The Friend Meme

Sandwiched in between two meetings with good friends I don't see often enough seems the perfect time to do this short "friend meme," though I discovered that because of cross-over in real life and computer life, it's more difficult than you'd think to answer these questions. The first difficulty is how to separate people who are related by marriage or blood from people who have no connection like that. For that reason, I am automatically NOT considering Walt or the kids, their spouses, my mother or my cousins in answering these questions.

1. Who's your best friend in real life...why?

Now see, this question is difficult to answer because how do you choose among Peggy, who is really more of an online friend now, but with whom I have spent a lot of time and who knows my deepest secrets; Char, who has been a best friend for so long and who also knows my deepest secrets; and Lynn, whom I don't see nearly enough and don't hear from all that often, but who is also a great confidante and knows my deepest secrets. I can't choose from among them, so I'll have to choose all three.

Or should it be a male friend, which would put the choice between Ron and Steve, both of whom have been such an important part of my life but, again, are now more online friends than face to face friends. (But much as I love them, a male friend, even a gay one, isn't quite as fulfilling as a female friend.)

2. Who's your best online friend...why?

This could also be Peggy, since I will probably never see her face to face again, so all that is left is an online friendship, but since I put her in question #1, I should pick someone whom I have never met, or maybe only met once. Again, that leaves me with two people. First would be Bozoette Mary, whom I did meet once in Washington, D.C. and whose blog I have been following forever. Secondly would be Kimberly (aka Indigo), whose daily question site, "That's My Answer" is one that I wouldn't miss every day. I've never met Kimberly, but we have had lots of exchanges about not only questions for TMA, but our respective blogs as well.

3. Who's your most quiet friend...why?

After having spent two weeks with her, and often straining to hear what she says, I would say that my choice for "most quiet friend" would have to be Pat. Not that she is shy and retiring, but only that she is sometimes so soft spoken that you miss what she is saying....and she usually has interesting things to say.

4. Who's your loudest friend...why?

Olivia, whom I met on CompuServe many years ago, who morphed into a face to face friend, but who had the audacity to move to Idaho, where I never see her any more. NOBODY has ever accused Olivia of being soft spoken!!!

5. Who's your oldest friend...why?

No contest here. Char will have to take the prize for being the friend I have continuously known the longest, but my Scrabble buddy, Joan, who is a bit older than Char would have to win for being the oldest in years.

6. Who's your newest friend ..why?

Well, that's a lot easier to answer. I'll go to the recent trip and choose Sheri, whom I met for the first time at the first pre-trip dinner, where I learned that she had been reading my journal for years. How can you not like a person like that? But then I got to know her better during our two week Bataan march and found her a delightful person. I also started reading her blog and keeping up with her, Ashley and Bongo that way.

...and then there is a whole 'nother classification of friends that doesn't really fit into any of these categories...where do I put the CompuServe group, women I've known for more than 10 years, with whom I interact every day, but also with whom I have spent a lot of time over the years, so they don't fit into the strictly "online" friends, but our level of intimacy doesn't quite reach what I have with Peggy, Charlotte or Lynn...yet they are still a very important part of my life and I don't want to leave any of them out either! Pat, Mary, Trisha, Cathy, diane, Sian, DR,...and Bill, our honorary member of this women's group. (I hope I didn't leave anybody out accidentally!) Or the women I'm meeting on Saturday, from the old Women's Health office -- Lynn (already mentioned above), Lynn, Lynne, (yes, there are 3 Lynns) RoseMarie, Mariana, Lisa, Marsha, Dory and Barb. Or the women I still feel close to from the days I worked at The Secretariat -- Melody, Shirley, Cindy (my dentist), and Roberta. Or Diane, who doesn't really fit into any other category, and with whom I used to exchange e-mail several times a week, but who got busy with her grandchildren. Or Jeri, Jeri's godmother, who has been a good friend forever, but now lives in Arizona and has a new love interest, so has been rather scarce lately.

