"I just KNEW your house was magical!"

This was the statement my friend Amber exclaimed yesterday as she and her kids visited us for the first time.

Now, my house is a lot of things....dusty, rather cluttered at times, quirky, warm, small....but it has never once occurred to me that it's in any way magical!

As I picked up and puttered around this morning, I tried to think of what might make it magical.

Perhaps it was the fact that she was greeted at the door by a pirate who was heartily informing the visitors of maps and buried treasure in our yard.

Maybe it was the sparkly pink flamingo sunglasses resting next to the tiara adorned teapot.

Or the conversation over the lunch table sincerely examining the feeding habits of foot trolls.

The dragon pictures scattered about the house?

Our dogs' thoughts that are narrated by everyone in the family, as though translating for a foreign cousin who wants to participate but doesn't know the language?

The coconut happily hanging out with the homegrown tomatoes on the counter?

Or maybe it's the dust bunnies with cardboard box houses that the kids created...

I don't know.
Maybe it's not magical, it's just "crazy" and she was politely reluctant to use that particular word, bless her heart!
But she mentioned the magic more than once, so something struck her deeply (besides the garlic in the pizza...).

I would hope that some of the magic would be how delighted we are to have guests, how they feel loved and appreciated, that the hugs we greet them with are genuine and deep.
I hope some of the magic in our home is the humor and safety to discuss any and everything, no matter how frivolous or deeply difficult.
If only some of the magic here is the wonder of being surrounded by a library's worth of good books and the beautiful art of my talented friends and family!

My greatest wish though, is that the true magic of our house is love.

How to Get Yourself Uninvited From Potlucks For The Rest of Your Life

1. Volunteer to bring a JELL-O salad to the next community potluck.

2. Dig out your vintage "Joys of JELL-O" pocket cookbook circa 1967. (My Aunt Bert bought one for me on our Lewistown trip yesterday.)

3. Locate the recipe for Molded Chef's Salad on page 69. (Don't get distracted by the glossy Ring-Around-The-Tuna...garnished with curly endive and radish roses on page 65!)

4. Read through the recipe to ensure you have all the ingredients.  It could be tricky.

(You realize this is a lime JELL-O based recipe, right?  With tuna?  And hardboiled egg? 

AND an anchovy-mayonnaise dressing?)

5. Assemble ingredients according to the recipe.  

6. (You may need a bit of wine in order to fulfill this next step.  Or a gas mask.)  Pour the lime JELL-O in the circular mold, then add the tuna mixture and egg as directed.  (Be STRONG!  This is gonna get you out of COUNTLESS potlucks in the future!!!)  

7. Chill the completely disgusting JELL-O mold in the fridge for 2-3 hours until firm. 

8. Prepare the Creamy Anchovy Dressing...if you're still game.  Mayonnaise and anchovies mixed to put atop a lime-tuna-egg-vegetable salad.  It's...remarkable. And greyish.  (Another glass of wine would not be the worst idea, here...)  

9. Unmold the now-firm Molded Chef-Salad on a plate of crisp lettuce leaves.  

(It may not look EXACTLY like the picture in the JELL-O recipe book.

All the better!  Remember our mission?  No potlucks for the rest of your life!)

10. Plate the salad, garnishing with the anchovy dressing, and present it to your family for a "taste test".  

I will spare you the gagging and spewing of green JELL-O into the garbage can, but suffice it to say that you will have a Get-Out-Of-Potlucks-Free if you take this little gem to the next one.

Sara Hags, I challenge you to a wine pairing with this dish...

I didn't read through the cookbook very carefully when I was in Lewistown, just enough to see that the original cook (Margaret Argenbright) had written notes on her favorite recipes about who she'd served, the date, and whether the recipe was good or not.  She did NOT have a note on this recipe, but there was a smudge on the corner of the page indicating that she, too, had probably stopped at this recipe and marveled at the incompatibility of the ingredients and flavors. 

Good luck and keep jelling!

Big Happenings on the Little Dry

Cohagen School is back in session with an astonishing number of pupils for a community our size.  As of press time, 14 students are enrolled in grades 1-6!  The teacher is once again Mrs. Joni Carroll who has attained the status of "veteran" country school teacher in the county, since all the other country schools have hired teachers who are brand new to the county or have had fewer years at their schools than Mrs. Carroll. It should also be noted that the cloak rooms and entry of the school have been painted a bright, cheery white with apple green and grape purple accents by the veteran country school teacher, herself.  Wishing all the students and teacher a productive and safe school year!

