Upstairs/Downstairs

Confession #451:
I haven't watched a single episode of Downton Abbey, Season 4.
(I'm sorry Alice! But you see, the NFL playoff games occur at the same time and I don't have the emotional energy to watch all of it.)

I HAVE been secretly working my way through Downton Abbey's "grandmother" series, Upstairs/Downstairs.  I call it the "grandmother" because Downton Abbey is a descendant of this show. In fact, the first season was astonishingly similar in plots and characters.

I didn't mean to get all involved in the Bellamy affairs!  I was in Bigfork for a week earlier in January, in a weakened state from travel and then a medical procedure, and agreed to try the first couple episodes of Season One.  By the time I left, I was hopelessly hooked.  It doesn't really make sense, either, because it's not a particularly riveting, action-packed show.  The characters are interesting, but not "J.R. Ewing"-interesting, if you know what I mean.  It's just...sort of like cheap chocolates; you can't really figure out why you keep going back to the box, because they aren't fabulous, but you just can't leave them alone!

Upstairs/Downstairs is set in a wealthy household in London at the turn of the century (1900's) and just like Downton, the viewer is seeing the drama of the prosperous family as well as the servants, often intertwined. At first glance, it seems as though all they do is drink tea and/or cocktails, and chat about society. But I'm on Season Three  Five, right now, and just went through a shocking episode that involved a former servant who ended up with a butcher knife and...
Well.
I can't tell you more.

The funny thing about BBC shows is that if you watch one episode, you're fine.
If you watch TWO episodes in a row, you'll answer the phone "Hullo? Oh, not a bit, old chap! I was preparing to have a cup of tea...would you care to join me, say, around 3? Veddy good!"
If you watch THREE episodes in one day...which you can only really do if you're bed bound and out of John Grisham novels...you'll be convinced you need to get a ladies maid (or valet, if you're a gentleman), and that celebrating Armistice Day this year wouldn't be a bad idea.
After tea, of course.

Exercise Spells Happiness

For the last month or so, I've quit running.  Not altogether, but I'm certainly not running every day like I had been; maybe two reluctant runs a week.  It was painful, cold, boring and early.  It was much more pleasant to have another cup of coffee, sit on my ever-widening butt and check out Pinterest. (Which, by the way, is an even bigger time sucker than Facebook; it's like flipping through this HUMONGOUS magazine that never ends.) Also, there was Fat Pete's fudge, appetizers every time I turned around, comfort food for the family during snow storms and...this is the worst...cocktails every evening.  Of course, when one has cocktails (yes, more than one), the motivation to run the next morning at 6 a.m. in the dark and snow is pretty much non-existent.  To top it off, we couldn't seem to get organized to do yoga, so there went that workout.

The Boston 5 pounds had friends over.

And I haven't had my hair done in 6 months.
I'm a mess.

A mess on the mend.

This morning, I woke up pain free for the first time in at least a month!  And I wanted to run. I wanted it in a hungry way.  I NEEDED to run TODAY.

Got the kids fed, lunches packed, dogs situated, coffee made, email checked, then left.

I was sort of creaky.  I felt like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz...happy to be moving, just not moving really all that gracefully or fast.  Okay, I NEVER run all that gracefully or fast, but it was even worse this morning.

I started thinking creatively; planning books, sewing head bands, filing. It's tough to creatively file, so that was a stretch.

My brain was clicking away, my body was creaking away...I hit 3/4 of a mile and realized something:
I was enjoying myself!
It was like seeing an old friend, unexpectedly.
Gosh, it's been a long time since I enjoyed a run; the sunrise and the squeak of the snow under my shoes.
I warmed up, loosened up, lightened up (no more filing in my head) and really enjoyed the run. I kept it to an easy two miles because I was limited by time and also didn't want to break that little magic that had come back.  Now, it's an hour later and my body is STILL thanking me. Mostly because I'm finally drinking coffee, but still...

I don't know why my heart is so stubborn.  I found this last week that the more people talked about fitness goals, whole foods, signing up for marathons, posted workout motivational signs on Facebook,  blah, blah, blah, that instead of wanting to be part of that momentum, I wanted to be the opposite.  I'm sure you find that shocking.

I guess I'm writing this more as an accountability post than anything.  (In case you were wondering where I was going with it...)  I wanted to tell SOMEBODY that I had a good run, an enjoyable run.  I wanted to admit to my sloth, because writing it down makes it impossible to pretend it didn't happen.  I wanted to make sure I remembered where I'm starting from, again.