I often bemoan the lack of good friends in my life now, but as I did this meme I realized that the problem is not good friends in my life, it's good friends in this town. When you look at all the people I've listed here and add the close friendships I have with my family and extended family I realize am very fortunate to have so many really good friends. I just wish there were more opportunities to get together like I am doing this week, with two groups of friends to just sit and chat or do the crazy kinds of things Char and I did for years and Peggy and I did both here and in Australia. I miss those sorts of things, but I am more fortunate than many people in having a richness of friends in my life.

Good Friends

We sat with a glass of champagne and a stack of Elderhostel catalogs and talked about the programs we might enroll in.

This was the pinata version of Cousins Day. We have previously had several overnights at my friend Jeri's house, but Jeri is now selling her house and living in Arizona, so we weren't sure how we would continue the tradition.

But Pat (the Pat who was on the France/Italy trip with us) said that her husband was going out of town for the night and asked if we wanted to know if we would like to get together at her house.

There were only three of us (plus Pat), but we had a great time. Char picked me up arund 11 a.m. and we got to Pat's shortly before noon. Audrey arrived about an hour later.

I had brought pictures of our trip and we had a good time looking through them, especially showing them to Audrey and telling her about our adventures. She and her husband have traveled extensively (a lot of Elderhostel programs) and so we were able to laugh about our respective experience and share memories of places we had all visited.

We're looking at two programs that we might all decide to go on. One is a film festival in Arizona, where Pat and Audrey and their husbands have gone several times. The other is a cruise along the Eerie Canal, ending at Niagra Falls (which Char has never seen). Neither would be for this year, given the time frame and the expense (and the expenses we have coming up this year!), but both might be something we'd like to do next year.

It's just so nice to sit around with friends you've known for nearly 50 years. We talked about how the nice thing is that you don't have to "explain" stuff, because whatever "stuff" is part of who you are today, we all have known it from having either been there at the time, or talked about it over the years.

Pat has an extensive garden and when the air conditioning in the house got cold, we walked around looking at all the stuff she has growing. including a few bushes dripping with blueberries, and a couple of bushes of pearl tomatoes, which we had enjoyed at lunch--as sweet as fruit. I loved them.

As the day got later, we eventually came back inside and got ready for dinner, to which we had all contributed. There was way too much food, but all of it delicious. And Pat had gelato for us for dessert, of course.

After dinner, we all descended on Pat's computer. She needed some help with working with her photos and between Char and myself, we managed to get her questions answered and her photos sort of organized. It was fun to see hers, since we had not yet seen her photos from the trip. I was particularly happy to see this one:

which was taken in Nice. I clearly remembered taking pictures of Pat and this statue-man and couldn't understand why I hadn't found it among my photos. When I saw this picture, I realized that I had taken the picture with Pat's camera, not my own. That was one mystery solved (but I still don't know how I managed to erase the video I took of fireworks in Italy).

After we'd solved the problems of the world, it was time to turn in. Pat has great recliners and after I'd watched "The Daily Show" I was asleep in minutes, waking up only once during the night.

We all got up this morning and had the chocolate croissants I'd brought and then solved a few more world problems before we got in the car to come home.

It really was a lovely overnight and now we have to figure out how to get Rich out of town again! (The dogs make it all but impossible to do such a thing here, unfortunately.)

This is as good week for being with old friends. My friend Lynn arrives from Houston tomorrow and on Saturday we are joining with other women who all used to work in the same ob/gyn office for an overnight up at Lake Tahoe.

First, Take a Banana

A few weeks back, I wrote an entry about my former roommate, Gerry, who is Ned's godmother and whom we sometimes visit when we are in Santa Barbara.

I mentioned in that entry that we found so many uses for bananas, that I put together a cookbook for her for Christmas when we lived together. I also said that I had lost my copy and that it would be fun to be able to look through it again and see what sorts of recipes I included.

Well...today when Walt picked up the mail, after having had it held at the Post Office while we were in Santa Barbara, there was a package from Gerry, and in it was a copy of the old Banana Cookbook! She had made a copy for me and said that she, too, looked at it with great fondness remembering our time together in our apartment.

