In the Joint

Yesterday Fellow Traveler had her long-awaited consult with a non-VA oral/maxillofacial surgeon regarding her arthritis-ravaged jaw.

It was one of those mornings that just begged for a do-over. I had intended to accompany FT to this important appointment, but a relatively mild cold I've tolerated for the past week suddenly exploded in intensity, and I woke up with a raging fever and sore throat; there was no way I could go along. Then, about five minutes into FT's journey through town and toward the freeway our normally reliable Jeep began stalling whenever she slowed the car to a stop, so she was forced to turn around and carefully drive back home to switch vehicles.

I didn't see her for several hours.  Part of the plan that day was for her to come home by way of our church and help train a new volunteer on our database system; then she was going to stay for a council meeting in the evening. But a snowstorm began to build in the afternoon, and FT finally decided that it was unwise to try and navigate through the bad weather in the Prius.

By this time I was not only sick but anxious because of the increasingly bad roads, so I was relieved to see the Prius turn into our driveway. And I'd only gotten a short-form version of how the consult went over the phone, so I was eager to hear the details of the exam.

Here's the story: The good news is that the surgeon is recommending a less invasive, less dangerous operation than what was originally described to us; rather than attempting to replace the joint, he is going to realign the joint to reduce the bone-on-bone discomfort. More good news is that, while not a common surgery, this surgeon has done it enough times to be fairly confident that it will relieve FT's pain for an extended period of time.

The bad news? The benefits of the surgery won't last forever. Preparation for the surgery involves several weeks' use of a new quartet of medicines, including steroids -- something FT hates and has resisted taking in the past because of prior bad experiences -- a bite splint and a host of lifestyle restrictions. Post-surgery FT will have to have her jaws wired for six weeks. And if for some reason this surgery is not successful, the alternative -- a scary procedure -- only has a 20 percent success rate, and a high degree of danger.

FT came home exhausted, jaw pounding in pain, from her two-hour exam -- and from trying to process all the information that the surgeon had given her. I was still feverish and miserable but also trying very hard to understand exactly what this proposed surgery will entail, both in terms of the procedure itself and the necessary aftercare.

It made for a pensive evening.

FT has had so many surgeries for her RA-eaten joints that we jokingly refer to her as the Bionic Woman. Her degree of pain makes her so miserable on any given day -- her jaw swells noticeably, making it difficult for her to speak clearly -- that saying yes to something that may end that pain for at least several years, is not that difficult a decision to make.

But I worry. And I feel bad that FT -- who's already had so many joint replacements that we jokingly refer to her as the Bionic Woman -- has to go under the knife yet again. I know our life together has been blessed immeasurably these past going on five years...but there's always an undercurrent of sadness for the pain she's suffered and anxiety over the future. If this is, as Luther saw our life partnerships, a school for character, then we must be in graduate school.

A Post-Holiday Friday Five

Today is Tree-Untrimming/House Undecorating Day -- not one of LC's favorite tasks, but something that must be done. It's also the day that I, like my mom, write up a short review of our Christmas, pop it in a little envelope and add it to the box where I keep our creche.  So it's rather appropriate that this week's RevGalBlogPals' Friday Five asks us to review the past holiday season -- the good, the bad, perhaps the ugly, although I hope not.

1) What food item was one of your favorites this year - a definite keeper?
It hurts for this scratch-cooking foodie to say this, but...it was really, really nice to enjoy a Honeybaked half-ham, handily delivered to the door, this year. (I made roasted acorn squash and Brussels sprouts, and a heap of mashed potatoes.)  We'd sent a full ham dinner to one set of relatives for Christmas, got a handsome discount because of that, and decided to use the savings on ourselves. We can definitely get used to this new tradition. But we've now both had enough ham, Honeybaked or otherwise, to last us until next Christmas.

Oh -- and, after the panic about finding my old family recipes, I did discover a new and improved sour cream sugar cookie recipe. That one's a keeper.


2) Was there a meal or party or a gathering that stands out in your mind from this most recent holiday season?
Christmas Eve morning saw us at the bedside of a dying friend and neighbor; not really the gathering I'd expected or hoped to have on that day, but it was what it was; and if our presence gave our friend extra comfort in her passage into life eternal, then God bless that day.

One of the nicest gatherings was, ironically, just one day after. You see, we had planned to have our hamfest on Christmas Day -- an intimate, even romantic meal, just the two of us. That was before FT's 90-year-old uncle called us up to invite us to their house for Christmas. Uncle was an avid fisherman back in the day, and we'd sent him and FT's aunt some salmon filets for Christmas. "We don't know how to cook these," he told us. "You two will have to come and do it for us." Which of course was just a ruse to have us come and visit them. Their own children, for various reasons, maintain minimal contact with them, so FT and I are their defacto family; we'd helped them put their Christmas decorations up around Thanksgiving, mainly to keep Auntie off the ladder, and had made them dinner that day as well. So that is where we spent Christmas Day -- squeezed around the generally unused dining room table in their tiny dining room, eating a rather simple meal; but enjoying it very much. (I did learn, however, that while Finns love beets, they do not love pickled beets; a note for next year.)

3) Were you involved in a jaw-dropper gift? Were you the giver or recipient or an on-looker?
Well, I"m pleased to say that I was a giver, a co-giver and a recipient. I was co-giver of Bananas, a humongous, ginormous stuffed gorilla we gave Miss Ruby for her birthday. We had feared that this was more an exercise in wretched excess on the part of Grandmas than a gift that Ruby would actually like -- we were even afraid that the huge ape would frighten her --  but Ruby loooooves Bananas. And her parents have taken to dressing Bananas in various themed clothing from week to week (fellow half-century fossils might remember the store mannequin in the Monkees' old TV show that was used similarly). So we're very happy Bananas made such a hit with the whole family. (And we'll just mention that, power shoppers that we are when it comes to our grandchild, we bought Bananas at a 70-percent-off store-closing discount.)

