violetismycolor

Happy New Year...

Ross was the only one with REAL plans tonight, so he is off for a 'gamer's night' with his buddies.

Adam, Bonnie, John, and I went out for Mexican food and then to see Walk the Line (Bonnie's choice).  It was actually pretty good...the acting and the singing.

I was impressed to find out that my kids actually really like Johnny Cash (they already listen to his music) and they were impressed to find out that John has the Johnny Cash Live at Folsom album, which he bought in 1968. 

That got really weird when I said that in 1968, I was 12...and Adam figured out that in 1968 John was exactly twice my age...24!

Now, it's 10 pm and we are settling in for a little Johnny Cash music and then probably a little A Fish Called Wanda.

Happy New Year to all!

new year's eve mystery...what to do?

The Christmas holiday is over and we have nothing in particular to do for NYE.  Probably stay up and watch A Fish Called Wanda.  Which is good enough for me.  I can't get all worked up about NYE, now that I'm old...as in, I have trouble staying up until midnight.

The kids have no real plans either.  I don't think I EVER did anything special for NYE till I was in my 20's and could a) go out and have a drink, b) had any money to do anything special, and c) had friends in like situations. 

Then, I got married and our neighborhood did a progressive dinner party for NYE.  We would have groups...one person to offer their house (hence had to have a CLEAN house) and one to make the food for the course.  We would have an appetizer course, a soup course, a salad course, a main dish course, and finally a dessert and champagne course.  We would leisurely go from house to house...no car needed.  We would get all dressed up and eat with a different couple at every course.  It was very social and civilized and wonderful.  I'm not sure how we got out of the habit of doing that.  The makeup of the neighborhood changed.  And those of us that ALWAYS did the organizing got tired of doing that, I think.  Too bad because it was a great way to spend the night.

Then, we had one NYE where we were snowed in and we just invited everyone else that we could find at home over to our house for snacks and drinks. That was a lot of fun, too.  Very impromptu. 

Maybe I'd like to get back into the swing of helping plan another progressive dinner next year...hmm...will have to think on that.

What's everyone else out there doing?

IF...holiday...

***click on the illustration for an even closer look***

Since I had done a couple of things for Christmas, I thought I would try New Year's Eve.

I remember NYE's where I went out and danced the night away, but that's not what they are like for me anymore.  We had one NYE that we went out to Portland's 'party' but since there was so much security (so that they didn't even let vendors in...so no food or drink) and so much rain that we headed home before midnight.  We flipped through TV channels and found 'A Fish Called Wanda', which John and I had seen but the kids had not.  They loved it and it became a favorite family memory.  Adam sent it to me for my birthday this year and that really meant something special.

I'm not sure what we are doing this NYE, but it really doesn't matter.  It really just signals to me the end of one great year, family intact, and the beginning of a new adventure.  Happy New Year to all.

the merriest of Christmases...

We had a pretty darned good Christmas here.  Check out our photo album of Christmas pictures, but don't bother looking for me...I am the one holding the camera and am never in a picture. 

First of all, we were all together...John, me, the kids, John's mom...hard to ask for more but we got alot more.

Adam spent almost 8 hours various dental chairs last week and came away looking great.  He has a little touch-up to be done but he looks like he used to...with beautiful teeth and a happy smile.  All before Christmas Eve.  Yay!!!

We saw a couple of movies...Syriana (really good but really sad) and King Kong (certainly over-hyped and about an hour too long, and full of plot holes, but great special effects).  The kids put together and decorated a gingerbread house, a favorite Christmas tradition. We had a lovely, candlelight Christmas Eve service at our church, with great music, especially my all-time favorite: Oh, Holy Night.  We got and gave wonderful gifts, much appreciated by all.  We have been able to eat together every night.  Oh, will the blessings never stop coming?  Hope not.

stick it...

