The Luxury of Buttermilk

I’m only a little bit ashamed to post twice today.  It is the last day of the year, I was off all day, I’m spoiling myself by spending some extra time writing, and this one really can’t wait.

As 2012 fast fades away, I ask you, What small happinesses did you enjoy this past year?  The laughter of a child, a meal shared with a long lost friend, a walk at sunset with your sweetheart and your trusty hound, a rainy evening curled up by the fire with a good book and your cat? The beauty of an early spring daffodil, the return of the swallows, the wonder of electricity (after a power outage!), a job to get up and go to in the morning?

 I just found a book written in 1906 (that is something, isn’t it.  Written 106 years ago!) by Ezra Meeker, one of the thousands who came to the Oregon Territory  by covered wagon, over 150 years ago.  On page 24 of his book,   Ox Team or the Old Oregon Trail, Meeker muses on the “luxury, yes, that’s the word, a real luxury” of having butter and buttermilk while on his journey.  He and his wife brought along a cow and they enjoyed the benefit of that choice.

He goes on to say, “I will never, so long as I live, forget that short-cake and corn bread, the pudding, and pumpkin pies (pumpkin pies along the Oregon Trail?  I had no idea there were Shari’s Restaurants back then) and above all the buttermilk. The reader who may smile at this may well recall the fact that it  is the small things that make up the happiness of life.”  (Italics supplied, obviously, by me!)

Smart man, that Ezra Meeker.  And now, here are my wishes for a year of daily small happinesses for you and yours!

I Missed My Exit Again

I was trying to insert a picture I had taken and downloaded to my computer (which was an amazing feat of its own due to my technological challenges) on my blog page. WordPress has changed things, without my permission, and so I once again found myself taking another random exit off the technology freeway, driving around without a map. I have found some very interesting neighborhoods to explore by doing this, but that wasn’t my plan.

So, I’m clicking here and there and nothing happens.  At least the something that I wanted to happen didn’t happen and so I concluded nothing happened.  Until I went to preview my blog and viola!  Here is my picture on the main page of my blog.  Looks good. Not where I wanted the picture, but it looks good.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember which turns I took to get here and now I’m not sure I can now find my way back to the freeway.

Transportation, or Yikes! I Missed My Exit!

I have traveled by car over most of these United States.  One summer a few years ago, my family traveled 10,800 miles, from the Pacific Northwest, to the Gulf of Mexico, up the east coast and back across the the northern states back home. 39 states and 2 Canadian Provinces.  I have flown back and forth across this country, and to Europe and Mexico.  I have ridden my bicycle a few miles from here to there, and every day I travel by foot, up and down my pathetic potholed road. This is not to exclude car trips up and down the west coast, to the midwest, or driving around southern Europe and middle Mexico.  Or hiking around Mt. Rainier and the Olympics.

But the toughest traveling I’m doing now is this blogging. I want to make my blog look pretty like yours, but the logic of the system escapes me.  For a moment I’d changed my blog picture from the stock picture provided by WordPress, to a picture I took and downloaded from my camera (that was a success story about which I was very proud!).  But I have no idea how I did it (because I wasn’t at all trying to do it) and then it disappeared.  Honest.  It was there, then it wasn’t.

Sometimes driving in the dark is not the best option.

And that’s my story about Transportation.  Check out this blog to find out why I wrote this!  http://wheresmybackpack.com/2012/12/14/travel-theme-transportation/

Doldrums of Winter

It must be the doldroms of winter.  It’s only 7:38 pm on Sunday night but it’s been dark for 3 hours and everyone at our place is done in.  The fire in the wood stove is cranked up and it’s 75 cozy degrees in the family room.  Both cats are in for the night, one on the couch facing the fire, the other in a chair beside the fire.  Ol’ Joe, the Labrador, has slunk off to the living room where it’s a couple of degrees cooler, because 75 degrees is all wrong for Labrador in December.  Even hubby has trotted off down the hall to get ready for bed.  His day does start at the pretty ridiculous hour of 4:00 a.m., but even so it’s not often that he calls it quits so early.

I’m the only one in a vertical position.  I have two more days of Winter Break and I’m not letting go yet!  The Christmas tree is gone, the decorations are packed away, the laundry is caught up, there are enough groceries in the ‘frig and the pantry to last for awhile, and the last of the flower bulbs have been planted.  I have no chores, indoors or out, that must be done in the next couple of days.  Two days of vacation just for me!  Go ahead you lazy ones, sleep the evening away.  You’ve left me alone.  And I have words to write!

I Am Traveling in a Foreign Country

When I was a kid, growing up on the edge of a large city, I used to wish I lived in a small town. And as I grew older I thought it would also be fun to work in a small town.  It sounded so very cozy and safe and romantic.  Then I grew up and settled into a house and after a bit it occurred to me that I did live in a small town.

It took some time for this reality to occur to me because my small town was surrounded by a big city.  Literally.  One side of the road was my small town and across the street was the big city. But my small town was an actual small town, incorporated, with it’s own police force, city hall, recreation center, and shopping center.  And some of the coziness and safety and romanticism of a small town.

Some years later I got a job in a different small town.  This one not surrounded by a big city. I go to the library and catch up on the news because the librarian is my neighbor.  I pick up my mail at the post office and the postal worker knows my name and my box number.  I go the grocery store and the box boys are students at the school where I work.  All very cozy small townish.  And even though I don’t live in the small city where I work– in fact, I no longer live in any city, I now live in the redneck outback–my wishes, at least in some ways, came true.

And sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be dropped down in a foreign country with only the most rudimentary understanding of the culture and language.  This wonderment is more a nightmare than a wish, the thought of which usually sends shivers up my spine.  But then I realize that this, too, has come true in its own way.

