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.

Okay - here I am again, a day late and a dollar short - well, I'm ALWAYS a dollar short, but usually I'm on time. Time has just been getting away from me with all that's been going on.

On Wednesday I had intended to write about my Big Sister - it would have been her birthday, but I won't tell you how old she would have been. Let's just say she's substantially older than me, and the oldest of us kids. She died suddenly in November of 1993 at an age younger than I am now. She had a fatal heart attack during the night. She was a heavy smoker and really didn't take very good care of herself physically. Her cholesterol level just a few weeks prior to her death was 362, and she wasn't doing anything about it. She ate anything and everything that she wanted - lots of sweets and always used real whipping cream when she cooked. Slathered butter on everything - you get the idea. But the uncanny thing was that she was very thin. She was one of these people who must have had an extremely efficient metabolism. But then again, maybe it was the smoking that kept her metabolism so revved up.

She left three kids and five grandchildren behind when she died. Two of her kids were married and then there was her youngest daughter. A real spoiled, self-centered young woman. I'm not going to go there today as it takes too long, but you can read about her here in one of my old entries:

http://mahvalicious.diaryland.com/070203_24.html

Big Sister and I spent a lot of time together as she lived in The City (about 7 miles from me), although I have to say we were never really "close." She was a very superficial person as far as her immediate family went, never sharing much of herself physically or emotionally; always a very secretive person. Although she seemed to be very open with friends and more distant relatives. She was never very willing to do things to help her immediate family out, but was always the first volunteer when it came to outsiders. This had a tendency to create a lot of hurt feelings within the family.

She got married when she was 23 years old to a man that my parents didn't like very much. He was an alcoholic and eventually became physically abusive. She was married in the country church a mile down the road from where my parents lived, but she never invited my parents or me to the wedding, in fact she never even told us she was getting married. Following the wedding that night, all the cars came streaming past my parents' house, honking their horns, etc., on their way down to the Local Watering Hole where they held the reception. Needless to say my parents were hurt - this being their oldest daughter and all. She did a lot of things that were sneaky and somewhat hurtful to the family in both her teenage and adult life.

I wish I could have had a relationship with her like I have with Big Brother. He and I have had a lot of fun over the years.

Anyway, here's a picture of Big Sister, taken when she was about four years old.

That's all I have for today - Lovely Daughter just stopped over and wants me to go flower shopping with her.

Later - Lena

KABOOM and the Bedroom lit up

KABOOM and the bedroom lit up. And it's NOT what you think - get your minds out of the gutter, People!

I awoke with quite a start before sunrise this morning as the entire bedroom lit up from a flash of lightening and an immediate BOOM, which indicated that the lightening had struck extremely close. The biggest issue with this was that Hercules (white kitty) was sleeping on my feet, which were uncovered by the way. He flew straight up in the air, which must have been at least three feet, then down again and like a cartoon cat made running motions with his feet. Unfortunately his claws were out, and I now have three very deep, long scratches on my leg.

On top of that, we’re dog sitting for the next six days, and Grand Dog Daisy hates thunderstorms. So the lightening and thunder precipitated a lot of whining and unrest. Poor thing. Beau on the other hand, sleeps right through everything. Typical man, he’s just like Ole. You could blow a stick of dynamite under the bed and neither Ole nor Beau would wake up. And that’s no lie!!

So Daisy was trying to comfort me with my cat scratches and I was trying to comfort her from being unnerved by the thunder.

Lovely Daughter and The New Man flew out to Reno this morning and won’t be back until next Thursday, so Daisy and Beau will live here on a full-time basis. Not that they don’t almost do that now – at this point they only sleep at Lovely Daughter’s house. Oh, well, what’s a bit more dog hair (snarky comment).

Don’t get me wrong – I’m an animal lover and have been all my life. I’ve got the softest heart of anyone in the world when it comes to animals whether domesticated or wild. But at this point in my life I’m just so tired of cleaning up all the hair I don’t even know where to begin telling you about it, so I won’t. Rosie the Rhoomba makes my life SO much easier, BUT . . . . I can’t tell you how nice it was to set Rosie off the other day, head for the grocery store, and have a freshly vacuumed carpet when I returned. And I need to clarify – it isn’t just the hair, but also the sand and dirt that gets dragged in. Oh, well, enough complaining. I love them dearly and will miss them dearly if Lovely Daughter has to move from this location due to County ordinances. We’ll miss her too – just thought I should stick that in there – it isn’t JUST the doggers we’ll miss.

But I won’t miss getting cat scratches on my bare leg at night, believe me. But I will miss Simon, my senior citizen. He’s such a gentle old duffer. All he wants to do at this point in his life is sleep and be close to someone.

So anyway, where was I before I digressed? Oh, well, it really doesn’t matter. New thought: (Remember, these are ramblings of an Old Woman.)

I’m not going into the Diaryland issue – that’s been covered enough already. I’ve made my opinions known by jumping ship and moving here. I really can’t express to those of you who are still on Diaryland how simple this site is to operate. Give it a try, okay?

Let’s see – what’s happened since I last made an entry here. Hmmm. Okay. Last night – Friday night – karaoke at the Local Watering Hole. We didn’t stay long because Ole volunteered to Rise and Shine at 4 a.m. this morning to take Lovely Daughter and the New Man to the airport to catch their VERY early morning flight to Reno. He’s such a dear, isn’t he? The only problem is he can’t hear the alarm clock when his hearing aides are out, so I had to wake up anyway just to keep poking him to get him out of bed at that hour. But he got them there on time for a 5:30 a.m. flight (remember we’re not at the edge of the world, but you can see it from here). I just spoke with Lovely Daughter and she said they had a terrible flight – lots of thunderstorms and the plane they were supposed to connect with in Denver had been struck by lightening in the air, so the mechanics were giving it a good go-over. As I told her, better on the ground than having trouble in the air, ya’ think? But as a result they were several hours late getting into Reno. But they are there, on the ground, safe and sound and enjoying themselves. Already lost money on the Kentucky Derby, but oh, well, you can’t take it with you, can ya’?

So Ole and I and the two grand doggers spent the morning being lazy after having to break up our night’s sleep. Stayed in bed and watched a movie or two, ETC. Finally got into gear about noon and started prepping food for tomorrow.

You see, tomorrow is our 40th wedding anniversary!! Can you believe I’ve put up with him (and vice versa – snicker) for that long???? We opted not to have a BIG party like so many people do for that milestone, and just invited some friends over for supper. If it’s not raining we’ll grille on the deck. I’ve got everything else ready, so it’s just a matter of marinating the chicken and ta-dah – I’m done!

If I have time tomorrow I’ll try to post some pictures of the EVENT that took place 40 years ago. Jeez, that sounds like it was the Dark Ages, or something – 40 years ago. Well, I guess it actually was the Dark Ages back then. Lots of reminiscing to do tomorrow. Oh, the stories I can tell – unfortunately most of them are PRIVATE – only for Ole and me – snicker.

Well, enough for tonight. Hopefully we won’t have anymore lightening strikes on top of us like last night.

Please leave comments – and I’m just not organized enough yet to have a Notify List going, so you’ll just have to put up with an email. Sorry.