A mess on the mend.

Top Ten (To The Second Power) Amazing Experiences In Boston

In no particular order...

(There will be more detailed posts to follow.  I just had to start SOMEWHERE!)

1. The raw oyster at Legal Sea Foods (tasted like the ocean, loved it!)
2. My office at Brown University...my HALF of the office, for a week, that is.
3. Gus, Sue's Portuguese Water dog!  
4. The Jewish prayer book that we read from at the Yom Kippur service; it reads back to front, just like I always read magazines.
5. JoJo, our Italian waitress at Al Dente Ristorante. You don't mess with JoJo; she knows her chianti!
6. Sourdough toast and Dave's scrambled eggs on Saturday morning.
7. The vendors at Fenway park, pitching peanuts and hollering, "Doh-awgs! Getcher doh-awgs, he-ah!".
8. Sparkling silver fairy-dust sand of Narragansett.
9. The Resnick house...do you remember the house in the Steve Martin "Father of the Bride" movie?...it looks like that on the outside.  
10. TREES....there were trees EVERYWHERE!  I love trees...
11. Jamie, the hippie gardener in Rhode Island that I unintentionally offended by re-arranging his planting order without getting all the information before doing so.  
12. Everyone in New England walks fast.  Seriously.  Even the grandmas.  
13. The firemen at Boston North End station, Engine 8, Ladder 1...especially the lieutenant who insisted on taking our pictures.  
14. The clam fritters at Aunt Carrie's restaurant...as if clams weren't already wonderful enough on their own, they fried them in dough.  Swoon...
15. Monet's waterlilies, in REAL LIFE!
16. Sue's cousin who shows up early to help set up the break fast, can't hold his rum and thinks he should work on a ranch in Montana for a summer....God help us all.  :)
17. Concord grapes, fresh off the vine...wow!
18. "Sweet Car-o-line...bum, bum, bum....good times never seemed so good..." at Fenway.
19. Seeing the park (and street) from one of my favorite children's books, Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McClosky. 
20. The lions at Boston Public Library...there really and truly IS a "Between the Lions" place! 
21. Lobster roll at Durgin Park, with a cold beer and incredible authentic Boston baked beans which are WAY better than all the cheap Bush impostors.
22. Margaret, who ate a tomato sandwich and told us about the Kennedy family and her encounters with them. 
23. Cannoli, with chocolate custard filling.
24. The voices on the street....accents from across the country and around the world; beautiful.
25. The bicyclist riding with a pigeon on his helmet.  Real or stuffed, we don't know, but either way, it was a remarkable sight!
26. Twin lobsters for $15!  (I don't think they were related, but they were a tasty pair, nontheless...)
27. Lighthouses...make my heart happy, just seeing them in the distance.
28. The General Hooker Entrance....complete with working women.
29. A beer at Cheers (The Bull and Finch).  I channeled my inner Norm...
30. Dustin Pedroia at bat! 
31. The wedding at the beach club that we weren't invited to but attended anyway, in our sandy, rumpled clothes, and at which we cried as though we were dear friends.  Carrie and Heath, we wish you all the best!
32. Clam chowder.  BOSTON CLAM CHOWDER!!!  One of the first things I ate when I got there, the last thing I ate before boarding the plane.
33. Learning the difference between Georgian architecture and Federalist design...something to do with a butter knife on the facade.  (Right, Sue?)
34. The old, old songs at the temple that everyone sang together...in Hebrew(?).
35. Seeing a "mermaid's purse".
36. Sushi! No...really!  It's delicate and soft. both in flavor and texture...yum.
37. Explaining team roping to Brown students who looked as though I was speaking Swahili to them.
38. Obama 2012...everywhere I turned.  He's sort of a big deal in Massachusetts.
39. Fat sea gulls. I'm talking Thanksgiving-turkey fat, here.  They almost grunted when they had to take off in flight.
40. Ocean foam around my legs.
41. Oooo! And the hidden cave in the rocks at the end of the "secret" path to Max's diving rock!
42. The Green Monster.
43. Tea with milk and sugar at Tealuxe, eating an almond pastry and watching the traffic.
44. The redneck on his cell phone in the DFW airport who was better than a Jerry Springer show; we, the waiting and weary travelers, learned things about the south that we didn't know we didn't want to know about the south. 
45. Yarmulkes 
46. John Singer Sargent's painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882) took my breath away!
47. Old North Church (where the lamps for Paul Revere were hung for only a few minutes) was worth our time.  Obviously Paul Revere's HOUSE was not...we skipped it!
48. Fried whole belly clams; they sound revolting, but they're rich and addictive.
49. I found live quahogs on the beach!  They ALSO sound revolting, but they're really sorta cute.
50. Parking garages should start at Level 1, for heaven's sake!!! 20 minutes, two floors on BOTH sides and we finally found the car.  Whew!

