Taster Spoon

Winter Wonderland

  Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

 

  The road to the lodge.

 

     Cougar Crest Lodge

  

   

     

Outside my room.

  

 

Driving to the resort downtown.

Snuggling up in front of the CdA Resort fireplace.

Stacking wood at the Cougar Crest Lodge.

   

The dining room deck at the lodge.

The gang on Christmas: Dad, Mom, Mr. and Mrs. Manning, my brother Beaker, me, and Ace

I hope everyone is having great holidays - see you all next year!

 

Christmas Cheer

We went to Symphony Hall again this year.  Last year it was to see a pipe organ; this year it was to see the Canadian Brass.  They put on a great show - lots of crowd-pleasing selections.  Plus Ace got tickets on the day for half price so I enjoyed it even more. 

Just as exciting was the annual christmas tree display they have there.  Each tree is sponsored by some benefactor, and decorated by some charity or school.  There were a few cool ornament treatments.

This one was figures made out of old CDs

 

Ha ha, remember when people used to listen to music on CDs?

For this next one, the kids made snowglobes and dioramas out of glass jars and plastic water bottles.

     
Then I took a picture of this next one just because I knew Kelli would like it.

My favorite every year, though, is the SPCA's, because their ornaments are photos of all the dogs and cats up for adoption.  It makes you want to give the whole tree a hug.

 

Merry Christmas, everybody!

I guess Ace likes nuts

Ace has two favorite holiday cookies: Mexican Wedding Cookies, translated into American by one of my midwestern cookbooks as "Snowballs," those balls of ground almonds rolled in powdered sugar. 

The other is these, which, on inspecting the creative process, Ace renamed "Schweddy Balls."

 

 

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

We've had a housekeeper come a couple of times.  (I could say cleaning lady,  but "housekeeper" makes me feel like the narrator in Rebecca, where I'm handing off luncheon menus and groundskeeping requests: "A fire in the library tonight, Mrs. Danvers, if you please.")

Everyone I know who has had a housekeeper has told me it's worth every penny and they'd never go without!  Last year we phoned up the cleaning lady who works for a few friends and is by all accounts impeccable (she dusts the door jambs), but she came by to give us an estimate and her initial once-over was going to cost $400.  So we put it off...indefinitely.

Then we visited friends who moved away from California to a ridiculously enormous and fabulous farm house on the East Coast.  I swear it is 10,000 square feet and done up like a high end B&B - just gorgeous.  And the lady of the house revealed that she does not have help cleaning, despite the fact that she has a very full time job outside the home and vacuuming alone takes her two hours.  Her husband intimated that hiring a housekeeper was, in a word, sinful.  (He's a self-reliance kind of guy.)  Part of me was aghast.  Part of me secretly agreed.

And since then I have been unable to justify - morally - hiring help when we have 1600 square feet and two able-bodied adults.  I wondered whether people who have cleaning ladies are really SO ENTHUSIASTIC because their lives are that much improved, or if it's perhaps because they're trying to convince themselves that it's something other than wanton laziness.

But here's the thing.  Ace and I have different concepts of cleanliness.  For him, it equals tidiness - everything in its place, no stuff lying around.  For me, it equals, well, clean.  Mopped floor, scrubbed toilet.  There's no question I am the messy one, and when I have to pick up after myself, I do it.  But I don't do it as much as I should and in those in-between times, when my crap is everywhere, Ace goes quietly crazy.  On the other hand, he doesn't notice the dirt or the scummy tub, so it doesn't occur to him to use a squeegee, say, and when we have guests I feel like it is my burden to spend a weekend mopping and scrubbing and vacuuming.  I know that I'm cleaning for me, but I still feel unduly burdened because it is joint dirt. 

So at our Halloween party, a friend glowed about her cleaning lady and said that she reluctantly took a break when she was between jobs, but as soon as she got her offer letter at a new job, the cleaning lady was the first person she called.

