First Snow - Time to Hibernate

Yeah, I saw my first sprinkles of snow today. I am not ready for this.

At work, the heating system broke on our floor. As someone who is always hot, it was weird to be cold. Bone-chilling cold. I spent the day daydreaming about going home and eating pasta with our leftover sauce with sausage and meatballs in it. I also dreamed about coming home and putting on my giant sweatpants and a fleece top. And it felt so good when I finally got home and could do that! And then after dinner, I made myself hot chocolate (with stale marshmallows from last year, but that's ok - they were good!).

On my way home from work, I turned on my phone and saw that my trainer had left me a voice mail message - if I wanted to meet her up at the gym today, she'd be glad to meet me. I deleted the message and kept on driving.

I think we are all bears at heart. When that cold weather hits, we want hot comfort food. To hell with lean chicken and fish and veggies. We need sustenance - good sauces - heavy food - to feel good. But unlike those bears, we can't go to sleep for the winter. When that alarm goes off, we must get up. And it is getting tougher to do.

My friend Beth moved to Florida a few years ago. She loves it. I don't think I would love the constant heat. I do love the change in seasons. I just don't like the season we're just entering into. She and her husband came up to Cleveland last week so that she could have heart surgery done at the Cleveland Clinic. I imagine this weather is really tough on them and they will really look forward to returning south.

We signed up with yet another snow plow company this year. The last few years, three of us neighbors got together to get the same snow plow operation, thinking we can't get screwed if there's three of us in a row. Wrong. For the last 2 years, when we had really major snowfall, our plow guys never showed up. Last year, I looked outside and saw two police cruisers outside our next door neighbor's house. He's a doctor and needs to get in and out of his drive, and with no snow plow guy, he couldn't do that. So he started to shovel himself. Well, he's a heart patient and should not be shoveling. So his wife called the police! (People call the police for the most amazing things - a few years ago, a policeman came to our door and told us he was embarrassed to be coming for this reason, but a guy who walks around the block every day complained that some of us have branches that hang over the sidewalk, so this poor policeman had to go door-to-door and ask all of us offenders to please trim our branches). Anyway, the police came out and were actually shoveling the drive next door.

I will try to think positive about this weather - I'm gonna try some new soup recipes. And pies. And crock pot recipes. And I'll go to bed earlier cause bed's the warmest place. And I"ll bond with my cats as they join me in bed.

OK, I am almost ready.

Crockpot Pasta Sauce with Meatballs and Sausage

Crockpot weather has arrived. I assembled most of this before 7:00 AM and left a note for hubby David to add the meatballs and sausage at noon. I also put a frozen Rhodes loaf in a bread pan to thaw and rise. All day long I couldn't wait to get home and eat!

Olive-oil flavored cooking spray
28 oz can crushed tomatoes, undrained
28 oz can tomato sauce flavored with italian seasonings
6 oz can tomato paste
1 heaping T dried basil
crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
1 bay leaf
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
8 oz button mushrooms, thinly sliced
16 oz pkg frozen fully cooked meatballs, such as Trader Joe's flame broiled (turkey or beef)
12 oz pkg fully cooked sausage, such as Trader Joe's sweet Italian style chicken sausage, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
salt and pepper to taste
1 lb any pasta, cooked
freshly grated parmesan or romano cheese (optional)

Lightly coat insert of crockpot with cooking spray. Add all entree ingredients except pasta and cheese. Stir gently. Cover crockpot and set on lowest temperature for 6 hours. Ladle sauce over pasta and sprinkle with cheese.

The Unhappy Waitress

Friday night, hubby and I went to meet our friend Kenny at a neighborhood Italian restaurant. We discovered this place last year, and we really like it. It's very small, the prices are reasonable, and the food is very good. And it is never crowded.

Well we walked in Friday night and almost every table was taken. This was unusual. We sat down at a table to wait for Kenny and gradually the place started to empty out. Kenny arrived, and there were only two tables of people, including ours.

