Simple thoughts on the eve of a new year — keep writing, stop judging, start allowing —
reflection aside/
this time finds me/
face forward/
back to the wind/
knees bent/
leaning into life/
words wide open/
with faith/
gusts will blow/
carry me safely/
where i need to go.
*************************
glückliches neues Jahr —
nouvelle année heureuse —
Feliz Año Nuevo —
May you find your peace on earth in the New Year.
This is a true story — the names have been withheld to protect the hilarious, but these are the facts as told to me:
It all started with a desire to truly know Mary Jane. What I knew of Mary Jane up until yesterday was just talk — any talk about the love of big, wide bowls that go on and on that I’ve been part of for the last 15 years always included a reference to Mary Jane.
Mary Jane.
Let’s do Mary Jane between Christmas and New Year’s. Let’s get in the car and drive 2 hours to join a small crazy village of people standing in lift lines longer than Conda. Let’s shiver 20 minutes in stop-and-go lift traffic due to wind speeds. Let’s unload at the top in awe as we arrive at our destination. Mary Jane.
Who is Mary Jane? Simply put: a brilliant business woman … “as bits and pieces of history and lore are revealed, what began as an innocent settlement of miners, rail yard workers and loggers in the late 1800s, would later mark the “peak” of a woman named Mary Jane and her clever business sense for supply and demand.”
Like a true lady of the evening, MJ gave through 30 mph winds and blustery conditions, and when we were spent, we slipped happily into the lower level parlor frequented by the lunch packin crowd of Winter Park goers.
After thawing out with chili dogs, we braced ourselves for another session between the icy sheets — the men heading off for the restrooms, and the women several bites and equipment tugs behind.
What a surprise when we reached the pile of skis to discover the men’s skis untouched.
How could we have known that one of our own was stranded in a stall in the men’s room without TP sitting out his fear of Craig.msp.2007?
Watch your wide stance, keep your hands close, and no tapping or banging.
What’s a modern man without a square to do?
This is the recipe I learned in 1980 when I was daytime headwaitress at the Mexican Village on St. Germaine:
1 part tequila
1 part triple sec
1 part sweet and sour (Holland House is the preferred brand - be sure not to buy margarita mix, make sure it’s sweet and sour)
1/2 part water
Any kind of glasses – paper, plastic, tumblers, fancy ones
Store bought ice
Fresh limes
***************************************
If you’ve got a party goin’, mix it in a big container and use a big dipper as the metric. Stir well and pour over the rocks. Squeeze the lime and drop it in the well.
Sip with caution — warning: sock trading likely to occur after 2.
When a young Native American boy falls off a train, he ends up meeting a man with an alcohol problem … as the boy reveals his knack for handling horses, they uncover the secrets to life and relationships and —
this knock-you-on-your-ass recipe for chili!
This recipe is all mine:
Several pounds of chuck roast – lean or marbled
An assortment of fresh peppers – pablano, serrano, chile, jalapeno …
Half of a large yellow onion
6 cloves of garlic
3 cans of Rotel
Purified water with 2 beef cubes, or organic beef broth
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
*********************************
Get out your chef’s knife and finely chop peppers, onion and garlic. Set aside. Rub the roast with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, then brown it. Throw it in an electric roaster/crock pot at 350 and cover with Rotel. Add water to the fry pan on low heat to release the drippings from the browned roast. Dump this in. Add about half the pepper, onion, garlic mixture and some beef broth.
While it cooks about 2 hours or until the roast is tender enough to shred, listen to Ryan Adams do Neil Young, Prince and U2… drink one, maybe two margaritas. Ok, dance with each other. Fall off the horse a coupla times.
Now take the roast out and if your hands are tough enough, shred it while it’s hot, leaving behind all the gristle and the fat. Throw it back in the roaster. Taste.
If you want more heat, add some more pepper mixture.
Let it cook as long as you can so all the flavors get to know eachother.
Serve with the usual condiments, including any leftover pepper mixture and of course, sour cream — a must for sissy pants.
msp on dec 24: the metropolitan area is recovering from a mean winter storm and the concourse on the way to my gate is a jolly refugee camp strung together with red airport-issued mats.
In a seat facing the window between gate 18 and gate 17, I settle in for my own warm winter’s delay.
Behind me is a woman on standby for the flight that’s loaded and ready to depart from gate 17.
“Can I get on now?”