To be continued...

A Bookclub Looks at Buffett

At last; the post you've all been waiting for...
Last night was our Buffett bookclub gathering!
Let me just get one thing out of the way and then I'll report on the whole mess: there were no bikinis.

It almost didn't happen, though, like I had it planned.  For one thing, as of 2 p.m., the luau decorations and supplies STILL weren't here.  Oh, they were out for delivery, UPS reassured me, but that could mean 5:30 p.m.  One can't very well have a tropical themed party in the middle of Eastern Montana in March with two  pineapples and some shells gleaned from the bottom of the toy box.  And it's not like I could forage outside for decorations! Miles and miles of dead, brown grass, cowpies and the occasional sagebrush....

The UPS truck DID show, just in the nick of time!
Maggie and I RAN to meet the driver...I'm not lying...we RAN.  He was a little startled. (I can't imagine why; I hadn't had a shower and had been cleaning all day in my most glamorous tshirt and mom jeans, and Maggie was frazzled from the school day.)  Signed for the package, we ran into the house, he peeled out of our yard...the party is ON!    

You've never seen a house go from "cleanish trailer" to "tropical paradise" so quickly. 
Parrots, grass table skirt, candles, shells, backdrops...it was like getting a prom set up in 20 minutes with a four foot tall helper. 

You can't read it, but the black hat with the pink lipstick motif says, "I'm the woman to blame!".  My mother in law went to a Margaritaville restaurant in Florida a couple weeks ago and brought it back for me!  (She says it's for when I work cows with the guys.  I can't imagine WHY she'd think it was appropriate there.  :)

Little take-home bags with wacky nail polish, cocoa butter lotion, tropical beverage stir sticks, paper umbrellas (of course) and flowers for their hair.  Maggie helped me make them up in 10 minutes!

Okay, so the decorating was done...time for a shower.

(I'd have give quite a lot of my sister-in-law's financial resources for a margarita just then; guests arriving in 20 minutes, still need to prep the pork.  And that's after I get hair and makeup done! It has to be done, you know, because I boldly advertised photos to my blog readers. Dang, dang, dang...)

Showers would be a lot quicker if women didn't have to shave their legs.

I'm just sayin'....

Tossed on my Hawaiian party dress, ran a comb through my hair, looked for my makeup...

Drats!

I left it in the car yesterday!

Well, no big deal, right?

Big deal.

BECAUSE...

That very, exact moment in time, the Garfield County Sheriff chose to put on a clinic for the new deputy on how to start and shift the official deputy pickup, right there in my yard. 

That's right.

Roscoe P. Coltrane and Enos were there to retrieve the pickup, but it wasn't a start-'er-up-and-get-'er-into-town process.  They were trying out the microphone, the computer and everything. I mean to tell you, he was thoroughly training on this girl! (Do you suppose THAT had anything to do with the level of instruction? Hmmm...)

Whatever.

I had guests arriving in 10....9.....8....minutes!

Where it gets tricky is that if Roscoe spotted me in my Hawaiian floweredy dress, he'd talk for just ever.

He'd PROBABLY invite himself to the party, because, you know, it was a fun looking shindig if the decorations were any precursor to the festivities to follow.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Finally, they walked around to the other side of the rig, I took my chance and bolted for my car.

Made it back to the house without being spotted....glory hallelujah!...and ran to the bathroom to apply spackle and frazzle mah hay-ah (my hair).

During this time, unbeknownst to me, (SERIOUSLY Traci and Joni...I truly did not hear it!) Roscoe had wrapped up the seminar and was knocking on my door.

Traci and Joni pulled in, just before he was to make a rescue, thinking I was lying dead on the floor.

I'm not even joking.

He thought something was very wrong, because I was obviously home and not answering the door.

(And I thought I over-reacted to dumb things!)

Still no margaritas.

But, hey...homemade guacamole and chips, coconut bread, sweet potato fries, fruit skewers and conch fritters!

We'll survive.

