Off Branding

Thanksgiving for 5 ways fun and pretty easy. However, the turkey sucked. It was so bad, I got my money back from Pavilions. In all honesty, the turkey is the least favorite part of the meal when there's stuffing, mashed potatoes, string bean casserole, yams, cornbread, roles and gravy, not to mention pumpkin pie with whipped cream. But the turkey should be tender, moist and delectable. This one was tough, sinewy and dry. I should have been mildly suspicious when I went to order it, and the man behind the counter told me there was the choice of Zacky Farms or Butterball. I said I wanted a 14 to 15 lb. Butterball and he left and came back and gave me the name of a brand I didn't recognize in the size I wanted, but he said, "they're good." So I told him I'd pick it up Thursday morning. The second warning sign went unheeded when I noticed a tiny hole in the packaging when the lady handed it to me Thursday morning. The third warning sign was when I was checking out, the lady behind me told the checker there was a big puddle on the floor at the start of the line. "Did that come from my turkey?" I said. I couldn't tell, because there was not a puddle on the conveyor belt. The checker rang me up, double bagged my turkey in plastic, and I brought it home. It smelled fresh, and did perhaps look slightly darker than my previous turkeys. Another red flag ignored.
I cleaned it, dried it, smothered it with butter , oil, salt and pepper and put a cut up apple in the cavity. There were no directions on the packaging like the Butterball turkeys have, but no worries, I've cooked plenty of turkeys in the past. I basted it every 30 minutes and at one point, the skin on the wing was breaking. Not a good sign, I sing song to myself. There was not an overly abundant amount of juices on the bottom of the pan, and I took that as a good sign. Juices are staying in a good turkey, right? So when it hit the right temp on the instant read thermometer, I deemed it done. Letting it coast awhile, then having Hubby carve, I mash the potatoes and yams, put the roles on the table, gather the dressing and string bean casserole out of the oven, have another glass of champagne and ask as he's slicing, how's the turkey. "It's OK," he says. It wasn't OK.
Everything else was really good, though, so I was semi blissful.
The next day I start a movie, but then remember, I want to go back to the store to ask for my $30 back. That's a lot to pay for something that's embarrassing. So as I go to the car, Hubby says, "Give them hell," knowing he's kidding. In my head, I'm going to bat my eye lashes and be humble and sweet while I tell them in the most descriptive words how sucky the turkey was. Now, in the past we have had roaring, laughing moments about my force of nature when it comes to customer service. Years ago, when I was dealing with the Oreck company, we had a joke that when I call, the sirens go off and the loud broadcast is, "THIS IS NOT A DRILL. DEBBY THOMPSON IS ON THE PHONE."
I got my $29.01 back from the manager after very little description. And as I left, I put $4 in the Salvation Army's little red pot.

What Margo from Zihuatenejo told us to do

While picking out apples at the market today, a word wound its way under my breath as I spotted the empty hole in the dip of the apple where the stem should have been. It's a cull, I said. Then that memory-flash-back-thing started happening, and voila, a blog is born.
When I was married to my first husband, we went to Wenatchee, WA on expert advice from an ex patriot hippy who lived in Zihuatanejo. She told us when we get back to the states, we could earn a few bucks picking apples. We were heading to Spokane in a few months, meeting up with a man we met while picking something called magic mushrooms in Palenque. Why not apples?
Wenatchee is near a lake called Chelan, and that is what she named her daughter. And picking apples is what we did. It was fall of 1974.
Funny, the only vocabulary word I remember from that experience is cull. I learned a few facts like red delicious apples can only grow when there are golden delicious apples. Golden delicious are harder to pick and easier to damage, so bummer. We picked apples about 3 weeks on a small orchard. The family was kind and included us for some dinners and homemade ice cream and their shower,every evening. We slept in our VW bus and picked apples 5 days a week.
At one point I think I figured out we picked a half ton of apples a piece. I must have been in pretty good shape. We met other folks who just followed the harvest around the entire USA.
We did it on a lark. We didn't really need the money, just wanted the experience. I can't even remember how much we made.
The young boy who lived there would come out to the orchard and visit. The only thing I remember about him was how he was obsessed with never swearing or never being bad, because if you are really really a good person, one day you'll be able to fly. I loved that about him.
When we got back to Los Angeles, our original starting point, I looked in a dictionary and found a picture of the bag we wore that held the apples. It was like a reverse back pack, and probably even had a name. We'd strap them on every morning, take a lunch break, then pick for a few more hours. I got pretty good at wielding around a ladder.
Another rung in my school of hard knocks.

