A few things on Friday

I feel the need to spill a few words here today.  I read recently that people who number lists on their blogs are telling readers they couldn't think of anything really interesting to say so they made a list.  I want to keep your expectations high, but not numbering these random thoughts seemed confusing.  Which is why this post is now a list. And super interesting!

1. There is far too much rudeness in America today. I think I'm right in saying most citizens of this great land recognize we have very serious issues to address. Disagreement on how best to solve the deep and complex problems we face is to be expected and healthy debate is worthwhile. Arguing the facts behind your particular position is not only smart, but also admirable.

Being rude and disrespectful?
Blech!

It is not okay to be rude.  It's especially not okay when you hold one of the highest, most recognizable offices in the land. People will argue (more, still, again) today saying he did what needed to be done, but seriously, is this the example we are holding up for our children??? For anyone???  Aiyiyi.

My girls know when I see bad behavior I feel the need to address it with them-

Dear Daughters...treat people with respect, even (and maybe most especially) those with whom you disagree.  Expressing your viewpoint with anything less than common courtesy makes you look small- minded and arrogant.  It also suggests your momma didn't raise you right. She did. 

2. Let's talk about something happy, shall we?  Last Sunday evening we had tickets to see Christopher Cross in concert. In case you don't know, or in case you weren't even a twinkle in your parents eye when he hit it big, Christopher Cross had one of those amazing record breaking debut albums (yes,  albums-it was 1980 people!) where every single song was an enormous hit.  He won five grammys and later an Oscar for his theme song to the movie Arthur.  His voice is beautiful and clear and his range is positively stunning.  Still is, some 30+ odd years later.

He was playing in a small venue not far from here, an old movie theatre that's been converted for live performances.  There's not a bad seat in the house and we were front and center, only about five rows from the stage. As soon as we sat down I warned the man next to me I'd be singing along to which he replied, "I've got my earplugs so no problem."  Wise man.

You should know I was not the only one singing along.  The entire audience was singing along which made me wonder about something.  Do you think in 30+ years a new generation of 50-somethings will be sitting in a converted movie theatre in tiny town singing all the words to Baby Baby while a more mature Justin Bieber sits on stage?  

3. I was 20 years old in 1980, a college girl living far from home.  

It also happens to be the year I met a boy.  

I liked him.  

A lot.   

He's still okay.  

I remember my 20th  birthday because three of my besties trekked with me from collegetown Tennessee alllll the way to NJ for a long celebratory weekend.   

Obviously making the most of my birthday is not something new around here.  

4.  I'm getting my flu shot today.  

Told you this list was super interesting.  

5.  Finally, it would not be the start of fall if I didn't post a picture of my favorite tree-

Hubs says I post far, far too many pictures of this tree on my blog, but y'all...it turns the most lovely shade of golden yellow this time of year. 

Here's hoping your weekend is also filled with the orangey-gold loveliness of an autumn landscape, and kindness greets you wherever your feet may roam.  

Indulging in the Wednesday Hodgepodge-Vol 97

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge...so glad you joined the fun today!  Add your link to the bottom of my post before you run off and visit the neighbors.  Here are my answers-

1.  In what ways do you indulge yourself?

Probably not as much as I deserve-ha!  I like my toes polished so I do get a pedicure fairly often. Is that indulgent or just routine maintenance post 50? More likely the latter, but it still feels indulgent. I also love naps on the couch on a Sunday afternoon, a long luxurious bath, champagne when its not a special occasion, and reading when I should be doing something else.

2. Have you ever taken a cooking class?  Any interest?  What type of class would you most like to try?

I've taken several cooking classes and would love to do more. One thing on my bucket list ( if I had a bucket list) would be a week long cooking experience somewhere in Italy. Or France. Or Italy and France.  

3.  What does it mean to be a good citizen?

The first thing that popped into my head was they don't litter. I'm pretty sure that's what we were taught in grade school when I was growing up. Still true. Good citizens don't litter.

Besides that whole not littering thing I'd say good citizens are law abiding people who vote, help their neighbors, and show respect for this nation and the men and women who fight to defend our many freedoms.  

4.  'Tis the season of the political advert...do these ads influence your vote?

No, but I consider myself an informed voter. I'd like to think everyone who votes takes the time to listen to a candidate in their own words, but I know that's not the case.  In this day and age I don't think anyone should base their vote on a political ad.  

Most candidates have websites and public records reflecting their experience and ideology that can be accessed with the stroke of a keyboard.  I think anyone who plans to vote should absolutely watch the debates. It's one of the very few opportunities we have to hear a candidate answer for himself and that's important.  

