The Non-Writing Life – Page 3

Allie McBeagle Claims Shared Lineage with Westminster Best of Show Winner “Miss P”

“Claims” being the operative word.

Since it was announced the other day that Miss P the beautiful beagle soundly won Best of Show at the prestigious Westminster Dog Show, I have been hounded day and night (by Allie) to prove they share a lineage.

Alas, all I can turn up is that they hail from the same kennel, owned by Ms. Lori Crandlemire, and from whom we purchased the rights to house the “princess” Allie McBeagle in our home, to walk her twice a day, hike her on the weekends, provide her laps, try to evade her attempts to steal cat food, allow her a Dairy Queen ice cream cone now and then, and generally be her slaves.

Yup, Allie might not come directly from champion stock (ain’t got a clue), but she has a pedigree. Her official name is Tashtin’s Allie McBeagle, and her mom and pop are Carbonwillis’ Twilight Melody and Laponderosa’s Humphrey Bogart.

Upon discovering that Miss P was in competition with a dog that belongs to Patti Hearst and another that claims cousinhood with American President Barack Obama’s pooch, Allie said, “Woof!” (Translation: “Go, Beaglah!”)

Allie would like to announce that although she is now 13, has grown several fat lumps since the age of 10, is getting a tooth pulled Monday, has a stage three heart murmur and melanoma of the iris (which might render her a one-eyed dog sooner or later), and is on human health-food-store supplements to prevent kidney stones, she is still enjoying life to the fullest, as every beagle does. Go, Allie!

And congratulations to Miss P.

La Baby Beaglah:

In Regal Old Age:

Diamonds Really are Forever

In mid-January, I had a milestone birthday. My Liege and I celebrated by flying to Cuba for two weeks. I would say I’m gonna blog about the trip, but we know how well I did with China (2012) and Australia (2013)….

A couple of days before we left for Cuba, he surprised me with a beautiful three-diamond necklace in a gold setting. Stunning. I love it. Adjustable chain, so it can be worn short or long.

I thought, if only I hadn’t lost my tiny diamond stud earrings–or one of them–last summer, they would go perfectly with my new diamond necklace (except the earrings, a gift for my university graduation decades ago, are a lot smaller).

Too bad, so sad, I had lost one of my earrings. I cursed my neglectfulness and went on with packing for our trip.

We’ve been back for a week and I’ve been digging myself out from under a ton of laundry while catching up on biz-of-writing stuff. Something kept clunking in the washer. After about four loads (and a few half-hearted attempts to find out what was clunking), I did a super-sweep of the washing machine. You’ll never guess what I found. The tiny diamond solitaire stud earring I lost last summer! Looking so sparkly and new!

Just this morning I was wondering WHERE it had gone. Under the dresser? No, I checked. In the return air thingie in the floor? No, I checked that, too, before we left for Cuba. When we returned, I emptied my jewelry box and checked every square inch (and the rectangles). I began to realize I might never see my university graduation earrings again. Le sigh.

After finding it–IN THE WASHER???–I announced my discovery to my husband, then ran upstairs and found the match. The match doesn’t look anywhere near as sparkly. I would put it in the washer, but it might get lost in one of the holes the water swishes around in.

I can not believe I found my diamond stud earring!

But I guess I should not be surprised.

My husband and I will have been married thirty years this coming August. In 1984, he gave me a diamond engagement ring comprised of two tiny diamonds and a larger one in the middle. It’s a very delicate ring–thin band, simple setting. In fact, it’s darn near wore out. The band part is very narrow and has worn away so much over the years that it’s about to wear through (even though I did get it repaired once already). Also, the band part is…bent (I got my hand stuck on something in the washer one year). Unless we’re traveling, I wear a simple 14k gold wedding band with my engagement ring, no diamonds or other stones on the wedding band at all. I wear them opposite from how you’re supposed to. Instead of wedding band THEN engagement ring, I wear the engagement ring first. I have to, because it’s so worn out that last summer, when it was in its traditional position, it slipped off my finger into a bag of movie theatre popcorn just because my fingers were…slightly butter-drenched. Sheesh.

Anyway, after about seven years of being married, we were in the midst of raising babies and toddlers, and I guess I hadn’t kept up with the professional ring cleaning like I should have. So one day I’m doing laundry (a common theme in my life), and as my hand came up out of the washer, I realized the middle stone from my engagement ring was missing!! Agh!! My Liege and I scoured the house, but the diamond could not be found. He said he’d buy me a new diamond. I didn’t WANT a new diamond! I wanted the diamond he gave me when he proposed. I was so incredibly upset.

