Bronchitis

Need I say more? I've been sick for a week now. I can't seem to whip this even though I've though I've taken a full run of antibiotics. Which means it's probably viral and there's not much I can do. This is a new aspect of the move up north. In Texas, you could go at least go outside and warm up and dry out eventually because it never stayed cold for more than a week. But here, I'm stuck inside indefinitely. I'm afraid to go out and make this cough worse. I remember how hard it was to get rid of N's ear infections when we lived in Iowa when she was a baby. This is similar. Christmas was very quiet needless to say. But very wonderful in spite of my not feeling well. We talked with all the kids and my parents. That was glorious. And we enjoyed each other's company which was also great. The white Christmas was cool even though I couldn't get out and take a walk in it.

I heart New York

We finally made it to New York City. I had been there when I was sixteen but we spent our days in Queens at the World's Fair. So at our advanced ages, it was quite exciting to see all this stuff for the first time. We've seen so many movies about New York the places we visited seemed like old friends. And it made it even more special to see it at Christmastime.

We took the bus (which was easy) and spent the day in Manhattan on Saturday. I have bronchitis (not pneumonia) and am on antibiotics now so the trip wasn't quite as fun as it would have been if I had been well. But we had such a good time. That's me in front of Central Park right by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We mostly just walked around all day even though it was bitterly cold and windy. We did spend a few hours in the museum but I finally had to leave. There were so many paintings I had been waiting a lifetime to see that I was getting jaded. I didn't want to spoil my first impressions of the rest of them. I cried when I stood in front of that Christmas tree with the Neapolitan angels. They had music playing and the lighting on the angels was magical. I don't think I've seen many more beautiful sights in my life. We saw one of my favorite Ingres paintings (the lady in the blue dress) and two Vigee Lebrun's! Michael and I got to see lots of Degas, Renoir, Manet, Monet and Van Gogh paintings. We know that we missed tons and tons of stuff so that will be something to look forward to for our next trip.

New Yorkers were so extremely nice to us. We were astounded. One man came up to us and asked us if we needed help just because we looked confused. We asked him which way was east and he showed us and then he was off. One lady in the subway came out of her booth and talked to us for fully five minutes about what we should see and do. Incredible. People said "excuse me" and offered assistance. Not at all what we expected. We found the subways to be not half as intuitive (or as frequent) as the Metro trains in Paris. But because Manhattan is a big rock, the subway trains are not far below the surface the way they are in London or Paris. It's very easy to use a credit card and buy a one-day pass to the subway.

We walked into several hotel lobbies (which we don't ordinarily do but we weren't the only ones being touristy in New York). We saw the painting of Eloise in the Plaza. Facing the Plaza, the line to get into FAO Schwartz was halfway around the block and snaked back around itself. The Apple store also faces the Plaza and it's in a big glass box sunk into the ground. Pretty cool. We did go into Toys R Us where they had a giant ferris wheel you could ride in the foyer.

Bloomingdale's windows were awesome. They had decorated the windows to go along with a Tony Bennett CD they were selling inside. So the windows with moving characters depicted scenes from the 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. One window looked just like my Alice and Jerry reader. The Bergdorf Goodman windows were strange. Many of them were all white and they were fantasies. Ladies dressed in gorgeous gowns (one window had a man mannequin with a fox head instead of a human one) with white geese and odd and random items painted white. Bizarre. We were surprised that the Chanel, Dior and other very expensive boutiques were very understated. They didn't look Christmasy at all. Trump Tower was lit up like crazy. One building was covered with lights which made it look like a giant present with bow.

We saw kids sledding in Central Park, very rich ladies walking out of Chanel and Dior boutiques, hot dog stands, fancy apartment buildings with doormen (the only buildings with no ice on the sidewalks. It's evidently no one's job in New York to clear the sidewalks so we slogged around in slush all day even though it didn't snow a bit. Just left over stuff from the day before.)Michael spotted an 80,000 dollar car. We saw art deco stuff in gorgeous architectural details especially around Rockefeller Center.

