Heartbreak

We found out today that our young friend C will be moving to Las Vegas.... her dad accepted a new job out there. We knew that he had been looking around, but we kept hoping that he'd find something in the area here. Her dad has to report to the new job by mid-December, but they haven't decided yet if they will all move right away, or possibly C and her mom would stay here till the end of the school term in May. C has already asked her mom if she could stay with me and my husband till May, if her mom wants to move to Vegas before school ends. Of course I was thrilled at that prospect, but I told C that it was entirely up to her parents. I also told C that if she were my child, I wouldn't be leaving her with anyone, anywhere, for that length of time.

C is very upset. She doesn't want to move. She just started 9th grade this year, she has lots of friends that she grew up with here, and she flat-out doesn't want to leave Texas. She called me this afternoon to tell me the news, and I drove over to her house to give her a hug. She was holding herself together very well until she asked me if my husband would still "save her door" after she moved away. That's when we both cried.

"Her door" is the door in our home that goes from the breakfast room to the screen porch. My husband has been making pencil marks on that door for years now, tracking her height and marking the date. We've had the door painted a couple of times, but C's height-marks have never been painted over. I told her that we will always save her door. Imagine that.... to think that the door and those marks are so very important to her. More proof that it's the little things that you do for kids that mean the most, and those are the things they remember for the longest time.

Our lives will change here without C being close by. Of course we told her she could fly out here whenever she wants, and we would visit her, too. But it won't be the same as having her living five minutes away from us, and I guess we both know that. C's best friend L hasn't stopped crying since she heard the news. I told C that I would keep in touch with L, that I wouldn't stop seeing her once C and her family moved to Vegas.

C has been in my life since she was in second grade and I was her reading tutor at our local school. Who would've thought that she would be such an important little person in our lives for all these years. And many years to come, I'm sure.

One day at a time. One moment at a time. I miss her already, and they're not even packed up to move yet.

The Storm Before the Calm

I have been buried in party favors, invitations and preparations for the past few days here. The month of December is a busy one, but this year seems extra-busy.

I'm in the midst of our annual Open House Christmas Party, a dinner for my husband's birthday, taking our two young 14-yr-old friends to "Dickens on The Strand" in Galveston and "The Nutcracker" in downtown Houston, and then a dinner party for New Year's Eve--- not necessarily in that order, except of course the New Year's Eve dinner is the last one on the list for the year.

I knew I'd be busy for the month, so I'm glad I told K that I wouldn't be coming for piano lessons till after the first of the year. I've got too much left to do for the Open House Christmas Party, and that's all that I'll be consumed with from now till party-time. I've got to plan the menu for that and decide what I'll make and what I'll have catered. Thankfully, the young waitress from the Greek Deli has agreed to come help on party night. She was such a great help to me with last year's party, so I was happy to know she was available this time as well.

The month of December is going to fly by, I know, but right now, the days are going by slowly. Which is a good thing, because I've got so much to do.

The weather, which was bright and sunny and so very warm, has turned colder at night now, beginning with last night. Too cool on the porch for me to leave Mickey Kitty out there, so we let him sleep in our bedroom--- and we had to keep the door closed so he wouldn't get to the big Christmas tree in the living room. Now that it's all decorated, I can't have him trying to get to the top of that tree--- and I'm sure he could, given the chance. I've been keeping him in the porch during the day-- when the sun comes out, it warms up out there just fine. At night, though, the temperature has been going down to around 55 degrees....... sure seems cold to me. And if I feel cold, then I'm not leaving the cats out there.

Oh well, this too shall pass....... and it will be warm again. And all the invitations will be out, the RSVPs will be in, the favors will be ready, the placecards, the food, the desserts, the table decorations, the entertainment.....

How many more days till Christmas?

Sunny Sunday Morning

We drove downtown last night to celebrate the 60th birthday of our friend K. She invited about 20 of her friends to a Mexican restaurant near her home for a buffet-style dinner to commemorate the "Big 6-0." One of her friends is a professional lute player, and his gift to K was to provide the music, which he did quite nicely.

It rained most of yesterday-- a pouring-down, no-nonsense rain that soaked the ground and made little ponds in the grass. Thankfully, the sky cleared up about an hour before we had to leave for downtown. As we drove on the Gulf Freeway and got close to the downtown Houston skyline, the sky was a pretty shade of blue with streaks of pink. And this morning, we woke up to sunny skies and very warm temperatures. Back to normal, weather-wise.

Warm temperatures--- exactly what I hope we'll have till after New Year's Day, because Mickey Kitty will be spending most of his time out on the screen-porch. That little kitten just can't be trusted to be in the living room with the big tree. We tried not once, not twice, but three times, to have him join us all in the living room and find a cozy spot under the tree for his nap, as ShadowBaby and AngelBoy do. Mickey Kitty has too much kitten-energy for that..... he went straight underneath the tree to the trunk and began climbing the branches.... spiraling his way towards the top each time. He's so small and light that he didn't even bend the branches down as he climbed higher and higher.

Oh well.... he likes the screen-porch, and that's a good thing, because that's where he's going to be till we take the tree out to the curb after the first of the year. The only other cat we've had who tried to climb our Christmas tree was Shadow, our first black cat that we had when we lived in League City. Shadow ran to the tree and just hugged the trunk for a few minutes, then tried (and failed) to climb up the trunk. He never tried to spiral around the trunk via the branches, as Mickey Kitty did, and when Shadow realized I didn't want him climbing the tree, he never tried it again.

Sadly, Shadow met his kitty-maker the year after we moved into this house when he had a fight with a mean stray cat which left Shadow with a concussion. When Shadow died, I stopped letting our cats outside of our backyard. They may be confined, but they're safe. Shadow was a great cat, and I swear that parts of him live on in ShadowBaby and now Mickey Kitty. Well, let's not get me started talking about Shadow because it always makes me sad.

On a brighter note.... the big tree is all decorated... every ornament we have is on that tree--- and if I find a few more between now and Christmas, I'm sure I'll find some spots to put them. We started the tree on Friday morning, and I finished it last night after we got back from downtown. I had a burst of energy from a sugar-buzz.... we had sopapillas for dessert--- delicious puffs of thin dough that are dusted with a sugar & cinnamon mixture. So, the lights and ornaments are up, gold tree-skirts surround the bottom of the tree, and I've got teddy bears and stuffed animals sitting all around the tree--- it all looks very Victorian. I've got the stuffed Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse from Disneyland sitting right in front of the tree-- not exactly Victorian, but perfectly perfect just the same.

Welcome to the Christmas Tree

My husband went to the Christmas tree field on Highway 3 this morning, and came home with a ten-foot Frazier Fir. Gorgeous tree, perfectly shaped, nice and tight, pretty shade of deep green, and up to the lower slanted part of the ceiling next to the fireplace. Thankfully, he didn't get a taller tree, being that he had at least five more feet of ceiling space to play with. As it is, we'll be using the ladder to decorate the top of this one.

Our next door neighbor helped my husband get the tree into the house---- the tree seller (for the second year in a row) gave his own truck to my husband to cart the tree home in. They didn't even bag it, since it's too wide and too tall to fit into those net bags they have at the tree farms. Our neighbor B has helped my husband before with our big trees, so they got this one into the house and set into the stand in record time. Our tree stand weighs a ton--- made of heavy steel and iron, and it has chains and metal rods that reach high up into and around the trunk of the tree to hold it in place. With the size of our trees, we have to make sure the stand is "industrial-strength" so it won't tip over.

After my husband drove the truck back to the tree lot and we cleaned up the needles on the carpet, I let the cats and Gracie back into the house--- they had all been on the screen porch while the tree was being set up and were watching through the windows. Well, Gracie and the older cats said their hellos to the tree, but Mickey Kitty, bless his kitty-soul, walked up to the tree and started to climb it. He went underneath the tree and got himself close to the trunk and began to walk from branch to branch, as if he were climbing a spiral staircase. Before we knew it, he was nearly at eye-level with my husband, and he's about 6 feet tall.