I went to bed with a heavy heart.

The next morning, I got up and picked up the cat’s water dish (which sits on the portable dishwasher so the dogs we’ve had over the years won’t steal the cat food) to refresh the water…when I noticed something sparkly in the bottom of the cat’s clear water bowl.

It was the diamond from my engagement ring!

I kid you not.

I can not lose diamonds. They always find their way back to me, it seems.

Or maybe it’s what they represent that I can’t lose. A young love that I never expected, when I met him, to endure for thirty married years (and seven years of dating before that). When I moved hundreds of miles away to attend university only four months after we met, I thought, that’s it, one of us will meet someone else and move on.

But we never did.

I feel blessed.

Sweet Potato Recipes Filched from My Mom

Whenever I am invited to Thanksgiving dinner, which invariably occurs because I never host Thanksgiving dinner, often I am asked to provide a sweet potato casserole of some sort. Considering I hate sweet potatoes, at first that struck me as sort of absurd. I had no sweet potato recipes! Alack, alas, a mess, turns out I can steal them from my mom!

It is Canadian Thanksgiving this coming weekend. Whether or not you are Canadian, you can make of these two sweet potato casseroles what you will. Apparently, they are quite tasty. Don’t believe me? Try them out. You can’t rely on me to tell you, because the only way I can handle eating one of them is by doubling the maple syrup ingredients.

My mother insists I am remarkably talented at making sweet potato casserole, so I must be doing something right. Your blood sugar, however, may not survive.

Maple-Sweet Potatoes:

– Preheat oven to 350°F. No, I do not know what the equivalent is in Celsius. Don’t worry about it. If you are Canadian, you know darn well that your stove is not in Celsius. Just suck it up that the stoves are still in Fahrenheit. If you are American, I’m sure you are thrilled that this recipe is in Fahrenheit. You’re welcome. If you are Canadian and you have a stove that is in Celsius, then you’re a lot richer than me, because I have no idea if they even exist.

– You want Celsius? Go outside.

– Take about eight sweet potatoes. Boil them in skins until tender. Cool them and cut them into slices.

– Do not ask me what happens to the skins at this point. They do not wind up in the casserole, so I am assuming they just kind of slide off after the sweet potatoes are boiled. If my readers are supposed to peel the sweet potatoes before boiling them, somebody please let me know in the comments and I will edit this post.

– Turn the potatoes into a baking dish that can hold all the potatoes. It has been a couple of years so I cannot remember if I grease the baking dish with margarine or cooking spray, or not. I’m thinking not. But if you thive on cholesterol, go ahead.

Here comes the sauce! Warning! Warning! Warning! The sauce in this recipe may be doubled. By that, I do not mean that you may choose to double the sauce if you wish. I mean that I might’ve doubled the sauce before writing it on the recipe card, but I do not recall.

SP Tip! If there are folks in your family who hate sweet potatoes, you may get them to eat the casserole by using my version of the sauce. If everyone in your family adores sweet potatoes, go ahead and cut the sauce portions in half. I would advise you not to cut the pecan pieces portion in half. I mean, who can have too many pecans?

You need:

– 1/4 cup butter, a half cup packed brown sugar, and a half cup maple syrup. Don’t scrinch on the maple syrup. Buy the best maple syrup you can find.

– Apparently you also need a quarter teaspoon salt and some pepper, but I don’t know why. Do with these condiments what you will.

Combine the butter, sugar, syrup, and salt – there you go, a use for the salt! Still no mention of the pepper… I tend to add pepper to practically everything I make, so take that under advisement. Combine all in sauce pan and heat to boiling. Lower heat and cook, stirring constantly until clear and thick. Then slop the sauce over the potatoes in the baking dish, and top with at least a half cup of pecan pieces.

Bake until bubbly. Voilà!

Sweet Potato Casserole:

This is a mashed potato type casserole. Preheat your oven to 350°F.

I do not like this recipe as much as the first one, but considering I eat about half a tablespoon of sweet potatoes every Thanksgiving, I am not really one to judge. Try both recipes and let me know what you think!

– Boil some sweet potatoes until tender. Do not ask me how many sweet potatoes to boil, because my mother leaves such things out of her recipes. The details are beneath her. I swear, she lives to mess with my head. Again, I am assuming that the skins somehow come off after they are boiled. I don’t know, that just makes sense? I should try it sometime with real potatoes. Hmmm.

