Tilt-a-whirl

It was a lovely Early Thanksgiving

I had the best time yesterday, which would only have been better if the WHOLE Souza clan were here! The locals are heading to a lovely vacation while the Schnickle visits his other grandparents with his dad this coming week and so I was grateful to be able to do The Meal with all of the trimmings, in a relaxed and fun manner. Rod made his Famous Mashed Potatoes (actually whipped in the Kitchen-Aid) that he was been doing since he was a kid and they were to die for. He and Lauren got busy channeling Baba Souza with the best gravy yet and so the little guy at the end of the table was just stuffing food down his gullet like a champ. He came with the announcement that he was going to eat 10 turkeys and 3 cakes. He did have two helpings of turkey, mashed potatoes and his special bowl of raspberries. Somehow he had room for a cornflake cookie and a big piece of cake. Holy COW! His belly felt like a ripe watermelon by the end of the day. It is a good thing that the exciting Oregon/Arizona football game had him jumping for joy with his Mama, who is a Duck Alum. He worked off a LITTLE of the feast.

I mentioned the cookies. My grandmother found the recipe in a magazine or on a cornflake box when I was a little girl in the 50's and used to make them for me every time that we drove up to Roseville from Oakland. I haven't made them in YEARS but dusted off my memory and had to wing the time and temp because I could not find the official recipe. It is as follows, for those of you who would like to try it. (If you do not have Pam, I suggest that you buy it for easy cookie removal) You can thank me later. :o)

Ingredients:

6 cups of cornflakes

1 can of Sweetened Condensed Milk (I used the non-fat this time)

1 package of really good chocolate chips (my favorites are Guittard)

Oven at 350. Spray the cookie sheets. Mix the ingredients until the milk coats everything. Make cookie sized mounds on the sheets, making sure to corral any runaway flakes or chips. Bake for about 6 minutes or until the edges get a nice brown and the cookies hold together. The timing on removal from the cookie sheet is actually the key. Not too early and not too cool so that they are pliable but not falling apart. Cool them on a rack. You will swear that there are more ingredients but that is it.

We got to talk to Erik for awhile for our unofficial holiday and Lauren got to hear about the special honor that he and Vicki are going to receive. I am over-the-moon proud of my Connecticut family because they have worked SO hard in their first year of officially being a business. Victoria Souza Photography has been chosen as one of the top 5 wedding photographers in their region by the folks at The Knot.com. Kudos!  So much hard work but the professionalism and talent came together in a great package. Hip Hop Hooray! We got to see their set-up, when we visited Connecticut for Stitches East and now, after their last wedding, the day after the official Thanksgiving, they can look forward to a little time off before it all starts again. Sounds familiar... Anyway, they are coming west for some R&R over the Christmas Holiday time. Having met the extended Savarese family on our visit, I know that THEIR Thanksgiving will be a far cry from our little one. I envy the big family hoopla but Tank decided to make me think that I had the hooptidoo of a house full of kids running around, simply by barking his brain out all day, wishing that he could be in the midst of it all. Got to love families, whether human or canine. :o)

Oh, we added a new family member, thanks to Rod. He decided that my dream of a robot to clean my house was do-able and so we copied our friends, Sheila & Michael and got our very own Roomba. Oh my. I LOVE this little thing and "he" was so very entertaining for the Schnickle last night. That little guy followed the little vacuuming robot all around the house as he went under the furniture and searched for any crumbs. I have not yet let "him" loose on the dog side of the house and will continue to run the Anaconda (this place has that 9 mile hose that plugs into the wall) to pick up dog hair but perhaps, the Roomba will just get to go do his thing over there as well. Tank mashes himself up against Sasha, there on the other side of the dog gate, watching as the little disk tries to get some of their dragged in dirt from this side of the gate. Perhaps he will get used to it enough to just get out of the way. Any bets?

