WEDDINGS, WEDDINGS, and more WEDDINGS

A very busy day marrying couples. I arrived at 1:00 and sat for 40 minutes. Then it picked up. It was a steady flow of weddings. I married a couple and then did the paper work and married the next one. I think I did 8 or 9 weddings. I lost track. I do know I was there until nearly 5:00. They have to be punched into the computer by 4:00 to be married. So lots of people.

No crazies today. Just lots of love. That doesn't mean there weren't some who didn't meet my old fashioned Southern idea of proper attire or correctness. This was the day of tattoos and bosoms. And the tattoos were all across the bosoms, and other parts of the body. It also was the day for beautiful men's suits. I swear one groom's suit had to have cost $1000. It was a perfect fit, beautiful rich black you just wanna touch it material. The groom was about 25 years old. I don't know how he could afford this suit, but he looked drop dead gorgeous in it.

I had one couple who was heavily tattooed. Large words on her bosom and shoulders, and up and down their arms. They had strange looking witnesses, and the bride also was a little goth looking. The bride was falling apart, she was visibly shaking and getting paler. I told them they could sit while I did the wedding. They said no, they could stand. They got paler and paler. Oh my word was she in love and so was he. Their voices became softer and softer. It was if they were the only people in the room as they said their vows. After the wedding I had them sit down, I thought they both were going to pass out.

One couple did not want to see each other in their wedding apparel until the bride walked through the door. So they dressed and he waited up front in the wedding room. She waited in the bathroom until we told her to come out. He was in black dress pants and vest, white shirt and tie, and a huge silver cross. She was in a ecru on white strapless floor length brocade dress with a shoulder length veil that was over her face. They were radiant. There was only me and one witness. But they wanted the feel of a fancy wedding and dressed as if 100 guests were in the wedding room. She was so cute, she said she refused to cry because that would mess up her make up. She did cry after the wedding.

Lots of love in the wedding room today. No weddings that I really didn't want to do. They were old enough, no 18 year old babies. They were happy, they were all so in love. And some were so eager. My last couple was so cute and eager. They were large, I looked a little bit dainty next to them. He was in a nice black suit, she was in a nice white cocktail dress. Even though she was large, she was absolutely beautiful, in an Elizabeth Taylor way. As they said their vows he had a little tear spillage. But the bride was so funny, as I started to pronounce them ( By the power vested in me . . .) she started bouncing. This woman was bouncing like Tigger. I almost laughed as I pronounced them married. Such love, and a perfect ending to my day.

READING

I read voraciously. I am in a weekly mystery book group. And I read lots of other books. Sometimes I like the group books and sometimes I don't. And the same for my outside reading.

Janet R our book group moderator receives 100s and 100s of books from publishers. We get to read them and if they are good we report back to her and the group. And we return the good books for her to read.

I picked up one a couple of weeks ago. Honestly Dearest, You're Dead by Jack Fredrickson. He isn't an author I was familiar with. And from the title and the cover I thought Chick Lit or a vampire story. Wrong. I really, really liked this book. The writing is sometimes humorous, very descriptive, and lots of plot turns. Old ladies watching porn, bad dressers, teen love and fights with city hall. All this and murder. The writing is more dark than humorous, but the humor is very helpful to relieve the tense parts. Sometimes I did need a score card for all the players, but I kept up.

I am not sure if quoting from the book is legal, but I am going to do it. The main character has a thing about Wal-Mart and Oreos. It runs through the whole book. And almost makes sense to me.

"I have a theory that, when the apocalypse comes, everyone will be living inside Wal-Marts and won't learn that the outside world has ended for at least a generation or two, and then only because the Oreos run out. For by then , the last of the cities and towns will have long since crumbled away, obsolete as buffalo skins, as dozens of generations will have been born, lived entire live, died and been recycled into puppy food inside huge, windowless Wal-Domes."

This continues on for a page and a half. Loved it. The book is worth reading just for pages 26 and 27, The Wal-Mart Essay.

I CONFESS . . .

I am a from scratch cook. Marty is a from scratch cook. Both our families are scratch cooks. I wrote about Rao's an Italian brand that was worth using, It tastes great, it looks good ( no tomato skins floating in the sauce), it is worth opening the jar. I don't use canned sauces. But trust me Rao's is good. I wrote about this brand in a previous blog.

Marty cooked tonight. Hallelujah!!! (And he cleaned up) He sauteed diced chicken, put in fresh asparagus. cooked some fancy pasta called tortiglionini , combined it with the Rao's Arrabbiata Sauce and put it on an heated plate. A lovely meal. We also had a mixed greens salad with my home made blue cheese dressing. The sauce was as good or better than I can make from scratch. And it was ready about 3 hours faster than I could make it. This was worth the $9.00 a jar. It says it will serve 6. Not at our house, maybe 4 1/2. Still a bargain when you factor in time and materials. So maybe some store bought products are OK to use. But I am very careful. Scratch cooking is still 98% better.

