Visions of Sugarplums

Christmas is in two days and we are trying to be festive in spite of living with Hospice.  The tree is decorated and we have a few things out and the stockings are hung over the fireplace.  Our friends still spend time with me while Marty runs errands.  In spite of their busy holiday schedules they still come by to help.  There is even a prediction we will have some snow around us on Christmas Day.  Its great to see the rain and snow in the mountains.  Very festive. 

The clot in my leg seems to have improved and is smaller and no longer painful. No morphine for four days.  I feel stronger today and able to turn myself in bed with no help.  I have a wonderful personal health aide who comes twice a week to bathe me and change my bed.  She is so caring and gentle. She came today and that makes me feel so good after she is finished.  With the help of our son Erik, he brightens my day and has made some of our work easier.

With my fickle taste buds and the light nausea I am hoping to be able to eat the seafood dinner Marty  is preparing for Christmas Day.  He is planning our traditional shrimp cocktail salad (Mother's recipe) and sautéed scallops.  Sounds yummy. 

This is not the Christmas either of us would have wished for but with the love of friends, family and even strangers, it will be  Merry Christmas.  I wish for all of you the best for you and your family.

Christmas party with the A Team

We have a group of friends who meet over food.  We call ourselves the A Team.  Long story that probably years ago I explained.  We all love good food and enjoying cooking.  Last week we gathered for food and for the love of each other.  Out Texas friends didn't make the party.  We have our finger crossed they will join us this summer.

The food is important, but the fellowship is what it really is about.  We have been through illnesses, deaths, moves, hard times, just about everything life could throw at us.  We stand together with love.  We sometimes get ticked at each other, we bitch about how someone does something, we forgive and forget.  But heaven help anyone else who tries to hurt one of us.  We are a family, we can pick on one of us, but no one else can hurt us.

Our party was wine, more wine and wonderful small plates.  Lots of food, love, and laughter.  I got permission to have a little wine and to taste some of the decadent food.

 

Our host Lew and some great food: spiced nuts, asparagus with aioli sauce, roasted cauliflower, deviled eggs, and more food to come.  And that is my glass of champagne.

I told you we laughed a lot.  Hank on left Thom on the right.  Usually Thom isn't in candid pictures because he takes all the pictures.

 

 

My country ham puffs.

 

 

Hostess Nancy placing  poached pears in a cabbage soup.  Yummy!

 

 

The beautiful table

 

 

Yucky picture of a fabulous dish.  This quesadilla was one of the best I have ever had.  Duck confit with incredible salsa.  We are still waiting for you all to share the recipe Lew and Nancy.  

 

 

Sinfully delicious!  Chocolate on chocolate with caramel and sea salt.  Thank you Hank and Thom for shooting my diet all to hell.

 

 

Hank and I have just said, . . .    well I won't go there.  Much laughter ensued. 

 

 

Nancy and me saying good bye.

 

It was a lovely party.  Good food and wine, good conversation, lots of laughter, and very special friends.  Love you A Team.  

 

 

 



It really is close to Christmas

Tuesday, as usual, I was at Kaiser School with the first graders.  Mostly I was grading papers and making up packets of graded work to go home.  But I also was keeping tabs on who wasn't working up to speed. 

They were doing a cut and paste math sheet that was the 12 Days of Christmas.  There were boxes that had each verse symbol: a partridge in a pear tree with the word first, a turtle dove and the word second, and so on.  They cut them out, put them in order, and glued the boxes to a long sheet of paper.  Before the work could go on the drying rack they had to read the words to an adult.  Then they wrote 3 sentences using the ordinal numbers.  They could all sing the song, and some were upset that I pointed to random boxes and they had to really read.  Mean Ms. Appel.

They later had to fill in blanks of three sentences.  They had to write it exactly as Ms. H had it on the board.  First blanks for  names, second blanks use any number and then a noun. They could put anyone and anything in the blanks.  Spelling counts, handwriting counts, and again it had to be as she had written it.  Really an easy exercise.

On the first day of Break  my friend Betty  gave to me,
3 dolls .

On the second day of Break  my  _______ ______  gave to me,
_______ ________.

On the third day of Break my _______ _______ gave to me,
_______ ________.

One lovely "I will do it my way" child wrote it out about 8 times.  I would erase it, show him the words he left out, explain again how to fill in the blanks, and he would just make up a whole new form. Mostly he left out one of the sentences. This is not a slow child, he reads well and does math well, but refuses to follow directions.  A major part of life is following directions.  He lost recess, and was also going to lose lunch recess.  He is pigheaded and always has to do work over and over.  When he finally accepts we won't allow his  half ass work, he will do the work perfectly.  Ms. H calls him her passive aggressive child.