The owner sits up front at the cash register, taking carry-out orders and taking money.

So there we were, relaxing, waiting for our food, when the waitress, a woman in her 50s I'd guess, comes walking out of the kitchen, very purposefully and angry, heading toward the owner. He was on the phone at the time, and we heard him change the estimate of how long the order would take. He said "oh, I guess we are a little backed up in the kitchen - it should be about 40 minutes." And then we saw the waitress head back to the kitchen, saying "God damn it!" VERY loudly. The owner got off the phone and headed toward the kitchen, just as the waitress headed out of the kitchen. You could tell from her face that she was having a melt down. "LET THEM GET THEIR OWN FOOD!" she told the owner, and she sat down in one of the booths, and he responded "you've been serving for a long time - GROW UP."

Now keep in mind, this is a tiny restaurant, so this wasn't a quiet confrontation behind the scenes - it was right in the middle of the restaurant. And hubby said "I think maybe we won't be coming here anymore" and Kenny said "no, this is great - it's like a Seinfeld episdoe." And I asked "so are we supposed to go to the kitchen to get our food?" And so we sat, not having any idea what was gonna happen next. Kenny had been trying to get the waitress' attention for a glass of water but decided that was no longer a good idea.

Our food did arrive. The waitress calmed down. And it gave us a good story to tell.

The Perfect Saturday

Today was a perfect Saturday.

I LOVE weekends, way too much. I love not being chained to a desk for 7.5 hours. I love being able to wake up on my own, without that annoying alarm clock going off at 6:00 AM.

Today I woke up early for me on a Saturday - at 7:30. I came down, fed the pets, made coffee and toasted a bagel, then sat down to read my emails, in a leisurely fashion. I even read the New York Times, which is emailed to me every day and I read it about once a week.

I decided to tackle a project I've been putting off - bathing Pepper the Dog. Pepper has very thick fur and usually loves to get in the tub but today for some reason, she was reluctant. I bathed her, brought her in our room to dry her, comb her and cut her hair. After 20 minutes of sitting on the floor with her, I stood up and could hardly move and I was reminded how old I am. Sitting on the floor, or maybe I should say getting up off the floor, is not an easy task.

Then I came down, had more coffee, read the paper, did laundry, and just relaxed. And for once, I had energy, so I tackled a job that is rarely tackled in this house - vacuuming under the couch cushions. I don't know how we turned into such a family of slobs, but we are a family of slobs.

Then I read the garage sale ads in the Sun Press. One caught my eye. First, it was today only, until 5:00, and it was already after 2:00. Second of all, it just sounded like my kind of sale. This was actually an estate sale and the owner made "award winning honey" and was a photographer, so there would be honey and photos to peruse. I called Sharon, who is on the same wavelength as me. I said what do you think? And she said I'll go! So I picked her up and off we went.

We weren't sure where the street was, but the ad said it ran off a major street, so we figured we'd find it. We knew we were lost when we saw the sign saying "Leaving Richmond Hts" and the sale was in Richmond Hts. But we did see a "Richmond Hts Farmers Market" and decided to take a look. It was a little bizarre. It didn't seem like a farmer's market - more like a mini grocery that you usually find with gas stations. We started to wander, and they had a whole section of foreign foods. We didn't even know what language was printed on the merchandise. Then we discovered a bakery with fresh strudel. Mmmm. I had to buy some apple strudel. And an eggplant, macadamia nuts and chocolate drizzled Humphreys popcorn.

Before we went into the farmers market, Sharon called her house to have them look up the street we were looking for. We waited and waited, as we sat outside the market waiting to go in. Suddenly I remembered I had a street map in my car. So we found the street we were looking for and realized there was a misprint in the paper. We headed back to the house sale. Arrived to find a very old house. Walked in, and it was like walking back in time 100 years. It even had that old smell - not unpleasant, but homey - cottagey. Sharon immediately found some Warner Brothers drinking glasses she liked. There was a lot of colored glass. I love colored glass. Then we walked into the room with the photos, and they were really amazing photos. Some had prices of $75 on the back. Sharon said they can't be selling them for that. So I asked, and was told the photos were $1 a piece. One dollar! Then I had to carefully look through each one again, to find the perfect ones. There was also a room with old frames for a buck. Man, this was my kind of sale.

