My last post of 2006

Dragon Mood? -- excited with anticipation

I'm getting ready to leave the pied-a-terre and head 'home' to the pine trees for the holidays.

Josh will be rolling in late tonight. I have cleaning and laundry and bedmaking to do before then, but those are simple put-on-the-Christmas-music chores that are part and parcel of holiday preparations. I'm hoping that Josh and S and I will have some time for fun and visiting this weekend.

I have a little Christmas elfing yet to do .... a gift check to cash and disperse from Papa and Evelyn .... gifts to wrap .... our traditional peppered smoked salmon fillet to retrieve from Oliver T's (Josh has agreed to drive over there with me) ... Christmas music to listen and sing along to ... drinks to drink ... Christmas Eve potato soup to prepare ... you know, the regular things people do in anticipation of Christmas!

Caroline rolls in late Christmas Eve. I'm just hoping that the roads are clear and dry for her drive.

We'll all gather (S's kids and spouses) late-in-the-day on Christmas Day to exchange gifts, eat, drink and smoke cigars. Whether or not Grandma and Sally will join us is up in the air. I don't know if S has invited them nor if they'll make the drive down.

Josh leaves to head back to Milwaukee sometime on the 26th. He's got work on his mind ... as well as partying with his peeps, I imagine!

Caroline is staying through the New Year. I'm not exactly sure what we'll be doing, but I know we'll have fun no matter what!

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you! Hard to imagine but my next post will be in 2007!

Another ripple in the automotive sea change

The Detroit News is reporting today that Toyota is set to surpass GM in 2007. Here's an excerpt from the article:

NAGOYA, Japan -- Toyota announced on Friday a global production target of 9.42 million vehicles for next year, increasing the odds that the Japanese manufacturer will surpass troubled General Motors Corp. as the world's No. 1 automaker.

The latest figure, announced by Toyota in a release, marks a 4 percent increase over the 9.04 million vehicles the company expects to produce this year and easily clears the 9.2 million vehicles GM is estimated to have produced this year.

GM does not give targets for next year, but it has been forced to scale back production recently, seeing its market share eroded by Asian automakers, including Toyota, which have a reputation for better mileage.

....Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe barely said anything when asked about the possibility that his company may soon beat GM in global output.

"That's just what the results may be," he said quietly at a news conference ....

A new take on garbage trucks

I just read an article at Newsweek's website by Dean Ornish that compares a person's HDL to a garbage truck that removes excessive cholesterol from your blood and tissues -- "garbage" -- and delivers it to your liver for removal.   Interesting analogy.

 

His suggestion is that some people are genetically predisposed to having more garbage trucks in their systems than others.   Those folks typically don't have coronary-related problems.

 

For those of us who may have been blessed with fewer rather than more garbage trucks (lower HDL), it is imperative that we be responsible stewards of our bodies and not generate a lot of garbage.  That is done by eating low-fat, high fiber diets with little red meat, lots of chicken and fish, and even more fruits and vegetables.

 

AND .... we must exercise.   Exercise typically increases HDL, creating more garbage trucks to remove cholesterol.

 

Sigh.  I wonder if thinking about generating little Tonka-cute garbage trucks in my bloodstream will help motivate me to exercise more?   I hope so!

The Faith Club

What to read a captivating book?

Check out The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew-- Three Women Search for Understanding.

I heard a fascinating interview of these three authors on The Diane Rehm Show on NPR today.

Seldom does a book ask so much of its readers: open your mind, open your heart, examine your prejudices, purge yourself of them, become a better person, and then become an agent of change for good in the world. A modest proposal!

I'm hoping that Santa may bring me a copy for Christmas!

Let's hear it for NJ!

Dragon Mood? -- thrilled!

I guess I've been so busy getting ready for the holidays, this slipped under my radar!

After a long, congratulatory ceremony at the Trenton War Memorial yesterday, Gov. Corzine signed a bill granting civil unions to same-sex couples.

New Jersey became just the fifth state to extend some rights of marriage to gay couples, but many of the speakers said the law was just a stop on the way to full gay marriage - possibly in the next two years.

"That is something that needs to be our goal," Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D., Camden) said. "We need to commit ourselves to achieving that as soon as possible."