An Education

Character driven movies have been my favorite, lately. An Education is one of those. There's the beautiful, smart teenager, the controlling idiot father, the easily manipulated mother and the suave, mysterious older man. On top of the interesting characters there are the subtle layers of character, values, the stupidity of innocence and redemption.
Jenny, the beautiful, intelligent teenager from a boring suburb of London contains enough "bad girl" in her to allow her values to be compromised when it comes to the worldly David. She, along with her father and mother are swept into his scheme in mere moments. Cunning and charm are his calling cards. He's so good at it, you know you should scream at Jenny, "run, run," but can't. He's got you in his cross hairs, the audience who spent the money to sit in that theater wanting to be carried away, and you are. I was.
She watches for a moment as her mother tries to clean a casserole dish and dreads her fate if she doesn't break free. She has a chance to be Audrey Hepburn in Paris, intoxicated by jazz and French and wine and laughter and food. Formal education isn't worth the time or hard effort when all it will bring is more boredom, tediousness and a bland slate of hard work.
I had to suspend belief slightly when it came to a brilliantly aware offspring of an oafish father. How did she become so socially acute while her father is stuck in a dreary world of money worries and a home-bound mentality? I'm a believer that the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. But his limitations and dim witted philosophies actually do add to the layers of human behavior that intrigue me.
He swears he and his wife had an interesting life before they had Jenny. But I doubt it. His desires to have a daughter in Oxford without having to pay for it help propel Jenny down her dangerous path.
British films take me a while to understand the words with the accents, but once I'm ensconced in the verisimilitude, I'm a happy movie goer.

"I Have the Best Wife"

Over the weekend, Hubby wasn't feeling well. At one point he wanted a massage, but I was tired. It didn't happen. So, last night I surprised him and had the massage table set up in the family room. He saw it as soon as he came in from the garage and said with glee, "Oh boy."
He also added, "I have the best wife!" It's always a pleasure to hear.
Once he got on the table and I had started rubbing his neck and shoulders, then started on his left arm and hand, he said kind of dreamily, "I hope Sonny Boy is as happy with his wife as I am with mine." I quoted my favorite talk show lady, Dr. Laura, and said, "Choose wisely, treat kindly," from her book, The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands.
Since Hubby has told Sonny Boy "you make good decisions," since the kid was crawling, I think he's embedded that value into Sonny Boy's every last brain cell. But Sonny Boy is not yet 21, so the wife thing should be about the last choice that's on his mind...or even on the radar, as far as I'm concerned.
I was married for the first time at 22. Not so good for me. After all, I had seen the warning signs and ignored them. Then came divorce and a happy (?) single life. But looking back, I don't think I was nice enough to be married until 5 or 6 years ago. Fortunately for me, Hubby saw all the potential and happiness to be attained in my smiling face 22 years ago.
By nice enough I mean big enough to let the nagging sensation pass without mention, the itch to gossip go unheeded, the cloud of "it's all about me," to move on.
When I look back, it seems so ridiculous to have wagered a loving relationship to get my way no matter the consequences.
When the time comes for Sonny Boy to decide on the woman he wants to marry, I hope his memories from our marriage take into consideration all the good and bad on how to choose a good woman, a kind woman, a happy woman.
Since Dr. Laura's book came out, I learned about the easy capacity men have to be happy. They don't want to talk about their inner most confessions like women do. They don't want to hold a grudge. They don't want to be punished for some infraction they had no idea of what it could have been. We, as women, love that stuff. Why?
Are our inner workings the stuff soap operas are made of? Are we so simple as to think life circles our being as if we were the sun? We have to learn to control our crazy selfish impulses while men are the here and now, the what you see is what you get, the give me love and I'll do whatever you need. They are doggies, we are the cats. They have masters, we have staff.
We have all the control for the better or worse. And life is blissful when we bat our eyelashes at our hubbies, when we dress up to look cute, when we are a girlfriend and not a wife, when we don't start a fight or continue one, when we don't bitch until the cows come home, when we smile, fix a snack, love physically, mentally, and joyfully, when we ask, "What can I get you?"
Our house is Casa de Thompson. What's yours?
www.youtube.com/drlaura

