The End of Quarantine: Cottage Chronicles 2020

 Today is the end of our quarantine.  It has basically been a month.  I had one day off and started the process again at the 2 week mark.  I was asked if we were going to have a celebration to celebrate being off quarantine.

I am sitting here looking out at the water wondering why I am so excited?  What about my life will change off quarantine?  Not much.  Now I can go to the grocery store.

We have done a lot of wonderful things during quarantine.  We have celebrated 2 birthdays.  We have toasted the final class of college and graduation from Michigan for Lizzy.  We have celebrated Birk making the tough decision to change her school from Michigan to Babson.  We have played an unfinished heated game of Monopoly.  

We have baked and scrubbed and organized and laundered and breathed life back into every corner of this building.  

One of the most interesting thing is to see how our personalities compliment each other.  We make a mini community with the quirks and gems of our personalities.  This little village has law abiders, bakers, energy bolts and boosts, critics, comics, sages, musicians, movie buffs, crafters, plumbers, artists, pundits, ball throwers, boat drivers, water skiers, sweet tooths, hair stylists, dog groomers, furniture assembly experts, bar tenders and the list goes on...

We have also sadly watched from afar the wildfire apocalypse that is playing out at home.  

Covid times, covid times...

Cottage Chronicles, 2020 Edition

 People as me what I do up here at the cottage.  Well here is today’s project:

I am double netting our bed.  Mosquitos are gone, but we did have one bat sighting, so I’m being very careful.  

If anyone remembers last year:

We’ve slept in the guest room for weeks now, so risking it again tonight.  I am literally the only one that can spot a bat in my family.  

Do I think the bats are gone because I don’t see them?  No way.

Recipe for Success or Disaster

A few years ago, I found an old tin recipe box at the antique store full of recipes.  They recipe cards were yellowed with age, oil stained and worn.  There were hand written cards, like "Aunt Cassy's Plum Cake" and torn swatches of paper from magazines with recipes for scones and casseroles.

Some recipes were scribbled on the back of old gas bills.  Some recipes seemed ancient and others taken from the back of onion soup mix boxes.  There was even an old thank you card tucked in there.  Clearly, this box had seen some times.

I just read an article about an old cookbook that was clearly a wedding gift.  It was inscribed neatly in black ink, and it was clearly, the cooking bible of its day.

It's hard to imagine a world where you had access to recipes through one book.  I have shelves and shelves of cookbooks, yet, I would never call myself a cook.  No one wants to eat what I can make, I am better off in the deli section at our local fancy, corner grocery store than I am turned loose in the kitchen.

Wouldn't it be interesting if the Bible was your only reading source?  What if Aunt Better Crocker was your only way to put dinner on the table?  I feel like we are flooded by books, music, art, and more.  You name it, our American culture overflows with it.  There is so much and so much information, how do you even begin to pare it down to a bite sized nuggets of information?

In this land of plenty, it is hard to separate the meaningful from the poppycock.  Think of how interesting it would be if you lived in a time when you could invent without a zillion other people out there inventing the same thing, too.

It just seems like we are a land of lost opportunity, due to our own tidal wave of information that we have created.  Well, and it's not like it could go any other way.  What did John Steinbeck say?   "We now face the danger, which in the past has been the most destructive to the humans:  Success, plenty, comfort and ever increasing leisure.  No dynamic people has ever survived these dangers."

Remodels, Windows We See Right Through

This window is now in our entry way.  It's funny to think that it once just sat in the antique store, waiting for a home and now, it's home.  We look at it every day, even if we don't see it anymore.

Go Seen Go: Passing The Driver’s Ed Test with the Tough Guy

Standing here watching my little guy speed off with the toughest driving tester at the DMV. Good luck, little Seen.

Back story: The rumors fly about which DMV you should take your driving test. Where is it easy? Where is it hard. Where should you avoid if you are a girl? A boy? Who is grouchy? Who is nice?

