Popcorn Popper

I was out in Palm Springs a few weeks ago to do what I could to help a friend. I was able to run a lot of errands, cook meals, and just be there when she needed me.

Popcorn popper

We have a lot of great memories together, one of them being popcorn. We used to work together and every now and then, on a Friday, we would alternate bringing some sort of food into the office to share. I would bring sun dried tomato and chive cream cheese with bagels, and would bring it in on a Friday morning so the service guys could grab one before heading out for the day. A few Friday’s later, usually a payday, and she would make a huge batch of popcorn and bring it in after lunch so the service guys could grab some when they stopped in to pick up their paychecks.

One afternoon I made popcorn when when I was out there a few weeks ago, another one of our friends (we also worked together) was stopping by. I didn’t make just one batch of popcorn, but 5 batches! The air is so dry there, that it stays nice and crispy, crunchy for several days.

We all munched on popcorn through our tears and laughter. And we munched on it for the next few days along with other family members.

I am used to using a pan on the stove-top for making popcorn at home, but she had this nifty popcorn making pan. After a batch of instruction, I was on my way! Batch after Batch!

Are you a popcorn eater? How do you pop yours?

Sincerely, Emily

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Recognition and remembering

On November 11th, the US will celebrate Veterans Day. I will put a flag out on the front porch as a big wave to all the Veteran’s out there and in recognition to their service.

I remember…

My Dad

I remember…

Great Uncle Harvey

I give recognition to my paternal Grandfather, whom I never met, for his service.

World War I

Do you hang out a flag on Veteran’s Day?

Sincerely, Emily

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Memories – Dad

My dad passed away the weekend before Thanksgiving 25 years ago. For many, many years, Thanksgiving was a hard time for me. He left us way too early.It would have been my dad’s birthday last week, so this time of year he is on my mind a lot. He would have been 83 this week.

It is a good time to take a walk down memory lane and think of the many things that he taught me and the things we did together. I remember playing catch in our yard in WI and also in MN. He had a worn, and very soft baseball mitt. It was way too big for me, but I remember the feel of it when I would slip my hand into it. I had my own glove and I remember how stiff it was when we bought it. I remember rubbing some sort of conditioner or sealer into it and them putting a softball in it and wrapping twine around it to help form it.

June 1967

Frisbee was also something I did with dad. Back and forth. Learning to control the angle and speed and direction. We would throw it different ways to see what we could do. As I got better we would take a step back to increase the distance between us. Where ever we went, there was always a Frisbee in the trunk of the car, just in case we had time to play.

He also taught me how to shoot a gun, load ammunition and hunt. He taught me how to water ski and drive the boat. He watched Star Trek and M.A.S.H., so I did too.

It isn’t just this time of year I remember my dad, I think of him often. My brother and I talk about the different things we did with dad. We have some great memories.

Do you have special memories of your Dad?

Sincerely, Emily

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Photos full of memories (2)

With my outdoor and active life still “on hold” I am finding all sorts of different things to do. The other day I was paging through some photo albums and found some older photos in them that were fun to see.

I grew up with cats and so did my dad. One of the photos I found was of my dad in one of his cars. What I didn’t notice until later was there is a cat in the car with him. I believe the photo is from the 50’s, the car is much older than that, but I have no idea what kind of car it is or the year.

This photo is one of my all-time favorites. I was almost 5 years old in the photo.

I’m having fun looking through the old photos. I’m also glad that I can take a digital photo of them to share with family and preserve them for generations to come.

You can see a few other old photos that I posted back in November here.

Are you preserving some of your old photos? How are you doing it?

Sincerely, Emily

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Smart people ride the train

When my daughter Nga was 15 we went to Dexter, Michigan and found the house I lived in when I was 3. I took the picture below in an attempt to recreate the photo of me that is sitting (or was sitting) on my father’s desk for as long as I can remember.

The photos were taken at approximately the same place along the road. A lot changes in 40 years.

Dexter House had been an antebellum mansion outside Ann Arbor in the small town of Dexter; it was divided into university housing for nearby U of Michigan and had supposedly been a stop on the underground railroad.