I was the jaw-dropped recipient of a Kindle, as I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog.

And I think I managed to jaw-drop my dear partner with her deluxe beginning beekeeping kit. This gift had started out as a meager purchase of a few essential beekeeping tools, as a kind of teaser/encouragement until FT could get some advice on what sort of hive and clothing to purchase. But it growed. And now all FT has to do is paint her hive (she's thinking maize and blue) and, this spring, fill it with bees. (This weekend we're going to visit with our cider-making/beekeeping friend Wally for some expert advice in this endeavor.)

4) Was there at least one moment where you experienced true worship?
I assisted for the first time on Christmas Eve -- I've never had that experience, of assisting when the church is packed to the rafters, and it was very meaningful to me; particularly assisting with distribution, being able to place the Body of Christ in so many hands, look into so many eyes and say, "...for you."  I think that was the high point of my Advent/Christmas worship experience.

That and -- as unexpected and sad as the day was -- being able to pray with our dying friend just moments before she passed on. When I did this, all my existential doubts and sadness and discomfort and other distractions swirling about in my head made way for a kind of calm certainty that I was merely a vessel for a Mystery far bigger and more profound than my puny presence, and that the Church of all ages and places was with me as I made the sign of the cross on my friend's forehead, and prayed, and read the 23rd Psalm to her. After she passed, I again found myself feeling rather awkward and incompetent as the hospice professionals took over and I tried making awkward conversation with our friend's partner and other visitors. But for a brief time I was in a special kind of sacred space.


5) What is at least one thing you want to make sure you do next year?
After my mindblowing three-day cookie-baking marathon -- next week I want to make sure that I start this project far earlier in the month. I know growing up that my mom would very often begin the weekend after Thanksgiving, and freeze the cookies until the holidays. I will also make a comprehensive list of what I need -- not only the ingredients themselves, but how much of them. And I will make the time to include my honey drop cookie recipe, another old favorite that didn't make the cut this year just because I was too tired.

BONUS: What is something you absolutely must remember to do differently... or not at all!
My attempt at incorporating a water feature into our Advent wreath was indeed beautiful and evocative -- but not very practical. Among other things, it takes a tremendous number of floating candles; the water needs to be changed regularly; and the bowl is subject to smudges and water marks. I made it; I'm glad; next year it will be different. We are thinking about going back to one real Christmas tree in the house. We miss a real tree. And -- no attempt to create an Advent blog or special Advent feature on this blog this year; not unless I get really bored and/or inspired somewhere in the middle of the Pentecost season and write it all up in advance. My relationship to Advent devotionals is much like Charlie Brown's relationship to Lucy's football -- so very tempting to undertake, but I just know it's not going to end well.

Recipe Interlude: Sour Cream Cut-Out Cookies

When we got back from our California trip, my window of opportunity for cookie-baking had been narrowed considerably -- especially considering that our cookies were mostly for export out of state.

So I steeled myself for about three days of nonstop cookie baking. I went to find my tried-and-true recipes, in my mom's old cookbooks.

I couldn't find the books.

The old, tattered Betty Crocker cookie book -- not in the bookcase. Ditto the old Br'er Rabbit Molasses book. The stained spiral-bound Lutheran ladies' cookbook -- not in the bookcase.

I went to the garage office, where I still have a few boxes from our house consolidation, and tore through them looking for any old cookbooks. No luck. I came back inside and looked behind the other books in the bookcase, thinking I may have squirreled these unlovely but useful books somewhere out of public eye. Nope.

Argh.

Then I vaguely remembered having a fish-or-cut-bait moment, as we cleaned out our garage that spring after I sold my house, looking at a box of battered old books and loose recipes and making an executive decision to let it all go.

This was probably a smart decision at the time. Yet now I felt sad; another connection to my mom and my roots lost. I remember my mother telling me about writing for all sorts of free cookbooks from food companies when she was a newlywed. I remembered her own handwritten recipes in a falling-apart ring binder. All gone now, I sighed.

Until I snapped out of it and reminded myself that the recipes are not lost forever. And my particular family cookie menu has found a new generation of appreciative eaters in our kids.

So I got online. I found the Betty Crocker mother lode of cookie recipes. I did general searches on other recipes. And I did it; I replicated the standard LutheranChik Family Christmas cookie plate.

Not only that -- I actually found a better sugar cookie recipe than the one I had. (Sorry, Lutheran church ladies.) The recipe I'm about to share with you makes very soft, lovely, delicate cut-out cookies. And of course they're not just for Christmas. Think about making these, say, for a sweetie on Valentine's Day, cut into hearts and iced and sprinkled with glistening sugar:

Sour Cream Cut-Out Cookies

1 C. butter 1 C. sugar 3/4 C. sour cream (light sour cream works okay but nonfat sour cream does not) 1 egg 2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt  1 tsp. nutmeg 4 1/2 C. flour


Cream together butter and sugar. Add the sour cream, egg and the vanilla; mix well. Stir in baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Gradually add flour until dough is too difficult to stir. Mix the rest by hand. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll out to 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick. Cut into desired shapes with your favorite cookie cutters. Space cookies about 1 1/2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 6-8 minutes in a preheated 350-degree oven or until lightly browned at the edges. Cool completely on wire racks. Decorate as desired.

These tend to dry out quickly, so enjoy them within a few days of baking them. They can also be made ahead of time and frozen,un-iced, then thawed and decorated right before serving/giving them.