After 35 years of service, our postmaster Kay Collins is retiring this month. There will be a potluck meal and party at the Cohagen Community Hall on September 7th at 5 p.m. to thank her for her many years of dedication to the community.  (Incidentally, this is the day after the Annual Farmer/Rancher Appreciation Banquet and Dance in Miles City, so some of those attending both events may be a little...tender headed.  Please be considerate and don't raise your voice to a hurtful level on Sunday.)  Sloppy joes will be provided by Mrs. Jenn Hafla, so bring salads and desserts for the potluck.  (Pie is nice. We only have two and a half months to practice before the Pie Auction, so this would be the opportune time to advertise your skills!)

Word on the street is that the Brandon and Brandi Dalton family have taken a position in New Zealand and will be moving sometime in October.  We wish them well in their new endeavor and will miss seeing them around the community!  (This will withdraw one student from the school, making an uneven number for P.E. and field trip buddies.  Another challenge for the veteran country school teacher...)

Exciting news from up the creek!  One of our young couples recently announced they are expecting a baby this upcoming spring! Jason and Destanie Pluhar will be welcoming their first child in March of 2015.  This begs all sorts of "calving season" comments with their due date, but let's not go there, folks.

In other news, many in the Cohagen community are placing bets as to whether Mr. and Mrs. Vern Pluhar really ARE retiring this fall.  They're building a house in Pryor Creek which should be finished the end of October or first part of November, so only a month or two to speculate and put money on the table.

The 2014 Garfield County District High School graduates have left for colleges all around the state of Montana.  I believe we have Cohagen kids at MSU-Bozeman, MSU-Billings, Miles Community College, Dawson Community College, Helena College of Technology, and University of Montana.  Fall work on the ranches is going to be a little more challenging without the help of these hands! And grocery bills a lot lighter...

Our school bus driver, Mrs. Rita Wemmer, is inquiring around as to who so kindly placed quite a lot of zucchini in her mailbox last week.  While she appreciates this generous gift, she also requests that such offerings not be repeated, since she finally sent her last child off to college and there's really only so much zucchini bread she and Mr. Wemmer can eat by themselves.  Tis the season for neighbors to pass around Walmart bags filled with zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes; more cars are locked in the county in September than at any other time of the year, simply because no one knows what to do with all these produce "gifts".

If the Chronicles made a glaring news omission, feel free to add a paragraph in the comment section.  Letters to the editor will be read just as voraciously as the current affairs listed above...

His name was Dave...

although I didn't find that out until deep into the conversation.  

His wife died nine years ago, but before that, they had bought regional cookbooks for his mother who lived in California.  Cookbooks from the Montana Centennial Cattle Drive, from the Red Lodge ladies societies, from the Miles City civics clubs...any sort of those community project compilations in which the main dishes were sure to include many, MANY ground beef recipes; preferably with sour cream and noodles.  

I was in a hurry to get all my groceries, get out of Reynolds and drive like the wind blows to Cohagen to get my kids from school.  Typical day in Miles City, you know?  I'd noticed in passing this little older gentleman with his brother (or so I thought)....they were wandering around near the lunch meats and bacon section where I needed to go.  Their cart was empty and I suspected it was more of a "get out of the house" mission than anything.  

When I came rushing out of the chips 'n' junk aisle (yes, I'm that kind of mother), this well groomed, neat, 70-something gentleman said, "You go ahead; you're faster than me, anyway." and smiled.  

God places speed bumps fortuitously, I believe, and I couldn't stand the thought that I might have been rude, so I replied, "I'm not sure where I'm headed, to be honest, so it doesn't matter if I get there fast or not!" 

It wasn't entirely true, but how could I run over such a good spirited fellow?

WELL...

This was an obvious opening to a conversation that I was quite unprepared for!  

He noticed the cookbook I had in hand and wondered if I was working on a recipe, to which I showed him the California Hangover slush plan for my reading group.  

And that's when he started telling me about the cookbooks and his mother and his wife and his daughter who died at age 20 but appeared to his mother when she read the cookbooks he sent to California.  

Did I think it was crazy that his mom caught moments with his daughter, even though the girl died years before?

No...I told him that I thought we lived with sweet spirits all around us and some people were more in tune and less afraid of that.  

So, then he told me about growing up in Florida and how there were mansions with "spirits" hanging around them; he and his wife (bless her soul) had met a few of them.  