We had almost no disappointments. The only thing that wasn't as wonderful as I expected was the skating rink in front of the Prometheus statue at Rockefeller Center. It was about half the size I thought it would be. (It was about the size of the Galleria rink in Dallas.) Other than that, it was wonderful. To see so many buildings, company names, stores and landmarks all so close together was like working a jigsaw puzzle. Oh, that store goes there, right next to that park! Perhaps it was best that we came to it after a lifetime of reading books, seeing movies and learning about New York City. Every block had something that rang a bell. Sadly, even though we didn't get near Wall Street, we walked past an awful lot of financial institutions whose names have been in the news a lot lately. You can see how people with tons of money in a city that sophisticated could lose sight of what's real or important. Their greed just fed on everyone else's greed.

I'm anxious to go back but I think it will be nicer in the spring.

Peanut butter fudge

I could talk about the fact that I'm coughing and sick and that the temperature was 6 when I got up this morning (at 9:45.) But that would be way boring. Instead I'll post the peanut butter fudge recipe I promised. I found it on allrecipes.com. Have you seen this site? The comments are hilarious. "For the salad, I substituted canned spinach for fresh, I used Velveeta instead of feta and I added dill pickles instead of Calamata olives. I don't know what went wrong. It was really yucky!" Anyway, that was beside the point.I didn't follow the actual recipe because no one does! The recipe is called Easiest Peanut Butter Fudge there and, of course, everyone comments and no one follows the recipe. Here is the recipe as I made it based on a lot of the comments:

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups confectioners' sugar

DIRECTIONS
Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar and milk. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes (I probably boiled mine a little longer but I tested it and it still wasn't soft ball stage), stirring frequently. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter and vanilla. Pour over confectioners' sugar in a large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth; pour into an 8x8 inch dish. Chill until firm and cut into squares.

I used unsalted butter and evap milk but would have used whole milk if I had had it. I beat it in the Kitchenaid. I put the confectioner's sugar in the Kitchenaid bowl and poured the hot mixture on top. If your confectioner's sugar was the least bit lumpy you would want to sift it. I used a really low speed to beat it. Then I got a phone call. When I got back it looked great. Unfortunately, for me, those are the best fudge instructions I can give. My fudge is always too stiff or too runny. This time it was too stiff but delicious. One of you will have to volunteer to call me the next time I make it.

Since I can't have real fudge because chocolate gives me migraines, this was an incredible substitute. Michael's suggestion. Great idea, honey!

I'm coughing and am not up to much else so I'll probably post again later today with Michael's pix of our trip to New York City on Saturday! Yes, I finally got there and the pneumonia I have today was totally worth it.

Sharing our white Christmas

Good thing no one's coming for Christmas this year. I'd be a nervous wreck about them flying in this kind of weather. I've never seen snow come down like this in my whole life. I mean it. I know what you say about rain. You say it's pouring. What do you say when the snow is pouring? I shoveled maybe six inches of snow off the driveway so that the plumber could get out and now you can hardly tell. (Plumber replaced the faucets in our bathtub. They look really good and now we have a choice other than freezing cold or scalding hot showers.) It was seriously fun shoveling and I plan to go out again later just to stomp around in it. The snow is very light and easy to shovel and it's beautiful. I know the delight won't last forever, but I sure am enjoying it now. The snow plow has already been down the street and now I can't tell where the street is. It just blends in with everyone's yard.

The photos are of our decorations which many of you will remember. But I think they look swell in the new house. The bay window with a snow scene behind the tree and the stockings on the oak staircase really look good. And how many women are lucky enough to have a train and a tuba with their tree?

For more photos, check my Flickr account by clicking on the link to the right or ask me for an invitation to see my Easyshare account to see even more. I'll be taking pictures of the whopping snowstorm when it stops.