I surely hope it stays warm for the month of December, because Mickey Kitty is going to be spending most of his time out on the porch till this tree is taken down after New Year's Day. We can't have him climbing on the branches of the tree once the lights and the ornaments are up. All the lights are antique figurals and bubble-lights, and the ornaments are vintage and new blown-glass. Can you just imagine Mickey Kitty getting tangled up in light-cords and toppling glass ornaments to the floor below?

Jingle Bells......... how many more days till Christmas?

Thanksgiving Dinner

I was too tired last night to sit here and type. After our company left, my husband and I sat in the TV room and watched the two episodes of The Apprentice that aired last night. Actually, the first episode was just a week by week review of all the previous weeks, with some added scenes put in to make it seem like the whole hour wasn't just a re-run. The second hour was an entirely new episode. So we just relaxed and sat, and talked about the day.

The dinner was delicious, from salad to dessert. The spinach salad, with pears and pine nuts and parmesean was absolutely delicious. I even took the time to pull all the little stems off of every spinach leaf-- something I don't normally do when I toss fresh spinach into our own salads every week. That salad was a new recipe I had found in a Thanksgiving cookbook, and it was light, and pretty to look at because I fixed all the salad plates in the kitchen and sprinkled the cheese and pine nuts on the tops of each serving of spinach and pear slices.

Our friends R and C brought an Italian zucchini pie as their vegetable dish. It looked as pretty as a picture, and tasted like the zucchini pies my grandmother used to make. C's mom L baked a spinach and cheese casserole for her vegetable dish, plus she brought her cranberry/apple sidedish to go with the turkey.

My husband's oyster stuffing was the best yet, and his mashed potatoes with cheddar cheese is always a hit. I made sweet potatoes with apples, pecans, pineapples & brown sugar, and those are always a hit with me. (I'm not a fan of white potatoes). The small 8-pound turkey and the 5-pound turkey breast was more than enough--- and both came out very moist and tender. I had put half an apple into each of them, along with a cinnamon stick and a sprig of rosemary--- sure made for a flavorful bird, plus it gave extra taste to the gravy.

The dining room table was filled with food... too much food for 6 people, but that's what usually happens on Thanksgiving--- too much food. I sent everyone home with left-overs, so I'll bet that's what they're all eating for either lunch or dinner today. Everyone liked the vintage Thanksgiving postcards that I used for placecards, and they were happier still to know they could take them home. I had found a great Thanksgiving cookbook last month, and I went back to the store and bought extra copies to give as favors.... one for L, one for R and C.

One thing I will do for the next holiday, or for the next sit-down dinner here--- I will warm up the plates like my Aunt Dolly used to do. She used to rest the plates on the door of the oven to warm them up, this way the hot foods would stay hot when she plated them. Hot food going onto a cold plate will cool down quickly, but a heated plate will keep the food warm for a longer time.

We had the air conditioning on yesterday, too--- and it's on today as well. Warm temperatures, but that's not a complaint. I'd rather have it warmer than colder, and if it stays like this for the rest of the year, I'll be perfectly content. I'm glad I decided on another outfit for yesterday... the sleeveless top and silk slacks was the perfect thing for a busy time in the kitchen.

High Noon on Thanksgiving

I guess everything is as ready as it can be for the moment. The turkey is in the oven, keeping company with a small turkey breast (just so we have extra white meat). I've got a note on the kitchen counter when to check both, when to take out the smaller of the two. They're not much different in size-- only two people coming today like dark meat, so I bought the smallest whole turkey that I could find.

It's warmer outside than I thought it would be, so the outfit I picked out yesterday is back in the closet, in favor of gold silk slacks and a leopard/paisley print silk sleeveless top. I should be comfortable in this all day long. Easy to wear, easy to cook and serve in, with no sleeves to worry about.

Gracie and the cats are all on the porch, except for Rusty who is on the backyard deck. If I keep Rusty on the porch with the others, he'll go from dish to dish and eat up all their food. As it is, that cat already looks like a 20-pound Butterball turkey.

I got to watch part of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade while I was doing things in the kitchen this morning. Houston has a parade as well today, and it's pretty good, but let's face it--- no one does Thanksgiving Day like Macy's in New York. (Sorry, Houston.)

Back I go to the kitchen.... I'm glad we got so much prepared ahead of time yesterday and the day before. This morning has been a snap. I've even got dough rising in the bread machine, and I've timed it so the bread will be ready when I serve the spinach/pear/pine nut/parmesean salad. (I'm looking forward more to that salad and the stuffing than I am to the turkey, which I will only take a taste of. I've never been much of a turkey girl.)

Gobble, gobble.

Cooking and Cleaning for Turkey Day

Busy day today........ my husband was in the kitchen making the stuffing--- oyster stuffing. Delicious.... one of the best he's ever made, and he has made some awesome stuffing in the past. No one calls it "stuffing" down here--- they call it "dressing," but I just can't get used to that word.

I have my own type of "dressing"-- and that to me means clothes, which I spent some time trying on today. It was very warm out today, it's warm tonight, and it's going to be very warm tomorrow. I had planned to wear a black velvet skirt and top tomorrow, but with the temperature rising up there in the 80s, velvet is out. So I spent an hour in our dressing room this afternoon, with my closet door wide open, and outfits came out and went back in. Finally settled on a light-weight satin skirt and a silky top. I swear, I spend more time just trying on clothes lately.

Anyway.... the stuffing is done, the mashed potatoes are done, and so are the sweet potatoes. The turkey (8 lbs) and the turkey breast (5 lbs) are both washed and settled in their roasting pans and are ready to go into the oven. My husband saw something interesting on the food channel-- you take half an apple, a cinnamon stick, and a sprig of rosemary and stick all three inside the turkey before you put it in the oven. Sounds good to me, and I'm planning on doing just that tomorrow.

The pumpkin pie and the mincemeat pie are ready to be re-heated just a touch, and our friend L (C's mom) is bringing an apple pie. She is also bringing the cranberry-apple sidedish for the turkey. Our friends R and C will bring the vegetable dishes, so I'll just have to re-heat them when they get here. Needless to say, I will have both ovens going tomorrow, plus the stove-top.... the kitchen will be busy.

All the cats have been out on the screen-porch since this morning. It was beautifully warm all day today, and it's fairly warm out there tonight. Thankfully, the temperature didn't drop the way it did the night before last. I swear, I should get those cats an electric blanket so when it is too cool on the porch for them, at least they'll have something really warm to sleep on. As it is now, I've got all their cat-sized furniture and chairs lined with a fleece-y fabric, to cover up the cooler cotton fabric that's usually on their cushions. (No, my cats are not spoiled.)

The dining room table is all set, and looks fabulous. The theme for the table is autumn leaves, even though 99% of the Texas leaves stay green, rather than turning red and gold. I've got vintage Thanksgiving postcards at each place setting---- I've used them as placecards. I had some extra gold/red silk leaves (leftovers from the little Thanksgiving centerpiece that I made for the sideboard) so I took the leaves and scattered a bunch of them along the center of the table. They look great on top of the ivory tablecloth.

I used our green and ivory china, which has gold trim around the edges, then I used ivory and gold-trimmed plates for the salad course and for the bread & butter dishes. There's a candle on a gold dish in the center of the table, which is sitting on a gold-beaded diamond-shaped placemat. I decorated the candle with tiny leaves, the same little leaves that I used to decorate the placecards. Around the bottom of the candle plate is a glass-beaded wreath that I laid flat on top of the gold-beaded placemat..... the entire thing just makes the center of the table sparkle.

So I am as ready as I can be for tomorrow. All that's left is to get the turkeys in the oven tomorrow morning, and to get the ingredients into the bread machine so we can have warm fresh bread with the salad course. I found a great recipe for a light salad-- spinach leaves, pear slices, pine nuts, and parmesean cheese, all topped with a light oil/vinegar dressing. (There's that word again-- dressing.)

As ready as I can be......... but first I need a good night's sleep.

A Barry Good Surprise!

I am still in shock....... my husband, who never ever wants to open a gift before Christmas or even a minute before a birthday-day, came in from work tonight and gave me a little box to open. He also had a manilla envelope in his hand, but he told me to open the box first.

