Movie Night

Inga is away visiting Brad in Philadelphia. I spoke to her via cell phone tonight while she waited in line for a They Might be Giants concert. I wanted to make sure she had her mittens on. I know she is 16 but mothers don't stop worrying... maybe ever. Erik is frequently gone to friends houses so Karl and I have been spending our free time at the movies.

We went to see the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The theater was filled with teenagers who all seemed to have their feet up on the seat backs. They were good they didn't talk or anything but still it was slightly uncomfortable to be soo old and seemingly short on hormones. Oh yes and the movie was very long. Very long. Generally the characters were unlikeable. The story wanted to be a magical fable but it fell short of the dream.

Last night we saw Happy Go Lucky which was excellent. The theater was filled with forty somethings. Funny how people are generally most comfortable with their own age group. Mixed age grouping is okay but really I don't want to be the ancient one! The movie was about a woman who is unfailing happy. She starts off as annoying but ends up as really likable. It has some startling scenes where she talks to a homeless man. I wanted to shake her for being so stupid. I definitely connected to her. Great movie. Oh yes she goes to Flamenco Dancing class which is just hilarious. The teacher is very passionate shall we say... Sort of like the kids at the Benjamin Button movie!

Webcams and Walks

Karl has been having a lot of fun with his new webcam. We talked to Bill and Carolyn and we talked to everyone at Ken's house. Carolyn looked pretty comfy on her couch. And her cookies looked pretty fine. Ken showed us his new wine glasses he made with the wooden stems. Inga waved at everyone. I like having the pictures to go along with the words. I'm a picture book gal at heart I guess! Skypers rock! We figure maybe we could pop-up randomly on the kids computers just to amuse them.

I did manage to get out for one dog walk. Yucky weather. Our Statue of Liberty looks a little cold don't you think? Okay I promised fluffy snow. I bought snow boots for my niece but all we got was icy rain. Weather never works for me in winter.

Flip and Glass

We went for a family outing to the Glass Museum. No holiday around here is complete without a trip to our favorite museum. We all did projects at the studio. Inga and I made glass flowers and everyone else including my 7 year old niece and my reluctant teenage son made glass ornaments. We used to take Inga and Erik to make an ornament every year so Inga wanted to try something different.

Before we did our project we watched the hot glass show to get "fired" up so to speak. My niece, Lara, filmed the hot glass show with her new Flip. The Flip is new flash memory video camera that plugs right into your usb slot on the computer. I am thinking of buying one so I had to check hers out! I am liking it though I have to figure out how to get the best quality video up on the blog. The picture looked a lot better before I uploaded to the blog. This thing is the size of a large credit card. Perfect for videos on the fly. I could carry it around in my purse. As always I do love the tech gadgets though sorting out the "how to" may be stressful! I guess that keeps me from atrophy.

Pinball Wii- Wizards

Mom and Dad are down for Christmas and my sister and family are on their way. They are set to arrive at 1AM. After dinner the adults retired to the TV room for a little bit of gaming. Video gaming that is. Who needs cards. Nana took pleasure in knocking off everyone's high scores. Which of course she would never gloat about. NOT. We opened up a new game. Pinball. Love it. Mom, Dad,Nana, Granddad all love it. Kids want to know what's up with the whole Tilt thing. And the kids are slightly disapproving of all this video gaming. Slightly bizarre says Inga. " Are you going to make us wait upstairs on Christmas until you beat the high score?"

I'm Dreaming of a White....

Another snow day today. No school. Today was one of those days when every time I got on the computer there a big red exclamation mark on the bottom of the screen. Right now I have an exclamation mark, a dripping thermometer, and two gray clouds with snowflakes. And the dogs really don't want to go for a walk. My dogs don't shed. That is nice for the couch and all. But their kind of fur acts like Velcro when it comes to snow. Just like a snowball going downhill. Go for too long of a walk and pretty soon all you can see is two ears and two eyes. We have to blow dry them off to find the dog again.

Erik snowblowed the driveway twice today and it pissed him right off when he looked out only to find more white stuff on his driveway. He wants to make sure Mom can get out to drive him around.

They are predicting two more storms over the next few days. There is no question about that white Christmas!

Lollipops and Wonder

Inga and I have been making lollipops! Her lunch table is having a potluck tomorrow at school. This is the teenager's idea of potluck: someone makes cupcakes, someone makes cookies, someone makes cake, the boys bring soda and Inga is making homemade lollipops. Yes, sexism prevails.