The civil-unions law will go into effect in 60 days. Among the rights that gay couples will have are hospital visitations, survivor benefits, and eligibility for tax deductions. Employers also must treat couples in a civil union the same as married couples.

The law requires municipal clerks to issue licenses for civil unions, and any mayor who performs marriages must also perform civil unions...

Same-sex couples at the signing ceremony said that they would join in a civil union, but that they regarded this as a legal formality, not an occasion for a grand celebration.

"A lot of people feel that way," said Forest Kairos of Mount Laurel. "They've had ceremonies."

Kairos and her partner of 10 years, Veronica Hoff, were married in a private, Quaker-based ceremony eight years ago, and went to Vermont for a civil union.

But Hoff said a civil union in New Jersey was significant because it "means about a thousand rights."

"Yeah, we have about seven now," Kairos added.

Ed Mather said he and his partner of 37 years, Robert Kriesat, a retired Lutheran minister, would join in a civil union, but would wait until they could get married to have a celebration.

"That will be kind of the journey's completion," said Kriesat, of Morris County. "We'll be able to join the rest of our family and say, 'Yes, we're married.' "

Steven Goldstein, the chair of Garden State Equality, said that about 95 percent of the couples he had talked with felt the same way. Goldstein got married in 2002 in Montreal, where gay marriages are legal, but he said he would have a huge ceremony in New Jersey once they were legal here.

"Every gay person on the Eastern Seaboard" will be there, he said.

The bill-signing was historic, Goldstein said, because of the support the speakers expressed for full marriage rights.

Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D., Bergen), the prime sponsor of the civil-unions bill in the Senate, predicted that gay marriage would pass in her next term in office.

"These rights will be known as they should be, under the banner of marriage," she said.

The law was written after the state Supreme Court ruled in October that gay couples must be eligible for the same protections as married couples. Saying gay marriage didn't have enough support yet, the Legislature passed a civil-unions law instead.

Let's hear it for New Jersey, it's open-minded citizens and a State Supreme Court not cowed by fearmongering fundamentalist conservatives!

Turning of the wheel

... the seasonal wheel, that is.

 

Winter begins on Thursday, December 21st at 7:21 p.m.  And asThursday is the shortest day of the year, we then begin the six-month journey towards Midsummer's Eve, the longest day of the year.

 

I always look towards February 1st, because then I can really notice the lengthening of the days.

 

As for now, I try to celebrate the darkness, this cocooning time of year.  It's a time to burn candles, a time for lots of holiday lights and the resulting glow on loved ones' faces.   It's also a time for reflection, quietness and anticipation of what is to come.

Catching up on birthday horoscopes

Dragon Mood? -- a wee bit of dragon confusion

I love to read my horoscopes (as well as many of my family members) from Astrodienst.

Here is one that I find particularly difficult to comprehend. I feel like I want to space out when I read this -- which is why I'm posting it here -- and all the more reason to read it and understand it.

Limited warranty
Valid during many months: This is a time of equilibrium and balance in your life, because now you have a pretty good idea of how to handle your own world. Events will run along more or less easily during this time. But it is important to note that it will not necessarily be an especially happy or peaceful time [my emphasis]. Our lives are directed by our own demands much more than we realize, but very often those demands are unconscious. We would often be horrified if we knew what we are really trying to do. We try to protect ourselves and what we feel belongs to us from "threats" that often are not real threats according to adult criteria. Yet we structure our world according to them. This influence only guarantees that you will be successful in patterning your world. If you are very unhappy at this time, you had best get in touch with what you are really doing.

This can be a time when you are successfully approaching your main conscious goals in life. Or it can be a time when you are being run largely by unconscious "programs," as if you were a computer. Usually you will experience a little of both of these effects. However, in the long run the positive possibilities are more useful to know about. Concerning the negative side of this influence, suffice it to say that the difficult and unsatisfactory aspects of your life that you are experiencing now require you to look into yourself more closely.

At this time you are particularly good at working with other people. You are able to see your individuality and differentness in a way that makes it possible for you to work with others in a complementary way so that neither you nor they feel competitive. You can work just as well with people who are above you and with those at your own level.

You approach your own goals methodically and practically, for you are not particularly idealistic at this point. You are much more concerned about how to achieve what you want in concrete practical terms. Use this time well, for it gives you the opportunity to lay a foundation that will protect you in the future.