Well, I booked Seen into the toughest, grouchiest, hardest testing ground ever. Then, it was said that you could be ok if you don't get the Hawaiin ex marine.

Well, you guessed it--he got him! It looked like we were going to get the sweet looking older lady. By right of line we should have gotten her. But, oh no, he comes the bad ass marine. He seemed polite, he seemed fine, and off they drove.

Now I'm standing here, tears in my eyes that my little guy is so grown up and tears in my eyes that he is out there with a tough judge. Boy oh boy, if my kid is out there driving, I want him to pass the tough guy test. I want him really ready. Please be ready. Please show the tough guy you're ready.

AND HE DID PASS!

If you little one is going to be going out into the world...best to pass the the bad ass marine test!

The Canadian Chronicles 2014: The Summer of Pestilence and Disney

Knowing that my personal woes are on a small scale, I am nominating summer of 2014 for the title "Summer of Pestilence."

Let's set the scene.  The girls have been asking and asking to go to Disneyland.  We promised them a trip attached to no particular date.  That was the first mistake. Looking at the calendar, we pigeonholed ourselves into a visit to the Happiest Place on Earth that had us getting home and leaving in a day and a half for our summer in the Canadian wilds.

Knowing our time was crunched, we did every bit of preparation we could do before our "Happy" excursion.  We dialed in the mail, the pets, the bills, the summer chair cushions, the car storage, the laundry, the packing, etc.  I tried to out fox the foxes and was feeling very satisfied with my organizational skills as we were sitting on our plane with our friends bound for L.A.

Even on the plane, we got seats together, our flight was on time, we got to the airport packed and ready to go without incident. My friend Paula and I were seated in a row directly in front of our "Happy" girls. The flight door was closing, and as my friend's daughter was just about to switch off her cell phone for the flight as one last text chimed in...

"Mom,  So and So has lice."

And they had both just spend the night with So and So.

And so it goes...the plane took off and that began our Disney trip...with many many little stow always flying on both of their tiny heads.

Canadian Chronicles 2014: Creativity and 4 Board Monopoly

4 board Monopoly was the talk of the summer.  The kids had to play it, and the dilemma was we did not have 4 boards.  In the wilds, this is how you settle that problem.

Anyone that has visited us in Canada, will recognize the Boardwalk, Park Places and pitfalls that might greet you or be your undoing in this game.

It is still a work in progress, but come next summer, the game will be on!

Fish, Fish and More Fish: Traveling Portugal

Those of you that know me know that I don't eat fish.  Clams, oysters, octopus, lobsters, crabs, shrimp--you name the sea creature (including seaweed) and I don't only not eat it, but am sensitive to the smell.  I've taken a beating over this throughout my marriage to my husband. I didn't know there was even anything wrong with me until I met him and his family.

Yes, according to the family that travels the world and is so tolerant of every culture and custom, they cannot wrap their heads around a girl raised in the Midwest by a vegetarian mother.  I never knew I was odd or that I should be ashamed of my tendencies to lean towards the vegetarian side of the menu.

Or the fact that I am a careful, patient person. I am not a risk taker.  I think this trait is actually a perk in my chosen profession of pre school and junior high school teacher, well, and even mother.  I mean, every single time I've tasted seafood it has had the effect on my taste buds of touching a hot stove. Really, I'm not very interested in trying it anymore.  I'm 46 and I figure I will spend my years left choosing the things that I actually might enjoy to eat or experience, call me timid, but it's not like I'm locking myself in my house and refusing to come out.

Some people, if they die tomorrow and are checking in with St Peter at the gates, they might say I wish I tried that spiny sea creature, it looked so delicious! My regrets might be more along the line I didn't burn some journals or shave my armpits  Hey, that is me, and I am not you, or that other girl over there, and this is my thought.

Well, all of this to say after dining at about every fish restaurant we could possibly think of for twos weeks, I had had it.  I am not exaggerating.  We were at Fish House, Fish Grill, Fish Market, Fish Night, Sea Life, Ocean Fish, Town Fish, Sun Fish...all with very nice wine and white tablecloths, but oh boy.  I am becoming an expert at recognizing fish in multi-languages.  

