Warm You Up Winter Swap Blog Question #4

What are your plans for Valentine’s Day this year?

Valentine's Day is a sore subject around this place.

See, DH and I sort of eloped on Valentine's Day.  Or at least we decided to elope on Valentine's Day but by the time we got ourselves to Las Vegas and got the requisite marriage license and found an open chapel, we were actually married on February 15th.

We had a wedding all planned for June and we went ahead with it anyway, for the family's sake, but it was our little secret that we were already married.

We have friends who were married in three different ceremonies and we actually planned on having three ourselves because it sounded like fun, but it took so long to get our respective households combined and somewhat organized (in fact, that project isn't completed to my satisfaction even today....), we never did do the third one in San Francisco.

DH is not very creative when it comes to holidays. He gives cards. Only cards. From all I can fathom, that's all his family ever did for any occasion was give cards. He is quite pleased with himself when he hands me a card, and I have given up on trying to augment his ways to include even poorly thought out gifts.

All that aside, our first year, I didn't get a blessed thing on Valentine's Day.  Then on the 15th, I got an anniversary card.  I wasn't happy.

Carefully, I tried to explain to DH that just because our anniversary was on the 15th, that did not exempt him from his Valentine's Day obligations.

Not only that, but the February wedding was not my favorite occasion to remember.  The chapel minister was a dirty minded man who made a comment about what DH must have been thinking simply because he offered me the wrong finger to put the ring on.  (I mean, some people count the thumb so when you tell them "your third finger," they just might get it mixed up, right?)

Anyway, between my mixed feelings about celebrating the anniversary in the first place and its proximity to Valentine's Day, DH just can't get it right, poor guy.  Not his fault.

So I try not to think about Valentine's Day at all.  DH and I are going to a seminar on how to survive a recession, not a bad way to strengthen a marriage, eh?

If I happen to get a card or a flower for either occasion, that'll be a bonus.

Question of the Week #5

This is the Question of the Week #5 in the Falling for Ewe Swap on Ravelry.

Do you like football?

What is your favorite team?

What happened to Questions 1 through 4? you might ask.  I think I answered one or two in the blog somewhere but I can't remember where I put it.  But I didn't like the others or they didn't seem to apply to me so I didn't answer them.

This one doesn't apply much either, but it's a good opportunity to tell one of those anecdotes I'm so fond of.

My dad was a practical joker.  One of his proudest accomplishments was making his youngest sister ditzy. He did it by answering innocent questions with false information.

"Brother, what is the roller derby?"

"Well, Sister Dear, you know what the Kentucky Derby is?"

"Yes.  That's when the horses run around the track."

"Right you are, Little Sister.  Well, the Roller Derby is the same thing, except in the Roller Derby, they put roller skates on the horses."

Years later, my aunt's husband would call my dad to laugh about some of the things she fell for.  They would roar with laughter over it.

When Aunt Betty was all growed up, the ditzy making fell to me.

The most frustrating thing about this ditzy making was its sleeper nature.  Since one didn't know she had the wrong answer, one would not hesitate to pipe up and use her knowledge in front of others whose reaction would range from uncomfortable silence to out-and-out guffaws.

Remember the hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter?  (See Another Yarn Contest: My Black Hills Summer Vacation, archives July 3, 2008).  I was set up to fall for that joke where all basic education starts:  at home.

To this day I cringe to think that someday I might come forth with some perfectly reasonable explanation for something and face blank stares and titters.

So my answer to the Question of the Week is this:

No, I don't like football TYVM!

So, I don't have a favorite team.

But my favorite player is the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Someday I'll tell you a story about that one.  As soon as I quit blushing over it.

Falling For Ewe Swap Question No. 3

What meals or foods mean ‘Fall’ to you?

Not exactly a meal or a food, but where we went to get food in the fall back in my hometown:  Eckert's.

Best apple butter on the planet!

Our Roost Rulers

These are who DH and I answer to.

This is Booger.

It's hard to explain about Booger because I always get caught up having to explain her name.  See, technically, she's my daughter's cat.  But when my daughter moved out of my home, she couldn't take her with her to her new digs.  Then when I moved to San Francisco, Booger came with me.