Transit selected for today:
Saturn Sextile Saturn
activity period from end of October 2006 until beginning of August 2007.

Blogger beta needs more work

Dragon Mood? -- slightly disappointed

I just tried to post the previous post from what used to be Writely/now otherwise known as Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

In a word (well, two), it puked. Here's the message I got:

There was an expected [my emphasis] problem (com.google.blogger.api.UserMigratedException: The given Blogger account has been migrated to a Google Account on the blogger beta).

Okay, I guess the right hand needs an introduction to the left hand. Come on folks, let's get it together, shall we?

Dooce gets it exactly right

Dragon Mood? -- amused


I read Dooce. Pretty regularly. Along with a few other million readers, I guess.

Writing about Leta in the middle of the night, Heather describes the event like this:

And this went on for hours. Hours. And more hours. As many hours as there are between three and eight AM, which doesn’t seem like many right now, but there in the dark as the minutes were counted out in a machine gun spray of syllables, it seemed like all of the hours that ever were, a collection of time so vast that I could have witnessed the Colorado River carve out the Grand Canyon, one layer of dirt at a time.

And that is what I think Dooce got exactly right. That insane, completely surreal, will-this-night-ever-end kind of feeling ... that leaves bewildered parent you wondering if you'll ever feel normal again, ever able to sleep again?

She got it pitch-perfect. From one ol' mom to a new one.

Lunchtime

Dragon Mood? -- lunchin', munchin' and contented

It's Friday, it's lunchtime and I'm bloggin'. Could life be any better?

Lina and I have been IM-ing one another (in between working) this morning via our Gmail accounts. I am curious to see how Google continues to integrate its numerous applications like Gmail and Writely along with Blogger. What will happen? What new and glorious innovations will they heap upon us? Hmmm?

For my birthday week, this has been a better-than-usual week. Probably one of the happier and more relaxed weeks I've had in several months. I've had a number of people voice back to me how anxious I have been sounding recently ... and honestly, I don't like to have people 'hear' me that way, nor do I want to 'hear' myself that way.

So, the long and short of it is that I'm trying to relax. To relax about this job. To relax about my long-term employment situation. I can remember voicing wa-a-ay back last spring that we would probably have to sell one of the houses by this past summer. Notice the operative word, "past." We have survived past this summer and are continuing to squeak by, month by month. We have survived and hopefully will continue to survive -- two houses, one house or no house.

What's on tap for this weekend?

S and I need to buckle down and get serious about some Christmas shopping. I'm in better shape than she is (I think?) but still have plenty to do.

Tomorrow evening (after our shopping), we are going to babysit both Preston and Madison. We were both feeling particularly brave when we volunteered for this 'mission.' We'll find out if it was a moment of insanity or if we're two grandmas who are really up to the task.

Sunday, I'm hoping to do some more Christmas elf-ing at the dining room table and perhaps get together with our friends, Jeanne and Joanne, for a little holiday libation. Jeanne makes the best dirty martinis! I won't be driving back to the pied-a-terre Sunday evening, so perhaps I can drink!

Monday morning, I have a teeth-cleaning scheduled at my dentist. After that, I'll jump in my trusty little car and head back down here to Motown.

Until then, have a great weekend!

More birthday celebrations!

Well, my birthday celebrating continues on today.

I got an unexpected call from Uncle George this morning on my drive to work. He evidently had tried to call last night while S and I were at Jan and Tom's drinking and celebrating the holidays.

Then at work, a coworker, an emigre from Russia, came up to me (again unexpectedly) and handed me two items. Mariya said she overheard that yesterday was my birthday and wanted to wish me a "Happy Birthday!" She gave me a very nice mechanical pencil and a colorful pad of Post-It notes.

I grabbed a blank piece of paper and asked her to write the words "Happy Birthday" for me in Russian. I'm thinking about replicating them in UG, creating a jpeg file and publishing it to Flickr.

And here it is ... with my clumsy effort at creating a stereotypical Russian onion dome.