– Judge how long it takes to boil the sweet potatoes until tender. While they are boiling, combine the following ingredients in a pot and heat until melted:

– Half a cup butter, a quarter cup maple syrup, half a teaspoon nutmeg, half a cup heavy cream, and 2 tablespoons brown sugar. I do not think I have messed with these ingredients, because there is only one quarter cup of maple syrup listed. If I messed with the ingredients, there would be more maple syrup.

– Eat one of the tablespoons of brown sugar and then get another tablespoon to add to the sauce.

– Use only the very best maple syrup at your disposal! None of this using pancake syrup that is flavored to taste a bit like maple syrup instead of real maple syrup. Got it? Sheesh, I mean, we are Canadian here.

Once the potatoes are tender and the skins somehow come off, mash them. Really pound them. Destroy those suckers until they don’t have any eyes left. Potatoes are not steak. You cannot over pound them. Or maybe you can, and I just don’t know. Whatever!

Take the aformentioned heated ingredients (the stuff in the sauce pan) and beat it into the mashed sweet potatoes.

Transfer all to a baking dish and bake until bubbly. No, I do not have any conceptualization of how long that takes. Thanks, Mom.

I would show pictures, but I do not have pictures. If you use one of my recipes and it turns out, please send me a picture! If it doesn’t turn out, I don’t want to know about it.

*Blog post will be updated if I ever remember to take a picture.

Happy Early Canadian Thanksgiving!

The Number One Rule of Grocery Shopping

I know what my rule is. How about yours?

Well, I guess there are two rules. But they work in tandem.

Only buy gourmet ice cream when it’s on sale.
When I get home, it is my duty (and I’m not allowed to shirk it) to eat the part of the ice cream that’s softened. Like around the edges and the very top. I am simply not permitted to put the ice cream into the freezer until the softened stuff has been consumed. Sometimes, if I buy two carton-thingies (because it’s on sale and my husband loves ice cream), well, I gotta eat the soft stuff off both!

There’s a reason for this. Who likes refrozen softened ice cream? No one, right?

At least no one in this house….

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Travel Bug

It’s been a week since my husband and I returned from a month-long trip to Australia. We had a marvelous time! Caught up with family members in Melbourne, met family we haven’t met before, stayed with friends in Perth who we met on our trip to the Galapagos two years ago, and did tons of exploring on our own. Even met up with an author pal from California who just happened to be in Sydney during the same time.

I am exhausted.

Traveling is a blast, but work piles up while you’re gone. So I’ve been slowly tackling the paper pile on my desk while trying my best to combat spring fever (it’s sunny out – I want outside!). The jet lag this year is killing us, possibly because, on top of losing a day on the trip there and then gaining a day on the trip back, we switched time zones within Australia itself four times. So that was six time/day changes in total in four weeks. Almost immediately upon our return, we needed to go out of town overnight, this time to somewhere fairly local, just as beautiful and intoxicating as Australia but different. Lakes instead of oceans. Trees instead of red rock and desert.

I fully intend to blog about this trip. I intended to blog about our trip to China last year to see our son, however, time and family events got away on me. So I might blog about Australia and then blog about China. We’ll see. First, I need to upload my pictures and sort through them. Well, before that, must continue clearing off my desk and then return to the writing project I last looked at in late February/early March. It’s been a long time since I had a new release. A new book is coming, the release date of which is dependant on editing schedules, and then I’ll return to writing the Love & Other Calamities short story series. Before all that, indeed very, very soon, is a little treat. If you haven’t yet read my books, stay tuned!

Just Chillin’

A lot has happened so far this year already, and not all of it good. Someone I’m very close to suddenly lost a loved one right around New Year’s. No warning at all. Not a very nice way to start a new year. This is the second year in a row this has happened to one of my family members or friends (as in they were the people who lost loved ones). Where’s my Not Like button? Because I want to press it about a million times.

However, recently, I had a chance to experience something very cool. Not so sure I’m excited to try it again any time soon, but I’m glad I’ve tried it once!

My husband and I had the opportunity to stay overnight at Sparkling Hill Resort in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, which happens to house the first and (so far) ONLY cold sauna in all of North America! Cold saunas are very popular in Europe. If you’re a fan of The Amazing Race, one year participants had to endure the cold sauna experience, although I can’t remember where the sauna was located. Sparkling Hill is principally owned by Gernot Langes-Swarovski, former head of the Swarovski crystal company, so the resort is filled with crystals. It’s very beautiful. And it features a first-class view of Okanagan Lake.

For those not in the know, a 3-minute “walk” in a cold sauna at around -110 Celsius (MINUS 166 Fahrenheit) is equivalent to 15-20 minutes in an ice bath. So the saunas (cryotherapy) are great for athletes recovering from injury, those with arthritis, etc. Here’s an explanation.