As to my blog about Meniere's disease ( look at the blog below this one), I have done a study over the last couple of days. You should not drink with Meniere's in an active mode. Trust me, wine just makes me dizzier. I can hardly find my wine glass.

IT'S RAINING, IT'S POURING, THE OLD MAN IS SNORING

Rain, we love it and hate it at the same time. California is in a severe drought. Some of us are on water rationing. And those of us who are on rationing are bitter about you water wasters. We so need every drop of rain, but as a Californian, after about 2 hours of rain I want to know WHERE IS THE SUN?

I really am happy it is raining. Really I am. But does the sun have to go away? And couldn't it just rain while I am sleeping at night. I mean really: an umbrella and a raincoat with a hood, not a good look; dangerous driving conditions ( no rain for months or years really makes for slick roads when it rains); and just icky depressing weather. I know every drop is drinking water. Every snow flake in the mountains is crucial for our drinking water. But we are spoiled. We are Californians, and we don't do bad weather.

We plan for a picnic and we know the weather will be perfect. We want to walk on the beach, climb a mountain, have dinner on the veranda. No problem. We don't have rainy days. We need to work in the yard, no problem, it isn't going to rain. But after several years of no rain, it is a problem. And we have the problem now.

When we first came to California in 1978 there was a drought. There was water rationing. A huge shock to someone from Kentucky. Kentucky is a very wet, humid state. Water is not a problem. The only rationing I had heard of (and don't remember )was from WWII. But we learned how to ration water. And I still remember the poem/rule from Herb Caen.

If it is yellow let it mellow, if it is brown flush it down.

For some reason that offends some of my family and friends. But trust me, we are following that rule and are within our allotment set by EBMD.

PS: The old man is snoring: I never understood that part of the poem.

Where did the door go?

Inner ear problems, Meniere's disease, vertigo, just plain dizzy. All of these are nearly the same, just a little bit different. They all mean you are dizzy, the room spins, you can't walk the line for the cop.

Around 30 years ago I was very dizzy and laid down on the floor. At that point I couldn't figure out how to get off the floor. I had no idea which way was up. I was on the floor and very still, and the room was spinning and whipping around. I thought I was having a stroke or something really bad. With great effort I pulled the phone down and called Kaiser, they put me on hold. So I called 911. The paramedics arrived and told me to go to the emergency room. I wasn't having a stroke but I needed a doctor. They said it would cost a fortune for me to go in the ambulance and to get my husband or someone to take me. It wasn't life or death. The husband was on a plane, the son was in elementary school; so the neighbor took me. I had/have Meniere's disease.

That means the fluid in my ears sloshes and I have no sense of balance. To me often the room is spinning. I see the walls move, very fast. When I walk toward a door, I may miss the door because it moves. I am walking and I just lurch to the side. I often look like I am drunk.

The weird thing about this disease is it will wake you up in the middle of the night with a spinning room. I have rolled over in bed and jiggled the ear fluid. And the motion I feel wakes me up. I watch the room whip around me and try not to throw up. I feel the motion, and sometimes it is really unpleasant. If I have an attack during the day, I can only keep from falling out of my chair by holding on to it. Sometimes I walk by holding on to the furniture or the wall.

I will go months without more than a mild feeling of motion. And sometimes it is full blown spinning. The attacks will last just minutes or days.

I woke up several times last night with the room whipping by my head. And then it would quit. The alarm went off and I sat up slowly (always I move slowly when moving up or down). I then staggered to the end of the bed and grabbed the bedpost. Then I studied where the door seemed to be. Could I hit it or would I bounce off the wall? I made it through the door the first time. In a couple of hours, I was fine.

One of my biggest fears is an attack while driving. Besides the danger of not knowing where things really are, explaining to the cop would be awful. Please sir, I can't touch my nose. No sir, I can't hop on one foot, nor can I walk that line. Please sir, let me just take the breathalyzer test.

I am in AWE

My friend Janet Rudolph is amazing. She has a mystery business, she runs our weekly reading group, does PR work for Left Coast Crime, and publishes an international journal. She runs her home and works to control (I say control because the dogs are big, active, and very strong) two wonderful dogs and a lovely cat. She has beautiful roses and orchids all over the property. And she writes several blogs. Her new one is Dying for Chocolate. Look down to the left and you will see it as a blog I follow. Read it and mark it as a favorite. Pass it on to your friends.

Chocolate, mysteries, puppy dogs and cats. What a well balanced woman. Oh, she is married to the lovely Frank. We all love and adore him too.