About this cliff-dive into Blogger Beta

Dragon Mood? -- temperature rising ... but in a good way

Well, I'm still warming up to this whole "Page Element" thing ... but it certainly is easier than my old trial-and-error-and-mostly-error method of messing with HTML and CSS which I have only the most rudimentary understanding of (with apologies to all those who are offended by ending sentences with prepositions). This evening, I intended to only post once (hah!) and ended up spending until almost midnight 'playing with' the different options on the "Edit Layout" page.

I do wish the Blogger Beta folks had included at least a couple of 3-column templates for blogs. Common on folks, step up to the plate!

Nevertheless, I will give a tentative thumbs-up to the Blogger Beta development folks.

Tomorrow is my birthday

Dragon Mood? -- befuddled and unprepared

Tomorrow I turn 54.

Wow, there it is. Fifty-four, carved in stone, up on a pedestal, its profile outlined by spotlights, big and monolithic and rather detached.

Maybe that better describes my feelings than any fantasy statue. Usually I'm more excited about my birthday, feeling a keener sense of anticipation, you know? For whatever reason, this year I'm not.

Fifty-three, almost done now, has been a tough year for me. Losing my job last January and all the ensuing uncertainty has been tough. My self-confidence feels smaller and diminished from a year ago. My sense of optimism and general well-being is feeling rather worn, rather weary. (I'm chuckling to myself. Thinking of my formerly optimistic outlook -- once robust but now rather worn down with a distinctly ragtag quality to it -- reminds me of my bras. I'm wearing the lone survivor and desperately in need of reinforcements, strong and up to the job!)

My moments of excitement feel smaller these days. Bite-size rather than whole meals, if you know what I mean? Even my dreams seem to have gone AWOL these days. S asked me weeks ago what are my dreams for myself and for us. Sadly, I couldn't come up with a single thought.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow as a remembrance of all the wonderful years I've already experienced. I'm also looking forward to a new age, a new year, renewed dreams ... and maybe even some new bras!

My Christmas elf name

Christmas Elf Name My Christmas Elf Name is Get your Christmas Elf Name at JokesUnlimited.com

Jumping off the cliff into Blogger Beta's arms

Dragon Mood? -- ???

Well, I did it. I jumped and am posting for the first time under Blogger Beta's interface.

So far, it all looks pretty familiar. In the upper right hand corner, I notice that my email address, the Dashboard link and the Sign Out link have a vaguely Google-ish look to them.

That's about all, so far. I am curious what they've done to the template Layout interface. I'll keep you posted.

Recurring insomnia

Dragon Mood? -- getting sleepy

It's early Monday morning. I've been up for at least an hour-and-a-half with this troublesome, recurring insomnia.

It started rather gradually several weeks ago. Honestly, I can't point to a specific time when it started, but it's been occurring more and more regularly the past several weeks.

I wake up around 3:00, 3:30 and am awake until 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. Then, I get tired and am ready to go to sleep.

ArrghhH! What a bother!

My little Aries ram, the take-charge child

Dragon Mood? -- amused and still chuckling

So ... I'm posting yesterday, still trying to catch my breath and catch up with events from Thanksgiving. When what to my wondering eyes does appear but this email from my daughter, Lina, about Christmas plans(!):

Well, here’s what I’m thinking on making the food. I can bring the cheese and olives and Chex Mix with me, ready to go. I can make the Breakfast Casserole on Christmas morning [Ed. comment: "take charge"], because if history is any indication, I usually am up before anyone else, anyways. You’d be welcome to make the casserole if you wanted to [take charge], but I’d kind of enjoy arriving to some potato soup [take charge] when I roll in on Christmas Eve, if you were willing to make a little pot of that. I’d already thought about it, and am kind of looking forward to cooking the casserole on Christmas morning, so pre-making it isn’t necessary [take charge]. I would help you work out a grocery list [take charge] and ask that you do the shopping [take charge] for any ingredients for the spinach dip, artichoke/crab dip, bloody mary bar (though I can plan on bringing the vodka, since it’ll be cheaper in WI), breakfast casserole, shrimp, tortilla roulades, beef stew, brownies, etc. I’d imagine you could make the brownies and/or Rice Krispie treats beforehand [take charge]. It might be fun for you and Yosh to think about making some bourbon balls together [take charge], maybe on Christmas Eve before I get there?