Thanksgiving in December

Today I am cooking the Thanksgiving dinner I didn't get to cook in November because I stayed in Shreveport longer than expected. Michael's company gave everyone a turkey and, of course, gave it on the one day warm day all month when it would thaw. Every other day this month you could have thrown it in your car and not worried about it. So instead of refreezing it I let it thaw in the fridge. Today's the day it's ready to cook. We did have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with our church family, but the cornbread dressing, five cup salad and pumpkin pie were really missed. The menu for today: Turkey, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, five cup salad and pumpkin pie. Some kind of green vegetable but skipping the Brussels sprouts as we had plenty of those in November. I might even make Marjo's rolls if I really get obsessed. Seems kinda silly to cook for just the two of us but we'll have lots of leftovers I can freeze and use next week at Christmastime. Plus, I bought a big ham. We should be set even if snowed in. We realized last night that this will be the very first Christmas with just the two of us. That's in 37 years (38 if you count the one when we were engaged), mind you. I've uber-Christmased this year with lots of holiday movies, Christmas music, decorations, cooking and writing cards just to compensate for the total lack of family. Stay tuned for tomorrow's topic: new peanut butter fudge recipe that's to die for.

Warning: I'm whining about teachers' unions again

Teachers continue to strike or to threaten strikes in districts around here. It's unthinkable that the teachers who are well-paid (Trust me on that. The cost of living here isn't that much more than where I used to live but the teachers get paid a whole lot more.) and who have tenure would be striking at a time like this. The kids' parents are working hard enough just to keep their jobs most of which are lower-paying than the teachers' salaries. Now they have to worry about their kids being at home alone because how many of them can afford unexpected day care for their elementary kids? One school district has extended the school year to June 23rd just so the kids can have a few days off at Christmas. Their strike has burned up all the kids' days off between now and the end of the year. One of the big issues? The teachers are paying more for health insurance. Hello? Michael is paying more next year and he works for a health-related company. In Texas, the teachers there had to pay more every year for their insurance. In a lot of cases it just ate up their raises. But what are you going to do if health costs are outdistancing other cost increases? Another issue was having to do extras like Open House, after school tutoring and Meet the Teacher Nights. Hm-m-m. Sounds like they're really committed to the kids, doesn't it? And the standardized science scores just came out. They looked appalling to me. If their tests are anything like the ones our kids took, these districts wouldn't have a prayer in the state of Texas where we had to meet high standards not just for all kids counted together but for all subgroups as well. Not having been a teacher here, it's easy for me to rant and rave. But belonging to a union is not on my list of things to do so I guess I'll never teach in the schools here. But I am willing to bet that their challenges are no worse than ours were in Denton with large numbers of non-English speakers and a high percentage of special needs children. It literally makes me sick to my stomach that the teachers feel the need to walk the picket line in economic times like these.

Goodbye Happy Car! Hello Impreza!

Today I rented the storage building for my Miata, better known as the Happy Car. It's so short it will fit in a 10 by 15 foot unit. Michael will spray it off and we will wait until the roads have been washed off by rain before driving it to the storage facility. We don't want any of the ice melt stuff to rust my car while it's in storage. That's the whole point. It will stay there until spring has come and the roads are salt-free once more.

I will be driving the Subaru Impreza from now on. It is very comforting knowing you have all-wheel drive when you try to negotiate the five-minute drive to church or to the grocery store. There are scary, twisty mountain roads in any direction from my house.

I went to Target today for a microwave cart since our kitchen counter space is the size of a postage stamp. The essential microwave we had to buy is taking up far too much room. When I go shopping, I always park far away from other cars but today it didn't help. Someone too lazy to walk a few yards and put their cart away safely let the wind catch their cart and it rammed into our Impreza. Since the contact point was the metal base, it completely wiped out my wheel cover. Could have been worse. I could have lost a door. It wasn't even cold today or rainy. Just windy. Thanks a lot, folks. I park miles away from you so you don't ding my doors and then you let your carts ram my car. I thought it was just my Miata people were out to get. I've been hit in parking lots twice in the Happy Car and once at an intersection standing still. Now that they're hitting our Subaru, I realize that it's not the Miata, it's just me. Sadly, there are plenty of irresponsible people here in PA just as there were in Texas.