I picked out my photos and frames, grabbed a jar of dark natural honey, and happily walked out with $9 worth of purchases. It wasn't only goods I was getting, it was pure entertainment.

Then a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up stuff for dinner, then home. I'm cooking an eggplant parmesan which I will bring over to Sharon's tonight.

I wish every day could be Saturday.

Memories of 4th Grade

Today I saw a dr friend of mine. He was in my 4th grade class. He said hey, you want to run through the numbers? (to be explained in a minute). And that got me thinking about the 4th grade year.

I loved 4th grade. In every grade, there is a teacher that everyone wants, and we had him. He did some odd stuff that none of us thought about at the time, but we later recalled these odd things.

Mr R was the cool teacher to have. He did fun stuff, like every Wednesday he would take 4 kids to Manners (now known as Bob's Big Boy, although that one he took us to is no longer there). After lunch we would go to Hazel's, for penny candy. We so looked forward to these outings.

He made class interesting and fun. We were all assigned a number, based on how we stood alphabetically in the class. When I get together with my peers at reunions (or even, like today, just seeing the dr), those of us from this 4th grade class will stand together and go through each number. For some reason, over 40 years later, we still remember those numbers.

And the funny incidents will stick with us too. Mr R was also a very talented artist. One day, he made an art palette for the retiring art teacher. It was his intent to have the staff at the school sign their good luck wishes on the palette. He informed us that he was having the staff sign it, and we were not to touch it.. Well, G came back to school late from lunch that day and missed the announcement that we were not to touch his palette. So he walked in, spotted the palette with other signatures on it, and added his own signature to it (in what one classmate remembers as his "dorky signature"). Mr R was not happy. He was actually kind of irate. Here he had this beautiful palette, signed by all the teachers. And G. As young students, we all found the incident to be quite amusing, and we talk about it to this day.

G happened to be my boyfriend that year. He was always trying to pick up my dress. Yeah, we wore dresses in those days. In retaliation for him reaching for my dress, I threatened to pull his pants down. That brought us both a visit to the asst principal, Mrs. W. Mrs. W always referred to herself as Mrs. W. The first several times I was in classrooms where she spoke of herself in the third person, I wondered who was this Mrs. W. One day I asked another student "who is Mrs W?" and she told me that's her. And I realized the woman seemed to be incapable of using the word "I." Anyway, this incident with me and G ended up with us being sent to Mrs W's office. She asked for my version of events and I told her. She told me I must never threaten to pull a boy's pants down (like I really could have done that). She acted like the whole thing was my fault.

Mr R also worked as a DJ and you were cool if you hired him to DJ at your party. He was just the fun guy everyone wanted to have around.

Now for the weird stuff. When we did something bad, Mr R would send us to a tiny closet in the cloakroom, where we had to stay until he released us. OK, that was a little weird, but then Mr R did something weirder. He would hug us until our backs creaked. I know he did it to the girls; I'm not sure if he did it to the boys. We all thought it was fun at the time. Then we grew up and thought my God, that was kind of uh - inappropriate??! In today's world, he would have been outta there. At the time, tho, he was just the fun teacher that everyone wanted.

A few years ago, a classmate hosted a reunion of the elementary school. There was a good turnout, and Mr R's widow was there. After she left, many of the conversations focused on Mr R and what a weird guy he was. It's kind of discomforting to find out that the guy you thought was everything was - well - weird, to put it mildly.

