observations and reflections

Last night was the NCCC Foundation Board Holiday dinner. I usually meet Bill at the college and we drive to the country club together. But there is no easy way to drive from my work to the college. It always takes me over an hour and creeping crawling traffic on Niagara Falls Blvd. So this time I drove straight to the country club and met him there. It was a straight shot up the 190 across Grand Island. It only took me 40 minutes in rush hour traffic. There was a time that I would not have done this. I would not have wanted to drive there alone. I would not have been comfortable walking in alone. I went in alone and procured myself a glass of Cab. Then I spotted B. He got his wine and we stopped to talk to A. A is a tall beautiful woman with coffee-colored skin. We have had several nice conversations in the past and A always gives me a hug when I see her. We were joined by M. M is a young woman, newly married, fairly new to her job. I've had a few conversations with her at other functions. I like her. We talked about Christmas plans. We talked about her job working with grants. She said that B has probably described her to me as someone who doesn't know what she is doing. I told her that No B has described her to me as a very enthusiastic young woman.

I had spotted another woman I wanted to talk with. I had talked at length with this woman last year. I remembered that she was a caregiver. When one older person passes away she finds a new one to care for. I remembered that last year she was wearing black palazzo pants and we had a discussion trying to think of what they were called and could only come up with pajamas style pants and gauchos. I remembered that she was engaged but not married. I spotted her face but could not remember her name. I left my little group to seek her out. In my search I encountered G who is on the board. G and I had gotten to know one another last year at this function. I joined G and the man she was talking to. She said that they were discussing pain killers. I had just heard a story about children and pain killers and how parents are reluctant to give children pain killers when they are in pain because they are afraid that the children will become addicted. I fell easily into this conversation. Then I sought out the care giver lady because we were about to sit down for dinner. I had forgotten her name but it turned out to be Y. Y had gotten married 18 days ago. Y wore a wedding dress for her wedding but her maid of honor wore palazzo pants. Y's lady had passed away and Y was in the interview process for the next person that she will be caring for.

At dinner I talked easily to my table mates. I lightly reprimanded H for sipping his champagne before the big toast and flattered him by saying I couldn't believe that he had graduated from high school in 1989 because he looked so young. The lady next to me was a retired nurse and had been in the reserves. She had interesting stories to tell. Her husband is one of those people who remembers every detail of his life and can easily relate them. He did most of the talking at the table. The other B sat back and looked a little bored like he would be happy when it was all over but he was sociable. My B, I know, would rather have been home but he was very sociable and talkative also. We also had the student member of the board at our table. A tall skinny sweet young girl getting an early start in the politics of being a board member. She was joined by her boyfriend also a college student at a rival college. He was very interested in turning his fork back and forth on the tablecloth and in his cell phone.

Why I'm going on and on with all of this? Because sometimes I am amazed at this person I have become. I'm not saying that I'm a fine person, just a different person. In the past I would have dreaded going to a function like this. I would have clung to B's side. Leaving his side to seek and find someone to talk to would never have occurred to me. If I would have done this, it would have been out of obligation. And I would have stood there wondering what this person thought of me. I would have stood nervous and tongue-tied.

When B and I would come home from such a function as this in the past, we would ask one another....Did I do or say anything embarrassing tonight? If the answer was yes or maybe, it would have consumed me for weeks. Now I don't care. I don't really care if I do or say something stupid. I actually enjoy talking to these people. I like these people. I like people. I'm finding the more you don't care what people think of you, the more they like you. Or maybe don't like you. I don't know. I don't care. You can't be liked by everybody. I can sit back and observe people. I can slip into conversation because I simply don't care anymore. I was told once when my company took a personality test that people's personalities don't change. Only maybe if they have had a life-changing event. I'm not sure I agree with that. I don't think I fit into the category that I was pigeoned-holed into . I think if I took that test today I would get a different result from that of ten years ago. But then I did have a little crisis in my life so maybe that qualifies as a life changing event.