Not Old People Smell

Is being a super smeller a blessing or a curse? I'm always chasing down the source of something that doesn't smell right in the house. I always thought the musty smell that gathered by the front door was the cat food scent wafting toward that nook and getting stuck there. But the cat food is long gone and when I leave and come back to the house, there is that not- so- good- scent. My first thought last night was, "Oh no, not old people smell." I decided to keep the kitchen drain covered to see if the 50 + years of plumbing might be the culprit. It's kind of impractical to keep a drain closed, but as smell detective / deducer, it's a must.
Please don't let it be old people smell.
When I was about 9 years old and taking ballet lessons, our teacher brought us to a lady's house for costume fittings. The 2 other girls and I all hated the smell of that lady's house. We went back 2 other times, and it didn't hit us as badly, but that smell was there, none the less. That lady, in my mind, certainly qualified as "old," but could she have been my age now?
I didn't know of old people's smell syndrome then, but it's one of those known facts that we must all learn from osmosis.
Hubby asked me why the drain is covered. I told him that I keep smelling a musty scent. He replied, "do you think it's old people smell?" We have never discussed this issue in our near 25 year history, yet, there it was lurking, waiting to reveal itself. Does he think we are doomed for our house to grow old with us. Do we smell? What is that smell?
But as a super smeller, I am always asking that question.

How to Become a Leader

I heard Bay Buchanan speak at the Women's Law School of Whittier College. She was Reagan's Secretary of the Treasury and supposedly the youngest of all that have ever served. She tells a funny story about how she really needed to find out if that was true, so she asks the permanent assistant, who had been there for years, to find out if this is true so that she wouldn't be accused of misleading the press. The assistant says,"We have all the information right here, I'll get back to you right away." He reports back, saying, "Yes, you are the youngest. You're the youngest because all the others are dead." She thought, ah, the problem with bureaucratic systems of employment.
Her speech today was about becoming a leader. So it didn't matter what her politics are in this matter. It is about leadership and confidence. She admitted becoming Secretary of the Treasury was way over her head. But, she had been Reagan's National Treasury Secretary for his campaign and that's what she wanted when he became President. Although, she also admitted, she hadn't thought of it at first because she was working 7 days a week with the campaign. Her brother Pat told her she has to pick now because if she waited until Reagan was in office, it would be too late, and someone else would have moved in on the job. So she got what she wanted, and then felt overwhelmed. At first, she said she kept her mouth closed and let the powers that be talk and talk. She did not want to reveal her ignorance. But she knew the time would come that she had to speak up and know what she was talking about. Her brother again advised her. "Read the back of the Wall Street Journal until you understand exactly what it is saying." She studied it, did her homework, and became a leader in her position.
She also knew she had to be strong and not afraid to state her positions. She said, "If you feel afraid to say what is in your heart, you are not ready to be a leader."
She expressed the fact that being strong in debate is a process. Once you have centered on your opinion and where you stand, when someone else's argument throws you a curve, learn from it. Gather together people who agree with you, and find out their arguments. Learn many different points of view that will strengthen you stance. And always speak from you heart. This is how you become a leader.