Now for the it is close to Christmas.  Several things set off a classroom: substitute teachers,  rainy or snowy weather, a change in routine, and holidays.  Christmas and Halloween are the big one to make children go nutso.    The silent children were talking, the talkers were yelling across the room, some were just wandering from table to table chairs fell over and books were dropped.  A normal week before Christmas break. 

Christmas

We are still getting our apartment ready for us to live there.  We have cleaned, brought boxes and things that will fit in the car and put things up.  We have been working hard.  But Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we took off from the work and enjoyed the holiday.

For 30 +years we have gone into San Francisco on Christmas Eve to look at the Christmas decorations.  We walk through stores and hotels, and we gawk just like the tourists.  We stop to eat, walk some more, stop for drinks, walk, and then have supper. Lots of walking.   Sometimes we ride BART in and sometimes we drive in.  BART is the smart way.

When we got off BART, we walked through Bloomingdale's to get up to the street level. Very blingy.

 

Marty taking a picture of

 

 

                      decorated cable cars waiting to loads tourists for the ride of their lives.

Children looking at the windows at Macy's.   The SPCA had kittens in with the decorations.

                                                     The Christmas tree at Union Square.

This is a gingerbread/pastry masterpiece at the St. Francis Hotel.  I could have taken a picture showing the top, but the little boy wouldn't be in it.  He would look at his mother, then me, than point out the train, or something on the castle.  He was Christmas.

                                                               The top of the castle.

 

Bright shiny things at Gump's.

 

 

A girl can wish.

 

 

The family we are staying with told Santa we were at their house.  Santa brought treats and goodies for Marty and me.  Oh and of course there were goodies for our hosts. We had a lovely Christmas brunch with them and their friends. 

 

 

 

That evening we met our son Erik and his wife Jennifer at Skate's on the Bay and had Christmas Dinner. 

 

We had a wonderful Christmas.  Now to get moved in and begin 2013.

 

 





Christmas with the Family

Christmas Eve we drove to Davis to spend Christmas with our nephew Tres and his family.  If you remember we had taken his parents to Davis on Wednesday. 

Everyone but Marty and me are Catholic. Christmas Eve Mass is their tradition.  We stayed home and made sure food would be ready for the feast planned for dinner.

We had shrimp salad, a 5 layer salad, broccoli casserole, lobster mac, spoon bread, and salt crusted prime rib.  For dessert, Marty’s crème brulee as requested by the children.

                                                           

Casey set beautiful tables for the  adults and children.  Each plate held a Christmas cracker.

                                                     

Hank and Ann with the grandchildren as they were leaving for Mass.

Tres and Ava ready for Mass.

Tres carving the prime rib.  His mother Ann watches.

Maryann, an Airman nurse, who works with Casey.  As you can see we had all kinds of cookies, fudge, and other goodies.

                                                                  

We have pulled the Christmas Crackers and are all wearing our crowns.

We turned out the lights to get the full effect of Marty torching the crème brulee.

                                           

More fire.  Hall really was amazed by the torch.  I think he wanted one for Christmas.

Annabella helping Uncle Marty.

The children are in bed and the elves are putting together toys.  Not easy after lots of wine.

Hall and Annabella disc0vering what Santa brought.

                                                                  

Ava playing with one of her gifts.

Ava carrying her baby doll, headed for Annabella’s doll.  She decided she liked hers best.

As you can see, Christmas is great with little children and family.  We laughed, took gobs of pictures, eat way too much food, drank just the right amount of great wines, and had a lovely time.

Now we are home where it is very quiet and peaceful.  That is a good thing, also a bad thing.  Miss the family. 

Tres and his family will probably be in Turkey next year.  He has been told they will be transferred in early summer to Turkey.  Things change in the Air Force and they could end up somewhere else.  But is is pretty certain they will not be at Travis much longer.  Really will miss our family being so close.

Busy, busy holidays

The holidays are hectic.  Fun, but hectic.  My brother and his wife arrived today from Kentucky.  They weren’t here two hours before we left for San Francisco to all go to a party.  We still have museums to visit, gardens to visit, and restaurant reservations in the city.  Plus good food and wine in my kitchen.

Wednesday  we will take them to Davis to visit their son and his family.  We will spend Christmas with them in Davis.  The Bourbon Ball tasting contest will happen there.  I will post an update when we win.  Today we started bribing Little Brother and his wife.  They like our Bourbon Balls.