Anyway, enough about me. So let's talk about you. What do you think of me? LOL

my mistake

I needn't have stayed up late putting this together last night. The meeting is next week. There are so many things to attend that I got mixed up. Tonight is just a committee meeting but I'm not going. Today is Toastmasters. Tomorrow is our holiday potluck and gift exchange at work. Tomorrow night is the NCCC board meeting and holiday dinner at Nia Falls Country Club. Friday is a happy hour after work. Saturday night is my neighbor's annual Christmas party. Sunday night is The Adams Family at Shea's. Next Thursday is the dinner I thought was tonight. And then there are always exercise nights. I need a month to hibernate.

visions of sugar plums

Tomorrow is the ASWA annual Christmas Fundraiser. I'm excited about it this year. It's being held at the Millennium Hotel by Walden Galleria Mall in the atrium. There is going to be an hour long open bar and hot hors d'ouvres. The menu choices all sounded so good that I had a hard time choosing. I wanted to try them all. Prime Rib with Yorkshire Pudding, Chicken Stuffed with Lobster, or Shrimp and Scallop Scampi. I finally decided on the chicken. The soup is French Onion with Sherry. The dessert is Chocolate Tuxedo Cake.

This year I put together a candy basket for my donation. I'm calling it Visions of Sugar Plums Basket. Smudge is doing the Vanna White thing here.



This is the back of the basket. It features Harry and David's Moose Munch, a chocolate orange, Ghiardhelli Chocolates, Turtles and Marzipan Fruits among lots of other things.

twin living rooms

This a picture of our living room. When we decorated it 23 years ago I adored it. I continued to adore it for another 15 years. Then I sickened of it and wanted to redecorate. I wanted to paint the walls goldenrod or terra cotta or french toast. I wanted that loud obnoxious wallpaper out of there. But B loves that wallpaper and doesn't want to get rid of it. So we fought for several years and then I stopped caring and then.....miraculously I started to kind of like it again.

See the afghan on the back of the sofa. My sister, Debbie, made that for me to go with the wallpaper. See the oil painting above the sofa. B and I bought that at a starving artist sale for $50. It was painted by X Rabous. I go on-line now and find very similar paintings by X that sell for around $1500 now.

The sofa is a Flexsteel and looks as new now as the day we bought it.

So I told B I could live with this room if we would buy decorative curtain rods and do something about the window treatments. I still think the picture over the fireplace is hung a little too high and now looking at the photo I think the X painting might make a better statement over the fireplace than over the sofa.

This weekend we went to the Lewiston Christmas House Walk. Historic homes owned by wealthy people offering them up for the weekend for plebians to tromp through. When I entered the living of one home, I could not believe my eyes.



There was our wallpaper in the exact same shades albeit slightly muted and a larger pattern. There was the same fabric on the sofa and the same dark walnut Ethan Allen furniture. The same color rug on the same color hardwood floor.



We don't own a baby grand or a grandfather clock



Their window treatments are much nicer than ours but their picture over the credenza doesn't hold a candle to X's oil painting. And we got some great ideas for window treatments from another house that we toured. Our dining room is open to the living room and is painted a color that is similar to coffee with lots and lots of cream in it. It has the same green crown molding around the ceiling. B is going to let me paint the dining room a shade of gold that can be found in the wallpaper. We will keep the sheers, buy decorative rods and I'm going to sew panels for just the ends of the windows out of the fabric that I bought 23 years ago to make draperies for these rooms and that has been in a huge roll under our bed ever since. We are combining our ideas and I think we are going to come up with something we both like.

the sixth sense

do you ever wonder if maybe you are dead and you just know it yet?
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birthday baking

We have a birthday club at work. I was the last birthday so I was supposed to bake for S whose birthday was on Thanksgiving Day. There was hardly anyone in our office the week before Thanksgiving so it was decided that I would bring in the cake on the Monday following. I thought this was a great idea because it would give me all weekend to bake.

Well, I was laying in bed Sunday night at midnight about to nod off when I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to have a freshly baked cake in my kitchen waiting to be taken into work the following morning. I got out of bed and starting perusing cookbooks for a recipe that contained ingredients I had on hand. I could have stopped at Wegman's in the morning but I'm known throughout the office for my baked goods and didn't want to disappoint.

I found this recipe for Bittersweet Chocolate Bundt cake. Plenty of butter, sugar, eggs, coffee crystals and bittersweet chocolate. I mixed the thing up alternating the chocolate/coffee mixture with the flour mixture into the butter and eggs. Baked it and for the first time ever....when I loosened the edges and turned the thing out....about a half inch of cake remained in the bottom. No prob....cover it up with bittersweet chocolate fudge glaze. At three o'clock in the morning I slipped back into bed. Thank goodness for my sister and my cousin and Words with Friends... kept me busy during baking time and cooling time.