5.  What's something you see today that makes you wish you were a kid again?

Hmmm...how many Hodgepodges will I read today where people answer by saying,"I don't want to be a kid again"? More than a few I bet. I don't want to be a kid again either but if I must choose something I'd say-imagination unencumbered by the reality of life.  

6.  What's your least favorite cliche?

All's well that ends well.

It seems when I'm on the receiving end of this one it usually means someone dropped the ball on their responsibilities but thinks its okay because in the end everything somehow got done.   

7.  What percentage of your Christmas shopping has been completed?  How does that make you feel?

.oo1?  Let's just say I've barely gotten started, and I'm perfectly okay with that.  I'll pick up some things here and there in the next few weeks, but I always do the bulk of my shopping in December. 

I like my holidays one at a time, and Thanksgiving is my favorite.  I need to linger a while in the soft light and golden hues of autumn before rushing headlong into Christmas.  

That being said,  I did order my Christmas cards this week and that feels really good.  I was highly motivated by a fabulous coupon expiring Monday at midnight.  

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

I'm part of a gourmet group that meets for lunch once a month.  Normally we have a theme to work around, maybe something ethnic or seasonal, and everyone prepares a dish in keeping with the theme.  This month it was a little bit different and we did a 'brown bag' lunch.  You had to pack a lunch for someone in a pretty or creative container and then we voted on best menu and most creative packaging.  

We drew numbers and chose a lunch to eat after the voting and it was fun to see what everyone came up with.  I went with an apple theme and packed mine in a red riding hood style basket lined with red and white dish towels.  I printed the menu on a paper apple and tied it to the basket and then wrapped the basket handle with gingham ribbon.  

The lunch I made included a Waldorf chicken salad, an autumnal pasta salad, a croissant, a small bag of white cheddar popcorn, harvest punch, and an apple pie cupcake with cinnamon frosting.  The lunch I chose was filled with Italian goodies and packed in two cute tins.  I think everyone went home happy!

Questions for the Wednesday Hodgepodge-Vol 97

Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge.  Answer on your own blog then come back here tomorrow to link answers with all your peeps.  

1.  In what ways do you indulge yourself?

2.  Have you ever taken a cooking class?  Any interest?  What type of class would you most like to try?

3. What does it mean to be a good citizen?

4.  'Tis the season of the political advert...do these ads influence your vote?

5.  What's something you see today that makes you wish you were a kid again?

6.  What's your least favorite cliche?

7.  What percentage of your Christmas shopping has been completed?  How does that make you feel?

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Rock the Boat, Don't Rock the Boat Baby...

It seems I've dropped the blog ball in recent weeks. I throw up a post on Mondays, get the Hodgepodge out there on Wednesdays, then disappear.  Suddenly Monday rolls back around and I'm left wondering where the time went?  In my defense I'm still writing, but my words are mostly going into a project seperate from my blog.  I think you know I always have plenty of words, just not enough hours in the day.

Besides all that, autumn has landed on the great northeast and it is lovely. I need to be outside, not squirreled away inside my office. Winter is just around the corner and if the number of acorns are anything to go by, it will be a doozy. Hubs and I joke that our big tree out front is like a scene from a Disney movie. Deer, chipmunks, squirrels, birds, groundhogs, and who knows what else, all dine happily together under its limbs. They're definitely storing up for something!

So the weekend...lots of fun. I'll do you the favor of making it two posts. You're welcome. There's a state park not too far from here with a beautiful lake and great hiking trails. I've been saying I wanted to get out on the water and see what's beyond the shore, so on Saturday we did just that.

Our pup loves walking in the woods here and was surprised when we headed toward the boathouse instead of the trail. Getting her into the canoe and settled was a little tricky. Also, keeping the boat upright while she chased her tail? More than a little tricky. She needed to sit left...no she needed to sit right....no she needed to sit left...you get the idea.

I love to canoe but this was my first time with a 65 pound dog and an expensive camera in tow. It was such a pretty day,  although it did feel like as soon as we got started a breeze kicked up.  Sounds super fun so far, doesn't it?

It was.
Once everyone settled down anyway.

By everyone I mean me, not the pup.  She continued to shift positions and fake like she was going over the side the entire hour.

We ate lunch on a picnic table by the water then made Dixie happy by heading out onto the trail. We took a different route this time and stumbled across a dam-

We've been here many times and had never seen this bit before...so pretty!

Course the hubs always needs to get off the path and into 'the danger zone' which forces me to say ridiculous things like, 'If you fall, I'm not coming in after you.'

Right.  Like I'd be of any real help if he went down the rushing rocky drop.
Little boys see rocks in the water and feel the need to leap across them.
Some things they never outgrow.

My photo doesn't capture how steep the drop really is...

I love the light in autumn...

The leaves are just beginning to turn and the color is gorgeous...