I thought I'd share some of the more unusual recipes here, just to show you how versatile the banana really is.

Banana and Bacon Bits

4 bananas
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
10 slices of bacon, cut in half

Peel bananas and cut in one inch cubes. Combine soy sauce and honey in a shallow baking dish. Marinate the banana chunks at least 30 minutes. Wrap each undrained chunk with bacon slice and fasten with a wooden pick. Brush with soy sauce. Arrange on a rack in a shallow pan. Broil 4" from heat 7-8 minutes until bacon is crisp.

Banana Meat Loaf

2-1/2 lb hamburger
2 cups bread crumbs
4 bananas, mashed
1/4 cup chopped onions
2 tsp prepared mustard
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
bacon

Mix ingredients together. Shape into a loaf and top with strips of bacon. Bake at 350 for one hour. Ten minutes before the loaf is done, place thick slices of banana on top of the bacon.

Banana Spinach Fry

3 cups chick pea flour
3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground thyme
1/2 tsp cayenne
2 tsp turmeric
Buttermilk
Vegetable shortening for deep frying
2 half-ripe bananas, cut lengthwise (unpeeled) in 12 slices
2 medium onions thick cut in 12 slices
12 whole spinach leaves, washed and drained

Mix flour, salt, thyme, cayenne and turmeric in bowl. Add enough buttermilk to make a thick batter. Heat shortening in skillet. Dip banana pieces in batter to fully coat. Drop in hot shortening, brown three at a time, so they can rise. Turn once. Remove and drain. Deep fry onions dipped in batter until brown. Remove and drain. Thin out batter. Dip spinach leaves in batter, holding by the stem. Deep fry spinach leaves until crisp. Remove and drain. Arrange bananas, onions and spinach leaves on a platter in their own groups.

Banana Whip

(I first had this dessert made by a neighbor, when I was still living with my parents)

Puree 6 bananas with 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup orange juice. Whip 1 pint of whipping cream until stiff. Fold into banana mixture and chill. Serve in sherbet glasses topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Baked Banana Congo

Slit skins of 6 bananas with a sharp knife and remove the fruit without breaking the skins. Slice bananas crosswise in 1" slices without cutting all the way through the fruit. Marinate for 30 minutes in 1/2 cup each Madeira and brandy with 1/3 cup sugar. Return to bananas to skins and arrange in a baking dish. Open skins and pour melted butter, a little sugar, and 1 tsp marinade on each banana. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes. Serve in skins, using remaining marinade as a sauce.

Now see? Did you know how many ways you could use bananas? This cookbook is 35 pages long. Think how long it would be if I had internet access back in 1964!!

---

I'm spending tomorrow night with the Pinata women, so the next journal entry will be posted late.

And Then There Were Four

We arrived home around 7 p.m. tonight, and found four dogs. (Actually, Ashley had sent a text message saying there were 4 dogs now). Since Ashley says that she, too, has four dogs, I am assuming there were 8 here over the weekend. There are no angry messages from neighbors, so I'm sure Ashley kept them all in line.

In addition to our two, there is Barkley, who was here before we left, and the new one, Fozzy.

I don't know how this cute little guy was not adopted on Saturday, but surely he won't take long to find his home.

As for Barkley, neutering him has only made him more amorous. He spent the evening trying to bring a dog bed into my lap so he could hump it. He got a lot of exercise, since as soon as he finally got it into my lap, I would throw it onto the floor again, but he persisted until I finally got up to come here into my office!

We started our day with the daily trip to Maravilla, to say goodbye to Walt's mother. We met her in the dining room, where she was finishing up her breakfast. I noticed how bruised her hand became while she was in the hospital. She has such thin skin that any little thing makes her bruise.

Then we got on the road and turned on the second part of the Michael Connelly book we were listening to on the drive down. I hadn't slept well last night and so I am afraid I missed a lot of the book between Santa Barbara and King City. I kept waking up and listening to snippets of it, and then falling asleep again, but Walt filled me in on what I'd missed when we stopped for an early dinner in King City.