WE ATE OUR WAY AROUND THE WORLD

We have spent Sunday and Monday at the Fancy Food Show . There are at least 2000 exhibitors , 24,000 attendees, 250,000 products and 81 countries represented at the show. And miles and miles of aisles to walk. You walk, you talk to vendors, you taste samples, and sometimes you spit out what you taste. My feet are swollen and my legs are so tired. We had a wonderful time.

Every food related product you can think of we saw: smokers, portable kitchens, packaging, wines, waters, cheeses, chocolates and more chocolates, sausage, hams, fungi, candy, pasta, sauces, olive oils, caviar, pate, prepared desserts, prepared meats, and on and on and on.

Many of these are businesses tying to be picked up by Safeway or Whole Foods. We talked to one woman who had a good food product. She told us how hard it is to get on a grocery shelf, especially since she had a full time job other than her food line. There are dreams at this show also. Many are trying to get the food service industry to use them. And many are companies we have used for years. Marty and I looked at all the prepared foods and wondered just how much is really made by the restaurant chefs.

One of the things we noted was the range of cleanliness at the booths. They are showing in California. We thought that California health laws would be in play. Evidently not. Most booths the samples were served by people with latex gloves on. They would have either little spoons or toothpicks to pick up the food. Other booths had no gloves and would have some toothpicks. They picked the food up with their bare hands. They would offer you food, there would be no more toothpicks and they expected you to reuse your toothpick. Some didn't have any toothpicks, you just picked up the meat or cheese and tried not to touch the rest of the food. We decided not to let this bother us too much.

We had some incredible prosciutto and Serrano hams. The pates were lovely, more cheeses than I knew were out there. We found great store bought Italian sauces made by Rao's (found in your local Safeway ). We bought some tonight for dinners we are too tired to cook from scratch.

We decided some of the hot items are wasabi flavored anything, honey, waffles,( they used them for dessets, breakfast, little tiny ice cream cones, appetizers ), and chocolate. I think ratio wise there were more chocolate booths then anything else.

This was a great two days, and it continues Tuesday. We are too worn out to go another day. Plus Marty has to work and I have things to do also.

GRAN TORINO

Yesterday Marty and I went to see Gran Torino. We knew from the reviews it was an excellent movie. But for me, if Clint Eastwood is in it, I will go see it. I have been a huge fan since Rawhide. I even like the movies with the chimp. The man is 78 and he is still hot, hot, hot. Of course I am 65 and older men appeal to me.

Spoiler Alert. The movie was not what I expected. I thought it was more a bang bang shoot um up type film. No. The trailer doesn't show the true meaning of this film. The movie is about Walt and his battle with the changing world. It is friendship, bad family relations, gang problems, and an old bigot who softens. It also is very funny. He growls like a dog when unhappy, which is most of the time. He spouts words that no one else would dare say in public. And it is really funny when he says these awful racial slurs. You have to laugh as you gasp in horror. We all know people like Walt. They are from another time and don't want change. But then Walt begins to soften toward the Asian neighbors who have changed his neighborhood. He teaches a young man to be a man. He accepts friendship from people he used to consider the enemy. He learns and grows. And as Walt says, he fixes things. The movie is funny but also it is a 3 hanky movie. I cry easily, but I was not alone crying, I saw many people wiping their eyes.

I say it is Oscar worthy. Great acting by many in the film, a great message, great music, and it entertained at a high level.

Go see it.

Censored

Censorship, censored, censor. What ugly words. And we as Americans rarely have to deal with the words or issue.

Many people think the last 8 years have been a dictatorship. Some think rights were taken away, that we no longer have any rights or freedom. They are oh so wrong. We can protest in the streets, we can write letters to the editor, we can blog. We can get changes made. We can do about anything we want if we don't hurt others or property. On Tuesday our national leadership will change. It changed because the people wanted it. There were no battles, no guns, there was a day of voting and there will be a day of moving vans.


Things don't work that way in the some parts of the world. As some of you know we have a friend in an Asian country. Blogs are no longer allowed in this country that will go un-named. He has been shut down. No postings since Christmas Eve. Some things are automatic on his blog: Janet Rudolph's blog and mine are updated as is the stock market report. But he can't post. For some reason he can IM to Marty and tells us he is safe. But he is not allowed to post his thoughts.

Be thankful of being in the United States. We are so blessed.


Censorship an ugly word.

UPDATE ON PROTEST

From the news reports there were only minor problems tonight. A few arrests were made. Two who were arrested had Molotov cocktails in their backpacks. Nice.

But it looks like no burning or looting this time.

I am still glad the County shut things down. I did not want to be anywhere close to the protesters. And I did not want my friends to be caught up in it either. Mob mentality wins too often.