Ross finally got his first driver's lesson on a stick shift.  As the other two kids did when they first drove a stick, he proclaimed it 'evil'.  His siblings now think that driving a stick is cool and their friends think they are awesome because of it.  I'm not sure that Ross will ever get there.  He still hates driving, period.  He hadn't driven in two months and we threw him into this with a total stranger...an instructor from the Sears Driving School.  It's been 24 hours and he's still whining about it.  Another lesson tomorrow, so he just has to buck up.

Illustration Friday...imagine...

***click on the image and it gets bigger***

I like to imagine that I can fly.  And, of course, I would have pretty, butterfly-like wings, and long flow-y hair...

Of course, I cannot fly except in my dreams sometimes, which are always the best dreams because I feel so free and flying is so much fun. But I would like to...

In other news, Adam had 2 root canals and a tooth pulled today.  He also went to the doctor for some ultrasound therapy on his still-hurting right wrist, only to be told that she thought that it was broken and he has to go for an xray.  He had tried to get the doctors in Scotland to xray it for months, but they never would.  I'll bet that HE would like to fly away...

55 people crammed in a house...

My sister, Ann, had our my-side-of-the-family Christmas celebration at her house yesterday (Sunday).  She has a big house and that's a good thing because there were TONS of us.  She was expecting to have 55 people.  I am not sure we made it to that number but it was probably close.  If there were 55 people there, then 25 of them were under 10.  Seriously.  We are baby-making machines in our family. 

I walked in and there was my brother, The Priest.  I was ambushed.  No one had mentioned to me that he was coming, and I am sure they didn't since our last visit was so horrid.  Ann was probably afraid that I wouldn't show if I knew he was going to be there.  She counted on us both to use our big-girl and big-boy manners and tolerate the other's presence.  We did all right on that score.

There was a present exchange and I got a lovely cut-crystal bowl.  I was a lucky one.  One of my brothers and his wife both gave pictures of the Pope as half their gift.  Knowing that not everyone at the gift exchange was Catholic (like me, John, Adam, Bonnie, my MIL... who all participated), WHY would you give a picture of Pope Benedict as a gift?  That would be like me putting a picture of the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church as a gift.  Who would want that? 

Luckily, all the Calhoun's managed to miss that little time bomb...

We actually had quite a lovely time.  It had started to snow almost the minute we arrived.  We were fooled into complacency, though, by the fact that my sis lives on a hill in Hillsboro and the snow was just blowing around, not sticking.  We thought we were safe to stay and that the snow would be blowing around all over the Portland area.  Oh, how wrong one can be.

We headed home at about 6 pm.  It had been 'snowing' for about 5 hours.  What we didn't know that the snow in Hillsboro had arrived in the rest of the area as freezing rain.  We got about 2 miles away from Ann's house and the road got very, very treacherous.  Bonnie and I were in one car and John, his mom, Adam, and Ross were in the other.  The guys were going to take my MIL home. 

I was pretty panicked, I'll admit.  I was holding onto that steering wheel for dear life.  Every time we had to come to a full stop, say for a traffic light, I had a hard time getting the car going again.  The wheels on my little stick-shift-Saab just didn't want to get traction.  There were a few times that I thought that if the lights didn't turn green by the time I made it to an (empty) intersection, I would just go right on through it.  I actually did that at an intersection where I was making a left hand turn and it had a red turn arrow.  No one was around, so I just went right on through. 

We did make it home in one piece.  John found that he couldn't make it down the steep drive of the place where my MIL lives, so she came and spent the night with us.  With the exception of an hour-long power outage this morning, that went pretty smoothly.  We were happy that she could be safe, dry, and warm with us. 

Now, we are happy with our Oregon rain.

the kiddies are home...

Adam and Bonnie are both home, having braved the airlines at Christmas and having every one of their flight segments delayed.  Adam came in around 11 last night and Bonnie at 1 this afternoon.  They both required naps today and very early turn-in times tonight.  But they are home and safe and it is so wonderful.

Ross came along with us last night...the first time he decided that he wouldn't rather sleep.  He said he really missed both of his siblings.  Then, all 4 of us went to the airport today to collect Bonnie.  In the car on the ride home, the 3 kids were all chatting and laughing and carrying on...enjoying being together so much.  Bliss...this is certainly bliss.