About 10 minutes later, Anne and Marisa showed up with the key lime pie and....moment of silence here...margarita mix and tequila.

Buffett playing, adornment with leis...

Let the party begin!

And it really did.

Here are some of the finer moments...

Margaritas, child...make haste!!!

(She measures, I don't; made it interesting as Anne had never made margaritas and I have made a couple.)

Shrimp!

And big, honking earrings...sheesh.

Please note the umbrella.  I had 144 of those babies; we'll have umbrellas in our drinks...tea, chocolate milk, whatever...for another five years! Also, the green thingie hanging down by Marisa?  Parrot tail feathers, of course!
Incidentally, we were astonished Anne made it to the party, much less able to be upright.  She'd just been home one hour after a Denver trip and picking up her mother in law at the airport in Billings. 

Please...someone comment on this woman's Bermuda shorts.  She was perhaps a little upset that she was the only one who dug a pair out and was brave enough to wear them! (I was in a dress, with equally white legs AND shoulders, so I didn't want to hear about it.)

Fryin' the fritters!  Which were AMAZING, by the way.  A-MAZ-ING.  I'm gathering up recipes to share with you, because you all need them. I need them.  I think if all we'd had to eat were the fritters, we'd have been good. But we did all the food justice.  We're polite that way; even going back for seconds to make the cook feel VERY good about her potluck dish....

Discussing deep, important things, such as "What's YOUR favorite Jimmy Buffett song?"

Oh...we DID discuss the book for a few minutes. It was not a big hit, but I don't care...it was a fun read for the dark month!

Around 10, Wayland returned to go to bed or something....I don't know....and I asked him to take a group picture.

It was a process....

We had a reluctant participant.

(She was the only one who had not had a margarita.)

 Action shots...

It got a little wild.

Well, she's in the picture, but she's hiding.  This is where the photographer said that it looked like Anne all of a sudden sprouted big hair.  We lost it, again!

This is as good as it gets!

We missed Susie, but I have a take-home bag for her and we'll see her next month, I hope!

OH!

And the book we'll be reading is Anne's selection:

South of the Border, West of the Sun  by Haruki Murakami

Mental Diarrhea...

THAT got your attention, didn't it?!
(Oh, how I hope my mother doesn't read this...)

I've got all sorts of little, insignificant thoughts that can't stand alone as a post, but I feel the overwhelming (and probably ill-advised) need to share them with you. 

For instance...
Nearly every morning, when I run, I meet this grumpy old skunk who is trundling back to his burrow after a long night of carousing up and down the creek.  We've gotten sort of accustomed to one another; I holler so he knows I'm coming, he raises his tail in greeting, we keep going.  This is going to sound completely deranged, but I've gotten to where I look forward to seeing him and am disappointed when he's not there.

It's pie season!  Yes!  Remember last year, when I went through about a month of sincere pie-love?  It's back.  Cohagen School is having a harvest dinner/pie auction on November 18th, and I think I should start practicing now.  Sour cream raisin pie....I think there's probably only one person in ten that like a sour cream raisin pie and I'm that one, here.  With meringue.  *sigh*  Pie love...there'll be more on this, later. (Incidentally, if you're planning on coming to the harvest dinner and think you'd like to bid on a pie, I will take requests now, to ensure that your favorite kind is there.  And if I can't do it, I know of a couple other pie girls who CAN!)

My bum calves, Lily and Willy, are gone.  I know.  I'm a little sad.  Do you know what makes me cry, about this?  It's not that they're going to be hamburger soon...although that's not a pleasant thought, either.  It's the thought of how scared and bewildered they must've been at the sale barn, how frightening the sale ring was for them.  Every year, that nearly kills me.  But next spring will come, with new flower-baby bums, and we'll start all over again!

This is out of the blue, but do you watch the music/movie awards shows?  I usually don't, simply because they're deadly boring.  But when I DO, it brings out the worst in me; for about thirty minutes, I find myself cattily looking at the over-the-top fashion (good and bad), watching the faces of the nominees, rolling my eyes at the acceptance speeches.  Last night was the CMA awards and I got sucked in because Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood were hosting, picking on EVERY person in country music.  It was highly entertaining when they brought out the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill Barbie dolls. And this morning, I notice that everyone is all in a fluff that Taylor Swift got Entertainer of the Year.  Drama, drama, drama...(She had a lovely dress and wore it well.  Drats. I can't even disparage her fashion sense...)