I thought he was joking when I saw the Christmas wrapping paper on the box. I told him that this must be a joke. "No joke," said he.

I opened the box and there was a little Bic-like cigarette lighter in there. What? Who smokes in this house? I told him "Smoking isn't a good thing." Okay.... so what's the joke?

Then he told me to open up the envelope. And out slid two tickets to see Barry Manilow in Las Vegas next year. Two tickets to see Barry! Not just any tickets in the audience, but two tickets right on the stage with Barry. For his new "Music and Passion" show at the Vegas Hilton, there are seats set up on the stage, on both sides of Manilow's piano. And we have the first two seats in the first row, right near the piano.

I can bring my copy of "Sweet Life" to the concert, and hopefully Barry will sign it for me. I've carried that book to every Manilow concert we've been to, but haven't ever been able to get a signature, even when we've had front row seats.

We'll be right on the stage with Barry. What to wear, what to wear, what to wear......!?

I called my sister as soon as I calmed down, and her words of wisdom to me were "Don't make a fool of yourself up there. Sometimes they tape those shows and you could be making a fool of yourself on TV for years to come."

Manilow's "Music and Passion." I've wanted to go to Vegas to see that show since Barry first started this new show last year. And now I'll be counting down the days till we get to go to Vegas. I have to remember to bring the book.... I have to remember to bring the little fiber-optic candle-light that I bring to all his concerts. --- That's why my husband gave me the little cigarette lighter, by the way. At Barry's concerts, when he sings "I Write The Songs," his true-blue fans will hold up some sort of light and wave it in the air. Some people hold up cigarette lighters. I have my little fiber-optic candle-wand, which makes a nice soft glow but won't set someone's clothes on fire.

Clothes... what to wear, what to wear, what to wear.......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Baking Day

I spent most of today in the kitchen, getting a head-start on Thanksgiving. I baked a pumpkie pie-- came out perfectly. I made a cute little maple leaf from the extra dough and I "floated" it in the middle of the pie after it was half baked. By the time the pie was ready to come out of the oven, the maple leaf was nicely browned and it puffed up a little bit. I did something different with the crust, too--- I had some very finely chopped pecans, so I pressed them into the bottom crust before I poured the filling in.

One of the cooks on the Food Channel was baking a pumpkin pie yesterday, and she added a bit of apple butter to the pumpkin mixture. I did the same thing today-- gives it a richer flavor and just adds a little surprise to the pie. For the last 20 years or so, every time I bake a pumpkin pie, I use an ovenware quiche pan that was a gift from my friend F up in NY. If my memory is correct, F gave me the quiche pan one year after we took a baking class together and both of us got on a "quiche kick," making quiche every week and inviting one another over for lunch to try out the latest ingredients. The edges of this quiche pan are crimped, so the bottom of the pan is perfectly flat, which means that the pumpkin pie lays flat on the plate after it's sliced. I still use this pretty pan for quiche, which even has a quiche recipe imprinted into the design of the pan. Whenever I make a pumpkin pie, however, I always reach for my quiche pan because it's just the perfect design and size, and it always makes a beautiful pie.

After the pumpkin, I baked a mincemeat pie. I've never made one of those, and I hadn't planned on it this year, but when my husband and I went to the supermarket, he found a large jar of gourmet mincemeat filling. All I had to do was pour the filling into the bottom crust and cover it with a top crust. Being that leaves seem to be the "theme" for our Thanksgiving table, I used a knife to carve some leaves and branches into the top of the crust. Much nicer than just poking slits into the crust to let the air out.

The pies are done, and so are the sweet potatoes. I cut those up and baked them in a mixture of crushed pineapple, brown sugar, peach preserves, maple syrup and chopped pecans. I cooked them till they were just nearly done, then took them out of the oven. When I put them back into the oven to finish baking on Thursday, I'll chop up an apple or two and stir those into the mixture.

My husband will make the stuffing tomorrow morning, and then tomorrow night he'll do the mashed potatoes. I have a large round casserole dish that holds the mashed potatoes--- you can make them the day before, then heat them up over a double-boiler and they taste freshly-made, without the last-minute mess when too much has to be done at once. While he's busy in the kitchen tomorrow, I'll put all the cats on the porch and clean the house and get the dining room all ready. The cats won't be seeing the inside of the house till company leaves on Thanksgiving night. The cats won't be too happy about that, but it's just easier to have them out of the house whenever we're having any kind of dinner party.

Mickey Kitty has decided to leave the silver Christmas tree alone.... I guess he really didn't like me slapping the floor with the rolled-up newspaper every time he got near that little tree. My cats are spoiled because they live in a super-quiet house.... about the only time there's noise here is when we have a party. So any little (or big) noise that's out of the ordinary doesn't meet with their little cat-approval. Which is why the newspaper-noise worked so quickly.

I called my aunt and uncle out in Arizona today, to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving. They'll be having turkey-day at their son's (my cousin's) house, along with 25 other people. We went out to Arizona for Thanksgiving one year.... big group of family and friends out there who all get together for turkey-day and then a Charades game afterwards. Come to think of it, that's how my husband and I got started with our Charades parties here. I don't think I'd want to combine a Charades party with Thanksgiving, however-- that would mean a whole lot of turkey and trimming, and much more than two pies.

To The Mall

Not exactly where I wanted to be on the Monday before Thanksgiving, but I promised C that I would go to the Mall with her and her mom to look for some party clothes for the upcoming holiday, and today is the only free day I had before Thanksgiving. C's mom kept telling me that she ends up with a headache and a knot in her stomach after even a little shopping trip with C.

Now how can that be, with my sweet little C? It didn't take me long to find out the reason. With all good motherly intentions, L (C's mom) kept finding things on the rack for C to try on. Trouble was, the things that L picked out were things that she liked, not what C liked. L just couldn't understand why her daughter didn't even want to try some of the things on, much less buy them.

I tried to diplomatically tell L that C's tastes in clothes were going to be totally different from hers, just given the fact that she's 14 years old, not 24 or 44. C definitely knows what she likes, but she doesn't have enough experience in getting "the right look" to look right on her. If the material is scratchy, she doesn't like the outfit, which is understandable. If it doesn't look right from the back, then she's not going to like the front. If it isn't soft enough, doesn't move enough, isn't "right" enough, then no amount of pleading from her mother or anyone else is going to make her wear it.

I told both L and C and I had the same problem when I was a teenager and my mother and I would go shopping for clothes for me. My mother pulled things off the rack that she liked, or things that she would've worn when she herself was my age. Well, pardon me, but that just hardly ever works. The end result would be that I would end up in tears, and my mother would be aggravated because she was wasting time.

Going shopping with my Aunt Dolly was entirely different. The shopping became a learning experience, and it was fun, not a chore. As my aunt and I shopped, I got a lesson with everything we brought into the dressing room, and everything we left right on the rack.

First of all, if the material didn't feel good as we touched it with our fingers, then we knew that it probably wouldn't feel good when we tried it on. Exception to that rule was tulle, or what my aunt used to call "illusion netting." She said that only the finest tulle would do, and if you settled for the cheaper variety, then be prepared to be uncomfortable for the sake of style.

Second rule was to wear the clothes, rather than let the clothes wear you. "If someone can see you coming around the corner on a moon-less night, then you're probably wearing the wrong thing." I think I forgot that rule in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when a lot of the sweaters were covered in bright sequins. I don't think I wore those to my Aunt Dolly's house. Knowing her, she wouldn't have said anything, but she would've taken her sunglasses out of her purse and put them on as she spoke to me.

At one point during our shopping trip today, C had two tops in her hands and she held them up and said to her mom "Which of these would make you happy?" L didn't answer her daughter, and looked at me, as if for an answer. I quickly said to C-- Which one of those tops makes you happy?........ and C picked the first top that caught her eye, that made her smile, and that looked totally adorable with the little black skirt that she also picked out herself. Her mom preferred the second top, which was black, but C wanted some color on top of that black skirt, and I agreed with her, but I didn't say that.