LC's Semi-Random Bible Verse of the Week

God shall crush the heads of his enemies,

and the hairy scalp of those who go on still in their wickedness. -- Psalm 68:21

This verse jumped out at me as I was reading the appointed Psalm for today's BCP Morning Prayer. I know this is no laughing matter from a theological standpoint -- there's a reason why not every verse of every Psalm makes it into the Sunday lectionary -- but you've got to love the Psalmist going all WWE on his enemies here.

I'm not sure I'm up to praying for the crushing of my enemies' hairy scalps. Public embarrassment, maybe; but not breaking their heads. Maybe that's a 21st century developed world thing.

Honeybees and Do-Bees

We have a beehive in our living room right now.

It's kind of cute. It was marketed as an "English garden hive," as opposed to the workaday boxes one sees in commercial beeyards; it is somewhat smaller than a standard hive, with a peaked roof and copper flashing, and looks like something Peter Rabbit might have hopped past on his way to the carrot patch.

With this hive came an assortment of beekeeper gear: a hat-and-veil combo; gloves with arm gaiters; a smoker; a hive tool; an instructional DVD.

I, the Christmas elf who produced this hive and kit, had  gently quizzed FT earlier in the year about her sincerity in taking up beekeeping. Are you sure? Are you sure this isn't like the dark-of-night, REM-sleep-fueled conversation you had with me several months ago when you suggested to me that an urban chicken coop might be a fun backyard project, and then the next day when I recalled that comment over breakfast you stared at me in horror: "I told you what?!..." No, FT insisted repeatedly; this isn't like the phantom egg farm; this is for real; I want to be a beekeeper.

Which is actually pretty exciting. Although we have to get cracking on ordering that most important element of the equation, namely the bees, a task that I understand needs to be done right about now for an April shipment, due to high demand and short supply. I'm anxious that this timeline is somehow going to conflict with FT's jaw surgery -- what if the bees come when she's recuperating, whacked out on painkillers and not ready to participate in the task of introducing the bees to their new digs in our back yard?

I want this to be FT's project, not mine; but I'm hoping she reconnects with our new friend Wally from a surburban apple orchard and bee yard on the outskirts of Bay City, a delightful older gentleman who, once he heard about FT's interest in bees, was ready to take her under his wing (so to speak) and share his expertise. Wally can give us the 411 about procuring our bees. I also bought FT a year's membership in the state beekeepers' association, so maybe we can find some encouragement and assistance a little closer to home as well.

So there's that, happening at our house right now.

In the meantime, we are becoming bees ourselves: do-bees at church, doing things -- generally things involving computers -- that other people can't or don't want to do. Today, for example, while I'm staying at home nursing a bad head cold, the somewhat well-er FT is at church, helping the Finance Committee switch its data over to a new computerized data management system. For my part, I'm entering data for the quarter into our online event and scheduling calendar. I sometimes feel guilty about dragging my non-Lutheran-from-home partner into the inner workings of our church; but she enjoys solving computer problems -- and, as a relative newcomer, she a certain amount of freedom to express herself and get things done that someone enmeshed in the complicated interpersonal relationships and histories of our congregation probably doesn't. One of our perpetual organizational problems is a reluctance on people's parts -- in part I think a function of our congregational demographics and local culture -- to own and execute final decisions; I remember a short-lived stint on the Evangelism Committee where a mind-numbing, hour-long handwringing session involving the purchase of customized church coffee mugs -- "I don't know what to do next...do you know what to do next?" -- was enough to make me hand in my resignation in frustration; "I am not going to waste any more hours of my life discussing how to get a picture on a coffee cup and calling that evangelism," I told the pastor.  FT, by contrast, doesn't have a problem with just doing something that needs to be done, committee be jiggered, and explaining it later...in the words of another military gal, the late Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, it's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission.

I myself have made the commitment to volunteer in the church building one day a week. Our pastor is transitioning into a new house away from the parsonage, our longsuffering volunteer secretary is wanting and needing a break, and so a few of us are going to rotate days in the office, answering the phone and being available for any walk-in assistance. I have plenty of my own church-related tasks to keep me busy on my office day, so it gives me an opportunity to work on those without succumbing to the temptations of the home sofa office.

All of which is to say...things are buzzing around here. In a good way.

The Rekindling of Desire

Let me introduce you to my favorite holiday toy:

Yes, it's true; I have succumbed to the electronic lure of the Kindle.

I've been a Kindle skeptic for a long time. There's the creepy Big Brother thing about dependency upon one company for e-books (a company that is constantly collecting personal information about customers and that has in the past deleted customer purchases, with a refund but with no cogent explanation); there's the angst about increasing the digital and informational divide even further between the technology haves and have-nots (most of the people in my church, for instance, regardless of age, have no access to the Internet or even a decent personal computer). There's the issue of longevity -- what happens to my books if I break my Kindle, or if Amazon ever decides to change its technology? And there's the issue of tactile pleasure -- sometimes there's just nothing like turning the pages of a book.

Yeah; I know. But my new Kindle is just...so...cool.

I mean -- I've already downloaded a couple dozen freebies; everything from the Iliad to The Voyage of the Beagle to a short tome on Amish gardening tips. My Kindle is wi-fi enabled, so I just book-shop right on it, 24/7, click the "buy" button (even for the freebies) and -- ka-ching! -- my book is suddenly there, ready to read. Wow.

For the past several years I've listed "reading more" as a New Year's resolution; and for the past several years that hasn't really happened. But now I find that I've already made it through one of my e-books (and learned that baking soda is a cheap and easy amendment to acid garden soil). And I'm headed for one of the Great Books now...perhaps the Epic of Gilgamesh, or the Analects.