So I got her number.  Setting up our first meeting was confused and hectic because she doesn't speak English but she had an opening that very week.  No turning back!

She comes once a month, so she's been here twice.  The first time, our house had degraded into tornado territory, and I spent hours the night prior picking everything up.  But when we came home that night, the place smelled like roses and I felt the cares of the world slide from my shoulders.  It wasn't just tidy (Ace had been satisfied when we finished the picking up), it was clean.   (When I noticed she'd used almost an entire $8 bottle of Mrs. Meyers' geranium-scented cleaning solution the cheapskate in me had a conniption, but I tried to keep perspective.)

This last time it was less roses, more gas leak (an unlit burner had been left on) so it wasn't quite the arbor of delights, but I had been able to use the night before to spend a little less time picking up and a little more time organizing my desk.  I hope it continues this way, that each time I'll have kept the debris a little more in line than the last time and can make progress on organizational tasks that I've put off for - let's face it - years. 

Oh yeah, and she polishes the teakettle.  We've been making good use of it this fall, what with Sleepytime Tea and hot water bottles.  As mentioned in an earlier post, we didn't turn the heat on until after Thanksgiving.  Ace just got the bill and our gas usage for November was a third that of last year.  Now we just turn it on for a couple of hours when we get home and turn it off when we go to bed.  The house is usually around 56 degrees.

So speaking of my favorite things, I wanted to pass on a tip from my mother.  My mom gives me lots of advice.  I usually pretend to ignore it, just to be difficult, but I also usually take it to heart.  One good recommendation she gave me years ago was CuddlDuds long underwear.  They're now called CuddlSilks.  It's long underwear that is actually quite sheer, so you can wear it under everyday work clothes.  I wear them every day, now.  They're so convenient that I wanted to add a couple to my closet, so I went to the depressing Sears over at the Sad Mall (Sears is the only place I've ever seen them), and they were 50% off!  Now they have a bamboo variety.  They package it up like it's all eco-friendly to use the "replenishable resource" of bamboo!  Because cotton doesn't grow on trees, you know.

(Although, it's my understanding that cotton is a crop that requires lots of resources, pesticides, what have you, that do harm the environment so that 's why you should insist on organic cotton.)   

Let's close this post with the warm woolen mittens.  I got that periodic notice from Skype that I hadn't logged in in a while (IT at work removed it from my computer despite my whining and then my parents moved back from Singapore anyway), and I had to make at least one call or they'd keep my remaining eight Euros.  So I called a long lost friend in England only to discover she'd just gotten some terrible news.  That's neither here nor there, but I've been teaching myself to knit, per Sharon's skill-building imperative, so I used her as the inspiration for my first project: I decided to make my friend (shall we call her Pom?  PomWonderful?) mittens.

I totally made a mitten!  I used a pattern out of the original Stitch n Bitch book, which I got from the library.  (Recommend.)  I should have taken a picture, it was absurd.   It was about a foot long and eight inches wide.  I put my foot in it and considered keeping it for cozy toesies.  But then I tore it apart and started over. 

I know, they don't look remotely professional, but PomWonderful is pretty forgiving.  If I made her wait until I had real skill, she'd be waiting a long time.  Next I'm going to try a matching hat with a cable in it.

Update: I tried starting the hat, but my 9" needle is way too short.  I'll have to buy another pair of needles this weekend so I can work on it over the Christmas holiday.  This so-called frugal hobby is wiping me out on equipment.

I'll be sad to be done with this project.  The fuzzy wuzzy yarn is just too soft.  It's called Sensations Angel Hair, and it's 22% wool so I'm hoping it'll be a little warm. 

Is it really stealthy if it's all over the Internet?

Man!  The holidays, right??

Last week was the annual Beer Mile.  Inexplicably, I was not last.  Then again, I thought there was a PowderPuff division (2 beers only) again this year, but was mistaken.  I actually got denied a high five.  I made up for it at the pizza party after, though.