I wish C's mom had looked at her daughter's face while she was trying on the clothes. When C had on the outfits that her mom picked out, C wasn't smiling.... her lips were shut tight, her eyes were all scrunched-up, and she came out of the dressing room without even looking in the mirror. And it wasn't because what her mom had picked out wasn't pretty--- it was just that what was picked out for her just simply wasn't her own 14-yr-old style.

When C walked out of the dressing room with the little black ruffled skirt and the light blue top with a few silver sparkles on it, she was just about floating.... twirling in the skirt to see how it looked.... touching the blue top because it was so soft... smiling from ear to ear and she was bright and bubbly, as C usually is. She found her own look and she loved it.

And that's what the shopping trip should be about. It's going to take a little extra time, because C is now at the age where she's finding her own sense of style, and that can change from month to month, from season to season. I would bet that an entire Mall filled with stores which are filled with all sorts of clothes is probably a little overwhelming for C. I suggested to C that she start cutting out pictures from magazines and the newspaper ads--- when she finds a "look" that she likes, cut it out and keep it in a folder or an envelope. When she goes shopping, she could take the pictures with her and find similar clothes that would give her the look that she likes.

C thought that was a good idea, and so did her mom. That wasn't my idea.... my Aunt Dolly gave me the same advice back in the 1960 when she and I would drive out to Green Acres Mall to go shopping for school and holiday clothes.

I have officially turned into my Aunt Dolly, I guess. Which isn't a bad thing at all. In fact, I can think of nothing better. As I've said many times, Aunt Dolly rocks.

Paul McCartney

We have just returned from the Paul McCartney concert at the Toyota Center in downtown Houston. My husband, myself, and our friend D. What a blast! This is the second time my husband and I have seen McCartney in concert, and it was just amazing.

McCartney sang for three hours without taking a break. He never left the stage, even when the rest of his band took a 15-minute rest. The best part of his concerts are all the older songs, when the entire audience sings along--- songs like Yesterday, Hey Jude, Back In The USSR. All the words.... from everyone in the audience. It just brings tears to your eyes.

There was a tribute to John and George, and Linda McCartney.... and we all stood up and clapped and no one wanted to stop. When McCartney realized how long and hard everyone applauded for them, his eyes filled up with tears.

I think we were on our feet more than we were in our seats. My hands hurt from clapping so hard, and even though I had fairly high heels on, I never felt uncomfortable as we all danced along in front of our seats.

Hard to believe that it was so many years ago that The Beatles were on "The Ed Sullivan Show" for the first time. I was at my grandmother's house that night (my mother's mother) and she didn't have a television. I ran all the way from her house on 169th Street to our apartment on 150th Street........ and I was hooked on Paul, John, George and Ringo right from the first song. I never did see them in concert when I was a teenager.

But there I was tonight, 53 years old, singing and dancing and applauding.... and, especially during the "older" songs, it was hard to believe that all these years have passed.

Jingle Kitty -&- A Morning Surprise

Well, Mickey Kitty has discovered the silver tree, and he just loves it. The tree sits on a marble-topped table in front of the floor-to-ceiling living room windows. That table is flanked by two antique chairs, and Mickey Kitty has found that if he sits on the arm of either chair, his little paw can jiggle any one of the lowest branches of the silver tree. And if he reaches out with his little jaws, his teeth can even pull out one of the branches and he can place it on the chair and inspect every inch of it.

The branches just fit lightly into the silver trunk of the tree-- sort of like putting toothpicks into a sandwich-- they're that easy to insert and remove. So far, Mickey Kitty has removed two of them, placing them gently on the chair and trying to remove the ornament hung on the aluminum branch. The silver tree makes a unique crinkling noise, just like aluminum foil, so as soon as he touches that tree, I can hear him if I'm close enough to that room.

I rolled up a piece of newspaper yesterday and I keep it near the tree. If I see Mickey Kitty get too close to it, I take the newspaper roll and bat the floor with it. Cats don't like that kind of noise, so he runs away quickly-- first giving me his "you're hurting my kitty-feelings" look. I hit the floor with the newspaper this morning, and he hasn't bothered with the tree since then, so I'm hoping that his fascination with it has worn off. (From my lips to the Christmas-tree gods' ears....)

We had a surprise visit this morning from our young teenaged friends C and L. They were out riding their bikes to the neighborhood yard sales and decided to ring our bell and see if we were up yet. I think it was 8:30 when they stopped by, so of course we were up. I told them that they're welcome to come by any day, any time, but if they ring our bell before eight o'clock in the morning, they'd better be bringing us breakfast. Knowing C, I fully expect her to try that one of these days.

The girls were out riding for a little while before they stopped here, and both of them looked a little chilled, so I made them hot chocolate. L was wearing a Santa hat, and my husband happened to notice that when they walked up to the front door, so he quickly grabbed his own Santa hat and the girls thought that was a neat surprise when he opened up the door.

C has already asked two of her friends to come to our Christmas party, and they've accepted her invitation. I had told her she could bring 4 friends to the party--- not counting L and her brother, since I've already sent L's family an invitation of their own. C is always thrilled when she gets to invite her friends here. That little girl is such a joy.... I can barely put it into words. She walks into our home and gives my husband and I such body-crunching hugs that it just makes me wish she'd stay a little girl forever.

Cold Snap

Well, I guess the 90-degree temperature-party is over..... we're now having a bit of a cold snap. The temperature this week has been 65 - 75 degrees during the day, and 50 degrees at night. And it might have been a little colder than that last night.... courtesy of the weather gods who want to make sure we're all paying attention.

The capri-slacks are hanging up in my closet and I'm wearing corduroys. Not only am I wearing a sweater, but I've got a silk camisole under it and a knitted poncho over it. I let Mickey Kitty sleep in the house last night because I thought it was too cold for his little cat-self to be out on the screen-porch. That little baby cat cuddled up on the pillows of our bed and stayed there till morning, except for a trip to his litter box sometime during the night. Sweet little kitten.... he didn't touch any of the holiday decorations while we were sleeping.

I went to the Mall last night with A, to the Coldwater Creek store where she works. I tried on a bunch of clothes.... dresses and sweaters and pretty tops........ and bought a few nice outfits. A gets an employee discount from the store, and she charged the clothes to her account to take advantage of the discount for me. I always get the Coldwater Creek catalog at home, and I love the clothes they have. Trouble is, sometimes what looks great in the pictures doesn't look as good when you put them on. Which is why I stopped ordering from their catalog. Now that the store is in the Mall, though, I can try on whatever I like to make sure it looks good and feels good.

The Mall wasn't too crowded last night, so I guess Christmas shoppers aren't rushing there till the weekend comes along. I'm sure all of that will change once Thanksgiving has come and gone. The city is also doing some roadwork along the street heading towards the Mall.... three lanes of traffic gets squeezed into one lane till after the entrance to the Mall, which will result in really interesting driving once the Christmas shopping begins in earnest. Ho, Ho, Ho!

Bread and Sauce

Well, today was spent in the kitchen, mostly. I finally got to use the bread machine...... and it was heavenly. In fact, the aroma of the baking bread made us remember everything about our stay up in Magnolia during the evacuation before Hurricane Rita. It was a bittersweet loaf of bread. Mostly sweet--- and very delicious.

So delicious, in fact, that for dinner tonight, I had two slices of the fresh-baked bread and three cups of tea. The bread was so good that I didn't put a thing on it. I used the recipe for the smallest loaf, which makes a one-pound loaf of bread. Just enough for the two of us, so it doesn't sit around too long and not taste freshly baked.

As for the sauce...... I used a jar of the Houston-famous spaghetti sauce that we bought at the downtown Nutcracker Market. I made some meatballs to put in it....... the meatballs were delicious... and the sauce was indeed delicious. I can see why Ken Hoffman raves about it in his Houston Chronicle column. The sauce is nearly as good as my Aunt Dolly's sauce, but I don't think anyone can actually beat her sauce. Aunt Dolly cooks her sauce with at least three kinds of meat in it, and by the time it all sits and simmers on the stove-top for a couple of hours, you have a rich sauce that you can eat with a spoon and never miss the spaghetti.