Ooh -- shiny.



A "Looking Backward, Moving Forward" Friday Five

This week's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five asks us to name some blessings we've received in the past year while also expressing some hopes for the year to come. I can do that. So here they are.

Blessing #1: Miss Ruby. While technically she's a blessing from 2009 -- this has been the year to watch her grow from a tiny babe in arms, all potential, to a very smart, active little girl with a unique -- and dare I say big -- personality. One of her little cousins recently confided to Son #2, "I just don't know what we'd do without our Ruby."

Blessing #2: Chica.  It still hurts to think about Gertie and the day she died -- I honestly feel a brief resurgence of sweaty-palm panic whenever I pass the spot on the highway where the accident happened. We truly did not think we'd ever have another dog. But Chica, our little Heinz 57 mutt from the pound, has turned out to be a wonderful companion, with a personality all her own -- alternately sweet and spicy, as befitting her name. Mollie the cat, a veteran of many dogs over the years, still isn't quite sure what to make of this one. But we love her lots.

Blessing #3: The Stutzman Family. This year we got to know a local Amish woman, Mary, a widow with six children still at home, who sells baskets and soap in her backyard shop and in local Amish stores. Over the past year we've gone from casual visitors to her store to "Sit down and have some coffee" friends; which to me is a gift. And we've also grown to love Mary's kids, who are just a joy to be around -- who are polite and respectful to adults, and kind and helpful to one another, while maintaining free spirits and an impish sense of fun. I wish that some of our neighbors who think of the Amish in stereotypes -- usually negative -- could have the experiences we do with this family.

Blessing #4: A New Doctor.  It took me several months of Internet research -- but I finally found a primary care physician within reasonable driving distance who has an interest in integrative medicine and who treats me like a human being rather than a set of billable procedures to be squeezed in between pharmaceutical reps. Not that I am bitter or anything.

Blessing #5: Fellow Traveler. Yes, I am being sappy and cornball and obvious here...but especially this year, after observing and experiencing some major interpersonal pathology in other people's relationships, I am more than ever grateful to be traveling on the same life path with my Fellow Traveler.

Bonus Blessing:  Our Wii Fit. Yes, I'm serious. Even though I haven't been on it for a month due to travel and Christmas preparation and the fact that our heavily laden Christmas tree is too close to the television for me to be bouncing around on the board. This is one of the only exercise regimens I've ever been able to stay on for an extended period of time. When the tree goes down...the Wii comes back on.

On to wishes for the new year:

Wish #1:  Fellow Traveler's rheumatoid-arthritis-related TMJ became so bad this past year that something had to be done...so now, after a long and often frustrating diagnostic process through the VA system, she's been cleared for outsourced surgery. We identified some oral surgeons in our general area of the state who seem to have expertise in jaw issues and are getting a consult from them. My wish is that this surgery -- which may wind up being anything from trying to create an artificial cushion in the RA-ravaged joint space to a titanium joint replacement, any option involving some delicate surgical work -- be a success so that FT can be free of the intense daily pain she suffers.

Wish #2:  Now that I have a doctor who suits me, it's time to deal with my health insurance. I have been arguing with Blue Cross for months now about whether or not I'm an actual subscriber (this despite my producing bank records of my ongoing automatic premium payments, and their regular delivery of the company magazine); the company changed my card number without my knowledge, and now refuses to send me a new card. I've been paying my medical costs out of pocket, then forwarding the bills to my insurance agent -- so far with no response from Blue Cross. In the last month I've had not one but two suggestions (one generated by a random discussion between two retirees we overheard in a restaurant when we were in California) that another Large Health Insurance Company is much easier to work with. So -- even though I grew up in a family atmosphere where Blue Cross was only a few pegs lower than God on a scale of life necessity and trustworthiness -- it may be time to make a change.

Wish #3:  This is a perpetual wish on my part, but...I'd like to improve the organization of our household, my personal items and, perhaps most importantly of all, my time. We've actually made strides in this area in the past year; but sometimes I am still overwhelmed by "stuff" and by a kind of randomness (often enabled by yours truly)  that feels like chaos. I really want to find that golden mean between Stepford Wife and Hoarders.

Wish #4: Having begun a successful transition from straggly shrubbery to perennials around our gazebo, I wish to keep that horticultural success going with a new and improved herb garden (thwarted last year by issues with our plumbing that necessitated digging up what used to be my herb bed) and a new flower garden along our front garage. This last project was actually suggested by the non-gardening FT, out of the blue: "Why don't we dig a strip along the side of the garage and plant flowers there?" Who am I to argue with this? (FT's sudden interest in flowers may be a function of her desire to keep bees, which I affirmed on Christmas by giving her an entire bee hive -- sans bees -- and newbie beekeeper equipment.)

Wish #5: Another standing item on my New Year wish list: I want to learn something new this year. I'm not too choosy about what that is. Practical skills (like piecrust making, perhaps?) are always good; or I could really live in the leap and take on some intellectual task that's so far stymied me (calculus? euchre?).

Bonus Wish: This has been a wish of mine for some time -- also, frankly, something of a source of guilt and stress: I want to begin blogging regularly again. One of the reasons I stopped was because I felt that my blogging was beginning to direct my life, instead of my life informing my blogging; sort of like those reality TV shows where the reality has given way to scripts and mugging for the camera. I think I'm at a good place to begin again.

