Back for Black Friday

MUSINGS FROM JOAN

I’m back. A month and a few weeks older and not much wiser. Please note, I’ve gone “green” in my decorative efforts. . .but back to my “Musings”

Dateline: Charlotte, NC, the morning after Thanksgiving. It’s Black Friday!
5am weather report: Snow in the mountains, 37 degrees in the city

In eight decades I have managed to ignore this ridiculous day, but grandson Adam’s wife, Amy, has convinced Andrea and me to accompany her to the Mall which opens at 6am. Thank God she doesn’t want to go to Best Buy. . that opened at midnite and people have been lining up for hours out in the cold

Adam’s posting on his Facebook page last evening is worth quoting: “ I think my wife, my mother and my grandmother have been smoking some really good sh*t while I was out of the room, because they are planning to be at the Mall at 6 in the morning.”

Actually, we didn’t get there until 6:30. I am wearing three layers of clothing and wondering how I got talked into this..You have to understand. . I’m a catalog shopper and rarely go to a mall. Even my sister, the professional shopper in the family, would think this was nuts. Amy, if you ever wondered whether we love you, now you know for sure.

A big shout-out to Andrea’s sainted friend Sandy who invites us to park our car at her house and then drives us right up to Macy’s front door to avoid having to find a parking space. Got to admit, the bargains were pretty damned good, especially when Amy and I found out we got an extra 11% off for being “foreigners” from Florida. You had to be a mathematician to figure out all your discounts, including the coupons that Andrea had printed out for us the night before.

I won’t bore you with the details but I can tell you we made our way from one end of the mall to the other, stopping only for sustenance in the form of cinnamon & sugar pretzel sticks at a handy kiosk. One needs a sugar high to keep expending that much energy that early in the morning. Andrea whined a lot about finding herself constantly in the “petite” section of every store. . .that’s what you get for shopping with your height challenged mother and not exactly towering daughter-in-law.

We emerged from the mall 4 hours later to gratefully accept Sandy’s ride back to our car. Today’s photo was taken outside her house before we headed for home and Adam who was watching his 104th football game of the weekend and barely acknowledged our arrival.

It was definitely an experience. The crowds at this mall were not as bad as we expected. . . . only a scattering of dazed looking husbands, with the longest line in front of the Apple store where obviously they were giving huge discounts.

It was a wonderful weekend, just being with the kids. I’ll go shopping with you at 6am anytime Amy. . .just give me a head start to put on a full face of makeup and several layers of clothing. I may be 80, but I’m still game.

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Photo caption: Three generations survive Black Friday!

MUSING #35

It’s happened, folks. Early this morning, a few minutes after midnight, on October 19th, I officially hit the Big 80!

I don’t feel a day older, in fact, I feel great.

This has been an unbelievable weekend, full of love, laughs and lots of family and good friends. Actually, it all started more than a week ago when my daughter Andrea arrived to celebrate her 40th high school reunion. That started the trip down memory lane that extended right through this morning when I delivered my friend Judy to the airport for her return trip to Connecticut. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

Andrea and I kept reconnecting with different periods in our lives. Hers started with her two day high school reunion, meeting up with people she actually hadn’t seen in 40 years. According to her old friend, Paul Goeld, she rated in the “Top Five” of all the female returnees. Three women, two of whom she didn’t remember, informed her she had been “mean to them in high school because she never talked to them,” and five graying and balding men confessed to having mad crushes on her in those years. Andrea protested to the women that she was not mean and her aloofness was because she was very shy. A likely story. As for the men. . you’ll have to ask her.

On Tuesday evening Benard, Andrea and I gathered at the bar in my apartment to practice making my favorite drink, the Sour Apple Martini. I was determined to serve
them at the cocktail party we were throwing for a few hundred of Andrea’s and Adam’s old friends on Friday evening. Since Benard was to be the designated bartender at the party, we felt it was necessary to perfect the recipe before springing the concoction on our guests. It took three separate batches to get the drink exactly right after which three very bombed “tasters” went their separate ways: Andrea immediately fell asleep. Benard went to his condo board meeting and doesn’t remember what he voted on, and I have no recollection of what I did. I believe it was the stems on the maraschino cherries that did us in.