Speaking of spaghetti, I made that for dinner tonight, but I didn't have any. I had enough carbs with the bread I ate, so I just ignored the spaghetti when it was done. As for the spaghetti sauce, I think my own sauce is pretty good. It's been a good long while since I made a pot of sauce, so I guess I'll do that one of these days. Famous last words: one of these days.

We had rain today.... lots of it. We're also getting a little drop in the temperature. It's been close to 90 for the longest time, and I think this passing rainstorm is going to drop the temperature at least 10 or 15 degrees. Sweater-weather, for sure.

I have piano lessons tomorrow, and I've decided to tell K that I won't be going for lessons during the month of December. There's just too much to do here during those holiday weeks, and I'd rather just stay here and practice old songs rather than go there and learn new ones during such a busy time of the year. I'm sure she'll be disappointed, but I know it's the best thing for me to do. No sense in getting myself stressed out because I don't have time to learn new songs and chords.

Other Monday Stuff

The booklet for the bread machine arrived this afternoon.... not from the eBay seller, but from the Pillsbury company. I got tired of waiting for the seller to follow through, so I just bit the bullet and ordered one directly from the company.

I had intentions of baking bread this afternoon, but I didn't have one important ingredient for the recipe we had planned on trying--- bread flour. The "sweet bread" recipe calls for a mixture of regular flour and bread flour. So I will run into Kroger tomorrow and just get the bread flour and try to get out of the store without buying anything else. We had that sweet bread when we were up in Magnolia, so we know what it should taste like. I'm hoping this machine works as well as it looks, and tomorrow our kitchen should be smelling like a bakery.


Mickey Kitty is being an exceptional kitten........ not touching the silver tree, not bothering with anything except that little wooden bell that's dangling from the big Santa's hand. Every once in a while, he walks up to that Santa and just paws the little bell to make it jingle, then he walks away. If that's all he gets into during this holiday season, that will be fine with me.

Now, if we can just get Mickey Kitty out of the habit of running after AngelBoy, all will be well with the world here. Poor AngelBoy just gets pounced on by the kitten, who will take a running, flying leap and land right on AngelBoy's neck. The funny thing is that AngelBoy used to do the very same thing to Rusty, and ShadowBaby used to do the very same thing to AngelBoy. I guess it's the kitten thing to do--- the littlest one gets to take the running, flying leaps onto the necks of the older ones.

I tell AngelBoy that Mickey Kitty will soon outgrow all of this, but AngelBoy just scrunches up his little nose at me, most likely thinking that it can't happen soon enough.

Back on Track....

I spent the morning and early afternoon with A today.... we went to the Greek restaurant for brunch and then we shopped around Wal-Mart for a while. More importantly, we celebrated her birthday which is later on this week, and even more importantly, we had another long talk.

It's been an up-hill, down-hill journey with us this past year, but we came to terms with our lives today and we "agreed to disagree" and just accept the fact that we're not as joined at the hip as we once thought we were.

After all the years of working side by side up in New York, we mistakenly thought that we were mirror images of one another, and we tried to have that kind of relationship when she and her family moved down here a few years ago. Granted, we worked very well together up north, but we had more things not in common with one another than in common. Trouble is, we didn't realize that till long after we were floundering in a no-win friendship here in Clear Lake.

The funny thing is that my husband's mom told me long ago that A and I were as different as night and day. I discounted her opinion of that because I thought she just hadn't known A long enough to come to that conclusion. But down here, I heard nearly the same thing from my friend Frankie, who told me that A and I were as different as ham and eggs. And I discounted Frankie's statement also, for the same reason I pooh-pooh my mother-in-law's opinion.

Well, I'm sure both Audrey and Frankie are up there on a cloud somewhere, looking down and saying to one another "See?! Didn't we say that a long time ago?"

So today is a new beginning. Both A and I realize that we don't like the same things, we don't like the same people, we have different methods of keeping control of our lives.... and that's just fine. We are who we are, and neither one of us can (or should) change for the other.

We had a delicious brunch at the Greek's, the birthday gift I gave her made her ooooh and aaaah, we caught up with what we've been doing, then we walked around Wal-Mart and found some goodies and had some much-needed laughs.

All this pressure we've been living with.... each of us trying to say and do and be what we thought the other wanted and needed. And what we needed was just to follow the rule that dear Frankie always lived by--- "In all ways, on all days, just be yourself, because being someone else takes too much work and life is just too damn short for that!"

If you're reading this from your silver cloud, Frankie, I wish you'd sit on my shoulder from time to time, and tell me to "Snap out of it!" when I do foolish things.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas....

I have spent most of today setting up Christmas decorations around the house, and I am just about done now. Nothing more to do until we get the big tree that goes in the living room. My husband usually goes to the Christmas tree lot the day after Thanksgiving. The ceiling in that room is about 18 feet high on one side, then it slants down to about 9 feet on the other side. Sort of a ski-lodge effect.... without the snow and ice, without the skis and the mountains.

One year we had a tree that reached to the very tip of the high part of the ceiling once the star was on the top of it. It took my husband two days to string the lights on that tree, and I spent the next four days doing ornaments. The tree was huge... we had to put it right in the middle of the room and it was so wide that you couldn't see the left side of the room if you were standing on the right side. It was more forest than tree. We have a very big living room, but with that tree, we had to move the sofa into the breakfast room till after the holidays. Its branches took all of the ornaments we had, and we went out to buy more. All the large Santas stood around the base of the tree, as did the angels. By the time the day of our Christmas party got here, everything that was around the house that could pass as a decoration found its way either onto or around that tree.

Now we have a rule...... no Christmas trees higher than 9 feet. And no trees wider than the front door. However, my husband gets around that last rule very easily-- when these steroid-fed trees come into the doorway, they're bound up with netting, so they very easily fit through the doorway. When we're ready to take the tree to the curb after the first of the new year, we usually have to cut away half of the branches to get it out of the front door. The whole procedure turns into an adventure.

But as for today......... I've just finished decorating the silver aluminum tree. I didn't put that one up last year, and we all missed it. This year it's up, in the living room instead of the dining room. Mickey Kitty was sound asleep all the while I was busy with that tree...... he was on the other side of the room and didn't see me, I guess, because he never opened his eyes whenever I looked his way. Should be interesting to see what happens when he does wake up. "The Mickey Factor," as my husband calls it. I've always tied that silver tree to whichever table it's on, being that it's very light and can be easily tipped over. Right now, it's tied to a marble-topped table held up by cherubs. A very Victorian table whose cherubs are now reaching their arms up to a 1950's kitsch-y silver aluminum Christmas tree.

Hark the Texas angels sing, y'all.

"Oklahoma!"

We drove over the bridge into Galveston this afternoon for a matinee production of "Oklahoma!" which was showing at the 1894 Grand Opera House. Beautiful theatre, Victorian in design, with a feeling of intimacy in the audience. Because the Grand isn't very big, you have a great seat no matter where you are.

We've been there for lots of other shows during the years, and The Grand has never been a disappointment. Galveston seems to be a closer drive than the theatre district of downtown Houston, and the parking lot right outside the theatre adds to the convenience.

Being that the seating is original to the theatre, the rows are closer together, and so are the seats, so you kind of get to know the people you're sitting with. There was a father and daughter to the right of me, and every time one of the cowboys threw a punch in one of the fight scenes, the young teenaged girl would bury her head in her dad's shoulder. During the intermission, I heard him explaining to her that no one was getting hurt on the stage, no matter how real it looked.

We saw in the program that Lily Tomlin was at The Grand last week. I wish I had known that... it would've been fun to see her. I need to make a note to myself to check The Grand's web-site, to see who they've got on their schedule every month.

After the play, we didn't have dinner in Galveston, but chose to drive back over the bridge to Friendswood and go to Babbo Bruno's. We hadn't been there in over a week, with my husband being sick, then me catching the same cold. Nice to be back there.... you would think we'd been gone for six months, the way everyone greeted us.

Coming Out of the Closet

There are some days when everything you put on either doesn't look right, feel right or fit right. And today is just one of those days.