A Festive Friday Five

This week's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five focuses on the things that really make Christmas for us. Here's my list:

1. Our Advent wreath and calendar. Even though we're not always faithful in lighting the wreath candles, even though we sometimes have to play catchup for a few days with the calendar...we do find a lot of value in observing this season before Christmas in a real, tangible way. It feels pleasingly countercultural; it keeps Christmas, Inc. at bay at our house.

2. Trimming the tree. Or, in our case, trees, since we have two of them. I just love doing this. At our house we wait until just before Christmas Eve; we put on Christmas music, have some eggnog or Christmas tea, and make an event of it.

3. Baking cookies. We do this mostly for export...but it's still fun. And I still have to restrain myself from a repeat of the year in which I made 18 different kinds of cookies.

4. Anonymous gifting. We usually adopt a child or vulnerable adult from our community "giving tree." Oftentimes the requests are so modest that they're almost heartbreaking -- like the child whose card we took one year, who asked for food for her family. "Meet and exceed expectations" is our guideline for giving.

5. The Christmas Eve service. This year it will be more special because I will be assisting at it for the first time. We have an old-fashioned candlelight service with the Eucharist; we hear the Story once again; we sing familiar hymns. Afterward we come home and have a little pre-Christmas-day nosh of Christmas delectables, and exchange our gifts. Good times.

Bonus: What is one thing that really DOESN'T make your Christmas? Definitely the shopping and spending frenzy. We find gifts for our family all year long, so by the time the stores start bringing out the Christmas merchandise we've already finished buying presents, so we've effectively disconnected from most of the Christmas craziness. When I was working, the thing that used to get me the most were the obligatory (de facto, even when the bosses assure staff that they can opt out  if they wish) workplace gift exchanges. My church's annual yard sale was enriched for many years by the cast-off candles and other assorted unwanted tschotchkes I'd have to drag home from Christmas parties. The best workplace Christmas gift exchanges I've ever participated in either involved white-elephant gifts or a very low cost ceiling -- say $5 -- that really challenged givers' creativity and knowledge of their giftee.

Blogging Advent

Hey -- I've started a new Advent blog. Check it out here .

Friday Five: "American Pie" Edition

I am simultaneously feeling holidayed out and amped up for a very busy Advent month that also includes a cross-country trip...so I was ready for a fun RevGalBlogPal Friday Five. And we have one: All About Pie.

1)Are pies an important part of a holiday meal?
Absolutely. My mother was the best pie baker ever, and we always had pie for holidays and other special occasions. These days we tend to rely on our friend Dan the Amish baker for our pies, but we still crave them on special days.


2) Men prefer pie; women prefer cake. Discuss.
I think whoever came up with this idea was not from the crust-intensive Upper Midwest where the women like their pie just fine, thank you. I'm fond of gingerbread, and Fellow Traveler and I both like white cake on the rare occasions when we eat cake...but that's about it.

3) Cherries--do they belong in a pie?
I think they're fine in other people's pies, yes.

4) Meringue--if you have to choose, is it best on lemon or chocolate?
Again, yes. On rhubarb cream pie too.

5) In a chicken pie, what are the most compatible vegetables? Anything you don't like to find in a chicken pie?
If you ask Fellow Traveler, who was OD'd on frozen pot pies in her childhood, she'd say that chicken pie was not compatible with eating, period. Me, I don't mind savory pies; but if I'm going to eat a pot pie, chicken or otherwise, I want the peas in it to be bright and firm, not gray and mealy. Bad peas can really ruin a dish.

Bonus: What is the most unusual pie you have ever eaten? That would have to be concord grape juice pie, one of the specialties of our local Amish community. While most cookbook recipes for grape pie require a messy process of cooking whole grapes, then running them through a food mill and cooking down the residual juice, our Amish friends tell us they use their own canned grape juice and make a kind of transparent custard with it. However they make it, I like it and want to make it some day. 

Bonus bonus: What is the most unusual pie you haven't yet eaten? This Christmas, which we will be spending at home, I'd like to try my hand at making tortiere, the French Canadian spiced meat pie that's a tradition during the holidays. Fellow Traveler has hinted that, unlike pot pie, she might enjoy this very meaty, un-veggie-laden dish. I'm thinking of making little muffin-cup tortiere canapes; somethin' like that.

Friday Five: "Surprised by Joy" Edition

This week's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five has a Thanksgiving theme, with a twist: What are five unexpected blessings we can be thankful for?

This is an interesting question for me, because I tend not to be too fond of surprises. I can be wound a little tightly, and sometimes I need to slowly warm up to new experiences. But, sometimes, they're good things. Here are a few.

1. Fellow Traveler. Five years ago I certainly never envisioned myself living in domestic tranquility with the love of my life. This has been a very good surprise.

2. A granddaughter. Ruby was a surprise all around; and both the nine months of this pregnancy and the past year have been jam-packed with baby-related changes in our lives, including her parents' wedding and move across the country; including my first experience taking care of a tiny child.. In two weeks were on our way to SoCal to visit The Kids in their new home; my first trip out West. But it's all good.

3. Chica. Fast-forwarding to this summer: When Gertie died this summer, I was pretty certain that we wouldn't share our lives with another dog. So was Fellow Traveler. Who knew that, two months ago, we'd find a compelling photo of a cute little canine on Petfinder, resolve to save her from the animal-shelter gas chamber, and come home with one of the sweetest dogs we've ever had the privilege of knowing? Chica -- who at this very moment is sitting on the sofa with me, recuperating from her Special Lady-Dog Operation -- is a gem; cuddly, friendly to all, smart and well-behaved.

