The perfect food

Would you look at that! I'm blogging about food again!

~ Soft squishy texture but not chewy
~ blendable in smoothies
~ Great source of protein (it's just darn healthy)
~ Mild refreshing taste
~ Great barbecued
~ Goes well with practically anything
~ Come in a wide variety of textures...
~ Slippery, silken, melt in your mouth... (for blending in smoothies or eating strait)
~ Or the firm variety ( for barbecue, finger-food, or in a salad)
~ The stares and odd looks people give you when you tell them your favorite food is...





(Are you ready for this?)






Tofu!


You just don't know what you're missing, Millie! :D

"Traditions, Traditions!"

Families are funny. Extended families are the bomb! My mom and my dad's side's of the family are so different from each other that it's a wonder that they could produce two people who fit so well together. I guess that's the great thing. You have a family of people who all fit together, each one is unique but they fit, and then they grow up and get married. My dad went off and found my mom. She fits perfectly with him but she's nothing like the rest of my dad's family. All of my dad's siblings did this. And there are eight of them. So this week, eight beautiful and unique families gathered at my grandparents house to celebrate the life of my grandma. It's been over ten years since all of them have been together. There was one cousin, one aunt (married in) and a few cousins-in-law missing but all grandma's children were there. It was an interesting and varied group, knit together by love. I looked around the room and I knew every one's name. A few people had to ask what my name was but that didn't matter. Everyone seemed relaxed. What ever happens for the rest of the year, however little we have in common otherwise, we still belong to each other. We have a few precious shared memories and they pull us together. When one person cries, it's hard not to cry with them.
There were tears in plenty. And though they hurt they were not a bad kind of tears. You can't bring up old wounds or inflict new ones at a funeral. You can only heal them. There was much grieving and much healing. And a healthy does of laughter and good times mixed in.
All the family traditions were present and accounted for. We gathered round the piano down stairs and had a wonderful time singing and playing. The sound of acoustic guitar and the voices of my uncles bring with them memories that I was not even aware of. I was humming along and singing when I knew the words and my sister leaned over and asked wonderingly "You know this song?" Well, I don't think I could tell you what it's called and I don't know all the words but the sounds form on my tongue and the notes are deep inside me, easily accessible, as music always is. It's the sound of a time that my younger sisters don't remember, when some of us lived closer together and came up to Omak more often. Suddenly I remember siting on the floor and listening. It's part of my childhood and I'll always have those songs in me.
Some of us cousins compared games we all played in Grandma and Dada's basement. It turns out everyone slid down the stairs on their backsides at one time or other. My sisters and I were the only ones who played Pooh Sticks at the bridge over the ditch in the orchard. So we shared that tradition with some of the other cousins and their children. How could you not play Pooh Sticks? It would be like not sliding down the stairs.
Every one had a camera or three. The boys all talked computers and cars. Every one brought something special and every one was there to truly BE with one another. I sat and eat and talked with cousins I had never spoken more than three words to before. A funeral forces you to remember that the chance to be together comes only rarely and lasts only a short time. Everyone wanted to be a family. The eight and more families meshed again into one big family.
I love funerals.

Grandma is proud.

WeBLOG!

They tell me it's supposed to be a "Web Log" and that got shortened to "Blog". That's so very american. "It's too long. Two syllables is too long and it's too descriptive. We need a shorter, sillier sounding word that makes no sense unless you know the story behind it. Then we can make up a whole new meaning for it and not follow any of those rules that set definitions give you." Yep.
Does that happen with other languages? It seems very typical of 'American' english.
So, a log of my web surfing today would be very boring but I don't have to follow any rules here. It's My blog after all. So I'm going to tell you about some sights I have book marked.

I stumbled on this sight because I wanted to know what a hawk cry sounds like. (I think I was describing it in a story and felt like a cheater cause I've never actually heard one. I feel bad when I can only take everyone else's word on what something is like. Purple mountains, for example. I would never use that description cause I had never seen a mountain look purple. Pink mountains I have seen, but not purple. I saw my first purple mountain this summer when we went hiking. Now I can use that in good conscience.) The Bird Guide let's you look up all sorts of birds and hear what they sound like and learn a bunch of other stuff about them too. My sisters spent about an hour on this the other day listening to all kinds of ducks. It's fun to explore.

And
The American Chesterton Society
This is a sight dedicated to my sisters fiance. Yes, she is aware that good old Gilbert is already married (not to mention dead.) Dana's a little odd. She just really admires his writing and we joke that she's going to marry him. He's also the creator of Fr. Brown; a shamefully unknown detective rivaled only by Sherlock Holmes. I'm a little bias I guess.
I really like This Essay he wrote too. What a guy.

There you go. You know, I actually got on here to type about something else. What was it? Now I'm too tired. It's late. Families. That was it. I was going to type about how cool it is to be inseparably connected (willingly or not) to a group of people, even if they live hundreds of miles away. I end up typing a lot about that, don't I. Almost every one has one so maybe it's not too boring since people can relate. But it's weird to type about your family when you never know which members of it are reading. *Waves to cousin Seth* Maybe tomorrow.