I had more outfits on this morning than I could count. And every blessed one of them went back into the closet. Slacks, blouses, sweaters, skirts.... even the shoes....... back they went. So many pretty clothes in there, and I end up wearing basically the same thing.

Very frustrating. And I know the look I want..... I just can't seem to get it together on some days. If I were younger, I'd be saying that today was a PMS day, but that's no longer the case.

Or maybe at my age, PMS stands for post-menopausal syndrome. (Translation: "Nothing looks right, feels right, fits right, tastes right, sounds right, is right.")

I love the long skirts they're wearing now, but all the ones I've tried on in the stores just have too many embellishments on them, or they're made of too many different fabrics and colors. I don't want to look like a patchwork-scarecrow, I just want one of those long skirts. I was planning on wearing one of my own today, but the two summer ones I have are too thin and bright for this time of the year, and they look ridiculous with my western boots. The one heavier long skirt that I have is black velvet... I love it and it looks great with my boots, but it's 80-something degrees today. Not exactly a black-velvet type of day for southeast Texas.

What I need is a autumn-y type of fabric that would be good for November and December. One that doesn't have six zillion sequins and beads on it. I hate the thought of shopping for clothes when I have so many things in my closet as it is. But I guess that's what I will have to do... get out there and try on even more of those long skirts.... not the frilly cotton ones in the pastel colors, and not the ones that glow in the dark with all their sequins and beads.

My husband, of course, thinks this is all just crazy. He thinks I should get dressed the way men do--- just open the closet door, take out a pair of slacks, take out a shirt, then close the closet door.

Well.... how silly does that sound?

The Nutcracker Market

Every year, the Houston Ballet Company sponsors The Nutcracker Market, and hundreds upon hundreds of vendors come from all over the country to set up their displays in a downtown venue. This year's event was held at Reliant Center, right next to the Astrodome.

I wasn't paying attention to the market dates this year, but my husband read about it in Ken Hoffman's column in The Houston Chronicle this week. We always read Hoffman's columns during the week, and he (Hoffman) suggested that the only way to buy the famous "Donne di Domani" tomato sauce was to go during the first hours of the market, and that was this morning. As usual, the Nutcracker Market runs from Thursday through Sunday, and as usual, the tomato sauce cooked up by the women of the Italian-American Organization sells out within the first four to six hours.

All of the money from the sauce goes to charities, and when you buy their bottled product, they give you a list of the charities which will benefit from each ten-dollar jar. My husband has been listening to Ken Hoffman rave about this sauce for nearly all the years we've been reading The Chronicle. With the incentive of tasting "the best sauce of your life," my husband asked me if I wanted to get up at the crack of dawn this morning to be at the doors of the Reliant Center when they opened up today.

Now, I ask you: how could I refuse an offer to drive downtown to a holiday market with a checkbook in my purse? We were up before the day's first light and buying our tickets to the market an hour before the doors were set to open. And even at that, there were hundreds of people ahead of us in the line. I should say "hundreds of women," since most of the shoppers were women. I'd say the ratio of women to men was about 115 to 3.

As soon as we got through the doors, my husband and I split up, planning to "meet at the big Santa at noon." Off he went to get the sauce that would donate dollars to local charites. And off I went to find treasures whose dollars would most likely never see a charitable outcome.

I found some Christmas gifts there, unusual one-of-a-kind jewelry items that I knew wouldn't be found locally. I bought myself some beaded necklaces and earrings, handmade and uniquely designed. Lots of holiday items there, but the prices on those things were high, I thought, and I knew I could duplicate the look with similar items from our local shops, so I took notes on what I thought would look nice in our dining room.

Hundreds of food vendors were there... nuts and candies, cakes and cookies, jams and pies, preserves and soups. Everyone was handing out samples in little cups with tiny spoons. I bought two cakes... jelly-roll-type cakes.... homemade and delicious. They were frozen when I got them, defrosted by the time I got home, but the seller told me to just "pop them on into your freezer and don't fret about it." So that's what I did. They'll come in handy for the holidays. (And as long as I keep them in the freezer, they'll last that long.)

One vendor had small table-top trees made of colored aluminum-- the usual silver, plus mint-green, baby-blue, and a bright pink. Heaven knows I can't resist those table-top trees, so I bought a pink one. Very reasonable at just nine dollars. As I walked around, I found some small pink ornaments-- beaded birds, ballet slippers, and glass balls. All the right size, and they're all now tied to the little pink tree with thin pink ribbons. I already had a pink and green glass tree-topper, so I'll use that for now till I find one in just the right shade of pink. The little pink tree is sitting on the vanity in our Victorian powder room, along with a three-foot tall pink Santa (a yard-sale treasure) that stands on the floor. Perfect for that room!

By the time noon came around, I was all Christmas-ed out, and so was my husband. I could've looked around some more, but the more you look, the more you buy, then you'll have nothing to look for the next time you go. I did, however, buy a wooden nutcracker. I have two already, both of them yard-sale finds, but the one I bought today looks more like The Nutcracker from the ballet production. And being that we'll be seeing that ballet with the girls in a few weeks, I thought it was the perfect thing to bring home.

Speaking of perfect.... my husband handed me a box when we got to the car after leaving the market... a beautiful night-light made from a china teacup and saucer. I always have night-lights on around the house, and I dearly love teacups. I had walked by the vendor who made and sold those lights, but his booth was so packed with women that I couldn't get near enough to look at them all very closely. So I walked away, intending to go back. Of course, once you leave, you either don't remember to go back, or you can't remember where it was. My husband saw the teacup lights and looked at all of them, and picked out a very pretty one with pink and blue roses on it... which is now lighting up a corner of my kitchen counter-top. Don't you just love a man who shops?

And as soon as I get to the supermarket to buy some spaghetti for the famous sauce, my husband will be telling me that he also cooks.

The Mickey Factor

That's what my husband is calling my holiday decorating method this season--- "The Mickey Factor." So far, the little table-top Christmas trees haven't been at the top of Mickey Kitty's must-touch list. I've been unpacking holiday decorations a little at a time, arranging them around the house when the cats are napping. (Which gives me plenty of time during any given day.)

I figured that if Mickey Kitty didn't see the little trees in my hands, he wouldn't get so curious. With this newest kitten, whatever I'm holding is cause for inspection in his little kitty-mind. The Santas are all out, so are the angels, and all of the table-top trees are out, except the silver aluminum tree.

I didn't put that tree up last year because we had re-arranged the furniture in the dining room and the little round table that was in a corner of the dining room is no longer there.... and that's where the silver tree always stood. The little round table was the perfect height to make a four-tree aluminum tree seem like it was six-feet tall. That table is now in a corner of our bedroom and is the base for the four-foot tree that holds all the Victorian ornaments. I've got so many pink roses on that tree that it looks like a topiary, so I leave it out all year long. It's topped with a fairly large mermaid ornament, which stays on it all year.... then for Christmas I add an even taller vintage mercury-glass topper. I used to store that tree in my holiday closet, but now that closet holds decorations for Easter and Valentine's Day, as well as all the Christmas things, and there's no room on the floor for that tree.

I'm thinking about assembling the silver tree and putting in on the sideboard that's in front of the Oriental screen in the living room. That sideboard is now holding a small white feather tree that's decorated with Oriental men and ladies made of silk. My friend Frankie had found those vintage silk ornaments in a yard sale a few years ago and gave them to me for Christmas. She told me she had faith in me to find a good use for them. They stayed in their box till I found just the right little tree for them... they show up very nicely on the white branches. So, if the silver aluminum tree goes on that table, I'll have to find another place for the little Oriental tree.

I don't think Mickey Kitty will be able to ignore the silver tree. It's very full and sparkling, very tall once it's up on a table. I have a box of vintage glass ornaments just for that tree.... most of them are red, and all of them are light enough not to bend the aluminum branches. I can see it now--- Mickey Kitty running across the living room with a silver branch in his mouth, glass ornaments falling all over the carpet as he runs. Joy to the world.