4. The joy of not working. I have to admit -- when we decided as a household that we could get by fine on one income, I couldn't help the feeling that I was doing something very, very bad, and that the Universe was about to punish me. Chalk that up to a combination of familial work ethic, coming of age at a time when having a serious career was a hallmark of being a liberated, self-empowered woman, and feeling guilt over our many friends and neighbors who find themselves under- or unemployed these days.  Almost immediately I tried to justify this not working by studying for a new job instead; until I got real about my complete lack of interest in spending my days proofreading lines of HTML code. And then I foundered for awhile. It's only recently, maybe even in the past couple months, that I've been able to feel truly okay about a life that alternates domesticity with volunteerism. Will this be my status forever? Probably not. But when I engage the workplace again, it will be as someone whose work life is no longer based on fear and guilt and people-pleasing.

5. Living in mid-Michigan. Until recently I've always felt a dissatisfaction with living in this area; I always saw my future, and then our future, somewhere else -- the Leelanau area of northern Michigan, or perhaps even out East in Fellow Traveler's old stomping grounds. But in the last couple of years we've really planted some roots on this land in this place. While it's not obvious to a casual visitor, and frankly wasn't even obvious to me as a native -- there are real blessings in living here: the woods and waters and wildlife; the Amish community; the slower pace of life. We still travel; still enjoy exploring new places and going back to our favorite getaway areas; but we are thankful whenever, after such a trip, we find ourselves turning into our own driveway once again.

The Funniest Thing I've Read in a Long Time

If you have ever lived with a dog, you will laugh out loud at this:
Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving.

A Snowed-In Friday Five

As we enter the waning weeks of autumn, with the first "sticking snow" just over the horizon (and perhaps some readers are already experiencing a white landscape),the  RevGalBlogPals Friday Five asks us to imagine our ideal snow day.

It feels odd responding to these questions during one of those misty Indian-summer November days when the temperature is expected to push 60 degrees -- I'm overlooking a lawn of green grass and an open pond -- but I know that in only a few weeks everything is going to change...

1. What is your favorite movie for watching when curled up under a wooly blanket?
Hard to say. I like classic movies; I like quirky movies. Probably, though, in the dead of winter, some northern European exploration of postmodern existential angst would not be my first choice of film. Or anything that an 18-year-old boy would watch. Or anything that a 5-year-old would watch. No; no movies that leave me wondering, "What in the hell was that?", or with the impulse to step in front of a train. No glorified video games/soft porn. No movies heavy on fart-and-belch humor, with protagonists who sound like the sort of smartass 10-year-old kids who need to be sent to military school in North Korea for a few years. Nah...how about some screwball Thirties romantic comedy, or Hitchcock thriller, or interesting indie film with a real plot and characters I wouldn't mind knowing in real life.


2. Likewise, what book?
I'd love to say I can happily curl up with a volume of Tillich or Luther's Works or the writings of the early Church...but actually on a snowy day what I really like to read are cookbooks -- big cookbooks with big, colorful pictures -- or gardening books with big, colorful pictures. It's true; deep, deep down I'm shallow.

3. What foods do you tend to cook/eat when it gets cold?
At our house we enjoy soup on cold days. I usually also get a jones for childhood comfort food -- pork roasts and mashed potatoes and fricaseed chicken. (Don't tell my doctor.) I like baking bread on frosty days. And toasted cheese sandwiches -- another excellent snowy-day choice, especially with the soup.

4. What do you like to do if you get a "snow day" (or if you don't get snow days, what if you did)?
At our house it's much like the answers to 1, 2 and 3...although Fellow Traveler will usually suggest venturing out sometime post-blizzard to survey the landscape: "Why have a Jeep if you don't use it?" (I've not yet driven the Prius in a blizzard, but suspect that it really isn't a vehicle of choice for this sort of adventure.)
5. Do you like winter sports or outdoor activities, or are you more likely to be inside playing a board game? Do you have a favorite (indoors or out)?
If it's sunny and pleasant post-snowstorm, we sometimes like to snowshoe. We now have a dog who, so far, as demonstrated that we can't trust her for even a second outside without a leash, so the snowshoeing might be a challenge this winter. Board-game-wise, we enjoy dominoes and Scrabble.

New Kid on the Block

Yikes -- I just realized that I've been away from this blog for so long I've neglected to introduce what's left of my readership to a new member of our household.

Say hello to Chica!

After Gertie's accident we had pledged to never get another dog. Or at least to not get another dog for a long, long time. And for the first couple of months that seemed like a good idea. Even as we grieved for Gertie, we began to notice how much easier life was without a dog: bed-and-breakfast vacations without having to arrange for babysitting; no 2:00 a.m. potty runs outside; long-distance travel without the drama of having to manage a pooch's meals and bathroom breaks on the road.

Then one day we saw a lost dog, some sort of shaggy spaniel mix, on the busy highway running past our house. The dog, dragging a lead, shaking with fear, was trying to cross the road, dodging oncoming cars. I imagined a vehicle catching the lead on a tire. Fellow Traveler and I looked at one another in horror.

"I'm stopping," said FT. She pulled over.

But another vehicle, coming from the other direction, also stopped. The man who emerged from the pickup appeared to be an off-duty volunteer firefighter. He wove his way diagonally through the traffic and somehow managed to grab the stray's flapping lead. He quickly scooped up the frightened animal, wove through traffic again and placed the dog in the cab of his truck. We breathed a sigh of relief.

A few minutes later FT quietly admitted, "I could have taken that dog home. How about you?"

"Me too."

Several days later we caught one another scrolling down pages of dog photos on Petfinder.

Now it was only a matter of time.

A few mornings after this, I showed FT a photo of a dog at a dog pound in our area. FT returned to Petfinder to read about the dog. Then she said, "Hey -- look at the little brown dog at the same pound."