At this point in the email, she switches gears a bit, detailing her plans for Christmas morning, a part of the email that made me laugh out loud (while I was supposed to be working):

So, I’d get up in the morning, make the casserole, make myself a bloody mary, wait for all the sleepyheads to wake up…while the casserole was cooking, I’d probably make the spinach dip and mix up the artichoke/crab dip so they had time to “relax” before we were ready to eat them. I’d also make the tortilla roulade logs and put them in the fridge to set – only cutting them right before we were ready to serve them. I’d probably have another bloody mary, etc. When you got up, I’d serve you some casserole and a bloody mary (and maybe make myself another one), and we could eat some breakfast and have a cuppa coffee together (and our bloody marys) and then I’d probably say, “Hey Mom, let’s make that beef stew!” and we’d either work together on it, or you’d say, “Lina, go take your shower, I’ll get the beef stew started. Here’s another bloody mary to take into the shower with you.”

In hindsight, isn't it a wonder that I raised this child without either of us strong-willed people trying to kill the other? ... and that we love each other and love to hang out with one another?

Let's take a moment and give thanks.

More on Thanksgiving

Dragon Mood? -- awake and downloading

Our Thanksgiving celebration included thirteen of us adults and two grandbabies: two-month-old Madison, who I barely saw as she got passed around the relatives, and 20-month-old Preston who was all decked out in a little white oxford shirt and snazzy pint-sized dress pants; Tim and his girlfriend, Nicki (sp?); Mark and Lindsey; new parents, Matt and Sarah; Sarah's family, Hope and Sean, and teenage brother, Corey; the Wisconsin contingent, Josh and Caroline; and S and me.

Meanwhile, the bird is cooking out on the porch, the potatoes are simmering on the stove, leaves are flying out in the backyard and Caroline, the Mistress of the Autumnal Fire has got a roaring one going out on the deck in the firepit. As for me, --yawn-- I was tired and took a little nap. It was such a beautiful day, relaxed and anticipatory, that we were all unshowered and still in our grubbies when our guests began to arrive.

Amazingly, I think we actually had dinner on the table around six. Matt carved the bird -- although he would be the first to admit that it was so juicy, the meat literally fell off the bones. S made her hearty gravy (mental note for next year: have pineapple juice on hand in case the drippings from the brined bird are too salty!) and Josh carved the wined-and-cloved ham. Hope mashed and seasoned the potatoes, Sean made and brought a yummy spicy cheese dip appetizer and I believe I heard Corey serenading us on the piano with multiple renditions of "Body and Soul" on the piano. It was definitely a group effort and a fun one!

We stood around the dining room table, all thirteen of us, holding hands and taking turns saying one thing for which we are grateful. Although it was anything but a solemn prayer, I definitely felt that for those moments, we were connected in a beyond-this-world sense and sharing in a moment of sacredness. Voicing our gratitude like that never fails to move me.

Going from the sublime to the very earthy, the other dynamic that contributed to the relaxed and burnished memory of this day was THE WINE. Lina had brought six? seven? bottles of wine home from Wisconsin, a variety of them and none of which I can name. I think it was seven bottles. Well, folks, we drank six of them that day. Yup, all six of those bottles got drunk which lent a a lovely glow to an already glowing day.

I'm running out of recounting time here, but the evening included intense euchre whuppings, more combinations of people drinking and smoking around the "campfire" outside, whipped cream playtime between Matt and Caroline, playtime with Preston, conversations about sex toys and many more things that I never witnessed but heard about later. It was one of those times when you wish you could be in multiple places at once.

Thanksgiving

Dragon Mood? -- anticipating and salivating

Like most Turkey Days at our house, Thanksgiving was a whirlwind.

Caroline was up and knitting in her jammies when I emerged from the bedroom. The dogs had casually thrown their bodies all over the fireplace room in repose. I climbed over the various limbs and paws and headed for the kitchen.

First order of business was the bird. We had brined it about ten hours earlier, so after all the requisite cleaning and sanitizing of sinks and utensils, we washed the bird, buttered the bird and stuffed it with citrus fruits and a few small onions for good measure. Into the Rival oven out on the porch, it went.

Then we started in on other dishes that still required preparation. But, because of our post-inebriation cooking frenzy the night before, we were in pretty good shape.