I don't remember when was the first time we stopped at this place. I remember being intrigued by the misspelling on the sign, which sticks up high in the sky, towering over a Motel 6, a Chevron station, and a Taco Bell.

Basically, it's just a coffee (or "coffey"!) shop, but it's really a cut above. The food, while all the usual coffee shop fare, is made fresh and is delicious. I had a Monterey Burger, with Monterey Jack cheese, avocado and bacon. Walt had a chicken crossant sandwich, which was so tall, he could hardly get it in his mouth.

I'm sure they must do a lot of business from the surrounding motels, but I've never been in the place when there were more than two other tables filled. Which always surprises me because it's such a step up from Denny's, for a comparable price.

I'm still not sure what exactly its name is, however...is it Tabacchi's Family Coffey Shoppe or V's Diner?

It's good to be home and know that I won't be spending tomorrow at Maravilla, but we sure had a good time in Santa Barbara this weekend, whether the day we spent at the wedding, or the fun day we had with Brianna. Glad to know that we'll see most of those folks at my mother's 90th birthday party next month!

It's Greek to Me

I think today may have been the best day we've spent with Bri. And I'm probably going to be an obnoxious grandma about the smartest baby in the world and stuff like that, but I don't think I've done that too much in the past.

The day started with breakfast with Walt's Mom, his brother and sister-in-law. Grandma continues to be really chipper, for someone who just spent 2 days sleeping in the hospital. She jabbered away, was really "with it," was funny, and thoroughly enjoyed visiting with us.

Norm and Olivia left to return to No. California, we checked out of our room and went back to sit with Alice in her apartment. I was thrilled that we had left our apartment having found "the chihuahua." The guestbook said that there was a chihuahua hidden somewhere in the living room and I had been casually looking for it (realizing that it was not something obvious). This morning I was sitting at the computer and glanced over to my left at the cupboard where the TV is located. Suddenly I saw it:

Once you see it, you can't not see it. Do you see it in the lower right panel of the cupboard? That's either a chihuahua or it's a deer! (I'm betting on chihuahua)

At 2, we went with her to an in-house concert by a young viola player.

And when that was finished, we left Alice and went to Tom & Laurel's house. Tom had mentioned that there was a Greek festival near the house and suggested that we might go. It was a relatively short walk, and I chanted my mantra ("I survived Florence, I can do this!") to keep me going, especially over the steep overpass...I only had to stop 3 times to catch my breath.

Walt says I did it faster than he expected--my Europe genes must still be working!

The festival was fun--lots of food booths, souvenir booths, art displays, music, and a vast array of "bouncy houses" for the kids. (Tom says it seems that there is a different ethnic festival every few weeks).

(Tom wanted to play on this one himself, but Bri was too
young, and Tom is too old!)

Grandpa took the opportunity to introduce Bri to art at one of the displays.

But the most fun was just following Bri around. The kid is the energizer bunny--she never stops. She also knows baby sign language now (or is learning it). I swear, the women who thought that idea up several years ago and wrote a book about it deserve a medal or a big prize or something. How great it is to know what a baby is trying to tell you. Here, for example, Bri is looking up and telling us that she sees birds (see the crooked index finger). For "trees" she holds her hand up and wiggles all of her fingers.

She can let you know when she wants more of something, or if she's hungry. She knows how to sign several zoo animals. She has a sign for "where?" and Uncle Ned is so proud, I'm sure, that she knows how to sign "poop" when appropriate!

She also has words that she says, and if you ask her "where's Grandpa?" she points to Walt and for "where's Grandma," she points to me.

She is taking baby swim lessons and can hold her breath 5 seconds and is learning how to paddle to the side of the pool. She also takes baby gymnastics. Tom helped her get on some bars at the playground this afternoon and she just hung there, pulling her legs up, to get her body into an L-shape. A woman nearby said her son (age 5) had just learned how to do that (Bri is 16 months old).