The highlight of the day for our pup occurred just as we were leaving...

She spied a big fat groundhog near the overturned rowboats and went into stealth mode....

The groundhog got wise and disappeared, but Dixie is nothing if not relentless once she's got the scent....

Going in for the kill...

No need to look away. As is the case with every groundhog she stalks, this one made his escape underground, and spoiled all her fun.   

Well, maybe not all her fun...

She still got a walk in the woods with her favorite people on a beautiful autumn day.

Good Grief- It's the Hodgepodge-Vol 96

Welcome to this week's edition of the Wednesday Hodgepodge.  Everyone is welcome to play along...answer the questions on your own blog then hop back here and link up with the whole big wide world.  Or small wide world.  However you see it is fine.

Here are my answers to this week's questions-

1. It's a brand new month...share one thing you're looking forward to in October.

We're going to see Christopher Cross play in a small venue next weekend and I'm really looking forward to that...we wore his album out when we were in college. When I hear his music now I feel all the drama love and laughter of those years bubble right up to the surface. His voice was amazing and I hope that hasn't changed.  

We're also going to a charity horse race later this month. I like wearing my boots, the crisp fall air and gorgeous colors, and the atmosphere on race day.  

2. Is chivalry dead? Explain.

Not dead, but sometimes hard to find in 2012. Our culture is very me-centered these days and rudeness abounds. The word essentially means having the qualities of a knight-courtesy, generosity, and bravery.  For the most part our modern day knights (the military) still exhibit chivalry. So do husbands raised in the South, and elsewhere I suppose, but my experience is with the southern variety and his good manners were most definitely part of his charm.   

I don't think independence and common courtesy have to be mutually exclusive for women. Feminists have co-opted the word so its taken on a negative connotation, but in my mind a man helping me with something heavy, holding a door, or giving me a seat on a crowded subway doesn't mean he thinks I'm weak and incapable. It just means he's kind and his momma raised him right.   

3. On October 2, 1950 the Peanuts comic strip made its debut. Which character is your favorite?  Which character is most like you?  (Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, Snoopy, Woodstock or Pig Pen)  If you need a description click here.

Charlie Brown is my favorite. The eternal optimist filled with insecurities. 

I took one of the zillion online quizzes entitled 'Which Peanuts character are you?' and I came up as Linus-'an optimistic, open minded person who believes everything will work out in the end...willing to give people a second chance...always thinking, plotting, or dreaming.'  Sounds about right.  

4. What's something you're competitive about?

um, everything.  

Okay, not completely true. I'm not competitive about parenting or what sort of car I drive or other such nonsense. I'm only competitive about important stuff like Words With Friends, a game of Pool, Backgammon, Dominoes, Scrabble, cards, darts, and essentially anything involving a board and some dice.  

5. October is National Popcorn Popping Month...are you a fan?  How do you like your popcorn?

I'm a fan. I used to pop a lot more corn than I do these days. Hubs doesn't like the way it makes the house smell so I mostly have popcorn when he's out of town. Sometimes when he's traveling I'll make popcorn for dinner and I pretty much always have it when we go to the movies.  I buy the light microwave style and eat as is. Once upon a time I liked it dripping in butter, but the thought of that makes me feel a little sick now.

6. When did you first realize the world is small?

As a child I thought the world was huge and in many ways I guess it was 'bigger'. We didn't call people whenever we felt like it because long distance phone calls were expensive. We wrote letters and waited a week or more for them to reach their destination. We didn't have online access to information, and images from the other side of the world were in books at the library, not at the end of our fingertips. My grandparents lived out West and trekking to see them from the East Coast felt like it took forever and seemed such a huge adventure.  I remember as a girl, hearing stories of missionaries to China and that might as well have been the moon.  Now my hubs hops on a plane to Shanghai and we barely bat an eye. 

I think for me the world began to feel small when I married and we started moving from pillar to post. We made each new location home and collected friends and memories before packing up and heading on to the next place. You learn that people are people. There is beauty and aggravation, tranquility and kindness and kids forgeting their sneakers for gym no matter where on this planet you may land.
   
7. In terms of architecture, what's the most beautiful building you've seen up close and in person?

Oh my. I've seen so many beautiful buildings I for sure cannot choose just one.  A few of my favorites are-Royal Albert Hall in London, Parliament (also in London) Christ Church in Oxford, Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Kolner Dom in Cologne Germany, and the Basilica di San Marco in Venice.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

For those who don't know him-

Please Come to Boston....

I know the rest of that song lyric says 'for the springtime', but I'm here to tell you autumn works too.  I also know some of you are scratching your heads saying, 'What song?'  Sigh.

A-ny-way...I spent the weekend in Boston and do you know what women who haven't seen each other in a while don't do when they get together for a weekend?