I threw a bit of a fit, seeing that our restaurant for the evening was a place with a giant grill on the middle so you could see your fish cook--the name:  Fish Grilled in the Middle of the Restaurant. After the last restaurant, where the man was showing off a lobster bigger than my 13 year old I could only imagine the parade, the grilling, the de-boning and the aroma. No thank you.

I googled vegetarian restaurant Lisbon.  The first one popped up with many accolades, why not?  My husband reluctantly cancelled Fish Grilled in the Middle of the Restaurant and made a reservation at Terra. Yum.

For starters, we got in the cab and it was the first restaurant that the doorman or the taxi driver did not recognize. A little red flag, but not everyone enjoys a full vegetarian menu.  We found our weathered looking restaurant and entered.  We then were informed it was a BOO FAY. Mmm. My husband pouted across the table and I had to stifle my laughter, as this restaurant was the antithesis of every single place we had eaten on the trip.

We were clearly in someone's backyard sitting in metal folding chairs.  We ordered wine, that if you got through the first glass, tasted better.  Birk and my husband sat arms crossed across the table, but I was able to try everything on the buffet without fear for the first time on our longish trip.  They ate a little.  I ate a lot.  The dinner will not go down as the best on the trip, but it will be remembered for being able to enjoy someone's back yard.

Copy Cats and Washing Machines

This has been a strange week and it might get even stranger as it goes along.  After all, it is only Wednesday.

There is a cat missing in our neighborhood.  Signs with pictures are everywhere around town, on our neighborhood site and up and down the bike path.  There is a $500.00 reward for this cat's return...our only problem at our house is that it looks exactly like our tortoiseshell cat, Patch.  Same age.  Same sex.  Same color.

This missing cat looks so much like our cat, that I had to do a double take.  I actually had to do more than a double take:  I had to analyze the picture while staring at our cat! 

This brought to mind a book that I read to the kids when they were little.  It was by Barbara Abercrombie and called  Charlie Anderson.  It is about a cat that lives at two houses, one during the day and one at night.  Neither family knew that they were in fact sharing a cat.  It had me thinking...

However, if you looked really closely, the cats were not a match.  However, I was looking with the trained eye of the owner, not as a person on the bike path hoping to make 500 bucks.  This did not occur to me to worry about until my husband chimed in and told me to keep her indoors for a while.

Of course, then she goes missing for a night.  Yes, I am the bad owner of a cat that lets the cat outdoors.  Our mostly outdoor cat is technically grandfathered in, she was an outdoor cat before all of the coyotes, foxes and giant raccoons invaded our suburban neighborhood.  Now it seems like cats go missing daily and a few are heard being devoured in the night.

I have curbed our cat care.  We keep them in the house most of the time, and usually, they stay on the patio.  Patch has been known to wander, but usually if you call her, she comes right back. 

She limped back in after her night away.  I made a vet appointment for the next day.  Later that night, I saw that she actually had two bleeding bite marks.  I called the vet first thing in the morning and moved her appointment up.

The vet said she would be fine, it looked like a fight with another cat.  They drained her wounds and gave her a cone.  We were to go back to the vet in 3 days.

I put her in our laundry room to keep her quiet and from jumping around.  Somehow, Patch wedged herself, cone and all, into a little nook under our cabinets.  Now, she has to come out somehow... The dimensions are not in her or our favor.  There is no way to reach her behind the laundry machine and in this little tube of a nook.

Her cone is basically keeping her from pushing through the opening.  My mind is thinking fire fighters right now.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.  She is due for pain meds in a couple of hours....

Tiny Handprints

I am now staring at a tiny handprint made by my daughter in December 2004--or so says the back of it.  That would make her a newly turned 3 year old at the time of the handprint.

It is green and glittery, I suppose it is a Christmas ornament with its red trimmed hanging loop.  That makes sense, a perfect holiday gift for the parents, made by the class.