The Book Club That Doesn't Really Discuss Books

A few years ago, my friend Sharon decided we should start a book club. After a few member tiffs that resulted in some drop-outs, we now have a regular group of 6. We meet at a restaurant, sometimes related to the theme of the book. For example, this month we read Interpreter of Maladies, which I have to say is one of the best books I've ever read. It's a collection of short stories written by an Indian woman. Well, I think it's a woman. With those Indian names, you can't tell. But anyway, we will meet at an Indian restaurant to "discuss" the book.

The reason for the quotes around "discuss" is that our book club doesn't discuss books. At one of the first meetings we had, someone had picked a book that had a list of questions at the back of the book conducive to getting members to discuss books. We tried it, but it felt awkward. So our discussion is generally limited to "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" and then we go on to discuss what our kids are doing, trips we've taken, foods we've cooked...you name it. Anything other than the book.

Well, I guess there was one exception - and that was Augusten Burroughs' Running With Scissors. That one was worthy of a discussion if only to ask if what he wrote about could really be true - could anyone really have lived that life? And, we took that one a step further by taking a field trip downtown to hear Augusten speak. That was cool. I even went on to read two more of Augusten's (I feel like I'm intimate enough with the man to be on a first name basis) books Dry and Magical Thinking.

At our last meeting, we discussed other books we had read. One lady in the club is so annoying, cause she's read like every book ever published. I love to read, but my reading is limited to bedtime, where I read about 3 pages, and hubby comes in later and removes the book from my hand, carefully marking my place, and turns my lamp off. This lady claims she reads so much cause that's all she does - her house is a mess but her books are read (well my house is a mess too, but my books aren't read!). Sometimes I think our book club members don't even read the books but just join us for dinner cause (1) it's a nice night out, and (2) the chooser of the book went to so much effort to find a date we could all agree on that they felt obliged to come. This kind of bugs me too cause I'm available like every night and everyone else seems to have such busy lives.

There are two cool things about the book club. First, we have an annual party where one member makes the best potato pancakes I've ever eaten, and we have a $10 gift exchange that is really quite fun. The second cool thing about the book club that doesn't really discuss books is that it forces us to read books we never would have looked at. Sometimes a member will announce her pick at the meeting and we inwardly roll our eyes and think oh no, that sounds like a terrible book. But I have never read a book in the book club that I didn't like.

The Dumbest Purchase Hubby Ever Made

I was reminded of The Dumbest Purchase Hubby Ever Made tonight at dinner. I prepared dinner and told my son and hubby that it was ready. I was ignored. I sat down alone, with Pepper the dog as my companion. My son was busy on Facebook. Hubby decided he had to go downstairs to the basement to get ice, and he disappeared for 10 minutes. Which leads me to the title of this article.

Last year hubby proudly came home with the dumbest thing I've ever seen. The ice maker in our freezer had broken, and he decided it was too much of a pain to make ice cubes the old fashioned way - by putting water in trays and freezing them. I looked at this giant appliance and said I can't believe you bought that. He was very surprised. He thought I'd be doing somersaults over the thing, saying oh, thank you love, I have been wanting one of these my whole life!

It wasn't bad enough that he bought the thing, but then he felt a need to place it on the counter, where our coffee pot used to reside. Now we are people who can't keep things off of countertops. I analyzed this a few years ago and realized that whenever we don't know what to do with an item, it ends up on our countertop.

This giant appliance that took up such valuable counter space made me crazy. I finally gave him an option - either the ice maker goes, or I go. We compromised. The ice maker went to live in the basement. So every night before dinner, it's a major undertaking for him to take his bag downstairs and fill it with ice.

The ladies at work were very amused when I told them about the ice maker. When I invited them to a party for my son's graduation, they told me they planned to tell hubby that they needed more ice.

Last night I went down the basement to watch Desperate Housewives. I wanted no interruptions. Do you know how loud that
machine is? I had to keep moving the volume up to hear the TV!

Hubby recently told me to leave him out of my blogs. He's not gonna be happy with this post.