I've been trying to get over a cold/cough that I've had for the past couple of days. Nearly 90 degrees outside, and both my husband and I caught whatever bug is going around. I'm not one for getting a flu shot, so I'll just take my chances with this. Hopefully, my bout with these germs won't be as bad as my husband's... he was awfully sick last week.

I just heard a little bell ringing in the living room and I went inside to see what was going on--- Mickey Kitty is stretched out on the raised hearth in front of the fireplace. He has one paw hanging off the ledge of the hearth and he's ringing the little bell that's in the hand of the large Santa that's sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace. The bell is handmade, of painted wood.... we bought it in Australia years ago when we went to Sydney. It won't break, and Mickey isn't trying to get the bell out of Santa's hands.... he's just sitting there pawing the bell so it moves back and forth and makes a little sound.

Jingle bells. How many more days till Christmas?

Humidity Rocks

Today was the most humid of days.... positively soupy, and positively the worst of the worst bad-hair days. I washed my hair not once, but twice today. I changed clothes three times during the day.... not because of the weather, actually, but just because nothing felt right after a few hours. And maybe that was due to the weather after all.

The sun came out for just a little while this afternoon, but didn't stay out long enough to burn away the moistness in the air. Moistness? That's an understatement. Walking outside felt like walking underwater, with clothes on.

My husband and I both went for haircuts this morning, being that we were up so early. We got there just after the shop opened and were in and out quickly. The girl that does my hair keeps telling me that my hair never looks like I've had it cut. I tell her that's the sign of a good haircut, in my opinion. I keep getting a very slight trim every three weeks, so it always looks the same. The worst thing for me would be to walk out of there with a hairstyle that's too short.... I don't deal well with a bad haircut that has to "grow back" to look good. Every time I go there for a trim, N will say to me "How many hairs do you want me to cut?"

After that, we went to Skipper's, the little Greek restaurant in Kemah. We had a late breakfast/early lunch, and then talked to the owner about having food catered for our Christmas party. There are other good Greek restaurants around, but Skipper's is by far the best.

We also drove to Wal-Mart.... while my husband looked around, I found some pretty silk autumn-colored leaves that are sprinkled with a little dusting of gold glitter. Not too much--- just enough to give the leaves a little extra glitz. I used the leaves to decorate the little tree that's on the dining room buffet.... the one with the birds and the fruits. I had used little pumpkins, spiders, bat and witches to decorate it for Halloween, and now the glitz-y leaves make it look like a Thanksgiving centerpiece. When Thanksgiving is over, I'll put some small red bows on the branches, and presto!-- it will be a Christmas tree again.

I had dinner tonight with A... we went to the Greek Deli for dinner. We haven't seen much of one another lately... she's busy, I'm busy... just seems like we're busy with different things all the time. Now she has a part-time job at the Mall, so that makes for extra-busy.

We talked about a lot of things tonight... things that should've been talked about months ago. I suggested we have a new rule--- to talk about something right away if we're bothered by it. And that has to go for everything, because neither one of us can be a mind-reader. How on earth do you know if something is bothering someone else unless they tell you?

Friendship is a funny thing. Sometimes you think you know all there is to know about a person, then you find out there's a lot more that you don't know. Friendships take work, they take time, they need attention. People change, times change, places change.... and all of those changes affect everything, I guess. So if you haven't been paying attention, all of a sudden you look up and notice that everything has changed.

So what's the best thing to do? Try to get things back the way they were? Or just start from now as if it's Day One?

"My Friend Leonard"

I have just finished reading the second book by James Frey... "My Friend Leonard." I didn't think he could out-do "A Million Little Pieces," but he did just that.

Both were remarkable books. The ending of the second book was totally amazing, absolutely priceless. True stories, both of them. Lessons to be learned throughout each book.

A great line in the second book-- James asks his friend Leonard "What is the meaning of life?"

Leonard answers: "That's an easy one. It's whatever you want it to be."

Whatever you want it to be, indeed.

Jingle Bells........

Little by little, the Christmas decorations are starting to come out of the holiday closet. I've got the big Santas out, and Mickey Kitty has inspected every one of them. They stand on the floor, nearly 3-ft. tall, so he's a little overwhelmed by them. Which is good--- the more overwhelmed he is, the more he's likely not to bother with them. We've been so lucky with the other cats... they never bothered much with anything around the house. Unless you count AngelBoy, who is fascinated with anything that has a leopard-patterned fabric. But he doesn't bother those things, he just curls up on them. (My slippers, an afghan, pillows, to name a few.)

H's bells are out on the front door this year, protected from the sun and the weather by the overhang on the front porch. Even since our friends & neighbors H & M moved up to Georgetown, I've had their 1950s-style Christmas bells in our home. I bought them from H when she had a big moving sale before they left. They remind me of the holiday decorations my parents had when I was a kid, and I just love them. They've been in a different spot each Christmas... three large gold-sparkling bells hanging from red velvet ribbons.

I've got Thanksgiving-colored silk ribbons on the Quackernackle Ducks in the front flower bed.... I was going to put red ribbons on them, but I usually leave the pumpkins outside for Thanksgiving (as long as the heat doesn't turn them to mush), so the orangey-gold ribbons look great on the ducks as they sing to the pumpkins. (Honestly. They do sing, and you can hear them when the sun goes down. If you have a good imagination, that is.) After Thanksgiving is over, I'll re-dress the ducks in red satin ribbons.

While I was out there in front of our house this morning getting the ribbons on the ducks, my neighbor V walked by with her dog. "What are you doing?" I told her I was dressing the Quackernackle Choir with Thanksgiving ribbons. "You are what?!" I repeated just what I told her the first time, then added: "Look, V.... you pull up weeds.... I make bows for my ducks."

Gorgeous day out there today..... bright and sunny and very warm. I wish it would stay like this for the rest of the year, but I know we'll get a few cold days here and there. When the temperature drops to 70 degrees here, the weathermen tell us it's "sweater weather." And they're so right, because at 70 degrees, we're bundled up in sweaters and jackets. I was on the phone with my sister last night, and I told her that very thing, and she just couldn't understand how I could be "freezing" on a 70-degree day. I told her to move down here and she'd find out very quickly how her body could get used to hot/hot/hot days for months & months on end, then start shivering and shaking when the thermometer drops below 75.

Oh well, back I go to the Christmas boxes. Little by little, a box or two every day. I intend to have the whole house decorated by Thanksgiving. Then all we'll have to do is get the big tree into the living room and get that all lit up and decorated before our Christmas party. The fresh Christmas trees are sold in an empty field on Highway 3. The big striped tents are already set up, so I would imagine the trees will be delivered the week before Thanksgiving.

Jingle bells.... Christmas will be here before y'all know it.

Car Maintenance ...... and Holiday Stuff

What a long and frustrating day. I had my car at our local car repair center before 8:30 this morning. All they had to do with it was a regular oil change, rotation of the tires, and put a sealer underneath the hard-top of my car. When I got the Thunderbird back in May, the service department of the dealership didn't put the sealer under the convertible top because they thought I'd be riding around town with the top down. I don't care how pretty the car is, driving around without a roof over my head just isn't my style.

So.... silly me..... I thought it would be a snap for the repairmen to install the sealing tape after they did the oil change and the tire rotation. I gave them the sealing tape, the instructions, the tool to remove the hard-top, and the manual with illustrations on what needed to be done. I called them after lunch-time and they told me they had taken care of everything but the sealer under the hard-top. Fine. How much longer then? They told me they should have it ready within the hour.

I got busy with things around the house, and the afternoon just passed on by.... and the next time I looked at the clock, it was 3:30. What?! Back on the phone I got.... Is my car ready yet? "Just about done.... you can pick it up in thirty minutes."

Give unto me a blessed break. I went there after thirty minutes, expecting to see a bright and shining-clean car. Not that my car was dirty to begin with, but I knew it would have a layer of dust on it after being in that shop all day. Dusty wasn't the word. I could've written the Declaration of Independence on that car in the sandy dust that was all over it. Usually, this repair shop washes your car before they give it back to you, and that's what I expected them to do. Silly me.