As a teacher, this is brilliant.

However, years later, twelve-ish to be exact, I am sitting here, procrastinating paying the bills and staring at it.

I now know why exactly bronze baby shoes, foot prints and hand prints are so valuable--they are actual proof that your child was ever a tiny child.

I look at her now, 15 and ready to take on the world by automobile, and it is hard to believer that tiny hand print belonged to her ever.

And it is also hard to believe how that tiny hand print squeezes your heart, every day since the day her handprint was even tinier.

Day 2: London Sights

Here Comes Spring! April 2015

We find ourselves in spring.

Auctions Over Time: One More To Go!

Auf Wiedersehen, Frau Audi

Oh, Frau Audi, how we will miss you.  No one was ready to let go, but a window of opportunity appeared and we jumped out of it--or jumped in, depending on your point of view.

Frau Audi was a prankster.  If she felt like the occasion in the car needed music, she would turn it on herself.  Even as we tried to silence her, she kept putting it back on.

Every once in a while, she would make a weird mechanical sound, not let the center console light up or decide not to accelerate at the worst possible minute.  Just when you were sure we needed major repair shop intervention, she would magically go back to normal the next time you turned the key in the ignition.

The old gal was bought as a new gal, to combat the evils of the gasoline engine.  She was clean diesel.  She was 45 miles to the gallon on the highway.  She was forgetting which side the gas tank was on when you filled up at the station, because even after 5 years, the visits for gas were still so infrequent.

She was cutting edge German technology, until a few weeks ago, when poor Frau Audi became Faud-I.  All of the do-gooders with diesel engines at Volkswagon were branded with the scarlet F for fraud.  Not only were they not saving the Earth--they were killing it up to 40 times the legal emission limit.

The news spread far and wide, and you had to read the last paragraphs to realize that it was not only VWs, it was Audi's A3 TDI as well.  How were they going to fix this?  What effects would it have on the cars after they were fixed?  Would our zippy, little car be able to retain her zip?  Would she retain her astounding gas mileage?  Would she be branded a lemon and not be worth a dime, even after 5 years of loyal service.

Frau was the first car for both my son and daughter.  They learned the rules of the road.  They learned the rules at the gas station--green nozzle only.

She went in for her annual service.  The call came from the service department.  New tires, new brakes and new windshield wipers needed--to the tune of $1300.  The annual service itself was $799 if I bought a 2 package special.

Poor Frau, she had been rear ended, backed into when parked twice, and damaged straight off the boat.  She had a new windshield AND 4 new tires.  All in her short 5 year lifetime with us.  Her paint was sketchy, her rims were rashed but we loved her.  Actually, still do love her.

It was sad to see you parked beside your shiny, new replacement.  It was not because you weren't shiny, because you were looking damn good for a 5 year old.  It was because we were saying good bye to an era.

Frau Audi, I hope your next family will take good care of you.  I guarantee they will not have travel scrabble in the back seat secret compartment.  They probably won't have an affinity for the 80's channel on Sirius.  I hope they drive you slow and gently and at an angle over the speed bumps.  I hope they always keep you a little bit on the full side in the gas tank so you never know what it means to go empty.

Even though you are accused of being a bad car, a dirty diesel, you are not bad.  It is fitting to compare you to Frankenstein.  The evil engineers who put that fix on your emissions are the bad ones.  You have a good heart and soul, and we will keep our eyes on the lookout for you, cruising down the highway.

Occupation: Stay At Home Mom

I am tired of filling out forms and coming to the line where I have to enter my occupation. When I write Homemaker, I feel like I'm dating myself to the tune of June Cleaver. It sounds so old fashioned and I am definitely not at home, in my apron, cooking a roast most days.

I also hate the term Stay At Home Mom (SAHM). That sounds like I'm just hanging out at my house and watching soap operas. If I use that term, I sound like an uneducated shut-in that never goes out because it is my job to Stay At Home. I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to go to the bank, I'm a Stay At Home Mom, not a Go To The Bank Mom.