Sleep!

I got home yesterday afternoon, unpacked, then had a long nap on the couch.  I did wake up long enough to make breakfast for dinner (it only felt right after my ridiculously long nap), and then fell back to sleep on the couch before going to bed and sleeping til morning.

So far this is riveting, isn't it?

I was in Boston to catch up with about 40 women who all lived in the UK around the same time as me.  We laughed and shopped and ate and talked til our throats were sore, and we didn't sleep.  Not much anyway.  Some of the group left England before I arrived, but many were still there when I hopped the pond and we all share love for a small island and the memory of a place in time.  

Makes my heart so happy to spend time with these special friends-

The fun started before I ever left NJ.  One friend coming from Canada connected thru Newark and we sat side by each on the flight to Boston.  I read somewhere the expression 'side by each' originated in New Foundland so using it in reference to my Canadian friend seems appropriate. Please don't correct me if I'm wrong because I love that expression.

Once we checked in and dropped our bags we headed out in search of seafood. As we came round the corner we spied this little eatery and just had to snap a picture.  Pretty much everyone loved eating at Wagamama's in London every chance they got, and I had to text my girls the photo too.  Daughter2's response was 'No Fair!!'

We didn't actually eat at Wagamama though, because this is Boston not London, and we needed steamers or chowder or lobster in some form or fashion.  Not hard to find in a city perched beside the Bay and by Sunday we'd managed to have all three.   I will resist writing chow-dah and lob-stah which is not as easy.

After lunch we walked and shopped and talked some more, and I could probably just sum up the whole weekend with that one sentence.

I could, but I won't.

People trickled into town Thursday evening and most of the day Friday, and then everyone met in a nearby restaurant for a wonderful Italian dinner Friday evening.  We went around the room and told a little about our lives now and it was fun to discover some new connections with people too. I happened to be sitting beside someone I didn't know before the weekend, but she worked for the same company as my hubs many years ago. There were other 'small world' moments which I think happen more frequently in the expatriate community than in other walks of life, and they never fail to bring a smile.

One of my most favorite people in the world-

I haven't seen her since 2007,  and while we catch up on the phone now and then there is nothing like a conversation in real life.

The weekend was organized by two women in the group who now live in the Boston area and they did a fantastic job of managing all the details that made it easy for the rest of us to just enjoy. I will not even mention the weather because ugh...kinda felt like we were all back in England.

Speaking of England, as we headed out the door on Saturday my friend put a hand in her coat pocket and pulled out this-

A train ticket from our little village into London along with a map she'd printed to get somewhere back in 2006.  2006?  Wasn't that just yesterday?  The four of us standing there all had a bit of a moment. It's not just me, y'all.  My friend lives somewhere warm now so not much need for a long raincoat. She hadn't put her hand in that pocket in forever.  Not since her son and my daughter1 graduated from high school together.  Her son and my daughter1 who are now both gainfully employed college graduates living in apartments of their own.  Yes we did have us a little moment.  

Saturday morning a group of us trailed behind our guide for an Historic Boston walking tour. The rain took a blessed break and our guide was fantastic.

His name was Terry and he was a drama student at the local college, but for our purposes was dressed in colonial garb and calling himself, Ebenezer, aka John Hancock's younger brother. He definitely had a gift for this sort of thing.

Naturally when the tour ended we were back to our old ways. 

You know-shopping...

and lunch...

Let's just say its a good thing we walked all over this city.  

Saturday night was another group dinner followed by a ghosts and graveyards tour via trolley. It was fun scary, not scary scary, and the guides were entertaining. About five minutes after the guide began his spiel, which included asking us questions, he realized he may have met his match in this group of women.  

As is the case with all weekends, but especially weekends spent with old friends, it ended way too soon.  Prior to the weekend I'd never spent any time in Boston, but I definitely want to get back there someday.  Next time I'll bring the hubs.  

After all... ' I'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee.'

Questions for the Wednesday Hodgepodge-Vol 96

Here are the questions to this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge.  Answer on your own blog then hop back here tomorrow to join the party.  See you there!

1. It's a brand new month...share one thing you're looking forward to in October.

2.  Is chivalry dead?  Explain.

3.  On October 2, 1950 the Peanuts comic strip made its debut.  Which character is your favorite?  Which character is most like you?  (Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Shroeder, Snoopy, Woodstock, or Pig Pen)  If you need a description click here .

4.  What's something you're competitive about?

5. October is National Popcorn Popping Month...are you a fan?  How do you like your popcorn?

6.  When did you first realize the world is small?

7.  In terms of architecture, what's the most beautiful building you've seen up close and in person?

8.  Insert your own random thought here.