I have known this fact my entire life although I don’t remember when I first heard it. I think it must have been when we lived there, and that my mother explained what that meant.

I doubt I understood the concept of slavery, or escape, or race for that matter. I know that when I was in 3rd grade I did not understand what “colored people” were (that was the term used then). I know this because I can remember my friend Dodo (yes, Dodo, short for Dorothy) talking about someone’s “colored” gardener and the image that invoked of a person with skin like a book’s endpage– a swirling kaleidoscope of color.

This is not so much a beautiful evocation of the natural tolerance of children as of the rigid segregation in which we lived, inasmuch as I never ever encountered people of other races. I can remember vividly in fact, because it was so rare, the few non-whites I met growing up. The housekeeper at my school, the Hindu girl in fourth grade (also the only handicapped child I encountered), the three black girls at Haverford Junior High.

My kids knew from a very young age that there were different races, but they didn’t exactly understand what that meant. They knew their father wasn’t white, but since Asian people are essentially invisible in our society, and you never really encounter the terminology, they used to tell people that their dad was black, which people found very confusing. When Nga was about 6 she asked me one day, in her high piping voice, why we were the only white people on the train we riding. Everyone on the train laughed, especially since Nga is not, in fact, white.

I believe I told her that it was smart people who ride the train, and has nothing to do with the color of your skin.

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Looking forward

No New Year’s resolutions around here. I really liked Xan’s post the other day and I enjoyed reading Annie Rie’s post Six at Sixty. I have accomplished many things over the past year and will continue to make my lists and continue to check items off those endless lists. I much prefer my to-do lists to resolutions.

Am I going to start a New Year’s list? Heck no, my other lists are still way too long! There are times I feel like I have been sitting around and I wonder if I have accomplished anything, but when I start to think about the things I have done and the things I have accomplished I lighten up a bit. Not all things are huge and noticeable.

I am happy to have the opportunity to explore new things, plant more vegetables, walk next door to visit the neighbors, and be involved in some local community things. I am grateful for my husband and my family, and the time we have had together and the memories that go along with living our lives. I look forward to more exploring, more veggies in the back yard, more visits with the neighbors. I look forward to more memories and time spent with family (and friends.)

Tomorrow is a new day. I look forward to many new days in this New Year. I hope you do to.

Sincerely, Emily

 

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Seeing candles from the other side of the window

During the Hannuka festival I like to drive slowly through my heavily Jewish neighborhood and look for the menorahs.

It’s one of the more charming traditions of Hannukah (which is a tradition with much charm), that the menorah is placed in the window, so everyone knows “we celebrate this here.” Judaism has many public expressions of private faith; it’s a religion of bravura and courage, which I suppose it has needed to be.

While my parents were raised as Christians, I was raised to mistrust religion, so I’ve been somewhat on the other side of the windows for all of the winter traditions. I see the candles and the lights and the stained glass from the wrong side. No question, it’s beautiful from either perspective, but I’ve always imagined the interior of worship places to be a warm and mysterious communion where everyone knows the same thing; something I don’t, and can’t know.

Religion is a foreign language to me.

When my kids were born, I vowed that they would at least understand what was going on on the other side of the window, and we marked all the Judeo-Christian holidays with outward accoutrements: food and stories and decorations. We read the Hannukah story and lit the candles. We had a tree and presents and read Dylan Thomas and St. Luke. Easter and Passover, Hallowe’en and Purim. If I had it to do over, I’d add Ramadan and Diwali, as well as Solstice and Equinox celebrations. Oh well, I’ll have grandchildren someday.

Strangely, my husband, also not a Christian, has worked most of his adult life as a worship musician, in both the church and the synagogue. He knows the rituals inside out. He’s good at it, too.

Even though the kids are gone, and there’s really no reason to do it, I still light the Menorah and say the prayer. Yesterday I made challah. There are Christmas lights in my window and my yard.

Because the thing about the holy is that there is no “outside.”

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