I’ve been deposited in the foreign land of Technology.  As I once heard it explained by a teacher, people of a certain age (in other words, us old people) are trying to learn a second language–technology. And we older folks are trying to teach, live with, and converse with, the younger generation in a language that is their first language but is our second language.  And so we are bumble along not fully understanding the dialect and the nuances and the short hand of this foreign language but trying our hardest to be a part of it all.

If you are also of a “certain age”, i.e., “old”, you understand whereof I speak.  And my best advice is, Happy Traveling!

Boxing Day

Yesterday was Boxing Day.  And  I was on it.  I pulled out the boxes from the coat closet.  Boxes with tax papers going back 20 years; boxes with slides my dad took 50 or more years ago; boxes with treasures from our wedding and our daughters’ baby showers 30, 27, and 24 years ago; boxes with toys from my childhood which was more than a few decades ago; boxes with pictures hubby took before we ever met; and boxes with wrapping paper that might also be decades old . Criminy!  How did all of this fit in that closet?

Which leads to the questions:  How long do we have to keep tax papers?  I’m thinking 20 years is way too long but that box belongs to hubby. How long do I keep wrapping paper and ribbons from my daughters’ baby showers?  The girls are both in their 20’s.  Long enough.  Wrapping paper goes up in smoke.  My dad’s slides?  Back in the closet. Left over napkins and paper plates from our wedding 30 years ago?  Now, there’s a find!  They’re still in good shape.  We’ll use them for dinner this Friday when we have friends over.

But the real find, on this fine Boxing Day, was the box, inside another box at the very bottom of the box pile.  And there I found the dress and slip that I wore, and the blanket (which my mother knitted) on which I sat, when I was 6 months old and I was professionally photographed.  That dress and slip were put on our daughters, when they were 6 months old and we sat them on the same blanket and we sat them in the same pose and had them professionally photographed.  And lately I’ve been wondering, now that my married daughter is talking babies, where that dress and slip and blanket were stored, because there may be a baby girl who will look fine in that dress and slip, sitting on that blanket.  3 generations.  That’s a memory.

It wasn’t a traditional Boxing Day but it was the best one I’ve ever celebrated!

How Hubby Saved Christmas

There is a proper way for doing everything.  The fork goes on the left side of the plate, even though most people are right-handed and will have to pick up the fork with their left hand, then transfer it to their right hand; don’t “dog ear a book’s pages, especially if you’ve borrowed the book; separate the darks from the lights before you do the wash, so the darks don’t bleed on the lights; and dust before you vacuum (or is it vacuum before you dust?  I’ m still not sure about this one.) And there’s a proper way to decorate the Christmas tree.

The color and theme and placement of ornaments matters not. What matters is the ambiance while loading the tree with all 300 ornaments. (Obviously, that is a gross exaggeration. Then again, each of us gets at least one new ornament each year and the years add up and so do the ornaments.  Sure looks like 300 ornaments!)

But first and most important, the ambiance. And that is provided by John Denver and the Muppets.  It must be the genuine vinyl album from the 1990’s lovingly brought out each Christmas and played on the 1970’s turntable.  The problem is, we can’t recall where the loving place is, where we put John and the Muppets, eleven and a half months ago.  And where did we put the wires that connect the 1970’s turntable to the 1970’s speakers?  For awhile it was looking grim.  Worse than the Grinch.  We may be stealing our own Christmas if we can’t find John Denver and some speaker wires.

But not to worry! Hubby found John and the Muppets hanging out with the Beattles and The Lovin’ Spoonful right where we left them last Christmas.  And the wires were carefully tucked behind the turntable.  Man, we are good!  Hubby is good!

Christmas may now commence.

Another Sign I’m Getting OLD

It’s snowing! The first snowfall of the year.  I’ve texted my daughters and friends and excitedly shared the news that we have snow! And Christmas is only a week away.  How perfect is that?  Big fat, fluffy flakes have coated the grass and created a beautiful picture. And now the road is white, too.   It’s lovely to look at. But I had places to go and things to do.

So I assuredly got in my car and guided it down my long driveway to go to my yoga class.  I went down my pathetic, potholed road very slowly, because snow or no snow a sane person drives very slowly down my pathetic, potholed road.  I turned onto the main road which appeared slippery.

I then did what I do when I head out on a snowy road, I hit the brakes, while driving the breathtaking speed of 5 or 10 miles an hour, to test for slipperiness. And sure enough.  It was slippery.  But I doggedly continued, keeping my eye on the car a quarter of a mile ahead of me, progressing very slowly.  Yes, the hill was slippery.  And it was still slippery when I slowed down to turn around and come back home because I’d now decided that I can do yoga at home (or more likely not do yoga at home) rather than risk life and limb driving down and then trying to come back up, the hills that are between me and my yoga class.

All of which adds up to the fact that I’m old, too old to venture out on a beautiful snowy eve.

On the other hand I’m likin’ be home in front of my fire.

Think Snow!

Accidental Joy

How was your Thanksgiving? Filling, I suspect.  Mine was.  Filled with outstanding food and great family and friends.  Even so, it’s never quite like the Norman Rockwell picture, is it? Maybe that’s because I don’t have the turkey, being a vegetarian. Even so there are those moments…well, you know.

Not long ago I read Anne Lamott’s book Some Assembly Required and was really struck by her statement,

 “This family business can be so stressful — difficult, damaged people showing up to spend time with other difficult, damaged people, time that might be better used elsewhere — yet out of that, some accidental closeness, laughter, some pieced-together joy” *

Yes, we had some of that “accidental closeness, laughter, some pieced-together joy.”  Hope you did, too

*P. 67

*