Rubber Legs and Hot Dish

Good Gawd Almighty - it's just to damn cold to go outside anymore. We set a record last night and ran that old thermometer down to 31 degrees below zero!! Fortunately when it gets that cold it's too cold to snow.

But let me tell you about yesterday: The Ya Ya Sisters got together yesterday afternoon about 4 o'clock. You remember I told you about the five girls who went to school together from first grade on? Well, yesterday was our day to get together and laugh and have fun, which we did. We left the restaurant about 6:30 and headed for home. I had about 25 feet to run from the door to my car and I thought I was going to have frostbite on my face. The wind was blowing so hard and the temps were way below zero. I heard on the radio on the way home that the wind chill was equivalent to 47 degrees below zero. As I got out on the highway to drive my seven miles home I began to wonder what I was doing there because the snow was blowing across the highway creating whiteout conditions so you kind of had to drive by feel - not by sight. I was so happy to see the lights of our little town when I finally got that far because then I knew I only had a half mile to get home.

Then about 9 o'clock the wind went down and the temps started to drop like a rock. I know - I know - why do we live here you ask? At this point I really can't answer that without my nose growing long.

I had a long day yesterday. My church serving group had to serve for a funeral yesterday. Visitation started at 9 o'clock so we had to have coffee and cookies ready for that and for the family. The funeral was at 11 o'clock and we were told to be ready to serve 250 people. The ladies of our group had to furnish the sandwiches and cake, and the "hotdish" was ordered in. But setting up for and serving 250 made me feel like I had rubber legs when it was all over.

Now I don't know if those of you from other areas of the country other than the Upper Midwest are knowledgeable about what a close connection Lutheran churches and hotdishes have at church gatherings. Hotdishes are the glue that keeps the Lutheran church together. The definition of hotdish is "Any of a variety of casserole dishes popular in the Midwest, especially in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and northern regions of Iowa. It consists of a starch and a protein mixed together with a binding ingredient (most often canned soup or a sauce) and a topping. Typical ingredients are macaroni, ground beef and corn with canned soup added for flavor and as a sauce, and seasoned with salt, pepper and/or ketchup." You may question ketchup as a seasoning, but it's a well known fact that Norwegian Lutheran's spice cabinet only contains salt, pepper and ketcup!! Another popular hotdish is made with plain noodles, canned tuna and peas, with canned soup - usually cream of mushroom - for binding. Even Spam and cream of mushroom is a popular combo. (After all, the Spam factory is in Minnesota, you know.) Cream of mushroom soup is used so frequently in hotdish that it is often referred to in recipes as "the Lutheran Binder," referring to hotdish's position as a staple of Lutheran-church cookbooks. Hotdish even made its way into mystery novels. If you haven't read Hotdish to Die For, in which the weapon of choice is hotdish, you've missed a good laugh.

So what kind of hotdish did we serve yesterday? Macaroni, hamburger, peas, corn, tomato sauce and ketchup for seasoning!! Tasty stuff. Then of course there's the sandwiches: open-faced buns spread with egg salad or tuna salad or cheese whiz with an olive in the middle or dead spread. What??? Dead spread?? It's served so often at funerals because it's so simple to make - ground ham mixed with chopped pickles, a tiny bit of onion (wouldn't want to over season you know) and a bit of pickle juice.

By the time we were done there were only a dozen sandwiches left, a half pan of bars and a few spoonfuls of hotdish. And oh yes, can't forget the coffee. We made four 100-cup pots of coffee and had about 20 cups left when we were done. Now that's a good bunch of Norwegians there. I drafted Ole to become one of the ladies of the serving circle. He came to the church at 8:30 and loaded all the coffee pots and put them to perk and he didn't even gripe. Those 100-cup pots loaded full of water are pretty darn heavy you know.

On a more serious note, this was an especially sad funeral. She was a young woman of only 31 years who had Type I diabetes. That's diabetes that is contracted as a child, a very difficult situation to treat. She had a baby 6 months ago that had to be delivered two months early and weighed 15 oz. when he was born. The mother had developed kidney problems during pregnancy and after the birth they continued to fail. She was on dialysis and was waiting for a transplant when she went to sleep a few nights ago and didn't wake up. The little baby had just been brought home about Christmas time after finally gaining enough weight. The husband/father is a young man of 32 that my daughter went to school with from kindergarten on. Funerals are always sad, mostly for selfish reasons, but this was especially sad because she was so young and had so much life left to live.

Also, in my last post I referred to some family issues that were eating up all my energy physically and emotionally. Thanks to all of you who have written me private emails showing care and concern. It's so nice to know that you're all out there for me. Unfortunately nothing has changed in that situation due to a total lack of communication. I'm not sure where I should go from here. If I decide to write about it, it will be in a private post and I'll let you know where if you're interested. And that's all I'm going to say about that at the moment.

On to another subject . . . .

I really had to laugh at Ole this morning. This is Going to the Gym Morning so of course the doggers were all excited about going for a ride in the truck. I worry about them when it's this cold, but Ole says he always parks in the sun, and the dogs give off so much heat that when he opens the door and gets in the truck after his workout you can't even see your breath. I was going to say that they are a cheap source of heat (chuckle) but when you consider all the fuel that is shoveled into them (dog food and milkbones) I'm not sure that propane or fuel oil isn't cheaper!! But anyway - Ole had so many things on his mind this morning. He had his lists and had gathered up all his paperwork because he had a number of stops to make after the gym. He was also really excited this morning because he has an appointment at the VA for new hearing aids this afternoon (hallalujah - I won't have to yell anymore). Also, Carol (of Bob and Carol) had invited him to stop for his bucket of cookies this morning. Carol LOVES to bake and makes the best sugar cookies you could imagine. And Ole, who is the infamous Cookie Monster (someday I'll tell you how he got THAT name) trades her homemade wine for sugar cookies. Carol LOVES his wine. So Ole had all these things on his mind, followed the dogs out of the house, loaded them in the truck and took off. About an hour later I got a phone call - "Is there a gym bag sitting on the chair by the back door?" Yup - there was Ole's gym bag on the chair! So he drove all the way home (12 miles), picked up his gym bag and drove the 12 miles back to the gym. I guess I'll have to put another thing on MY list of things on How to Take Care of Ole. If I don't see to it that he's got his fire pager and his cell phone hooked to his belt when he leaves the house he will forget them. Now I guess I'll have to hang his gym bag on his shoulder before he goes out of the house.

Oh, well, it's nice to know he needs me.