Friday afternoon, Adam and Amy arrived from Jacksonville with great-grand-dog Layla. Grove Isle doesn’t allow dogs over 25 lbs on the island and Layla, while svelte and girlish, is definitely pushing the envelope in that department. Fortunately, on my "approved list " of non-terrorist types in the gatehouse computer, Layla Anker - small dog, is listed right under Adam and Amy Anker. When Adam patiently pointed this out to the guard at the gate, who initially refused them admittance, they were whisked through without further ado. The good news is that the only person the guard could complain to about her obvious non-small size was the condo’s head of security. . .who just happens to be Benard. Also arriving on Friday afternoon, my very special friend Judy, who has celebrated birthdays with me since we met at the age of six.

Friday night’s cocktail party was a total hoot and I don’t mind telling you that the Sour Apple Martini’s were such a giant hit that Benard had to eventually post a “sold out” sign when we ran out of Pucker, the stuff that makes them green. Adam reconnected with his friend Andy from high school days. Amongst the throng of guests was one delicious six month old baby, courtesy of the Forman family, one adorable four year old great-grand niece courtesy of parents Ana and Craig, one very well behaved, slightly overwhelmed dog and two dumbfounded cats who never came out of the closet, not to mention approximately 25 others including Amy’s parents, Al and Robyn, who drove down from Fort Lauderdale. Everyone talked like crazy, drank and ate up a storm until late in the evening. The vibe was excellent.

Saturday dawned and late morning we assembled out by the Grove Isle waterfront for the family photo shoot, with Benard wielding the camera and Judy in charge of Layla (when she wasn't in the pictures). When the 90 degree heat proved impossible, we retired to our building lobby and finished up the shoot there. Good results! See photos above.

OK. It’s Saturday evening and time for "Queen For A Day" to have her moment. And what a moment it was. Hosted by Benard, Andrea, Adam and Amy, and held in a private room at a wonderful restaurant in downtown Miami called “Dolores But You Can Call Me Lolita”, we were 24 in number and it was a spectacular evening. . .first lots of drinks and tapas, then a sit down dinner. Andrea acted as MC with Amy and Adam joining her to note my penchant for writing poems for every family occasion, and turning the tables by writing an “ode” to me. It was hilarious and I loved every second.

After the main course it was Benard’s turn to toast (or roast?), I’m not sure exactly which. He was equally terrific, noting at one point my insistence during the early years of our relationship that he learn to love pro football and particularly the Miami Dolphins. When I patiently tried to explain what a tight end was, he thought I was talking dirty. He also noted we will be celebrating 15 years together on November 2nd. Wow! Time flies when you are having fun.

OK, enough. Thanks, everyone, for your good wishes and great comments. This is the last of the blogs under this heading. I can’t believe I started this more than 6 months ago when I really was 79 ½. Don’t give up on me. . .I’ll probably be back. . it’s been great fun.
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Photo captions: One of the family photos. / The birthday girl with her tiara and wand, a gift from the Sandstroms.

MUSINGS BY JOAN #34

Volunteering has its ups and downs. Mostly it is very satisfactory, but sometimes it leaves you shaking your head in wonderment. I had one of those days on Saturday.

Both the 'significant other' and I have been guiding at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens on Friday afternoons for many years. We both love this fabulous 100 year old home that belonged to industrialist James Deering and sits on Biscayne Bay just a few blocks north of where we live. Like most guides, we pride ourselves on knowing the contents of the home extremely well and love to tell all the wonderful stories about life at the mansion in the early 1900s.

But back to my experience on Saturday. Earlier in the week an e-mail had arrived from a member of Vizcaya’s staff, desperate for a volunteer to lead a reserved tour on Saturday morning at 11am. “Reserved tours”, we are taught, mean the group has paid in advance and usually gets preferred treatment.