John and I went to our Coffee Girls' Christmas party tonight.  We were all supposed to bring appetizers and I brought homemade eggnog for mine.  This is a recipe I got from an ex-neighbor and it is liquid deliciousness.  It consists of eggs, sugar, half and half, Haagen Daz ice cream, vanilla, whisky, gin, and brandy.  Absolutely deadly good.  Anybody wanting the complete recipe should just let me know and I will send it to them.

Tomorrow is the big family celebration, complete with gift exchange.  Hopefully no politics or religion will be discussed and all will go well...

IF...Surprise...

*Click for a closer look*

Finally got my act together and did this week's prompt.  I thought that a very large present from Mrs. Santa would be a great surprise for the Mister...

Of course, my mister should not expect a present this big because...first of all, there isn't one and secondly, I wouldn't wrap a present that was that big anyway. 

How are the young educated these days?

I wandered into Sam Goody's Music yesterday.

A courteous young man walked up to me and asked if he could help me find something.

"A copy of Handel's Messiah," I said.

He looked at me quizzically and said, "I'm not sure what kind of video that is."

Huh?

"It's not a video. It's music."

"What kind of music?"

"Well, it's usually played around Christmastime...The Messiah...Jesus?...you've never heard of Handel's Messiah?"

"Oh, Christmas music. That's over here."

And he leads me over to CD's like A Carpenter's Christmas and Don Ho Sings the Christmas Classics.

"No, Handel...you know...famous composer...wrote music hundreds of years ago."

Blank look.

"Classical music....Don't you know anything about music?"

"Not THAT kind of music."

He walks us over to the Classical section. Has a hard time spelling Handel. I point to a divider marked 'Handel'.

He wanders away without saying anything else.

A lady standing nearby is shaking her head and saying, "Unbelievable."

Am I that old?

is it Christmas yet?

Am I tired of shopping!  I am trying to get everything done before the kids get home, so that I can just enjoy my time with them.  That means, of course, that I have spent more time than I care to in shopping malls...at least in the past few days. 

Part of my problem was that Amazon totally let me down.  I put in an order about a month ago, and then on Saturday I got an email saying that they wouldn't be able to fulfill the order till after Xmas.  Well, Bah Humbug, Amazon...I'll just have to cancel that whole order and go out and find all those things, myself! 

I had to go out to Lake Oswego to the Pendleton store, anyway and thought I would just drop by a bookstore there and pick a few things up.  I asked where the nearest bookstore was, and was told that there was not a single bookstore in all of Lake Oswego.  My response was:  'Don't you people read?'  After all, Lake Oswego is the posh suburb of Portland where all the rich people live...and they have no bookstore?  Unimaginable. 

I seem to have visited all the area malls by now and have only to buy a few things for the stockings now. 

Is it Christmas yet?

19-year-old memory loss...

Bonnie wrote something really funny in her blog today, and I just had to share it because it make me laugh so hard:

"...my memory has decided to die. I've memorized several new numbers in the past year (door code, cell phone #, ID #, Hamilton zip code, etc) and now I've forgotten important information. Like, the zip code in Portland. OMG how can I forget my home zip code?!?!? Shouldn't that be ingrained in my memory? And when I gave blood I couldn't remember my SS number until I had the needle in my vein, in which point the issue was moot. And my library card number. Gone. Completely forgotten. I feel old. And stupid. I've got so many numbers floating around my mind that apparently some of them (especially my cell phone #) formed a gang and decided to claim all the memory space for themselves and ran off the older numbers. Give me back my zip code! I want it back! 13346 is not my real zip code!"

Illo Friday...blue...

<***Click on the picture for a larger view***

I thought about what associations spring into my mind with the word 'blue' and I thought of The Bluebird of Happiness. Despite the horrible news on the television every night and despite the fact that life isn't perfect, I have to say that I am a very happy person...with a left turn here and there for a little break in the continuum. Hence, my bluebird. Plus the fact that, though we don't get these kinds of birds here in Oregon, I think that are way cool.

my new fave singer...