It is hard to believe that Rod and I will be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary next month. We did not have a big wedding, back in the day. My mom was not going to have any part of it and so we got to borrow a friend's fancy car and head down to Monterey with our best friends to get married by a judge and then go have lunch in Carmel before driving back up to Oakland. Rod's mother was kind enough to give us a little bitty wedding cake and a glass of champagne before we headed off to the airport for our kid honeymoon in Disneyland. The ironic thing is that my friend/witness Martha's sister had gotten married the day before and was also honeymooning in Orange County! Kids. They said that it would never last but both couples are still hanging in there.

For the last two 5 year increments, we have taken trips to celebrate but this time, things just got away from us. It has been such a difficult year and with the business, well it just did not get planned. I thought that it was funny that our horoscope (both Libra) said that we still need to take some time off...hah, when you Live Above The Store and in this economy, that won't really be happening. :o) Our last trip was to New Zealand. We got to visit the Poad's at Majacraft and some friends who lived in Auckland at the time but have since relocated to the Hawke's Bay area. We visited with another one of Rod's internet friends on the South Island and were treated to a fabulous day of sight seeing, as well as a private tour of a big wool mill. Until we moved here, I would have said that if there was anywhere in the world that I would like to move to, it was New Zealand. I felt so at home and at peace there. I just wish that it was not at the end of a horrifyingly long plane ride but perhaps that is what makes that country so unspoiled.

I am now a Majacraft dealer and since our visit, the younger Poad's have married and brought their brides into the family business, allowing mom & dad to travel as ambassadors for the company that they have turned into a world class business. Once again, the entrepreneurial spirit continues. Perhaps if Lexi Boeger and I can get ourselves together and figure out some sort of fiber hooptidoo around here, The Poad's can visit both of us within a 10 minute drive. It would be perfect since we both have a strong affiliation with the Majacraft wheels and those lovely folks.

Time to see how cold it really is outside. I think that it would be good to venture out to the Waffle Shop. I want another gander at all of the beautiful Christmas Trees put up by individuals along Placerville's main stretch of Highway 50. This is the first year that we are experiencing it since we moved here (the highway construction project made it impossible) and it is SO wonderful to see. Each tree is unique and uniquely decorated and they will all be lit on Friday evening when we have the Festival of Lights downtown. I'll be there with my silly light-up hat!

cold & clear today, emphasis on the cold.

We have had quite a few cold mornings lately and with the thermometer reading 39F at almost 10AM, I think that we might be In For It, this winter. Needless to say, before writing more than a couple of words, I found that I needed to go back to the house, fire up the little red Bodhum tea kettle and get some of Harney's Cinnamon spice tea into a mug, to both warm my hands and my other senses. Delicious.

Rod just moved something over from the main garage to a perch in here. I am happy to see this happening because it appears that he is finally inspired enough to begin work in earnest on transforming that three car garage over there into a real train layout. I think that the sudden death of our friend Russ Simpson (model builder for Hollywood as well as the model railroad business) has hammered home the reality that if you wait for the perfect time, it will never come. Witness my mother's huge fabric collection, saved for when she retired from teaching music, only to lose her eyesight. Now I am making a wish that he finds some buddies to come help him with the project, just as he did for our dear friend Bill.

So, the addition of Lorrie to my workshop has been quite a wonderful thing, allowing me the ability to push out product when I need to and then to have some quiet time to do my homework and get creative again. There is something to be said for success of colors and yarns, by the way that I dye them over and over and over again for so many wonderful people but then again, I was reminded that I have needed some creative bursts. So be it.

With the weather being so CRISP, after photographing the swatch and ball of the newest yarn, I just shoved that swatch against my face and wanted to leave it there until Spring. Seriously. This yarn is just SO up my own knitting alley that I may have a hard time sharing, when the box shows up. It is an eight ply, bouncy and ridiculously soft. I made a swatch with two sized needles and think that I actually like the part that was knitted on the size 9 US/5.25mm. It comes in at 4.2 stitches per inch, which is a good Aran weight, in my estimation. Ahhhhh, I just had to put it up to my face again...I am better now. :o)

Here is the glam shot of the yarn that I am calling Lush. The put-up is 2 ounces/100 yards for $29. I will send up a flare when I have it and can begin the alchemy.

So I mentioned some private dye days. I was staring at my new favorite mug and had this interpretation in something that I call Salt Marsh. I LOVE this colorway, big time.

So thennnnnnnn, I got hungry. Being a native Californian, I have eaten a lot of avocado's in my years on the planet and when put a photo came in front of my face, I went off on a tangent. This series should be called Everything But the Pit.

Sock Merino in Fresh Avocado.

Sock in Guacamole.

Sock in Fuerte.

I also added some really beautiful and deep colors in Violet and a blue/violet that I call Regal Blue.

There are some new handspun yarns up on the site. This one is THE most dreamy stuff. It is an uber soft Baby Alpaca from a saddle that I washed and then plopped into a BIG pot, adding the fixings for Plumdinger. I spun this yarn up when I was sitting in the sun up in Canby Oregon, this past September for OFFF. I finally figure out how to photograph it in the truest light. It was just refusing to show itself in the manner befitting such a yummy bit of yarn. Did I say that it is soft? Spun from the locks for a textured look.

I know that I have been quiet about mom for quite some time. It is because there is absolutely nothing to report, other than she is living and is being so very well taken care of by April and the other angels at Placerville Pines. Every time that I go to see her, she is asleep. They tell me that she is taken out to the day room for meals, a couple of times a day, which is encouraging, meaning that she gets to have some kind of stimulation.

I finally unpacked a box the other day, one that she had packed by herself, when we were getting things ready for her move. At the bottom, under all of the old Christmas wrap and other odds and ends was her jewelry box. I found it kind of touching. After Lauren and the Schnickle moved out, I did not do much in that room that had been the bedroom for mom and then the little guy. The box was just In The Closet. These were all of the things that I used to look at, when I was a little girl...the pins and coins and precious things from my grandmother's era. Here they all were, not lost, after all. I looked at each piece, turning them in my fingers and remembered who my mother used to be and how she had lovingly kept these in her bureau nestled in cotton. Here they were again. Things but things with a connection, to her and my grandmother. Now I am the grandmother and the Keeper of The Things. Bittersweet but the circle of life and times.

Now I must take my cold fingers and immerse them into some warm water, getting back to Work. Carry on!

P. S. Marsh Green

Books- Atlas Shrugged And Then Some

I really like Audible.com and have become hooked on getting the Classics and other giant tomes in this form because when I am alone in the dye room, I can create and "read", all at the same time. I could always do several things at once, as long as I was not required to talk, too. :o)

I had a marathon going on the iPod in the player because I had decided that now was the time to listen to Atlas Shrugged. I had always thought that this was a piece that I should read in the old sense of the word but if I gave over my eyes and hands to such a task, I would feel like a scholar, instead of a learner; tied to the physicality of reading. I chose to do the precious download (when you live by satellite, as we do here in this place, you treasure your band-width) a couple of months ago and set to listening to this amazing piece of work. Some people might call it a Piece of Work but I took it for what it was, a philosophical work by a radical thinker, who was highly influenced by her times, in the days of the Red Scare. Her cadence and verbiage sounded, when read aloud, much like something from the 1930's and I had to remind myself that this was published in 1957, when I was a little girl, a little girl who learned to Duck and Cover.

  I found it interesting that this book was being usurped by the radical right. I had it in my queue because I had always wanted to read it and finding that it was on the reading list recommended by someone like Ann Coulter, whose behavior and brashness makes my skin crawl (is she for real or just another far right shock jock?) made me feel that I might seem to be influenced instead of finding the book at the precise moment that it needed to be listened to. When I started it, we were in the thick of this economic morass and I kept seeing the spooky parallel between Then and Now. A man in our town had plastered signs around our "urban" and rural neighborhoods about a Call to Meetin' that he had organized, in late September. I was sure that it was going to be one of those ridiculous shouting matches spurred on by the Tea Bag movement. I refused to be a part of an event that was going to be about angry mobs instead of an exchange of ideas. It turned out to be on weekend that we spent in Canby at OFFF, so I had to find out about it in our local small town paper (The Mountain Democrat), when we returned. I actually thought that it was going to be a rant fest by people who listen to the radical right media, known as Talk Radio. I was wrong about that. This event was put together by the guy who owns the Mountain Mail and he was trying to wake people up about calling politicians to task for being in the pocket of big business. Politicians on BOTH side of the "aisle". As an Independent, I can agree with that. What I can't agree with is rhetoric and mean spirited shouting festivals. The folks who attended the event with the hope of it turning into one of the orchestrated Town Hall Shout-a-thon's were sorely disappointed, according to the reporter. Hmmm, someone who had something to say about people EDUCATING themselves and seeing all sides of the sphere. Wait, WHAT? Where was the yelling? You want to be sensible???