Benard was out of town and since I had nothing special planned, I volunteered to take the tour. On Friday, when I was at Vizcaya for my regular tour, I ran up to the administrative offices to find out something about the Saturday group so I could be fully prepared. Not so easy. No one had any information other than the unpronounceable name of the group which seemed to be very French and had something to do with a saint. I worriedly mentioned that I don’t speak French, and was assured that they would have a translator with them.

Saturday morning I showed up several minutes early to read up on any thing of French provenance in the house, with emphasis on any items that smacked of Louis XV. Primed to impress with all my wonderful francophile knowledge, I felt reasonably sure I was good to go despite any language barrier. Promptly at 11am the guard at the front entrance informed me my tour had arrived and were on their way in. I muttered “Bonjeur, mesdames et monsieurs” a few times under my breath, the absolute limit of my French, and walked out to the entrance foyer to greet the group which I envisioned had just arrived from Paris via Air France.

Actually, they hadn’t come from quite that far. What they had done was come by bus from the area in Miami known as Little Haiti, about ten miles north of Vizcaya, and they were a group of 21 middle aged-to-senior citizen ladies and one or two gentlemen, all dressed in their Sunday-go-to-church best. They only spoke Creole, the language of Haiti, with a severely limited knowledge of English, and there was no translator. I had a feeling I was in deep trouble.

Forty five minutes later, I was exhausted and strangely exhilarated. I didn’t understand them very well and they certainly didn’t really understand me, but they were having a wonderful time. I found that if I spoke very slowly, did a lot of pointing, and enunciated like mad, about half of them could follow along. The rest just looked around in awe as we marched through the house. For some ungodly reason, one little lady sidled up to me at one point and asked me in pigeon English, "Meester. . .he Jewish?". I’m not sure what she saw in the house that made her ask that, but I stifled a giggle and responded that he was a good Presbyterian, of impeccable Scotch/English ancestry. I could literally hear Mr. D. turning over in his grave at that question.

Bottom line, it was a learning experience for all of us. Haitian refugees all, now living and working in Miami, they were on a wonderful church outing to an absolutely beautiful waterfront mansion unlike anything any of them had ever experienced before. I found myself wanting desperately to make the visit memorable for them, and hopefully I did.

As I said goodbye to the group at the end of the tour, the woman who seemed to have the best command of the English language stepped forward, smiled at me, and said in a soft but clear voice, “Lovely presentation.”

I’ve never had a better compliment in all my years of guiding.
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Photo caption: Magnificent Vizcaya, circa 1916

MUSINGS BY JOAN #33

No, I wasn’t at DisneyWorld with Donald & Daisy, but it was a magical morning! I was actually volunteering with Hands On Miami this morning and my job was to help paint an outdoor mural on the grounds of the Robert King High government housing for senior citizens.

Who knew that the event was co-sponsored by Disney and would turn into an incredible mix of literally hundreds of very youthful volunteers who were there to clean up the riverfront and plant a vegetable garden? Also on hand: a slew of uber-efficient black T-shirted Disney organizers, several bands playing loud Latin music, huge bunches of colored balloons, paparazzi galore to capture the moment as Dade County Mayor, Carlos Alvarez welcomed Disney and the volunteers, and TV crews from both Spanish language and regular morning news shows. The popular Spanish morning show, “Despierta America” actually filmed their entire morning segment on the grounds overlooking the Miami River.

I went with a friend from my art class, Patt Soto, who whispered to me at one point, “I think we’re the oldest volunteers here.” Patt is all of 61. Duh.

I believe the moment she noted that fact was when all the volunteers were asked to put on their Mickey Mouse ears, jump up and down and wave wildly to the TV cameras. Did I mention that the temperature was in the 90’s by this time and we were standing out in full sunlight? Yes, we waved. No, I didn’t jump up and down. Give me a break, guys.

The ears came in a very nice black canvas tote bag packed with all kinds of goodies that was handed to each volunteer as we entered the area at 7am. (We left the house at 6:30 in the pitch dark.) The bag contained among other things a bright turquoise T-shirt we were asked to wear while we worked, the black cap (yarmulke?) with giant ears, and a baseball mitt sized white glove with four fingers ala Mickey himself. I think it will go well with the outfit I am planning to wear to my 80th birthday dinner party.