I could just write Mom. But, as you all know, writing Mom doesn't really even hit the tip of the iceberg of my responsibilities or any mom's responsibilites for that matter. Many of us are mothers, many of us work outside the home AND do all of the stuff that a SAHM does, too.

Some of my friends are creatively cute and call themselves Domestic Engineers. I'm not very domestic, in fact, my husband really got cheated on having a domesticated type of woman in his life. I'm also not an engineer, you can ask any of my high school math teachers about that one. This term just doesn't apply to me.

Yet, I'm not stupid and I have no problem with keeping wildly busy all day every day. There is not any time for boredom in my chosen career. Lately, there has barely been time for blogging. I have lots of fodder, but no time to type it out.

From now on, I'm writing Mom Friday on that form.

Halloween, Only Scarier!

Our house is pretty scary around Halloween, though my kids are quick to point out we are scary enough on a normal day.

Birk's cast off clothing plus Halloween decor equals what looks like a crime scene...

Summer Holiday: Day 1, London

We arrived surprisingly well rested after an overnight flight to London.  Our temporary home at the Berkeley hotel is pretty fabulous!

The girls are excited to explore London--made famous by Harry Potter of course!

The plan for dinner is our all time favorite restaurant, Tamarind.  The best Indian food ever.

Canadian Chronicles: Happy Holidays 2014!

II was texting a friend about the old days at the cottage in the winter.  You know the below zero kind of days where the power goes out and we were all huddled around the wood stove for warmth.  Candles were a premium then and provided much needed light to supplement the nearly dead flashlight batteries.  My grandmother's brass candelabra was a god send on those evenings--filling the room with warm wonderful light.

The outhouse was a popular place at that time.  The inside toilets couldn't be used, so all of a sudden, a place mostly avoided with dread got the appreciation and respect that it deserved.  It was a long and chilly walk, but it sure did make you think about the wonders of modern day plumbing and central heat.

That was the winter we decided to go "out" for dinner to the local restaurant.  This eatery is only 20 minutes away on a good day, but a great deal farther in the ice and snow.  Our dining experience started in a well-lit place with heat and power.  15 minutes into our visit, the power went out there, too.  We were served whatever was warm in the kitchen by the cook and waitstaff in their head lamps.

I wonder what the memories will be of this winter that endure.  The skating on the lake when it finally froze over?  Playing indoor "bags" where the rule was that you had to have a drink in one hand while you threw with the other hand?  Eating raclette and fondue and watching fireworks that almost blew up the boat house?

Which does remind me of the year that Birk set her mitten on fire with a sparkler as we watched terrified through the window.  Yes, old parents inside, young kids outside with fire AND unattended. Thankfully, we've come a long way there, too.

This winter I was on full mouse alert, and oh, bat alert, too.  I kept a wary eye out for any vermin. Miraculously, this winter was the first time I did not see a creature stirring out of the corner of my eye.  The Cot-Taj felt almost like a real house.  We had cloth napkins, lights, toilets, showers and the mice laid low.  We are happily and sadly civilized.

We also had no lack of warm food, cold drinks and holiday cheer.  Surrounded by family and friends, we really were nestled in the woods.  Sending you all warmest wishes--whether from the fireplace, wood stove, space heater or furnace-- for a jolly 2015 full of love, peace, adventure and friendship!

Nana grabbing some shut eye in the shade of the tree.

Roxy grabbing some shut eye by the warmth of the fire.

Pretzel making for German Night.

Stove covered with foil to protect is from the LYE?

Lye.  Yes, lye.  Note skull and crossbones.

Finished product.

A double batch--eaten in a few days.

Pretzel making is a family tradition.

A strange visit from captain and crew of the Enterprise.

Happiness is skating on the lake.

Ringing in the New Year 2015!

More fun on the lake--sharing the good times with friends!

Skating on the lake--a new adventure for some.

Quiet time.

Hockey games and frolic and the beautiful first days of January 2015.