the outdoor Christmas light business and she totally laughed and made fun of him, until subsequently learning that his family were the first people to make/sell those "icicle" lights.  In the space of about two years, everybody seemed to have them, and that family was zillionaires.  Oops!

5.  Any depictions of snow in California.  (Not including mountainous places that actually get snow.)  Don't be phony!  I'd rather see your palm tree with fairy lights than snow schpritz on the windows.  If I wanted snow, I'd go to Tahoe.

4.  Blanket lights.  This is like icicles taken to the next level of laziness.  Do you know what I'm talking about with these?  It's like a web of lights you just - throw on a bush.  They convey nothing to me other than - I am lazy and would rather throw money at the problem of lighting my landscape features than spend the hours it would take to string lights.  If you're not going to go to the effort, you don't get my applause, so why drain the grid for your stupid bushes?

3.  Those obscene nylon figures that are both lit up and running a fan to inflate them (everybody hates these, right?).  They can be really cute.  They can be shockingly cheap (if you don't mind the human costs).  I imagine they don't take up a lot of storage space (except  for the generator?).  But the astonishing waste of buying new crap that has no function at all except to sit there and that only looks like anything when the POWER is on and whirring just depresses me when I'm trying to take the dog for a quiet walk before bed.  (But I secretly enjoy the ones that are snowglobes, with the snow blowing around inside.  Just because they're amazing.  Aren't they amazing?).  I guess lights are no less single-use crap that burn energy, so I don't know why these irritate me so much more.  Maybe just because I'm old. 

2.  Any cartoon, movie figure or pop culture character resolved into a yard decoration.  I can't believe people pay money to advertise commercial characters like Spongebob, Shrek, the Grinch or Harry Potter.  I'm sorry, even Snoopy.

My number one outdoor holiday decor pet peeve?

1.  People who wrap lights half way up the trunk a tree.  These drive me crazy.  I mean, what's the point?  I get it, you don't have enough lights to do the whole tree properly.  But to give me three vertical feet of lit pole?  What is that?  It's lazy, is what.  Do it right or not at all.  Put your one strand of lights on something smaller.  Don't weird me out with that disembodied tree portion.

As for what I DO like, me, I prefer the things that conjure up olden tymes, like those candles in the window, or perhaps a simple spotlight on a wreath.  The nicely lit and decorated tree in the front window can often be enough.  I like it when towns will do a whole street of trees in those fairy lights.  Very festive.  I like the big, oversize "outdoor" lightbulbs, even though they look cheesier than the fairy lights.  As for recent inventions I'm partial to, I think I like best those ones that look like big ball ornaments that you hang from tree branches but are also lit.  I'm indifferent to the projectors.  They look okay, but are super boring - this one has a clever(er) approach.

Also, I love it when somebody goes to the effort to put their decoration on the top of their house!  Santa on the chimney, Rudolph on the roof!  That's somebody with a sense of fun.  (So you can imagine my conflicted feelings about the neighbor who has a lit up inflatable on their roof (fake Santa going into a fake chimney - also it is mechanized so he kind of goes in and out).  At the end of the day, I'm going to rule in favor, partly also because they simply don't have it going very often.  In fact, I think it was upright and inflated the day after Thanksgiving, but has been a nylon puddle ever since.) 

I hope I haven't offended anybody.  My holiday tastes are constantly changing and I'm open to being convinced that your blanket lights are really extremely sensible.  I used to be in love with tinsel for the tree (but my parents did not allow), it spelled Olde Tymey Christmas to me...but I finally did it a couple of years with my folks' fake tree, and now there's silver stuff in every crevice and I'm totally over it.  Ace hates the tinsel. 

Ace's dad has one of  those hard plastic figures, I forget whether it's a Santa or a Snowman.  Ace was afraid I'd judge him for it, but actually seeing it was very warm-and-fuzzy and I think it's kitsch in a good way and like it a lot.

And the lights I'm going to pester him to put up?  Are icicle lights.  What can I say?

Now I'll put it to the public - what are your favorite and least favorite outdoor decorative treatments?