Before I knew it, Lina was out on the deck building a fire in the firepit. S was outside in the stunningingly warm autumnal air, blowing a zillion million leaves off of the grass and into the woods. Josh, well, I don't know where the heck he was. Probably watching soccer or football or something on TV. (Although, bless his heart, he did peel an entire stockpot's worth of potatoes for our dinner and then risked life and knuckles cutting them up!)

So here's what our menu ended up looking like:

* * *



2006 Thanksgiving Menu


Appetizers

*Olives
*Spinach Dip with Pumpernickel Bread
*Cheese Plate


Main Course

* Citrus-stuffed Turkey with Bicentennial Rub
* Traditional S&M Wild Rice and Sage Sausage Stuffing
* Apricot-Rosemary Roasted Root Veggies (NEW!)
* Steph's Famous Celery Root
* Mashed Potatoes and Hearty Gravy
* Mixed Greens with Pears, Red Onions, Blue Cheese,
Walnuts and Country French Vinaigrette
* Spicy Cranberry Chutney (NEW!)


Desserts

* Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream
* Apple Cranberry Currant Crumble Pie (NEW!)
* Milwaukee's Finest -- Alterra Coffee


* * *

It's late, I'm tired and I'm going to bed.

More to come.

Thanksgiving Eve

Dragon Mood? -- befuddled

Today is Wednesday, Wendishday, December 6th.

Where have I been? .......... (slow sigh) ......... Well, I've been here ... and there ... and sometimes it feels like everywhere!

Let me back up to Thanksgiving week. (ahem!)

Steph and I worked Monday and Tuesday. We arrived back at the pine trees house around 10, Tuesday evening? Caroline and Josh rolled in around 1 or 1:30 a.m. I was already in my jammies and snoozing on the couch.

Wednesday we arose leisurely, drank coffee, skipped breakfast (as I recall) and headed pretty much straight for El Azteco. I rode with the kids, Steph followed later. Jess was in town from Phillie, via Chicago, to visit with her high school peeps. We sat in the smoking section on the benches that back up to the kitchen -- perfect vantage point for watching the streetscape before us. We ordered lots of pitchers of Margaritas, numerous bowls of El Az's spicy cheese dip, mountains of their homemade tortilla chips and then .... we ordered lunch.

Lina took lots of pictures. We caught up on one another's lives. We talked about plans, or rather non-plans for Jess's graduation. We talked about the Jersey shore. We talked about NYC. We talked about things I can't even remember!

Steph joined us and the conversation got livelier. And more argumentative. As I recall? But then again, I was drinking margaritas. Does anyone really know? Care?

After a long leisurely lunch at El Az's, we mosied over to Campbell's Smoke Shop and bought some see-gars. Well, Lina did.

Then, it was on to Beggar's. You know, the place that I like to drink dirty martinis? Actually, my second favorite place to drink dirty martinis. (My first place is Jeanne and Joanne's. That's 'cuz Jeanne puts all kinds of loving TLC into her dirty martinis. And big olives stuffed with almonds. And .. they're free!)

Things get a little fuzzier around this time. Oh yes, now it's coming back to me. Steph headed home -- to take a nap, the little stinker. Josh, Lina and I headed to Meijer's to do some last-minute Thanksgiving shopping. This is now 4 o'clock, Wednesday afternoon. We're pretty well tooted, if you know what I mean. Lina, of course, is insisting that she's not tooted, but the more she wandered Meijer's aisles, the more her tootedness became apparent.

As I recall, the three of us were like heated molecules in the store, bouncing all over the damn place. Amazingly, I think we forgot only two or three items. Which, when you consider how much alcohol we had just consumed, is pretty darn good.

We got home, and thankfully, all helped to put the groceries away. Then we all headed to our respective horizontal surfaces to get, well, horizontal.

I slept for maybe an hour-and-a-half. It was dark when I woke up. Dehydrated and a bit disoriented. Everyone else was still sleeping. I started cooking and before long, out wandered S. She made some coffee, drank some coffee, woke up slowly and started cooking. Around 9:30 or 10:00 p.m., Caroline and then Josh woke up and the whole famn damily was now awake and cooking. We cooked until 1:00 or 1:30 or so. It felt good to get a headstart on all the food preparation awaiting us.

I was looking forward to our Thanksgiving together. All in all, it was a very good day!