I will post as I have time.  I still have weddings to share with you.  I have first graders to tell about.  Bear with me.  I may not post as often as I usually do.  But I bet some of you will not have time to read me the next week or so.  I will try to post.  And I hope you will try to read me.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

Christmas in the city

Friday afternoon Marty and I rode BART into San Francisco.  We walked around Union Square and through some of the stores to see the Christmas decorations.  The city was beautiful and alive.

Remember to click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Crowds of people were thick and they were carrying lots of packages.  Bands and Carolers were on every corner.  You had to feel Christmassy with all the music in the air.

We then went up to the Hotel where Marty’s barber works.  We had a fun visit with her, and Marty got a great haircut.  Then we went to dinner.

Well we tried to go to dinner.  The city was so busy we couldn’t get into any of our favorite restaurants.  We couldn’t get a signal on our phones (thank you so much AT&T) to make reservations.  So we walked for ever from restaurant to restaurant.  Finally we got a signal and made reservations at La Central.

We hadn’t eaten there before.  Very nice and very good.  Then we went back to Union Square to see the lights at night.


This is the trombone section of the Cal Band playing Christmas music at Union Square.

Macy’s main store on Union Square. 

Macy’s gift to the city of San Francisco, a gorgeous Christmas tree.

As we were leaving, we saw this tall glittery being.  It was The Christmas Fairy.  We stopped to take pictures.

The Christmas Fairy pulled us out of the crowd and handed Marty’s camera to a man to take our picture.  The man messed up the picture, so his little girl said she could do it.  And a good job she did.

We had a lovely evening. 

CHRISTMAS (very long, settle in for a good read)

We have had a wonderful Christmas.  We went to Davis to be with my nephew Tres and his family. Our son Erik joined us.  Tres' father and mother, my little brother and his wife, flew in from Kentucky for a week. Last night they came home with us to spend a couple of days.  Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were so much fun. We have eaten good food, drunk excellent wines, had a Bourbon Ball taste off, laughed, cried over childhood memories, and had an incredible good time with three little children. 

This post will be long, it will have lots of pictures, it is written to share my good fortune of a family Christmas.

We began our trip on Friday afternoon.  There was a fog warning on the Benica Bridge.  You couldn't see the hood ornament on the car.  Then we had higher fog and stop and go traffic.  We drove for 20 minutes and went 2 miles.  Finally that broke up and we took off.  We are at the speed limit.  And I see on the ramp beside us a Highway Patrol car flying by us and then he begins that zigzag traffic control thingy.  We are the first in line behind him, and our speed drops to 25.  I am expecting a horrible wreck or a white out fog bank.  We go several miles and the Highway Patrol car suddenly flies off an exit.  No reason for the traffic break, so we all crank it back up to 70.  Finally we make it to Davis.  And we are hours behind the party.  Wine is flowing, taste treats are out, and laughter ensues.  We caught up quickly.

Below are some pictures of the two days.  As usual I have edited them down from 65+ to a fairly reasonable amount. Well sort of reasonable.

 Little Brother Hank greeting me.  He does have a weird sense of humor.  But I love him.

 Marty and the appetizers to hold us until supper.

 The beautiful table Casey set for our Christmas Eve dinner.  And those are not napkins on the plates, they  are English Crackers.  All kinds of little toys flew all over the table.

Tres and his father having a timed Spoons hanging from your Nose contest.  Hank won.  Tres says cheating was involved.

 Marty does love fire.  Here he is torching the creme brulee.  It was out of this world yummy.

 Little Brother does have more fun than everyone else.  Love the antlers. 

 We walked down the block to "Candy Cane Lane".  Every house was this decorated.  It was beautiful.

 The children are snug in their beds. Santa's elves are putting together a Disney Princess castle.  Behind them is Casey with the card table cover that makes a "castle". 

 Hall and family dog, Dexter, checking out the toys Santa left.

 More toys.

 Bella on her princes sleeping bag, ripping open a gift.  She was so polite.  They would hand her a gift and say this gift is from Aunt Janet and Uncle Marty.  Before she opened it she would come over and thank us.

 Sister in law Ann opening a gift.

 Casey screaming with joy.  She got exactly what she wanted.  A Garmin sport watch, it tracks all kinds of
things that a Iron Woman athlete needs.
 
 Tres with Ava, and Marty's hands.

 Closer view of Tres and Ava.

 Christmas Day brunch.  Egg and country ham sausage casserole, 7 layer salad, shrimp salad, cookies, fudge, hot biscuits.  And Mimosas.

 Ann reading the Christmas story to us before we ate.

The adults "helping" Hall with his toys.

We have had such a good time with little children and Christmas. The visit continues. 

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year.