Patt was a better sport than I. She wore her ears all morning as she painted. I graciously donated mine, as soon as possible, to Lexi, the little daughter of Serge Toussaint, the Haitian-born artist who created our mural. Serge had painted the outlines for two murals of sea scenes on free standing concrete block walls and we were to apply the color under his direction. As Patt put it, I was the good guy splashing on white paint. . .she was the bad guy, following up with black. I soon graduated to purple for the big fish’s gorgeous serrated fin. Please note the beauty of my art work in the accompanying photo.

About 15 of us painted without stopping from 8 to 10:30 when Serge pronounced the murals complete. It was a learning experience and great fun, not to mention the satisfaction of knowing that you have contributed something to your community.

I loved every minute of it, even if I was the oldest volunteer there. If you come to Miami I’ll be glad to run you over to admire our work.
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Photo captions: Daisy, Donald , Patt & Joan with artist Serge Toussaint.
The volunteer artist at work

MUSINGS FROM JOAN #32


Frank Bruni, the former N.Y. Times restaurant critic, wrote a fascinating article on the Huffington Post today about “memoirs and memories”. Basically he wrote about how selective our memories are, and how sometimes we discuss something that we remember so vividly with someone who shared the moment, and we find that they remember it totally differently. Other times, someone will talk about an important memory and you will have absolutely no recollection of the event..

This happens frequently with my sister and me. Sometimes I wonder how we grew up in the same household and remember things so differently. My favorite memory difference is the question of who was our father’s favorite. I know it was me. She insists it was her. I guess that was his genius as a father, we both are positive that our memory is the correct one..

I had a long time friend, we grew up together from the age of 12, who stopped talking to me several years ago because of an incident that she claims occurred that obviously pissed her off big time. I have absolutely no recollection of the incident which apparently involves my leaving her dinner party early to watch a Dolphin playoff game, The fact that I didn’t remember anything about it, made her even madder, and she still isn’t talking to me. My feeling to this day is that Dolphin playoff games don’t happen that often. You have to have priorities..

My daughter Andrea and I sometimes remember things differently. Just the other day she told me she remembers walking our dog Eloise with her father and on returning home seeing flames shooting out the kitchen window. I admit that I burned down two kitchen stoves during that marriage,. . once I decided to take a shower and apparently neglected to return, the other time I was entertaining guests in the living room and got carried away with the conversation. . . but the stove was nowhere near the window and besides the kitchen was in the back of the house and couldn’t be seen from the street. She is adamant about her memory and I’m too unfamilar with stoves of any kind these days to argue. Speaking of memories, I lost the instruction book on the convection oven here in my condo and can't remember how to turn it on. ( OK, Andrea. . so I've never turned it on. . .I can remember that.)

It’s nice to have one friend who shared your growing up years and does remember important times and places exactly as you do. Judy and I walked to school together every day of our high school years, we lived in the same apartment house, and we can still remember vividly what we wore on what important date, where we went and what we did. We borrowed each other’s clothes, giggled a lot, majored in boys and were not exactly deep. I learned to drink straight shots of rye followed by ginger ale and used to sneak out my bedroom window after my parents went to sleep. Luckily we lived on the first floor. At sixteen, it’s hard to imagine you would someday turn 8o. Actually, it’s pretty hard to imagine at 79 and 11/12ths. Judy reached that milestone in May. I love her attitude about it. . .she’s still not sure whether she’s going to accept the number.

I’m not sure either. I’ll let you know in 27 days.
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Photo caption: Memories of a great stone crab dinner. I may not cook, but I sure can serve!

*Haiku - According to Google: a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 moras (I think that means syllables), in three metrical phrases of 5, 7, and 5 moras respectively. (Don't count mine. . I'm a little off, moras-wise.)









MUSINGS BY JOAN #31

I have never written a haiku* in my life, but I was moved to write one in honor of last Friday night’s dinner. I’m not sure if haikus are allowed to have titles, but mine does. My apologies to any haiku purists in the group.