“No, it’s still his seat. I’m not going to give you his seat while he still has a chance to make his flight.”
From the jetway, “can I close the door now?”
Firmly, “no, catering is still on and his plane could move any minute.”
She motions to the gate next door where I see a plane sitting on the tarmac waiting for god knows what — reindeer? — to pull it to the gate just a few feet from where the seat’s rightful owner needs to be next.
I’m riveted on this Christmas Eve horse race now.
I look left. The plane is moving! The door at gate 18 opens and people push their way out. O come all ye faithful! A tall dark-skinned man is running now, boarding pass waving in his outstretched hand.
I prepare for the joyful noise he’s about to receive.
“I’m sorry sir, you’ve been re-ticketed — go back to the gate, they’ll take care of you.”
What?
I look right. The woman is gone. The accordian walkway retracts as the plane at gate 17 is pushed back.
Though disappointed for the close but no candy cane traveler, my heart is gladdened by the gate angel. She gave him every possible chance on a day when it would have been much easier to write him off, close the door and be done with it.
And then — with a blink of an eye, she moved on.
the snow fell.
And now, I wake and write.
While I write, one of my favorite traditions waits in the freezer — Sebastian Joe’s egg nog ice cream.
I can’t think of an annual holiday gift I relish more than this pint of delicately spiced velvet.
Let heaven-n-nature sing, “I love my neighborhood!”
(Literally, the night is in diapers. )
At some point in the last few days we were visited by the longest night of the year and the sun got as far away as it could get from us here in the Northern hemisphere.
As you took notice of the cold and the dark, did you build a fire? Did you draw close the company you desire most? Did you hug your knees to your chest and take a deep breath? Say, “the night is young” to someone you love?
The light is coming.
In the hours ahead, may you be filled with a deep sense of meaning here on earth.
Emmanuel.
“God with us.”
A banner week for technology enabled business blunders - er, dare I say it, boners - is coming to a close.
The week started with a stray email from a colleague thinking he was replying to a – shall we say fishing buddy – about a certain fish in the sea. Unfortunate for him, with his thoughts on “love sludge,” he hit “reply to all” on an email sent by global HR to the entire global population.
Then he typed.
Then he hit send.
Then God knows what he did —- before he hit “recall message.”
And then.
If you’ve ever given two thoughts to the issue of privacy on the operating table, go ahead and news google “hot rod.”
I hope this dull chap now knows the truth about cell phones and scalpels.
They make horrible bed fellows.
Why does she glow?
Because she’s hot and she knows it!
Oh, and she has a fabulous lover and a boyfriend all in one man.
Yep, “all I want for Christmas” might be a better title for this post — but lest you think me a smidge jealous, halt!
I learned last night at Miss Bonnie Jean’s proclaimed H-H-H-E (Holiday Happy Hour Emergency) that “envious” is the correct term for how you feel when someone has achieved something you want to achieve yourself in your own way. I also learned, after taking three consecutive slams to the bloodline, that the Bonnie Lassie and Rico don’t find the Germans fervent enough, when it comes to well —- anything.
While I was assured the Irish in me more than compensates, I drained my pint of Harp and gave some thought to raising my own glow this season.
Then Beth showed up like a Santa’s little genie and relayed a conversation she had with a certain someone she might like me to meet.
“I asked him what he was looking for in a woman and he said, ‘amazingly gorgeous and wicked smart’ — I told him I could deliver wicked smart … and (little pause) attractive.”
I’ll glow on that.
With the arrival of the t*da logo stickers yesterday, I’ve got a new very enjoyable pastime.
Sticking stickers and standing back to admire their cuteness.
During the last 24-hours of rip roarin stickermania I couldn’t help but think about the last time I was so captivated by a sticker. And I wasn’t alone in it that time.
In 1998 one sticker was the center of a summerful of Sunday dinners at my parent’s home.
“Grandma, why is there a sticker over Carl’s head?”
Nine dripping kids and 12 lifeguards on break drop their brats and turn to the 11 x 14 family portrait taken at my wedding in 1995. Smack dab in the middle of my ex-husband’s face is a gold hallmark sticker.
My mother’s explanation: “Well it’s a really good picture of all of us.”
Yeah, well this is one of those moments when you have to laugh, but how good does it really feel to be at this table and be me? I am about to turn 40 and childless and now immortalized as a blushing bride flanked by a sticker head.
Make that ex-sticker head.