I'd missed this photo before. It showed a honey-colored beagle-sized dog with half-floppy ears, a cute little snubby nose and curly short tail. The information with the photo said that the dog was a female stray whose owner had never materialized, who had just come up for adoption.

"What do you think?"

"Let's call."

We did, and were advised to come quickly.

And that is how Chica wound up at our house.

It's always amazing to me how unique dogs' personalities are (something that people who keep their animals on chains in their backyard never learn); and Chica is no exception. From the moment we saw her in her cage, subdued but not in despair like the dogs next to her, alert and cautiously friendly as we approached, we knew she was going to be a different pet than Gertie.

For one thing -- this little girl used to have someone who cared about her and took good care of her. She's well socialized with people and other pets alike (more about that later). She's also been well fed. (And she has an obsession with finishing half-cups of coffee with cream -- we discovered this her first morning with us -- that leads us to suspect that this was a special treat for her in her former home.) She doesn't have an air of neediness or neurosis, like many rescue dogs. Her only vice we've found is her compulsion to run outside, and away, at the slightest opportunity; which may be why she wound up in a shelter in the first place.

Chica is a cuddler. She is a licker. She is a blanket burrower -- the only dog I've ever seen who wants to crawl completely under a blanket and stay there for an extended length of time. (Be careful where you sit in our house.) She makes silly little snuffly sounds when she's happy. She has an awesome four-foot vertical jump. She loves tummy tickles. She doesn't love car rides per se, but she does enjoy going places, especially places where she can meet interesting people and other animals. She eats nearly everything. She likes early bedtime, and gets a little peeved when forced to watch TV with the humans beyond about 9:30 pm.

Mollie the cat greeted the news of a new roommate with shock and two days of pouting; she would look at Chica, then look at us with frank reproach in her eyes: How could you two do this to me? By Day Three her attitude had mellowed to that of tired resignation: My God, I hate training the new ones. Now, a month and several well-aimed wallops of feline paw later, Mollie and Chica get along fairly well, although Chica -- who loves and is absolutely fascinated by Mollie -- still has a hard time restraining herself from trying to give Mollie full-face kisses. Mollie, for her part, has ended the hissing and spitting and bloodletting, and now maintains boundaries and discipline through clawless whacks, delivered with matter-of-fact impassivity. No; that is not appropriate behavior...WHACK...no; that is still not appropriate behavior...WHACK...

So what breed is Chica, exactly? We have decided that she is a chihuawhat -- part chihuahua, part who knows what.

Friday Five: "It Is Well With My Soul" Edition

This week's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five touches on those little things in life that make us glad:

There are many perks in my life for which I give thanks and then there are some that make everything right in the world during the moment I am enjoying them. I'm wondering what a few of those things - five to be specific - are for you.

1. Morning coffee with my beloved: No matter how harried our day, we try to set aside a good chunk of early morning just to enjoy coffee and conversation with one another. This is also the place in the day where we tend to make household plans and discuss Deep Thoughts.

2. Sunday afternoon country drives. This has become a Sunday routine at our house; coming home from church, eating a light lunch, hopping back in the car and taking a leisurely excursion into Amish country. We enjoy the farmland and woods around us; and we also enjoy seeing our Amish neighbors in their Sunday best, taking part in their own Sunday worship and recreation.

3. Digging in the dirt. Even when it's in the context of digging up some very, very sad, stunted carrots (note to self -- add some sand to the carrot patch next year) or other less-than-successful garden projects, for me there's something about engaging with the earth that seems right and real.

4. Listening to some really good music.

5. Snowed-in days.  I love those mornings when we wake up to several inches of new snow; the schools are closed; everything is white and still outside. It's a great day to wrap oneself up in an afghan, pour some hot tea and read a good book, or watch a classic movie. (This is an attitude readjustment from my life as a commuter, when such snow days were a cause of much angst.)

Friday Five: Comfort Food, Media Course

Here in Michigan this week the weather turned for real. The leaves are for the most part off the trees; the autumn flowers are gone; we are officially now in furnace/afghan/comfort food weather. Which makes the RevGalBlogPal Friday Five challenge this week especially relevant:

Today's Friday Five is an opportunity for you to list five of your favorite go-to' movies/tv shows/books. You can use images, links, explanations or Netflix.

Comfort media, in other words.

I used to be one of those children who would read and re-read the same beloved book until the spine was broken and the pages were dogeared, or become so attached to a television show that when it was cancelled it felt as if my world had been turned upside down. Those days, I'm relieved to say, are over; although part of that "overness," I suspect, has less to do with my growing up and more to do with our increasingly fragmented attention in the wake of so many reading, viewing and listening choices. But there are still a few films and books and musical selections I turn to when I need the media equivalent of a warm, snuggly afghan:

1. Fried Green Tomatoes. One of the few chick flicks I enjoy and can watch over and over again. (How weird is it, though, to be reintroduced to Mary-Louise Parker in Weeds, a series I'm finding oddly addicting...pardon the pun.)
2. A Charlie Brown Christmas. Having seen what they're doing to the Charlie Brown franchise on ABC these days, I'm glad I have my own copy of the old and unimproved original.
3. Seed catalogs. These used to be a kind of visual Xanax for me in the dark of winter. Now, thanks to the miracle of the Internet, if I'm stressed out I can access them anytime, for a pleasant interlude of virtual garden planning.
4. Cookbooks.
5. James Taylor and Carol King. The early years, specifically. Destressing balm for the ears and psyche.

Friday Five: Got Connections?