When the owner of the shop saw how dusty my car was, and saw the look on my face, he told me the guys could wash it for me right then, if I would wait just "30 minutes more." I nicely told that man that they had all day to not only wash my car, but do the work that I had made an appointment for, without me having to sit around for another half hour.

The end result was that he took $40 off of the final bill, and as soon as I drove my car into the driveway, I pulled out the hose and washed all that dust off of my pretty car. And it took me less time than "30 minutes more." As I said... give unto me a blessed break.



Our Christmas surprise for our young friends C and L has been taken care of, but I won't be telling the girls till a couple of weeks before the actual day. I went to Barnes and Noble after dinner this evening, to get books for both of them that will coordinate with the surprise. My husband and I just can't wait to see the looks on their faces when they see where we're going.

So many things to do within the next month....... somehow, no matter how organized I can be, everything just comes along too fast. As my Aunt Dolly always told me: "The world isn't going to wait for you, so you'd better make it your business to keep up with the world."

Christmas should be interesting this year, with Mickey Kitty. I can barely keep that kitten away from my collection of beaded fruit. Wait till he sees the tree that will be going up in the living room after Thanksgiving.

Pillsbury.... and Spanish Lessons

The bread machine finally arrived, and wouldn't you know it.... the seller didn't include the recipe booklet and the instructions. I eMailed her, she eMailed me... she's looking for the booklets. She will mail them to me as soon as she finds them. (Translation: don't hold your breath.)

I've already called the Pillsbury company... they will mail me the booklets as soon as they get my check, to pay for the items and the postage. Fine. My check will be in tomorrow's mail. In the meantime, I will telephone R up in Magnolia and ask her to give me the ingredients for the bread she made while we were up there during Hurricane Rita. At least I'll be able to make sure this bread machine really works. The seller assures me that it works just fine. (Translation: I'll believe it when I smell the bread baking.)


Spanish lessons......... I had a visit from one of our neighbors whom I haven't seen in a while. We've seen each other and waved as we come and go, but we haven't had the chance to chat in a couple of months now. She popped in the other day, and we got to talking about what we've been doing. I told C that I've been trying to teach myself to speak Spanish, but haven't gotten very far. Not enough time, not enough incentive--- until I see someone who speaks very little English and I wish I could communicate with them. Not to worry, says C.... she will be glad to help me learn Spanish. C was born in Mexico City. Her Spanish is fluent and flawless, her English is charmingly sprinkled with her accent.

C says that it will be easy for me to learn if I try it a little at a time, and set my mind to speaking only Spanish to her, once I get going with this. So we will give it a try.... between her busy schedule and mine, we should be able to squeeze something in.

The Hallmark Store

That's where I was this week.... looking for sales on Halloween items for next year's party, and getting some ideas for Thanksgiving placecards and favors. I've said it before and I'll say it again-- once Halloween comes and goes, the rest of the year just disappears. And that's just what is happening.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Right after that, the big Christmas tree will go up in the living room, along with all the table top trees for every other room in the house. Invitations will go out for our Christmas Party, then for Christmas dinner, and I've got to get a group together for New Year's Eve dinner here at our house. Our friends B and P want to drive down from Dallas to spend New Year's Eve with us down here. So I've got to come up with a dinner plan to make their trip worthwhile. (Such pressure.)

I have all the invitations already..... the ones for the Christmas party are all written out, and I'm working on the placecards for Christmas dinner. I have great New Year's Eve invitations--- cards in the shape of a champagne bottle! I found them during the summer and bought them just for New Year's Eve. I'll have to think of a clever placecard.... maybe I can find tiny champagne bottles or glasses, and attach name-tags to them, along with lots of sparkling ribbon. And favors for New Year's could be small bottles of champagne.

One holiday at a time....... but does it ever work that way? Thankfully, the closet in my sitting room is filled floor to ceiling with shelves. Right now, I've got eBay items to sell on half of the shelves, and the other shelves are divided up with holiday things that I'm working on--- for Thanksgiving, for the Christmas party, for the dinner on Christmas Day, and for New Year's Eve. It has been a busy, busy week.

I've also spent a lot of time in the local fabric store... so many pretty ribbons.... and large squares of fabric called "fat quarters," which I think means the fabric pieces measure a bit more than a quarter of a yard. They had them on sale, two for a dollar. I bought all the ones they had with Halloween designs, which I'll use to make "favor bundles" for next year's Halloween party. Then I found some pretty designs to use for the tea parties. Bundles of goodies, all tied up with silk ribbons. So many ribbons, and those were all on sale also.

On top of all of this, our friend J wants to have a Card Party Night. The gift he got at our Halloween party was a game box filled with two decks of cards, a book of card tricks and a book of card games. Perfect gift for J-- and he chose it from a bunch of wrapped surprises, so he didn't know what was in that box. As soon as he unwrapped it, he got it in his mind that we (translation: me) should have a Card Party Night. I told him I'd see what I could do.... if we keep it to a small group, maybe we could squeeze that in before Thanksgiving. Maybe. (Translation: I'm working on it.)

Add to the mix...... my husband and I came up with a great Christmas surprise for our young friends C and L. I have already spoken to both of their moms, and they both agreed the girls would love it, and they set aside the date for us. Now we'll work on getting tickets, and we're planning not to tell the girls where we're going or what we're doing until we get there.

This time of the year is always jam-packed with things to do, people to see, places to go, plans to make, parties to host. I haven't even given a thought as to the menu for the Christmas party, but we've booked the entertainment for the night, so at least that part is done.

There's a new exhibit at the Houston Science Museum.... a celebration of the life of Princess Diana. They've got hundreds of her personal items on display--- clothing, childhood mementos, jewelry, even her wedding gown. We'll make time to get downtown to see that, at some point between now and the end of the year. All these years since she passed away, and its still hard to believe that her life ended so tragically.

I was at the dentist the other day, and the technician who cleans my teeth is a Disney fan of the highest order. She goes to either Disneyland or Disney World every year or every other year, and this year, she and her family will be spending Christmas in Disney World. She's so excited that she's counting down the days... I think she has 45 days now before they leave.

Christmas with Disney. Now that's an idea..... but not this year.

My grandmother's house was a party house...... every weekend, just about, that big house was filled with family and friends. My Aunt Dolly was the party-maker.... my grandmother did the cooking and the baking. Since we've been in this house, I think my Aunt Dolly's creativity has seeped into every pore of my being. (Translation: life is good.)

Halloween with Sound Effects

Last night sounded like a Halloween movie.... thunder with some lightning, and pouring rain which lasted for half of the two-hour Trick-or-Treating time for the kids. When the rain let up, however, there was a ghostly mist hanging in the air which was a perfect backdrop for the kids and their costumes. Thankfully, the rain didn't start up again till after 9:00 and by then, all the trick-or-treat kids were back in their homes.

The trick-or-treaters must have been waiting by their doors for the rain to stop because as soon as it did, I heard kids walking around the streets and singing out their "Boos!" and "Eeeeeks!" We had about two dozen children come by, which is just a little less than the number we usually get.

The best costume last night had to be the teenaged boy dressed up to look like a tree. It was a beautiful homemade costume that made his body look like the trunk of a tree, and his head, shoulders and arms looked like branches filled with green leaves. The entire costume was made of a felt or fleece, and the detailed stitches on the green leaves and the brown trunk made the boy as tree-like as possible. The only human thing you could see on him were his eyes.... even his hands were covered with felt-leaf gloves. His shoes were covered in the same brown felt as his body, so his feet looked like roots. The brown felt had lots of black stitching in it, to make it look like the bark of a tree.

The kids had fun, and that's the most important part of last night. Once again, I didn't give out any candy. I had two boxes of "treats" for the kids last night, one marked "For Girls," the other marked "For Boys." The kids were thrilled with the red-devil glitter-wigs, the coloring books, Halloween stories and puzzles, Groucho-Marx glasses, fancy pencil & ruler sets, spider rings, bat-bracelets, Halloween stickers, pumpkin pendants, ghost necklaces, vampire pendants.... the surprises were a big hit..... and the kids always seem to appreciate them more than just another bag of candy.