So. My husband suggested that we try the cold sauna, because he’s nursing a knee injury. They instruct you to arrive in a bathing suit and bathrobe, and you enter the spa. There was a receptionist and our, um, spa assistant, I guess you would call her. She was indispensable! For all sorts of excellent reasons, you do not enter the sauna on your own. Someone from the resort accompanies you.

First, we each had to get our blood pressure checked. Mine was 127 over something good (very pleased with myself, considering I’d downed a cup and a half of coffee, which I rarely drink, an hour beforehand, and I was nervous). Then we removed our robes, donned masks over our noses and mouths, headbands over our ears, little booties on our feet, and two layers of gloves. I was dumb enough to bring along my only swimsuit that had a metal clasp between my breasts. So a headband also got shoved in my “cleavage” (as in, that’s where my cleavage would be if I, er, had enough bounty to warrant cleavage!). Our assistant, “Em”, explained the process while we stood outside the three-chamber unit.

We entered the first chamber. It was around -11 Celsius (12 Fahrenheit). “Not a problem,” I thought. It was like going outside in your bathing suit in February. Or stepping off a plane in Montreal. We spent about 2 seconds in chamber one before entering chamber two, which was around -50 Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit). Woo-ee! At this point, I wondered if this was a good idea. However, we were assured that Europeans did this all the time. It’s only the North Americans who are wussies.

At -50 Celsius, you pretty much want to be bundled up, and your skin starts to tingle. But after maybe 2 seconds in chamber 2, we entered chamber 3, which was, during our 3-minute stay in that last chamber, -112.5 Celsius (-170.5 Fahrenheit). You still with me?

The first thing I noticed was that it was freezing!! I mean, really, really cold. But you don’t feel it inside your body. Just on your skin. The Bobby McFarrin song, Don’t Worry, Be Happy, played our entire 3 minutes in chamber 3. Em was with us, thank God, or I would have left right away. We had been notified prior to entering that we would be advised of the 1.5 minute mark. Meanwhile, we were to walk in a slow circle, slowing waving our limbs, like dancing penguins, but not to dance too fast or we would create too much breeze, I guess, and then we would get even colder.

Tip #1. Don’t put on mascara before entering the cold sauna. They had advised us not to have any portion of our bodies wet before entering the sauna, but no one had mentioned mascara. Or maybe it only felt like my eyelashes were sticking together because I kept my eyes closed most of the time. When my calves felt like I’d developed frostbite, we hadn’t even made it to 1.5 minutes! But Em talked us through it.

My husband was having the same thoughts I was, but he didn’t voice them until later. So I thought he was enjoying himself. I expressed enough desire not to continue with the experience that Em asked if I was okay, and she also told me to remember to breathe normally, which was very good advice.

When the backs of my knees felt frozen, I reminded myself that if I could fly over the Nasca Lines in a loop-de-loop plane (I get motion sickness and am afraid of heights), and if I could go zip-lining not once, but twice (same fear of heights and motion sickness), then I could do this. What was more, if I left, then my husband could lord it over me that he experienced the entire three minutes. Lastly, if my freaking grandfather could go tandem skydiving for the first and only time in his life at the age of 100 (if you hit that link, scroll down to the second Q&A entry), then surely I could endure the three minutes. Honestly, it was the latter that kept me going.

The backs of my ankle bones felt frozen past the 1.5 minute mark. When the voice over the loudspeaker says, “1.5 minutes,” you’re pretty much thinking, “Ack!” And I said, “I am never, ever doing this again!” Em continued to talk us through it. We switched direction and kept penguin-waddle-dancing while Bobby McFerrin sang about being stupid happy. Then the loudspeaker voice began to count down, “Five-four-three-two-one!” and we escaped into chamber 2. Immediately, my skin began to tingle (as in defrost). Then, two seconds later, we were in chamber 3, at a mild -11 Celsius again. Then we were out of the contraption for good.

You sit down and slowly begin to divest yourself of your cold sauna do-dahs. Meanwhile, my skin was tingling like mad and was also bright red. As you slowly defrost, energy fills your body and you feel quite exhilarated. That said, Em enters the cold sauna up to three times a day. I can not fathom it. As she said, the trauma was mostly in our minds. Europeans do this all the time. In fact, athletes (like hockey players) stay at the Resort and will enter the cold sauna up to three times in one day to help speed healing. It’s like a massive ice pack.

So, I survived. And I never have to do it again. But I might, if given the opportunity.

Would you?