And here I was, standing in the middle of the cold cuts in a straightforward little old market in Miles City, Montana, talking about ghosts with a codger named Dave.  

His brother, it turned out, was a dear friend who just seemed like a brother; when I said I thought they WERE related as I observed them, they both shook my hand heartily and thanked me.  And told me I had beautiful eyes that were friendly, that it was no coincidence that we'd "met" and that good things would be mine.  

With good tidings to each other, we parted, and I finally had access to the beef cotto salami and went clipping on my way.  Last I saw of them, they were further into the meat aisle, discussing chicken with the butcher who had no way of knowing there would be ghost stories forthcoming....the cart was still empty.

The funniest thing about the whole deal was that I had started the day praying that God would make me open...not that I would have an open heart, because that's when mine gets wounded and I end up crying about things I have no ability to "fix" (like the Syrian business and junk on the news)....no, just OPEN.  Help me not be so very self absorbed and self important. (When one lives in a small world, the focus gets skewed...) Help me to be aware and kind!

Had I not prayed for openness...

I might have missed Dave!  

I might not have had the grace to spend 20 minutes listening to a kind man with an empty cart who needed to tell stories about people he loved and his life experiences (albeit supernatural in the south).  

I might have rushed past the lunch meat and not have had a courtly gentleman admire my cookbook and wish me good fortune in my life.

Sometimes, being impulsive and interested is such a blessing!

(Now I have to bake the teacher some bread or something, because I was 20 minutes late picking the kids up from school and all I had for an excuse was "there was this old guy in the grocery store telling me ghost stories...")

 

Day 23: The Best Thing To Happen This Year

(I didn't come up with the challenge...let's just get that clear, here and now.  It was one we found on the internet and I claim no responsibility whatsoever for the awkward phrasing of the daily post assignments.)

Now that we have that little disclaimer aside...
I don't have any idea what the best thing TO happen this year will be.  But, I can tell you the best thing that has happened to me this week.

Last night, in an unplanned slumber(less) party due to inclement weather during our board meeting, my friend and I stayed up all night having a couple beers, trying to kill mice with snow shovels.

In her house.

Because a broom just bounces them, it doesn't kill them.

We decided that a pregnant mouse must have gotten in the house and had babies while my friend was gone because we counted no less than 12 mice all the same size, about an inch long.  And they were FEARLESS.

AND....
I'm so proud to tell you...
WE were FEARLESS.

It was fun because we were so tired that it was funny, you know?  I can only imagine if someone had driven by the house at 2 a.m., saw the shadows of two women swinging shovels and yelling, "GET HIM!!!" what they might have thought.  Well, they sure wouldn't have slowed down, I can tell you that much....

I think we slept for about an hour and a half, both on the couch with heads on each end and no body parts sticking out, until at 4:30 I heard what I thought was a mouse in one of the traps.

Ha-HA!!!!

Turns out, it was many mice and it wasn't a trap as we had deliriously thought around 1 a.m....it was a box with very tasty bait that they could go in and out of like a club house, which they did happily, practically sticking their tongues out at us because snow shovels are all but useless between the refrigerator and the counter and they KNEW this.  

We finally gave up, sat on the couch with our feet up under us and talked about politics, religion and life while drinking instant coffee while watching those nasty scrabbly little things frequent The Bait Bar.

We got the number for an exterminator and are setting up a full-scale battle which WE won't be attending.

I HATE mice.
But I love my friend and we made funny, awful memories...still laughing and shuddering as I type this...

Easter in Bigfork Part II

On Easter afternoon, we all went to Susan's house for a ridiculously wonderful feast and egg hunt.  I have no idea what Susan's last name is or what prompted her to start the Great Easter Party, but I'm so grateful she includes us!  She fills and hides about 300 plastic Easter eggs in her yard, invites friends and family to a huge potluck meal/picnic, then turns the kids loose to find the eggs.  It's chilly, relaxed, happy, generous and great fun!

This is Susan, lining the kids out just before the hunt...

Angus had three desserts, chips and token strawberries for dinner.  It was glorious!  Do you like the hat?  That was his Easter basket this year, filled with funny little treats.

Three of my favorite people!  Jasper, Sara and Quinn-the-man...

Quinnie and his pal, playing in the dirt...

I have no idea what this gentleman's name is, just that he makes me laugh with his delightful sense of humor!

This picture pretty much sums up the party...