I found this wonderful new (to America) talent...somehow...I can't recall how...but she has the most beautiful voice!  She is only 20 and is from Australia.  I had to buy her album in the UK but she is supposed to have on come out in the US sometime this winter.  

If you'd like to see her music video and get an idea of how wonderful she is, just click here and you will be linked to her site, where you can see her Lost Without You video.

In the meantime, I am working on Christmas...and my blue Illo Friday piece...

weekend sadness...

Going to the funeral of a child is an incredibly sad and moving thing.  Our friends' grandchild, Zane, had had his first birthday only 10 days before he died.  At the funeral, a slideshow of memories was played throughout the entire event.  Pictures of him and his family from the day he was born till his first birthday party flashed on the screen, showing an incredibly happy family going about their lives. When his little casket was wheeled in, his mother collapsed into a heap of tears on the floor.  His father, leaned down and covered his wife.  It makes me cry, again,  just typing this.

It was especially poignant for me, I think, because of the death of my own nephew 2 years ago.  He was 25, but the sentiments of his parents and family were the same, I am sure, of the family there before me.  Crushing. Tragic.  Unbelieving.  Desolate. 

I knew exactly what the week before the funeral had been like for all of them. Just like ours had been for us. 

When my brother-in-law had to go out and find a gravesite for his son.  When the family had to put together a fitting obituary.  When edits were needed for the words that would be spoken to the congregated at the funeral.  When clothes had to be chosen for their son to wear in the casket.  Beyond comprehension for me before that time and then, I was living it with my sister and her family. 

Yes, I do know what that family had suffered and would suffer.  It was so incredibly painful to watch.  And I could only pray for them and their grief and try to send waves of love and consolation their way.

That is what all of us, all of those souls sitting in that church during that funeral, were doing for that family.  All we could do and what we should do. 

memoirs of a geisha...

Margaret was asking me what I thought of the book, Memoirs of a Geisha, which was recently on my book list.  I have very mixed feelings.

I thought it was fairly well-written.  It was certainly a page-turner, at least in the beginning.  But I found myself getting horribly depressed by the story.

First of all, this little girl is about to lose her mother, so her father sells her (and another sister).  She goes to a geisha house; her sister is sold to be a prostitute.  Not very cheery.

Being a geisha is not exactly being a prostitute but more like a personal entertainment 'toy' for men.  She must learn to dance, to play a musical instrument, the 'fine art of conversation' (though none of the conversation was very interesting, certainly not educated or refined),  and how to drink lots of booze.

The girls virginity was sold at about 15, usually to some much older man...always to the highest bidder.  She just had to endure it.  Creepy, if you ask me.

When going out to clubs (excuse me, tea houses) with men, the women wouldn't be allowed to eat with them, only drink with them and entertain them.

Then, the way to really survive well as a geisha, was to get a man to be your sugar daddy. 

All this was disturbing as to what it said about women in Japanese society.

The fact that our heroine, Chiyo (who is renamed Sayuri), is doing all of this to be closer to 'The Director', who she met at age 9 and has been longing to sleep with ever since, is odd and slightly pathetic.  Is this a girl whose father sold her into slavery and is dying for the approval of an older man as a father-substitute?

The Director also has had the hots for her since then, too.  Even creepier.  Oh yeah, and he's married, but don't let that get in your way.  Most of these guys are married...going out with these other women at night while their wives sit home and wait.

Okay, so yes...the charm of the story wore off after the first bit.  I was interested in learning what a geisha was and it was enlightening on that point. 

The fact that this book was written by a man, who is apparently trying to pass off this life as 'glamorous' is a little absurd.  He/she also makes the point that being a geisha is not any different than a Western woman who is married to/lives with a wealthy man...implying that all these women are only in it for the money.  Excuse me?

I was slightly ticked off by this male view of a woman's role. 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book for the most part.  I liked the character development and the stage set scenery.  But I don't agree that being a geisha is a glamorous life.  I find it sad.  Not that Japanese women of any sort had it that great...

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