THE SAGA OF BENARD’S
BOEUF ALA BOURGUIGNONNE

Julia’s recipe
Three hours on feet in kitchen
Beef stew

We never should have gone to see that movie. Ever since, Chef Benardo, aka the significant other, has been determined to make this very fancy dish whose recipe actually takes four pages in Julia Child’s “Art of French Cooking”. I admit the results were totally delicious. It’s the first beef stew I ever ate that could give you a buzz due to the entire bottle of Merlot wine that went into the pot along with the longest list of ingredients you can possibly imagine, including a few items I never heard of before.

The recipe requirements for this “simple but delicious French dish” ( can’t you just hear Julia warbling that sentence?) are so extensive that Benard decided to make it the day before the scheduled dinner party. It was a good thing he did. He was so exhausted when it was finally done that he was forced to take a long nap immediately afterward.

For the actual dinner, he donned his authentic white chef’s jacket with his name embroidered over the pocket. It was a gift some time back from our friend Pamela and the dinner party was in honor of her birthday. I grabbed my camera to memorialize the moment as he ceremoniously tasted his simmering culinary creation. I’m pretty sure he’s not planning to make it again. Not in this lifetime, at least.

For the foodies out there, we started out with champagne and crudités before moving to the dining table where Chef Benardo served his triumph accompanied by buttered noodles and fresh asparagus. Does anyone know how to say yummy in French???

I set the table, of course. The napkins looked truly elegant. I’ll send you my recipe if you’re interested.
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Photo caption: Chef Benardo taste-testing his Boeuf ala Bourguignonne.

MUSINGS BY JOAN #30

In this morning’s Miami Herald there is a full page article about a rescue cat named Nora who is making a fortune for her owners by playing the piano. According to the article, she plays in perfect rhythm and on key. (This is a cat we’re talking about folks.)

Nora has several million hits on her website where she can be seen in various videos playing away with both paws and keeping perfect time. She has done the talk (meow?) show circuit, has a fast selling line of T-shirts, gets endless requests for her "pawtograph", and has had a “Catcerto” written especially for her by a famous Lithuanian conductor (I am not making this up) by the name of Mindaugus Piecaitus. When the Maestro premiered his epic work with the Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra in June, Nora performed her solo purrfectly, and was seen via a full size video screen set up in the concert hall.

I bring this to your attention not because I wish to further publicize Nora and her astounding musical ability, but to complain bitterly about my two totally useless cats who are sleeping on my desk as I write. After reading the article in bed this morning, I actually had a long chat with Wasabi on the subject of any latent talent on his part. He licked my nose twice and went back to sleep. I don’t think there is much of a market on You Tube for that sort of work.

Ginger, my girl cat, is a lost cause talent-wise. She couldn’t sit still long enough to play a chorus of Chop Sticks, much less allow anyone to video her doing it. Besides, which, I don’t own a piano at the moment so the whole project is out of the question. It never occurred to me to ask the Stray Aid people three years ago whether they had any rescue cats with musical talent. Or any talent at all for that matter, other than sleeping. I don’t think the fact that Wasabi is a notoriously picky eater has any potential either. Moneymaking? Hell no. If anything, they cost money. I’ll know better next time.

Obviously, there are people out there raking in the money by figuring out how to work the internet to their benefit. I just haven’t figured out how as yet, or who exactly my market would be. There seems to be a limit to how many almost-80-year-olds are sitting at their computers playing video games and thinking up Face Book pages that might go viral within 24 hours. Actually, most of the people I know who heard the word viral would ask the doctor for an antibiotic and take to bed. (In all fairness, I must admit that my sister and I play Farkle on line regularly. That’s Facebook’s highly addictive video dice game, if you're not a player. Currently, she’s beating me, but don’t count me out.)

If anybody has any great ideas, I’m open to suggestions. Be glad to cut you into the profits, or better still, I’ll send you one of my do-nothing kitties. Maybe you can teach them how to play for pay!

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Photo caption: Nora, ready for her next solo. Check out her technique.