"Green" boxes

Bridge!

I played bridge last night for the first time.

My sister and my brother-in-law, who are new empty-nesters, are learning bridge.

They invited me and my other sister over, originally, to play pinochle.

My sisters and I played innumerable games of pinochle as kids.

However, we decided to play bridge, which has some similarities to pinochle.

It's a fascinating game and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

A friend at work is a bridge fanatic and I can't wait to tell her how much I enjoyed it.

It's a great thing to learn something new.

I could practically feel my brain cells growing as I counted trump and thought out strategy in my head.

That's always a good thing. Maybe it will help my short-term memory, which has gone completely to pot lately.

I end up in the kitchen and I have no idea why I'm in there. I swear I'm going to try ginko.

Anyway, try something new, it's good for you!

Blues dancing

I have a new fascination! Blues Dancing!

It's almost impossible to describe. It's an odd mixture of a very slow jitterbug, a very rhythmic tango, and freestyle.

I love watching it and I have got to try it! Besides, I'm for any dance style that partners actually touch and men have to lead. :P

Here's a few examples.

These two are practicing for the first time. Unbelievable.



These two are too cute for words.



These two are experts who teach.



Awesome!

It's a nice day...

"You should go outside, it's such a nice day."

I can't count the times I have heard that phrase.

I don't get it.

I am 51, ergo, I have seen a lot of nice days.

Nice days are pretty much all the same, aren't they? Is there some reason why I have to rush outside and see another one?

Are nice days vanishing like the polar icecaps? I don't think so. I think there is pretty much a stockpile of nice days available. Isn't it basically nice from May through October?

Besides, how do they know I like nice days? Nice days to me, quite frankly, have a certain boring blandness to them. A Miss America kind of sameness that bores me to tears.

Now give me a gloomy wet November evening and I'm in heaven.

Dark, wet, streaming skies. The blissful contrast between the dank wetness of outside and the cozy haven of inside.

Now that's worth going outside for...

Really?

I just read the tag in my underwear.

100% cotton. (Good.)
Machine wash warm (Only wash in cold, too bad).
Wash colors separately. (Natch).
Use only non-chlorine bleach. (Don't use bleach, use OxyClean).
Tumble dry low (I use the energy saver setting, don't know what that is).
Remove promptly. (Yeah, right, I leave things in the dryer for days.)
Medium iron (COME AGAIN??????)

Medium iron as in ironing board?

Seriously, who irons their underwear?

Probably the same people who iron their sheets.

Or people who do all their ironing in one day.

That is, seriously insane people.

Awesome New Music

I had to call this post "awesome new music" because my friend Annie laughed at me because that's what I called the newest playlist on my ipod.

There is nothing that makes me happier than discovering a new song that I fall headlong in love with.

I have discovered Jason Mraz. I know, I know, he had a grammy nomination for record of the year. Who cares? I don't watch the grammys.

This guy is absolutely incredible.

I am completely addicted to Geek in the Pink, I'm Yours, but especially, Butterfly, which has to be the cutest euphemism I ever heard for.... well, watch the video, you'll figure it out.

I am attempting to embed the youtube video of a live version of Butterfly, which I can't live without.

Give it a look and a listen, you can thank me later.

Girl Scout Cookies

This time of year it is impossible to avoid Girl Scout cookies, dammit! Everybody at work has some to sell, if not, they want to share them with you.

When you are trying to avoid carbs the last things you want to see is those damn Girl Scout cookies.

It's hard enough to get through the holidays, then, just when you think you are home free, they drag you back in.

I can usually pass all of them up except Samoas. I know, I know, they don't call them Samoas anymore. They call them Caramel De-lites. I can assure you that there is nothing "light" about them.

Samoas are the crack cocaine of cookies.

I found out how to make them on the internet. (How I love the internet, you can find anything you want to know on there, also a lot of things you never wanted to see ever).

They basically start with a shortbread cookie. So already you're talking about a lot of butter and sugar.

Then they take caramels, coconut, and chocolate, carb-laden sugar bombs all, melt them, and pile them on top of the shortbread cookie.

I am surprised that they don't sell these things in dark alleys.

Thank goodness the Girl Scout drive is almost over. Of course, now that I have the recipe....

Cooking

Okay, I am officially giving up on beef stew.

I've made it twice now and both times it has been a disaster.

I spent yesterday running errands and cooking. I made gravy (for any non-Italians, that's tomato sauce), ricotta pie, and beef stew. Only the beef stew was a disaster.

I think the problem is that I have some romantic idea of beef stew and of myself making beef stew. I envision myself creating the perfect beef stew, you know that Dinty Moore kind of beef stew (only without all the chemicals and preservatives). There I am in the kitchen, the original Earth Mother, compentent, all-knowing, tossing in ingredients with joyous abandon and producing perfection. You know, that deep dark gravy that you need to sop up with bread and butter (mmmm....).

But that's not what I get.

I think the problem yesterday was too much water and really bad wine.

I spent a good hour at the store picking out some wine for cooking and for drinking. I was looking for a burgundy but all they had was huge jugs of burgundy. Basically I was looking for something not worth drinking but worth cooking with. Big mistake. If you are going to cook with it, you better want to drink it.

My first clue that it was going to be bad was that it was called El Toro and it had a little plastic bull attached to it, which I swear I didn't notice in the store. Now you know a wine is going to be bad if it has it's own plastic toy attached. Kind of like the happy meal of wine.

I tasted it and didn't like but, oh no, I still dumped it in the crockpot.

The first beef stew was too salty because I didn't dilute the canned beef stock enough. This time I diluted it too much.

After hours of cooking I had a soupy mess and you could still taste that damn wine.

Someday I am going to produce that romantic vision of stew I have in my head. Meaty, fragrant, with dark flavorful gravy, the kind of stew given to starving orphans in Dickensian novels, either that or I am going to the store for Dinty Moore.

Oh my aching body!

I used to be extremely flexible. Really.

I could close a freezer door with my foot. Honestly.

I used to do yoga every single day, twice a day.

Oh, how I wish I had kept that up!

I decide to do some yoga today. Good Lord, what a come-down!

I can't even do a shoulder stand! I can't get my torso off the floor.

This is bad.

I think the loss of flexibility is the beginning of feeling old. I am okay with being old, I just don't want to feel old.

So from now on, I will rolling around on the floor at least once a day.

I will be flexible again or die in the attempt!

I am a boomer, I do not get old!

Excelsior!

The Great Mother

I was watching something called HealthQuest on tv today. There was a short segment from an oceanographer on how important the earth was to us.

I was struck with a sudden insight, that our relationship to the earth is the same as our relationships with our aging parents.

A few years ago my life stopped dead while I took care of my mother in her last illness. The only thing I had time for was work and her.

I was glad to do it. My mother had done her job and now I would do mine.

It seem to me that we have reached the same stage in our relationship with the planet.

For centuries, the earth has given us everything. Everything we wear, we eat, we sleep on it, we adorn ourselves with. We have used her as children use their mothers, as the source of all good things.

We have fished her oceans, plowed her fields, dug up her mines. We have sated ourselves on her plenty and used her to her capacity.

And now she must rest. She is ill and old and must be cared for with kindness and understanding.

It is time we were the adults and no longer the children.

We must grow up and curb our desires.

We must see to her instead of her always seeing to us.

The Earth is our Mother and she needs us and she needs us now.