Today is Sara Hagedorn Calvert's birthday!  Huzzah! Now THERE'S a girl who can understand pie love, sad bum goodbyes, and friendly skunks....  :)  Think Bon Appetit meets Agri-news.  She's a treasure of a friend and I'm so grateful she e-ntroduced herself last year.  Happy birthday, Sara!

Tonight is bookclub; we've been reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp and you'll get the report/menu tomorrow.  I know.  You'll be waiting breathlessly until then....

That's all for right now.
See? It wasn't as bad as you'd imagined after reading the title of the post, right?

Let's see....now, where was I...?

A college football post is a terrible place for a blog to die...

Well, it's no coincidence that the Chronicles stopped cold 24 hours before I turned 40. 
I couldn't stand the thought of trying to square off and face that dragon in my own lair.
Now, for those of you who have not yet turned 40, and for those of you who are past 40(stylishly), this is not a big deal.  Forty, shmorty!

It's a big honkin' deal, okay?!

All those surveys in the back of magazines and on websites?  I just jumped a bracket.  And in Shape magazine, it was a significant jump.  I'm only two brackets away from the final one....60+.   (Cold sweat...)

I can no longer shop at Maurices without getting that sweet little teenage clerk who asks if I'm buying something for my daughter.  I can no longer shop at Maurices, period.  (Not that this is a big deal; I never shop there.  It's just that I probably shouldn't, now.)

I HAVE to get mammograms, now!  It's no longer optional!  (I'm pretty sure the Mammo-cops will be showing up any day, now, to escort me to my manditory appointment...)

Probably should look into the add-on moisturizers from Mary Kay.  I can no longer pretend that all I need are the basics.  I've gotta spring for the plumping serums and smoothing creams, to fill in all the lines that somehow appeared to deepen after September 18th.  (Sniffle)

All those cards that were HILARIOUS at Hallmark a couple years ago have really lost a lot of their humor. 

Get this: the little "you can't buy beer or cigarettes unless you were born after this date" sign is the year after I graduated from high school. After!!! (You laugh; it's a blow, sweetie....just you wait!)

I turn up the car radio...not so I can be all bad, but so I can hear it.  (SOB!)

The word "matronly" is applicable.

Kid Rock turned 40 this year, too, and released an album that, except for one or two songs, could probably be played with kids in the room.  I'm serious!  What happened?!?  


I can't go on....

Let's just say that I've had a hard time coming to terms with the big 4-0.
My mother is positively gleeful at my angst!

And, so, the blogging stopped for awhile.

Coincidentally, the fall cow work began the next day and I haven't really had a moment to think of anything else.  John Moore, a Miles City author who deigned to join our bookclub one evening, told us that his stories came to him while he was riding and trailing cows.  Mine, obviously, don't. 

I have another 4 posts, brewing in my head, but I need to put babies to bed and read a paper for the Farmer's Intro to Government class. 

Don't go far...!

Little Women

That's right, folks...I'm on a roll.
You get not one, not two, but three posts today!
(Pretend to be excited, okay? Thanks.)

And this is a chick post.  (You could probably tell by the title, but I always feel obliged to warn the guys who read the Chronicles.  That way if they are scarred for life by some estrogen-loaded post, they can't say they didn't get the disclaimer up front.)

Maggie and I just finished watching the movie version of "Little Women"...the Wynnona Ryder/Susan Sarandon version.  It was a very honest attempt at capturing the flavor of the book and certainly got all the period setting and wardrobe right.  I think Meg and Beth were portrayed a little flatly; that they got John Brooke ALL wrong (he needs to be tall and dark and confident). 

Just as always, I found myself thinking about which of the women I most related to or resembled.  It's not always the same thing, you know.  I've done this as long as I've been reading the book. (And, yes, I've read the book a hundred times, conservatively.)

Was it Meg?  The oldest daughter, kind and maternal, with a quiet confidence and good intentions...
Jo?  The impulsive tomboy who loved words, her head full of impossible dreams and stories, impatient and loyal.
Perhaps it was Beth?  A content homebody, shy and musical, whom everyone loves because she always thinks of others before herself.
Or Amy?  The bright youngest who longs to be more of everything, artistic and funny by using big words that are almost, but not quite, right. 

Who do you most relate to?  Who are you most like?

(I find that when I was younger, I had a little of each of them; enough that I couldn't clearly choose one that I was most like.  With time, my personality has perhaps become more formed and set, and I can clearly see the one that I resemble and relate to the most.)