She was my daughter's 18th birthday present.  At first she named her Michelle, which I thought was kind of odd.  I'm not all that keen on naming cats people names.  (Which may seem incongruous when you meet my next cat, George.)

One day DD came home and scooped the kitten up off the floor and put her on her shoulder at eye level and said, "Hi, there, Booger!"  It was meant to be a term of endearment.

But then the aha! light came on in her eyes and despite my protests, the name stuck.

For several years, I was too embarrassed to tell the vet what her real name was.  So in Los Angeles, the vet has her on file as "Baby" (my last name).

When I moved to San Francisco, I decided I'd better own up and tell the new vet the truth or I'd forget one day and regret it.  When I told the vet's assistant, she said, "We have a few of those."

Booger is half Siamese.  You can't tell it by looking at her, but you could if you heard her.  She talks a lot.  She's really bossy.  She bosses all of us around, including the other, older cat, George.

This is George.

George was one of a pair originally.  She and her litter mate sister were "twins" of a sort.  They had similar markings and the patches, but the black on George's face is on her left side and the black on her sister's face was on the right.  I called them our bookends.

The owners of the mother didn't want to separate the two kittens because they were obviously so attached to one another.  They were so attached that for the first year of their life, only once were they in separate rooms and that was an accident.  When they found out, they both jumped up and high-tailed it toward each other and lay panting in each others' paws for the narrow escape!

Well, the sister went missing after a year or so.  Later, we found her a couple of miles from where we lived in someone else's yard.  Apparently she had either been picked up by someone else or had adopted another family.  By then, she and George didn't recognize each other.

Yes, George is female.  Another long story.  I will tell it some other time.

And finally,

These are cat toys

There are more toys than this.  I got tired of finding them in odd places after the cleaning people vacuumed -- and of stepping on them -- and finally collected them all in a basket.  The cats come select the ones they want and scatter them around the apartment, but we pick them up faithfully once a week.

Autumn Question No. 1: What is your favorite thing about Autumn?

Here is where I risk alienating my vast readership and perhaps getting myself committed.  But swap requirements being what they are, do I have a choice?  The mod says answer the question, we answer the question.

"One thing I miss from Back East," people say in California, "is the seasons." But the first September I lived in Los Angeles, California, I opened the window and distinctly felt fall arrive.  The leaves didn't change colors, the temperature was still hot as blue blazes, the sun was still burning brightly, but there was something in the air -- something I couldn't quite name -- that told me autumn had arrived.  I could breathe it in, even in this state without the seasons.

Back in my childhood lo these many years, there was this -- for lack of a better word -- feeling that would engulf me at rare, unpredictable moments.

It was partly physical -- my skin would tingle, my head would flush from my scalp down, and gradually this feeling would swell as it pervaded my chest, my arms, my heart.

(No, it wasn't a heart attack!  You guys snickering in the back there can go now.)

As it moved through my body, it became more of a spiritual sensation.  I would feel part of something grander -- a family, a community, a nation, a people -- until joy would pervade my whole being.

Like I said, it was rare.  It was unpredictable.  There was never anything I could pinpoint that triggered it, no sudden heart-stopping moment, nothing anyone said.

However, it usually happened in the autumn as I was entering my house -- not on a special holiday or anything, just opening in the back door and feeling the warmth of the kitchen begin to escape as I walked in.  I would have just come home from school, spotting my favorite trees at the end of the street turning to gold and red, following the driveway to the garage stairs and the kitchen door.

I never knew when it would happen until an instant before it did, and feeling it come on was akin to hearing reindeer hooves clicking on the roof Christmas Eve.  "Oh, goody!" I'd think.  "It's happening again!"

Then it would engulf me and I'd feel so damn grateful that I was alive, that my mother was cooking dinner, that I had a warm home and a family to come home to, that the piano was there for me to practice, that my cat was there for me to pet, my books for me to read, my television to watch, and our table for me to set.

Don't get me wrong -- my childhood was nothing to write home to the Waltons about.  In fact, on a scale of dysfunctional families, mine probably ranked at least a 7.5 out of 10.  So there was no real tangible reason for this feeling to be there, really.