This week's RevGalBlogPals challenge asks us to examine our connections...so here goes:

1. Self: Who was your hero/heroine when you were about ten years old?
I have always taken a shine to heroic righters of wrongs: Robin Hood, Zorro, Sherlock Holmes. I also was moved by people who overcame obstacles -- disability, prejudice -- to become change agents in the world. Those were my heroes when I was that age.




2. Family: Who are you most like? Who is most like you?
I think dispositionally I borrow heavily from both parents. But the person most like me...I think my maternal grandmother, a lady I never got to know because she died when I was maybe two. She was very creative and bright; despite a rough start in life thanks to an evil stepmother right out of a Brothers Grimm story and a life of poverty and illness, she found joy and beauty in books, in music, in nature, in the domestic arts.

3. Friends: How do you stay in touch?
The much-maligned Facebook has been a real tool for me to find and keep in touch with old friends from various ages/stages in my life. A recent find was an old penpal I hadn't been in contact with in almost 30 years. Right now I'm trying to find friends from my "Cadillac years" (the Michigan city, not the automobile).


4. Neighborhood, community: What are ways you like to be involved?
Well, as frequent readers know, we get to know our neighbors by doing business with them. As two transplants from elsewhere, we don't have familial or social connections in our town, but we've gotten to know a lot of locals through hiring servicepeople or by patronizing farmstands and home-based businesses like our Amish friend Mary's basket and quilt shop.

5. Job/church: Do you see a need that will help in developing connections?
One of our weak areas at church is adult religious formation. I think that might someday provide a means for building relationships between people, but the trick is discerning what people need and want in terms of growing in discipleship. It's been our experience that floating new programs in a top-down way -- "We think people need X class, so here it is" -- is a sure way to fail. We've not yet discerned an organic desire for any kind of new group bubbling up within our congregation.

Bonus: Here is an interesting Pew study on social networking among older adults.

Wade in the Water...

I know. I should probably write about why I've been scarce in the blogosphere, what I did on my summer vacation and other questions my remaining readership may have.

And I will. But first I want to talk about this other thing:

Water.

Water has been on my mind the past few weeks as we ponder how to best care for our backyard pond, an "inherited" feature of our property that we want to keep healthy for the living things that live in and around it.

This is a big spring-fed pond, almost as wide as our lawn and maybe 10 feet deep, not a little kidney-shaped plastic pool. We don't have aeration or other mechanical devices to keep the water oxygenated; we don't do chemicals; we're basically relying on Mother Nature to keep the pond's ecosystem going.

And it has for the most part. It is home to two slider turtles and a multitude of fish, planted comets from the pet store as well as an assortment of tiny wild fish that have just shown up (probably as a result of fish eggs migrating via wildfowl feet.)

But a population explosion of fish this summer has got us worried about winterizing the pond; making sure that we don't experience winterkill, a condition that happens when toxic gases from decomposing plants become trapped under ice and suffocate pond life. This happened to us a couple of years ago; we were horrifed, come spring thaw, to find dead frogs and fish bobbing in the water.

So I've been doing a lot of reading. I've been raking dead leaves and vegetative muck out of the water as I've been able. I've been moderating our fishes' snacks to lower the ammonia content of the water for winter. I've been asking around on gardening forums about creative, non-electricity-using ways to keep open spots in the pond during the winter.

Keeping water clean is hard work, even on our relatively small scale.

Millions of human beings around the world have no access to clean drinking water or safe sanitation. That's why I, like a lot of other bloggers today, are inviting you to think about the importance of clean water to the whole world (and, as our Native American friends would say, to all our relations on this planet), to learn more about this issue and to, if you're able, lend some support to programs that help make water and sanitation available. On the right side of my blog you'll see a widget for the United Nations' clean water initiative; it's likely that you'll also find information about clean-water initiatives on the websites of your church bodies' aid/development agencies and other faith-based organizations.

As many of us are reminded everytime we celebrate a baptism in our churches, water is a good gift of God. We should give thanks for ours...and we can help others to receive this gift.

Who's on the Banner Committee?...

And here I thought that big-box churches had the edge on pop-culture fluency...

see more EpicFail

Friday Five: Riding the Storm Out

In honor of the hurricane bearing down upon the Eastern Seaboard, the RevGalBlogPals offer a storm-themed Friday Five challenge this week:

1) What is the most common kind of storm in your neck of the woods?
Hmmm. That's tough to answer. I think I have to give the edge to summer thunderstorms, even though we've had some recent dry summers with nary a thunderboomer...I was just saying to Fellow Traveler the other day that this is the first summer in a long time when we've had some proper storms. Now, when I lived in northern Michigan, it seemed we had a blizzard once a week during the winter months -- blizzard as in can't-see-the-road, snow-up-to-the-axles blizzard. Not so much down here.


2) When was the last time you dealt with a significant power outage?
We have been pretty fortunate in this regard...I think last winter we had about a day and a half without power, but that's it. That's compared to the Great Ice Storm of 1970-something -- I was in high school at the time -- when a massive ice storm pounded the state for a couple of days, and we had no power for almost a week. Having an auxilliary wood stove in the basement made staying in the house tolerable...but I recall the joy of finally sinking into hot, soapy bathwater after a week of furtive teakettle-heated PTA hygiene in a refrigerator-cold bathroom.

3) Are you prepared for the next one?
One word: hotel.

4) What's the weather forecast where you are this weekend?
Ccccold for the first week of September (63 degrees F tomorrow); rain tomorrow, but sunny on Sunday and Monday.
5) How do you calm your personal storms?
For hurricane-level storms, the Jesus Prayer is one of my tried-and-true lifesavers; for less intense storms, chocolate or oaked chardonnay or some mindless television all work well.

Bonus: A little Lena Horne...



...a little Jim Morrison...



...and some REO: