Day 2 Day radishes

November 30/my sister

The weather is warming, and we think we can dig out of here. More like we can get our you know whats, up the hill, with a suitcase to the car.  My kid sister's sixtieth birthday is on Saturday. Who knows, I might cook her dinner.   In any case, we will be together, will bicker and will have a many,many laughs.  We drive our families crazy.

I am not taking my computer, so the blog is off until probably early next week. 

Mary Katherine may put in a blog in my absence.  Today she is raising money for the children in the favelas.  Please wish her well.
 

November 29/If you don't hear from me for a while

The sky is dark and omminous.  More snow is on the way. We pray the electricity holds.  I feel gratitude for the Public Utilities workers almost the way New Yorkers must have felt for the firemen after 9/11. Yesterday we went to lunch one mile away at the local cafe. The sun was shining and the little cafe had the feel of a ski lodge crossed with a shelter.  There the  PUD guys were having big lunches, and I was surprised, when they stood up how big they were.  I guess some one pulls those cables.  Customers were pouring coffee, and busing tables. Some people were laughing  about how their electricity was not coming back for two more days. A man, we did not know, came up and borrowed our newspaper for a bit, and then came back and sat down with us for maybe 15 minutes.    He discussed some Admiral  from the WWII with my old Minnesota Mike. The man, Corky. was a Republican, and a  high school teacher.  How often does that come along? That alone was worth the price of lunch.

I always wanted to use this phrase,"any port in a storm". Maybe I can just say, "any cafe in a storm".

November 28/ My day yesterday

Yesterday we were without power and telephones.  A forceful snow storm started on Sunday afternoon and it snowed until yesterday afternoon.  Being without power means for us, no cooking, no heat, no light, no Internet, but in our case, we do have water.  Okay what a wonderful day to iron!  Sorry.  There was barely enough light to knit. 

But snow emboldens my husband for adventure.  While I am not drinking much coffee, suddenly with out power, I need coffee.  “But do I act on this desire, and go out to get some? No.  My husband thinks of snow as an opportunity to drive.  Although we have cereal and milk, we need to four wheel drive. Why else own this car?

It is easy to see why the power is out.  The phone lines are covered with four inches of snow.   I insert here that I am a white knuckle snow rider.  One might think that we when we do not see lights for nine miles, we might turn back. We continue.  At the 15 mile marker  we see that people are going into the QFC.  The help stands at the door, and says they are closed because the computers are down, but they do have free coffee.  There we meet up with  a couple we know, and who are also looking for coffee and somewhere to eat. The man suggests that we take the back road down (because we would not want to get on the highway) to a little café.  In theory this allows us the opportunity to drive 12 more miles round trip in the snow.  Although we pass trees down, there is no traffic on the road.  A good thing.  At the five mile marker we are stopped by flashing lights, a tree over the road and cars waiting in line.

Stopped, the men get out and talk.  At the side of the road there are tall thin trees that have been have been closely planted for something, I do not know what, and suddenly they start to crack and fall over en mass .  Fortunately they are falling away from us.  The men casually say, “Maybe it is time to get out of here”.  We return the way we came, and try one more area for breakfast.  It too is out of power.  The other man, says to Michael, “I give up, I am going back home.”  But Michael thinks maybe we should get a full tank of gas, you never know what can happen.  We feel that it is probably safe to drive the four miles out to the highway.  Guess what?  The pumps don’t work because they do not have electricity.  Now it is near noon and we need food and gasoline. Another 12 miles south and we find gasoline and a dingy diner open. 

The sun is out and it is a good day.  We start home.  Michael needs electricity to work. Because the sun is out, perhaps the electricity will me on.  We take our turn off at I-5, and it still is okay, but not sunny. Then four miles west we run into a blizzard.  I notice that we are one of very few cars on the road.  We can barely see the road.  Now the QFC is closed.  So much for free coffee.  This is just the kind of driving my husband likes. The sky is very dark, and the flakes are huge and many.   The power and telephone lines are heavy with snow. Now the road is icy.  Our own street is deep in snow.  Perfect. 

We arrive home.  I might add safely.  I unwound my knuckles, and I was very proud that I had not pooped in the car. 

November 27 /photo

There is always one kid who does not want his Christmas card picture taken. 

November 26/

For my money I think the two best working actresses are Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirin.  I first became aware of Ms. Mirin when she played in the first episode of PRIME SUSPECT on Masterpiece Theater fifteen years ago.  She played Lt. Detective Jane Tennyson.  There have been seven episodes and three weeks ago was a four hour, two week episode named the Final Act.  Jane rose up through the ranks, aged during the years, and became an alcoholic on her job,  thus reducing her natural competency. Obviously this episode is over but PBS reruns and reruns, so if you see this drama, watch it and see a real actress at work. 

Helen was in CALENDER GIRLS which was a comedy, and she is playing Queen Elizabeth in the movie,QUEEN,which I cannot wait to see, if it ever comes to this Podunk town.

While my husband watched  USC  beat Notre Dame.  I lay on my bed with my computer and watched the movie HAROLD AND MAUDE.  Apparently this has a sort of a cult following.  I thought I had seen it and I was willing to see it again.  Much to my surprise, it was something totally different. A young man obsessed with death, meets an 80 year old woman with a zest for life.  Ruth Gordon stars as Maude.   If you need a lift, consider Harold and Maude. 

November 24/Faux Thanksgiving

It was a lovely Thanksgiving.  Turkey Barbecued and done to perfection.   Meredith made a sweet potato casserole with apples.  I sauteed shredded Brussels sprouts although no one likes them.  But in the family they are referred to as "gag balls."   Who could have Thanksgiving with out the group freaking out over gag balls.  The raw cranberry relish had a little Jalapeno and grated ginger.  The dressing was done in a crock pot, and that is the future of the way to go. We always have wild rice and a family recipe called "duck butter". By the time we got to the pumpkin cheese cake, we were on overload. I had a little nap.  But  . . . and this a big butt, we did not give proper thanks. So tonight it is ham and scalloped potatoes, and we hope a lot of thanks. 

November 22/Thanksgiving

I would like to refer you to the comment in the November 21 post.  There is nothing I can say that would improve on what Mary-Katherine wrote about her family and what they are witnessing this week in northern Brazil. 

A wonderful holiday to you all.  Sally

November 21/Photos and giving thanks

It is Thanksgiving time, and it is time to be thankful for things great and small. This photo is a picture of me around four with my Mother in her delightful hat and my great grandmother holding my brother.  I show you this picture because it has been in the bowels of my computer for maybe three years.  I will correct that, and say that it was in the bowels of my previous computer, and then somehow I managed to get it over to this computer.  In fact that was hard, but not as hard as organizing them and finding them and placing them in somewhat of an organized way. 
My photos were so messed up, and it was enough to make a grown woman weep.  About three days a week I would sit down, and try to work some.  I could not create folders in the right place.  Somehow I could not drag and drop to the correct place.  It was awful.  God, it was awful. 

Then Sunday afternoon in the middle of a storm, midway through the second football game, and before the third game started, I decided to open up a new program.  I chose Picasa by Google as it was free, and my sister liked it.  And it turns out, I can work it. Yes! Yes! In about five hours, about two thousand photos were preliminarily organized. 

This whole process reminds me of my college days.  When I went to college, I had no clue as how to manage a check book. I still don't, and after about 20 years of marriage and huge trauma ever month at statement time, my husband does the whole thing, and does not even complain. But in college I did not have a husband, and so when I  could no longer deal with my checking account, I would close up shop and find a new bank.  Then I would know where I was, usually at zero.

I know that Thanksgiving is not for the little things.  It is about health, security, freedom, our families, peace,  but on Thursday I am going to give a thanksgiving for my photos. 

November 20/Christmas children

A favela is your basic Brazilian city slum.  It is a city made by ply-wood and metal sheets, forming dwellings stacked up next to each other,supporting one another.  I think all the floors are dirt. Never having been inside one myself, as first off there is a safety issue, I am not sure exactly what it is like.  But you see favelas from the highway and where Mary Katherine lives from the parking lot of a upscale mall, and you know that it is not a place you want to be. 

Each year  a local church of which Mary-Katherine's tiny church is a part of,  buys one daily meal for the children in one favela through the year.  Mary Katherine, my daughter, and others are raising funds, to buy an outfit,plus shoes, for 260 children for Christmas.This costs about $35.00 for each child. Clothing is relatively expensive in Brazil.

Should you wish to participate and buy one child an outfit, send a check to Mary Rogers at 2208 Cleven Park, Camano Island, WA, 98282.  This takes a great act of faith, I realize.  But Christmas is a good time to expand our sphere of caring and abandon giving. 

November 18/ Camera

This is Gordon with me at Best Buy.  After many trips to Best Buy discussing cameras with Gordon, yesterday I finally bought my new Sony Steady Shot DSC-H5. It is what is called an advanced digital.  It is short of a SLR, the truly fancy and more expensive very trendy cameras.  But currently this is all the camera I can handle, literally and figuratively. This is medium size with a 12x lense and provides many shooting options: ie. shutter speed and aperture. 

Addicted to crazes, I am participating in the current craze of photography, partly because, I like to unravel the puzzle of how things work, and partly because I have an artistic nature. Without a doubt, digital photography is the tidiest creative project I have participated in to date.  And I love the process just as well as the product.

Doing something with the photos is something else.  You have to take a college class to learn how to run Photoshop.  Adjusting and cleaning up photos  can bring  me to tears, and I am talking merely getting the colors to print the way they look on my computer screen. Every magazine picture, every ad you see in a magazine, has been severely corrected.  A woman is standing by a brick wall and her pink coat does not mix well with the color of the brick, change the the color of the coat to green.  That is a minor change.  A photographer does not like the sky in a picture, he can import and then mix two other skies.  You see a picture in Bon Appetite of a perfect roasted turkey?  That turkey maybe had some car grease mixed on it.   No wonder we are a neurotic nation. Who can keep up with all this mass media perfection?