And of course, Tom can't carry her around without the one-handed balancing act they have perfected, which always causes people to do a double-take.

(I'm wondering how much longer Tom's arm is going to hold out!)

But the most amazing thing was the walk home. (First of all, amazing me...I made it up the overpass incline without stopping at all) Bri walked the whole way (which kept me walking because I was determined I could at the very least keep up with a 16 month old!). But she's interested in everything. When she heard birds, she would sign "bird." Every tree we passed, she had to feel the trunk, make the sign for "tree" and, if it was a tall tree, she'd say "WOW!" (of course, every tree is tall when you're that short!) She learned that sprinkler heads are for water, and she would say "bye bye wa-wa" whenever she found one.

What impressed me the most, though, was one spot where she was she was checking a bush which had been trimmed, seeming to be trying to figure out why some branches were bare and some had leaves. Suddenly she bent down to try to look under the bush and she kept signing "bird." We kept telling her it was a tree, but she kept making the sign for "bird." When Tom finally distracted her and sent her off in search of "Mama," I happened to glance down and saw a tiny white feather...Bri had been right. There had been a bird there after all.

When we got back to the house, Laurel's brother, who rents an apartment from Tom and Laurel, was on his porch looking out at us. Bri looked up, pointed, and said "uncle." I was looking at her, not him, when I saw her make the sign for "where" and discovered that Lee had gone back into his house, and Bri was asking where he had gone.

Yeah, yeah...I know you guys think I'm just a doting grandmother -- and I am. But really, she is the smartest baby that has ever been born, you know.

:)

The Wedding

The wedding has taken place, and it was lovely.

Jocelyn was a lovely bride and the day was beautiful. Jocelyn is the daughter of Walt's sister's husband (got that?), so I guess our step-niece. We've gotten to know her over the past several years that we have bedded down at Alice Nan & Joe's when visiting Santa Barbara and have watched her mature from a teenager into a beautiful woman.

She and David are very religious, very active in their church. They are both missionaries, and Jocelyn has worked in Thailand over the summers. David's family are all missionaries and he went to--it may have been Honduras--last summer (they felt it would be too great a temptation to go on a mission together, until they were married). One of his brothers, in fact, came to the wedding from Serbia, where he has been working for the past several months.

This missionary/religious background explains the reading of the "wives being subservient to their husbands" passage from the Bible, but many of us kind of raised eyebrows at that. I can't remember the last time I've heard that at a wedding!

However, I'm getting ahead of the story.

The day started with meeting Norm & Olivia for breakfast in the Maravilla dining room. We sat and talked for over an hour and were among the last to leave. Fortunately, this being a senior citizen residence and the dining room open all day long, nobody tried to rush us out.

Then Walt and Norm went to the hospital to bring their mother home, while I went off to the beach to try to catch Tom, Laurel and Bri (but just missed them). By the time I got home, the hospital group was back and I went to Grandma's apartment. She looked positively chipper, very definitely not the person in the hospital bed the day before. It was good to see her looking so strong. She even made it to the bathroom, using her walker, with minimal help. We felt just fine about leaving her alone, with her caregivers, to go to the wedding.

The wedding was held at the Figueroa Farmhouse, about an hour's drive out of Santa Barbara, up in the hills. To get there you pass the gates to the Neverland Ranch (which still has Michael Jackson worshippers stopping by the leave messages). I didn't want to be tacky enough to admit curiosity, but I did snap a picture as we drove by.

The last couple of miles are over a pretty rugged, winding road and then suddenly you're there in this gorgeous setting.

The parking lot was a schlep down to where all the activity was taking place, but I've discovered that since Europe, my new mantra or affirmation or whatever is "I survived Florence; I can do this!" And I did.

It was predicted to be in the mid-90s and they had prepared for the heat, with parasols and fans for anybody who wanted it, along with bottled water.

Fortunately, there was a cool breeze which kept us all from getting overheated.