Because it requires the organizer to borrow a school track, the Beer Mile is typically the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, when school is out, everything is deserted, and nobody gets in trouble.  This year the organizer responded to considerable grumbling from all those who had to travel elsewhere for the holiday and scheduled it the week following.  It was held at a high school track where the organizer was able to persuade someone to both shut off the lights and leave the gate open so we could be appropriately secretive.

Ace was under the impression that this is a costume-wearing event.  As the results will show, however, his understanding was not  universal. 

Clearly, some take the event more seriously than others.  The winner, who drank 4 beers and ran 1600 meters in 6:42, was wearing track spikes. 

As we were driving home, we spied, off the highway, through the trees, what looked like a regular Santa's Village - holiday lights and blinking sculptures.  So we exited and drove around trying to find it.  Finally, we found a Santa Clara Park District installation: Vasona Park's Fantasy of Lights!  Entry fee was $10, but we were having such a good time, we didn't balk.  As we were about to drive in, the guy in the ranger station handed us what looked like 3-D glasses. 

"These are for the lights?" I asked.

"Yes."

Ace and I each gamely put on a pair, and sure enough, the glasses had what I can only describe as prismatic lenses that shattered each point of light into a halo of figures.  Specifically, I saw circles of angels everywhere - thousands of them!  And as you nod your head up and down, the angels flap their wings.  It was strange and wonderful.  (Note to self: keep 3-D angel glasses near deathbed.)

See if you can find the flaw in this reasoning:

Children love Christmas.

Children love dinosaurs.

Therefore, dinosaurs wear Santa hats.

Ace's glasses did not offer him visions of a multitude of heavenly hosts.  He saw thousands of dinosaurs in Santa hats.

The next night was my firm's holiday party, held at what I can only describe as Jay Leno's garage.  It was like a big warehouse where private owners store their classic cars, but which one can rent out for parties.  I thought it was weird to pay for the privilege of looking at other people's stuff.  I guess that's not so different from the Art Institute, though. 

Then we were up early for the latter two thirds of the Stealthman.  A friend in the triathlon community - Lorraine - celebrated his 40th birthday by doing an entire Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run), in Hawaii, solo.  That is to say, he did it on his own time, self-supported, alone.  And called it LorraineMan.  (Except that Lorraine is obviously not his real name so it sounds better with his real name.)

So last year another triathlete friend celebrated turning 40 by having the Stealthman.  He and a group of friends showed up at a local pool and swam 40 x 100m.  Then they rode their bikes for 40 miles.  Then I think they ran for 40k.  Cities around here are very annoying about getting permits for organized events, charity bike rides and whatnot - hence, Stealthman. 

Doughnuts also figure heavily in the event, though I believe there already is a Tour de Donut out there. 

This year, because of the office party, Ace and I begged off on the 41 x 100 m swim at 6 am on Saturday, and instead joined the 40 k bike ride.  I've ridden my bike once this year, on Bike to Work Day, and as Rad observed on Saturday, I was ready to sell my bike by about mile 12.  I'll take his advice for next year: two pairs of padded shorts.  Then I joined the more-reasonable run, that was 41 x 400 m, or 10.1 miles up and down Black Mountain.  That part was really pleasant - Rancho San Antonio was beautiful, chilly and dry.  I had three doughnuts.

We went to the house of friends who made bacon and turned it into a BLT salad event that was ingenious and also delicious; then we went to the housewarming of a new friend who lives in one of those gorgeous apartments at 101 Alma; then we went to the almost-midnight Christmas mass for students at Stanford, because Ace likes to hear the Brassworks quintet and sing carols at the end.

Our sleep schedule, so helpfully set to Chicago time last week, has relapsed to a late night habit that makes me feel bad every morning.  Sometimes I wonder whether I should just give in.