This is one of the more challenging egg hidey holes, if you can imagine!

I thought Grandma C. was going to tear out and find eggs, too, but she managed to restrain herself.  :)

They empty the candy out of the eggs, then Susan can re-use them for next year! Very serious business, this egg emptying project...

Queen of the Two Furrow

Here's the story:
Once upon a time, there was a regular old ranch wife with ordinary brown hair, mom jeans and second-hand wardrobe, living in a trailer house on the Two Furrow Road of Cohagen, Montana.  She had the same hamburger in her deep freeze, the same Walmart tupperware in her cupboards and same black Muck boots as every other woman on the Two Furrow.  She was rich in friends (obscenely weathly, if you want to know the truth), blessed with family she was both born into and chose, and lacked for nothing at all.
There was, however, another who was utterly and ridiculously jealous of the ranch wife; so much so that it was humorous to all who beheld it.  One of the other residents of the land jokingly teased the ranch wife about being "The Queen of the Two Furrow" and she embraced the idea.  After all, isn't it better to laugh than to fume?

And so the Queen came to be.  She was destined to be queen, as all her friends knew, because she already had a tiara on the tea pot above her royal sink!  How handy was THAT?  She had a cattle sorting stick that made a dandy scepter, a Trailblazer carriage, and a silk scarf for her cloak.  Everyone knew where the Queen of the Two Furrow lived because of the pink flamingos at the royal mail box...no one else dared put something so tacky, so out of place along the road for all the world to see!  The Queen wore scarlet heels to make coffee, earrings to work cows and cheap sunglasses. (Because, it must be said here; the Queen was as absent minded as she was eccentric, so any shades that cost more than $10 were pointless.  And temporary.)

It's early in her queenhood, but a few things have already been established:

• All women in the land should own at least one pair of mom-jeans.  There's a Mom Jean day, you know, that's celebrated in Cohagen on April 1st!  
• Her motto, which shall be on a banner, forthwith, is: Peace, Love and Cows.  Learn it, LIVE IT!
• Pie is legal for breakfast.  Encouraged, in fact.
• Cauliflower is to be banished. *shudder*
• Royal wave is a "guns up", which the Queen shall offer to the public but they're not required to respond in kind.  :)
• Cowboy boots are cool...even with yoga pants, old cut off corduroy pants, skirts...everything.

And so the tale goes...

Check back with the Chronicles for royal events and news! 

Peace, Love and Cows

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

Pie Wars

It all starts out so innocently....
with a harvest dinner to raise money for an interactive white board for the school. 
And then, in a flash of brilliance, it is decided to have a silent auction for pies!  Yes!  Who doesn't love pies?  With Thanksgiving just around the corner, folks can buy a pie at the auction, stick in their freezer, whip it out on Wednesday before to thaw and voila! baking done!

Yesterday, over coffee and amidst the clamor of tired kids, my friend Traci and I were sorting out the details of the dinner; assigning jobs, figuring out who cooks what, drawing up a floor plan (complete with little circles on the big rectangle to represent pies on a table).  We were visiting about the pie-lent auction and Traci unknowingly threw down the first challenge while I was planning the sign up sheets: "Yeah!  And we could see whose pie brings the most money!"

The Great Pie War of 2011

We both laughed and I patted her on the shoulder; in that chuckle, though,we both KNEW at THAT instant that we were destined to be fighting for the prize with our pastry.  We agreed to be friends, no matter how it turned out, but it's definitely on....

We have a little background in friendly competition.
One summer, we decided to see who could walk the most miles in a month, for fitness purposes.  It started out very nicely, each of us turning in our mileage every couple days and encouraging one another.  But then, about 7 days into the competition, the tone changed.  I HAD to win.  And, as it turns out, so did she.  We were killing ourselves to rack up the miles.  I mean to tell you...I went to Butte for a MASBO conference and worried like everything that while I was sitting in workshops on school finance that she'd be inching up in miles.  So I doubled mine up before I left, AND walked while I was there.  Just in case.  Traci developed plantar fasciitus in her quest to squash me.  It was not pretty. 

But bless her heart, she presented me with my winning trophy at one of her family functions, in front of everyone...a little tennis shoe charm that is one of my most cherished possesions.  And we laughed and hugged, realizing that perhaps we were both perhaps a little too competitive for our own good.

That was a few years ago.
I'm sure we've outgrown that silly sort of behavior...