I never made lollipops before but Inga made hard candy at the Glass Museum a few weeks ago so she had some idea of the problems like melting spoons...

She was lucky enough to have a Mom who happened to have flavored oils and powdered citric acid on hand. All we needed were sticks and wrappers and we were good to go.

We wanted molds but we couldn't find any so we just poured little blobs on the back of a cookie sheet. Not perfectly round but perfectly yummy.

I gave my girlfriend one this morning on the our dog walk. About one o'clock she called me from Super Walmart. She wanted a list of ingredients!

• 1/3 cup corn syrup
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/4 to 1 teaspoon flavoring
• liquid food coloring
• 1 to 2 teaspoon(s) citric acid (optional)

The Saga of the Tamales

Tomorrow I am having the ladies over for lunch. I thought I would spend Sunday peacefully making tamales. Well, I did spend Sunday making tamales but it was rather less peaceful than I would have liked. Just as I was beginning to get started I sliced my finger open on my new stupid sharp knife. I am simply not used to having sharp knives. It was not a good time to go to the emergency room since I knew on Sunday morning it was likely to be crowded. I taped it up really, really tight with lots of band-aids. Every once in awhile a little blood leaked out which I taped over with more band-aids. I was thinking about that book "Like Water for Chocolate" where she cries sad tears in the food as she's cooking and everyone suffers from heartbreak or some such thing. I am not sure what effect a little blood might have...Just kidding none got in the food.

The tamales turned out pretty well but they did take all day. Jeez! I was wishing for a large Hispanic family to make the things with assembly line style. And some alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Karl did tie them up for me since I really had a problem with the leaking blood trying to tie bows.

Monday I thought maybe I would go on over to the emergency room since the dam thing was still bothering me. Maybe some stitches would be more effective than increasing layers of band-aids. The waiting room was empty. I walked right in! But they have some stupid rule about waiting too long to get stitches. Something about infections. They wouldn't stitch me up. All they had to offer was a Tetanus shot. GRR. And I heard them instructing someone on how to give shots on the other side of the curtain. When the baby-face young man came in to give me my shot I asked him if he was old enough to be giving shots but he claimed he was. I asked him if he had ever given a shot. He said he had just not a Tetanus shot. Go figure my arm really hurts today. Oh yes, and he mentioned how cute I was questioning him and all... One hundred dollars later all I got was a gauze wrap and a sore arm.

So I went home and carried on with the tamales. I still had the meat ones to construct. The emergency room doctor did show me how to cut the thumb off of a latex glove to fit right over the gauze wrap. That kept the blood in and the water out. I set the little TV up on the kitchen table and finished up the tamales while watching a documentary about Hunter S. Thompson. Gonzo journalism or something..

One Thousand Tinkerbells

Thursday night we had our first snowstorm. Only 12". The kids had a snow day. Three day weekend yahoo...?

Last night as Inga and I were pulling into the driveway Inga observed that our snow covered net lights made it look like a thousand Tinkerbells were trying to escape from our snow covered bushes. That's me a poor, wet, cold, Tinkerbell trying to escape from a suffocating blanket of heavy snow. If only I could dry off my wings in the warm sunshine...

Ho Ho Ho? Sigh....

The lights are up. I went for the net lights on the bushes. Our bushes used to be too small for lights but time moves on and so do the bushes. Yeah! No ladders. I am happy with them. Fairly satisfying. They twinkle. I ran out of extension cords so that's it for this year but next year...More nets! More extension cords! I may be the only one who enjoys them but so what.

Yesterday my son informed me that the whole" Joy of the Season Thing " was wasted on him. And my daughter asked why having things under the tree to open was such a big deal. "I don't want you to pick out things for me". I want to do the shopping. Okay. At lunch my girlfriend said she exchanged the necklace her husband bought her last year for a better one... I guess that is okay since it was a lot of money but somehow...

The one thing they do seem focused on is the COOKIES. Both kids want to know when the cookies making will begin and "Aren't you starting a little late this year?" I guess it will start when I lose the fifty pounds all those other cookies added to my petite frame!

I am having my lunch bunch over for a cookie exchange so the baking will actually have to begin. Tamales and cookies. I am making tamales for lunch which it turns out only one of my friends has ever had. The one who lived in Texas. I am always reminded of how radically different parts of the country are from one another. Bill, I actually miss the paper bags and the sand! One year a friend sent me a string of chili peppers to hang by the front door for the holidays which is common practice in New Mexico. The UPS man refused to ring my bell. I assumed he thought the chili pepper might rub off on him. Or maybe he thought it was an evil charm to ward people off..