Get Your Kicks on Route 66

Fifteen years ago Hubby, Sonny boy and I just got back from a 3 week road trip from Boston, Mass. back to our home sweet home in Lakewood, CA. We had spent almost a year living in a tiny town in Massachusetts, where Hubby had taken a temporary job to build an addition to a hospital. The year was remarkable in many ways, and the three week trip across the fruited plain was the cherry on top.
Since we had spent three days in NYC earlier in the year, we bypassed The Big Apple to see Washington, DC. I could visit that place once a year. I have been there only 3 times, but it is on the list. With the first visit, I became a patriot. For someone who had no brain time for history, the monuments, The White House and the Smithsonian planted a seed of deep respect for this country and what we have accomplished.
The reason I bring this all up is because for the last 2 months I have been addicted to taking our old video tapes and converting them to DVD format. I bought gosh- darn- left -over- at- Circuit City- going- out -of- business- Sony Movie Maker and painstakingly taught myself how to use it. It was hard, and I still don't understand certain techniques, so my time is doubled and tripled because of making mistakes, not knowing how to fix them and then finally figuring it all out the hard way. It's all worth it, because I have, with music and blends and video effects, made a permanent record of our 3,000 mile tourist/heart/history/attraction. Our stops included Gaitlinburg, TN, The Smokey Mountains, Nashville, Hot Springs, AR, the grassy knoll, and Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico.
When Hubby came home the other night, we watched it twice. It's on now.
I haven't changed a bit.

Intentional Chocolate

After a few days of being lazy and dubious about what to write, I just heard a news snippet that got my blog juices flowing once again. Intentional Chocolate! Yeah. I figure all chocolate is intentional, but no no. This is a new product that has Buddhist chanting embedded into the chocolate. AUMmmm, although, that is probably a Hindu chanting sound.
There was a blind taste test and 67% of the people who ate the Intentional Chocolate felt better than the people who ate the plain old chocolate. Any chocolate in our household makes us feel better because we call it Medicine. When Sonny Boy was little and feeling under the weather and I would ask him what he wanted, he would say "Medicine," in a slow, dragged out voice that told me he was actually on the mend, but in need of a bit of a sweetie.
Chocolate. Kisses, bars, truffles, chocolate covered nuts, raisins, pretzels, coffee beans, ice cream, French Silk pie, tiramisu, chocolate cheesecake. When desperate, chocolate chips out of the bag without the cookie. I love the description from the truffle recipe I use, "a directly intense chocolate experience." Sadly, Hubby thinks it's a sacrilege to add it to his mother's family banana bread recipe. Sonny Boy and I disagree.
So, how would chanting of a religious nature improve chocolate? In my previous experience with eastern metaphysical philosophy, it is said that food takes on the vibes of the person preparing it. In turn, the people eating the food, take those vibes into their bodies. I remember this about 75% of the time I'm making dinner, but during the holidays, I have no idea what I'm thinking and what the vibes I'm putting into the food, except maybe PANIC!
I must go back to my meditation roots and give the food I'm preparing loving, happy vibes. As the Beach Boys said, "I'm picking up good vibrations, she's giving me expectations...ooooooo ah ah ah ah." In the spiritual world, just the bat of an eyelash sends electrical disturbances into the ether. Maybe even in the scientific world, hence the "Butterfly Effect?" Saw the movie. It was like watching a car accident at first, but then got really interesting.
Anyway, back to heavenly vibed chocolate. So, chocolate as prepared with sugar, is smooth and rich and deep and satisfying. With an added Tibetan chant, would it feel as if our mouths became a holy place, a deeply silent temple of unity? Will our auras brighten for those minutes that the chocolate delights our palettes, enters our stomachs, becomes digested, melds its chemicals into our bloodstreams? If we all ate Intentional Chocolate at a party, would we all become giddy and gorgeous and love one another like a Woodstock Reunion? Or would it be more like a church service where we politely nod our heads with our new found chocolaty peace?
Must find Intentional Chocolate. Medicine.