Joe wasn't a proud papa or anything!

The ceremony took place overlooking a beautiful canyon and was very meaningful to Jocelyn and David. The minister had known Jocelyn most of her life.

Brianna was very good through the ceremony (and, indeed, throughout the day)

While we waited (interminably, it seemed!) for photos to be taken, Laurel and I walked Bri down to see the Farmhouse goats, goats being her favorite animal at the moment.

There was a lovely buffet and then, of course, dancing

Instead of a wedding cake, there was wedding pie.

Bri even let me hold her for a couple of minutes.

And then, when Jocelyn and David took off for Pismo Beach and the start of their honeymoon, we made it down the long winding road and back to Santa Barbara. As we came up on Neverland Ranch again, we proved that we were that tacky and got out to take photos after all.

Happy Hour...with Babies

I had never seen a bar with so many babies in it before.

We had gone to a bar/cafe on the beach in Goleta, meeting Tom, Laurel & Bri and some of their friends, one of whom brought Liam, who is close to Bri's age. I don't ever remember bringing a baby to bar before! But I looked around me and it seemed that every third table had families with babies. Of course this wasn't a bar per se, but a cafe with a bar in the middle.

I loved watching Tom in action, feeding Bri, cutting up bits of food for her to feed herself, grabbing her when she got too excited, wiping her face, etc., all the while keeping up a running conversation with Liam's Dad.

I also loved it that the moms were at one end of the table discussing diapers and baby sun screen and the dads were at the other discussing babies' eating and sleeping habits. This is the group that used to party quite a lot, pre-baby days. Obviously the partying hasn't stopped, just the focus has changed!

We are here in "our" apartment at Maravilla. The idea had been to stay here in one of the two available apartments in the Maravilla complex, which would give us the opportunity to visit Alice and have breakfast with her each morning. Walt's brother and his wife rented the other apartment that is available. Our apartment is lovely.

We have a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bath, a bigger place than Alice's assisted living facility. But there is no internet access...not even a telephone. I was excited about visiting the main building's internet center, which has about 6-8 computers for use by the residents. However, the internet access is slow as molasses. I was finally able to connect to Funny the World's main page, but it took so long to download the photos in yesterday's entry that I knew there was no way I could upload an entry with photos. I will have to post this entry when I can get to Tom's and use his wifi.

Alice kind of confused things by having to be hospitalized with what they thought could be one of a number of things, the worst of which would be colon cancer, but it turned out that it was constipation (the nurse must have told us six times that she passed two baseball size stools after her prep!). Still, it required her to be hospitalized for a day, undergo the prep and sigmoidoscopy, and then spend another night in the hospital.

She has a lovely room, but of course can't see the view (because she's blind) and slept all day anyway. Walt and I sat in her room for five hours waiting to see the doctor (who never came). I did finish one book and half of another, though! It was only 10 minutes before we left to join Tom & Laurel for dinner that I realized that I had wifi in the hospital the whole time!

We sat for part of the time in the waiting room in the area where they were doing her sigmoidoscopy. They ended up taking her back to her room without letting us know they were doing it, so we had to wander around the hospital ourselves trying to get through the maze. In the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), all the walls on all the halls were covered with tiles of hand prints.

The guard who questioned us about why we were there without any pass for that area told me that these were handprints of all the babies who had been healthy enough to leave the NICU.

We were told the doctor would be in between 8 and 9, so Walt and I rushed back to be at the hospital at 7:45. His brother and his wife arrived around 8:30. At 9, the nurse told us the doctor and come and gone and had left notes on Alice's chart, but nobody apparently ever saw him.

They are going to release her tomorrow morning, which means we have to get her and bring her back here and get her settled in her apartment again before we go off to the wedding. Should make for an interesting day!

The best thing about today was that I called the Yolo County Courthouse to find out about my jury summons and discovered that I do not have to show up on Monday, which means I don't have to drive home alone on Sunday and can drive home with Walt on Monday. I'm all for doing my civic duty...but it's also nice not to have to too!