I'd like to invite all the Chronicles readers to come to Cohagen Gym next Friday evening, November 18th, starting at 5:30 p.m. and bid on the bourbon pecan pie or the sour cream raisin pie with miracle meringue topping.  Remember...it's for a good cause!  (The interactive smart board is a pretty good reason, too, if you have to have another.)

*I was just told that my bum calves brought $800 dollars, total, at the sale barn on Tuesday.  I know my husband is going to be standing close to the pie-lent auction table, making sure I don't bid my own pies up with this funding....
**As if I'd do that....

(I'd like to note that this war is not between anyone but Traci and I.  If it was over ALL the pies, we'd just have to hand the ribbon over to Nancy Horn before it even began...)

It's not crazy, it's football!

College football fans are perhaps the most superstitious, zealous people you'll ever encounter.  Trust me.
You may have seen Green Bay Packer Cheeseheads and thought, "Whoa.  Those dudes are over the top!"  but they ain't nothin' compared to college football fans. 

College football can take the ordinarily level-headed, conservative, laid-back person and turn him into....well....a very strange person who only wears red and black socks, inside out, unwashed for six games, stepping only on every third tile of their kitchen during commercials.  This is because six games ago, his team won big and unexpectedly while this piece of wardrobe was on his body. 

College football fans can remember incredible details during a season. The brand of potato chips and how many were in their hand when their team lost (Not buying BBQ Lays for the rest of the season), the exact outfit, right down to underwear and nail polish (if it applies),  the mug they were drinking coffee from THAT morning, and the list goes on and on. 

Here's the funny thing:  when asked directly whether they think their little rituals actually affect the outcome of the game, they'll appropriately tell you, "Nah...that's crazy!  It's the coach/players/weather conditions/etc."  but in their hearts and heads, they KNOW that if they screw up the lucky sock and mug combo that day, that the team doesn't have a chance, no matter how well they play. 

I am one of those....logically, I know that a woman in Montana who wears all the "right" clothes and flies the lucky flag and uses the lucky mug will NOT cause the Red Raiders to win the game.  I said, logically.  However, I can't help doing all those things, just-in-case-I-have-super-powers-that-even-I-don't-know-about to help them win.  The handy thing is that I'm already considered crazy, so this is just overlooked in my house.  Crazy is as crazy does, you know...

It gets WAY worse, though, in some people.  Some fans actually schedule weddings and birth inductions around games, so they won't miss a thing!  Painting a room in lucky colors, mowing the college logo into their lawn, naming their dog "Gator"....all these things.  Don't take this as a prejudiced statement, it's just an observation, but I think college football fans are crazier in the south.  Of course, this may be due to the fact that anyone who paints their chest in school colors in Montana will freeze into a solid block of ice in September, much less November! 

Today, TTU is playing University of New Mexico, there.  And yes, we're wearing the red and black, observing all the lucky rites, wishing we didn't have to preg test at the EXACT time of the game.  (That's going to really throw the luck factor off.  If they win, will we have to preg test EVERY away game? Tricky.)

Guns up!

Coffee Day

I have a friend who only drinks coffee on Wednesdays and on weekends.

Let me repeat that: ONLY on Wednesdays and on weekends.

I'll pause for a moment and let you think about the sort of twisted person that might have that type of caffiene boundary issue...

I recently learned that this friend (and I'm praying for the poor soul) drinks HALF-CAF on those days!

So, it's not REAL COFFEE, even!

It's what I call, Why Bother?

Indeed.

If you are asking how we are still able to be friends, knowing my complete passion for the stuff, you need to know that I feel it's my job to reform and I take this job very seriously.  To the point, even, of buying my friend one of MY favorite coffee drinks...a short, triple shot breve...in hopes that true coffee love would develop. 

I think high blood pressure and cold sweats for 48 hours were the only things that developed.

Darn!

I forgot that triple shots were only for serious java junkies.

Anyway, when I look at the calendar, I always say Happy Coffee Day! on Wednesdays.

Really, some weeks that's all Wednesday has going for it...

Recently, I found a quote for Coffee Day that might need framed in my kitchen.

It will be lost on my friend, but I have others who will embrace it and clap in delight!

"A cup of coffee - real coffee - home brewed, home ground, homemade, that comes to you dark as a hazel eye, but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth, thick tenderly yellow, perfectly sweet, neither lumpy nor frothy on the Java: Such a cup of coffee is a match for twenty blue devils and will exorcise them all."

-Henry Ward Beecher

Happy Coffee Day!