 The reason that I brought this up is because of what I had seen on the leaflets that the organizer  sent out. He actually had a reading list and on the reading list was Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Before I heard about Who, What and Where I was totally appalled because the radical right was using this book for propaganda, (much like a certain OTHER best selling book...ahem...The Bible.) or so I surmised. This man only wanted to educate a lot of people who DO NOT READ BOOKS and for that, I commend him. Ann Coulter, on the other hand (and her ilk) has been holding this book up as some sort of literal horror story to scare the masses. It is a piece of fiction with a lot of philosophy as well as insight into what COULD happen IF ALL ELSE FAILED. It is a piece of work that had to have had an amazing amount of shock value when it was first released (if one could get through the enormity of its size) and has remained a modern classic. I am happy to have finished it with the help of a great reader and Rand's story gave me lots of great discussion fodder with Rod, who would hear snips of it when working at the skein winder. He thought that it was going to be about railroads and kept thinking that he could critique it for the failure of accuracy in this vein, because he is a train buff. Yes, there are trains and railroads but this is almost a work of science/industrial fiction, if you get my drift. I will be happy to discuss the book but only with someone who has read or heard the unabridged version. No rants over snips. This is my point with the Bible or Atlas Shrugged. I take these works as parables written by clever and observant humans, that can be used to teach a person how to Be A Good Human. The literal meanings of such works can be argued over and analyzed but in the end, what you get from them is what YOU get from them. You are meant to stretch your Aha muscle and THINK.

Many people can see themselves in this book, whether they like what they see or not. I have come from a long line of entrepreneurial people, who worked for themselves and created art or products/services. I see myself. I see my father, who has bumped up against society forever with his unusual ideas. I see my husband who was a part of the corporate world, while earning the money that has kept our future safe while supporting and finally becoming a part of the world of the entrepreneur that balanced our lives. I see people who have been caught in the downward spiral and while understanding the tough love of someone like Ronald Reagan, who loathed poor people, know that we still can't expect everyone in our society to just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, if they have no boots or the hands to pull with.

I listened to this work with visible nodding and audible "Hah" moments and also with a lot of eye rolling. This is what should happen and why I worry about a work of this magnitude that becomes a shield for the very people who are the villains in this piece. The VILLAINS with the radio program and the loudspeakers. Wake up, people. Read the book if you want to and see it for what it is; a thought provoking giant of modern literature. If you let someone tell you that it is Real or Now or anything other than what it is, you are lost, as were the human cogs in the book.

I certainly did not intend to write a rant but well, it just came out. Atlas Shrugged just does this to people, if they get it. 

Now I am enjoying the physicality of reading the last Stoney Calhoun novel, written by the late William Tapley, called Dark Tiger. It was given to me by his loving wife, Vicki Stiefel, who is also a murder mystery writer and the author of the book that we have collaborated on. Dark Tiger is a Great Read and has relaxed my brain as a comfortable work of fiction does. I expect the writer to paint me a picture and make me the fly on the wall. I am having a hard time putting it down and read half of it on the plane home from Hartford. Thank you, Vicki. It is a bittersweet thing, this book finished while Bill was getting sick again but it is a wonderful that he did finish it and that you introduced me to his voice. 

Have I told you lately how much I love books. Now that I have corrected my astigmatism and have the option of audiobooks, I can bathe in the words...pour them over my head, if I like. Thank you sir, may I have another?