Thanksgiving Round-Up

Over the past couple of weeks, it's been starting to feel increasingly holidayish, what with the summer weather that held on so long going away and the dark, rainy days arriving for their annual five-month visit. 

A little bit has been going on since last we checked in:

Rad's birthday happened while he was away competing at Clearwater, so for the first Run Club after his return, Ace made a cake!  Angel food!  I was surprised that we had an angel food cake pan.  I was also surprised when he asked whether we had any sprinkles.  We did, but usually he avoids sprinkles (on his Cold Stone hot fudge sundae, for instance) because they are just "empty calories." 

Cafe Sophia, that Afghan place on Middlefield, is fantastic.  The food is unbelievably flavorful and there is a fine vegetarian selection.  The "Chef's Choice" mixed plates are good.

We've hosted and attended a couple of Game Nights, or nights where games were played.  I'm still learning how to match games with crowds.  You can't just play anything with anyone.  For instance, Celebrity is no good with more than about a dozen people, and it works best with a crowd of at least overlapping interests.  The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow requires attentiveness by all, but is enjoyable, if quiet.  It's reminiscent of that "7 up" game we used to play when we had a substitute teacher. 

Apples to Apples tends to be popular, but I find it mostly random and therefore not satisfying.  It's a good ice-breaker, however, because it takes zero skill, and helps to knock the competitiveness out of the evening.  I still haven't formed a complete opinion of Cranium, though my initial impression is that it's too easy to be all that fun.  At least, it's better with more than two teams.  And the Zombies! game, we haven't even played it because the instruction booklet is about thirty pages.  Puerto Rico gets rave Customer Reviews, but it's not a game you can play casually or while drinking.  Why Did the Chicken must especially be played while drinking.  Taboo remains a classic.

Hey!  Did you even see my Halloween costume? 

 

I've kind of bailed on my holiday crafting.  This will doubtless come as a surprise to Ace, given all the supplies in the closet.  Stuff just wasn't turning out very nice.  But I'm learning a couple of new crafty skills, which I'll show you in a little while, i.e. as soon as I make something not ugly.

My brother returned from Iraq!  Say it with me: "Phew."

For Thanksgiving Ace and I both went to Chicago, where half of his family lives and where my parents just moved after calling it quits on seventeen years in Singapore.  We both went to both of our families' Thanksgivings and it worked out actually a lot more smoothly than I expected. 

It was a chemically-fueled weekend, tea and coffee in the morning and always, always cocktails, wine and port in the evenings.  Instead of my usual attempts to keep the system clean, I gave in and went with what was on offer, and have learned that there is some wisdom in these habits.  They go a long way towards keeping everyone's attitude (including my own) manageable. 

On Sunday I rolled my stimulants and sedatives into one by having two Irish Coffees at Butch McGuire's, after which Ace and I avoided the sleet by hiding out at the Art Institute. 

I think Ace wishes he had spotted the architectural drawings sooner, and I wished I had discovered the "touch museum" sooner. 

 

I also got to see one of my dearest friends and her kid who is a laugh riot.  (And I am not one to fawn over people's kids.)  She probably won me over when, speaking to her mother, she called me "that girl."   Sure beats "that old lady." 

Another lesson from the weekend: direct flights are totally worth it.

Ace and I have been frugalizing by refusing to turn on the heat, so our house has been at a steady 61 degrees for the last month.  I thought he was merely humoring my cheapness, but he revealed that he was kind of making a personal character exercise out of not turning on the heat until at least Thanksgiving.  We got up at 2:30 a.m. California time to fly back yesterday and go straight in to work, so in the evening when he finally made it home, I made sure there was hot vegetable soup (to counteract nearly a week of midwestern meat, cheese and white flour) and a roaring fire.  And when he climbed in to bed, a hot water bottle.  That went over big. 

Our savings on heat will probably be balanced by our electricity bill: SOMEONE left the freezer door ajar for the five days we were away.