It hasn't happened since I left home for college.  (In fact, truth be told, it was probably earlier than that when it stopped happening.  The dysfunction in the end won out.)

But I never forgot it.  I hold it as knowledge in my heart that happiness and true contentment exist in this world, and I never let go the hope that the feeling will grow into constancy in my life.

Another Yarn Contest: My Black Hills Summer Vacation

See that panorama up there? Those are the Black Hills of South Dakota. Where I come from originally (Illinois), they're called Mountains. (Since I've lived in California now for over 30 years, I have a new understanding of the difference between hills and mountains.)

But way back when I was a teenager in the '60s, those were the highest mountains I'd ever seen. The summer I was 15 I went with a youth group to a summer camp -- not for camping, mind you, but to work. Our job was to dig a trench from the top of the mountain down to the camp to hold a pipeline from a water supply for the camp.
Every day in the morning, we climbed this mountain. Every day at noon we climbed down for lunch and a rest period. Then we climbed back up and back down at nightfall.
I hated this youth group. I'd only been a member of the group for a year or so because my father, a church choir director, had just moved from one church to another. So not only was I a "new kid," I was a choir director's kid. I got picked on a LOT, and especially by the boys.
It seemed every time I turned around the boys were playing some sort of trick on me and snickering at me and thinking I was a stupid dolt.
Mind you, I know now why they were doing it.
My daughter is the spittin' image of me and has been at every stage of her life. In fact, she looks so much like me that when sorting family photos, if they're not marked with the year, I sometimes have to stare at the photo and look at the background and figure out which one of us it's a photo of.
This is what my daughter looks like today. She's 29. She doesn't look much different than she did at 15 -- and therefore not much different than I looked at the same age.

Not bad, eh?
So, like I said, in my old age (and after it's too late to work it), I realized that those guys were teasing me and tormenting me because -- Dang! I was hot!!!
(I'm not even going to say "If I do say so myself" because at the time I thought I was really, really ugly. It took having a look-alike daughter and seeing her every day and watching the men sniffing around her to find out that that coulda been me if I hadn't been so stoopid!)
Of course, people tried to tell me, "It's only because they like you," but I never listened.
Anyway, I digress.
One day after lunch time on a really, really hot day I was wandering around the camp biding my time and enjoying my rest period when these four guys from another cabin walked up to me and asked me to help them.
Of course, I was immediately suspicious. But they seemed really desperate. "Hey, Jo Anne," the hottest one of the bunch called out, "can you help us? We really need to find a hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter to clean out the fireplace in our cabin and we can't find the camp director. If you see him, will you ask him if he has one?"
"Come on, guys," said I, "you think I was born yesterday? You guys are pulling my leg again."
"No!" they yelled. "You gotta help us. Rev (the minister leading the work tour) is gonna kill us if we don't get this fireplace cleaned today!"

By the way, I ran across this public domain photo on the internet and it looks surprisingly like the cabins we stayed in:

I felt sorry for them and told them I'd try to find the camp director. "But what was the name of that thing again?"
So they had me repeat it over and over and over again and I walked around the camp reciting, "hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter"
until I found the camp director.
"Say, Mr. Camp Director," I said, "do you have a hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter anywhere? The guys need one to clean out their fireplace."
"Oh, sure!" he said, not missing a beat. "It's up on top of the mountain hanging from a sky hook!"
Oh, no. If these guys were going to get their cabin cleaned in time for inspection, I'd have to climb the mountain, find the hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter, come back down and get it to them before we had to climb back up again for the afternoon shift.
So, being the helpful and generous soul that I am,
(oh, yes, Dear Reader, I did)

I. Climbed. The. Mountain. Again.

Well, I guess I gotta make this long story short. Lucky for me, my friend Pam wasn't hungry enough at lunch time to come down the mountain and had decided she'd rather stay up there than have to climb it again in the afternoon.
She had no idea where they kept the sky hook up there but she helped me look for a little while.
Then she said, "You know, Jo Anne, I think a sky hook might be some kind of a joke. I mean, where would you hang a sky hook from?"
I didn't tell her about the hollow-J goose-necked smoke sifter. I just waited on top of the mountain for the afternoon shift to arrive.
Along with the raucous laughter.