Lunch

Another unpublished bit of nonsense from this summer. I have cabin fever and refuse to post about it. What sort of egotistical person thinks every one wants to hear about their day and how annoying their little sisters are? But I have to post something! So I'm wasting your time with silly rants about my lunch and how annoying my little sisters are. Because there's a BIG difference. Enjoy.
~*~
I hate food. I'm one of those weird people who forget to eat lunch cause there are so many other things they would rather be doing. I don't like to eat. I was really hungry today. I only had one bowl of Rice Checks for breakfast. Rice Checks are like glue. If, as a child, you leave a milk saturated Rice Check on your chair over night, it will still be there when your kids eat their first Rice Check. It sticks to your teeth and becomes a natural (sort of) filling. There was a spoon that had a Rice Check stuck to it and it went through the dishwasher four times before some one finally got out a chisel and hammered the stupid breakfast cereal off. I only felt like eating one serving of glue this morning. By 11:30 I was starving. I guess it doesn't stick to your stomach very well. It's amazing how your refrigerator can be full of nothing to eat. With all the differing tastes in my family I have grown accustom to making compromises. I have three younger sisters who are picky and they are much more assertive than I am about food details. I pick my battles. I guess I'm picky too. But It's not that important to me whether my milk is 2% or non-fat. So i always loose the food battle. There is nothing to eat. Lots of food but nothing to eat. Mom is nagging me about how I need to pray for the grace to enjoy food enough to be creative about it. Maybe I will have a cheese sandwich. I ought to have something more than that. I need a vegetable. i don't get enough greens. We have pickles. Cheese and pickle sandwich. Oh look there are tomatoes on the counter. At this point my ten year old sister is yelling to mom that I've gone crazy.
"She's making herself a cheese and pickles sandwich!!"
Mom: "Maybe you should just have a tuna sandwich."
Yeah. It looks like I'm coming up with a tuna sandwich without the tuna. So much for being creative.
It took me forty minutes to make my sandwich. Five Minutes to make some sickeningly sweet strawberry kiwi juice. One minute to figure out that I don't like Strawberry kiwi juice and to add fizzy water and less than a minute to decide that the fizzy water was flat. Than I eat my sandwich and tried to enjoy it. It's just not worth the trouble. I guess if you spend enough time on it, you will be so hungry that you won't care what it tastes like.

"Happiness is having a sister."

Some people who have sisters will disagree with me, and the rest don't need to be told. Sisterhood is a very special bond. Of course there is a universal language of womanhood that men are always being bewildered by, but there is also a kind of communication that goes on between sisters and very close girl friends. A sister keeps track of things about you that your mother will forget. Next to God, no one knows me better than my sisters. A sister is the kind of friend who will eat your chocolate cake for you.
"And.... this is a GOOD thing?"
No really; that could really be a good thing if, like me, you don't like chocolate. So there.

In memory of...

On my seventh birthday a box was delivered to my house from Omak. I opened it and buried my face in the soft folds of hand stitched shapes and colors. The smell was what I wanted most. It was the smell of Grandma's house on the hill. Grandma made a quilt for every one of her children and grand children. I had one with bunnies on it when I was a baby and she even made me a little one for my doll. Now I had a full sized one for my bed. A big warm piece of grandma to snuggle under at night. I would bring the corner where she had neatly stitched her name and the date up to my face and lie against it and breath deeply. It was almost like being in Grandma's house.
Grandma and Dada's house was on a hill in the middle of an apple orchard. From her kitchen window you could see across the orchard to the great hills surrounding the Okanogan Valley. Standing on the deck at the back of the house the air was chill and breezy. Grandma would sit on the bench swing with a grand child on each side. There was a long cord tied to the deck railing behind the swing with a spool on the end. This Grandma would pull to make the swing rock gently. But she was more often to be found in the living room. She would sit on her rocking chair by the fire with Tonka the husky lying on his blanket. There were stories to read. Some little grandchild would crawl onto her lap bringing Uncle Remus tales. We loved to hear her read the story of Brer Rabit and the Tar Baby.
Gradma was a famous cook. She had diabetes. So she couldn't eat much sugar but she made fabulous cakes at birthdays and wonderful meals of every kind. "It is a great act of love to make a meal for some one which you yourself cannot eat." My uncle would remind us. It has been so long since I've tasted her cooking that I hardly know what it was like but I remember that it was good and I never worried too much about not liking things.
Grandma was proud and dignified. She moved with a slow grace and and kept her house with proud precision. She was an old school home maker. She and Dada had raised two girls and six boys together! One felt very cared for when you stayed with her.
Some years ago she moved to a nursing home. Alzheimer's could slow her down but it could not rob her of her dignity.
She died yesterday morning. After so much suffering it's finally finished. Just days after the feast of All Souls, she finished the race.

May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.

What are mothers for?

Mom found me. Okay, I told her my address. She's been wanting to know for a long time. She has not been nagging or anything. She knows that doesn't do much good. She just asks now and then what I'm writing and when I say I'm working on my blog she asks if she will ever get to read it. So I finally gave her my address.
(Hi, Mom! *waves*)

Then she sat down and e-mailed someone. She wouldn't tell me who. I suspect relatives, maybe the sisters at the Poor Claire Convent. Maybe I should add a link to their web sight. *waves* I don't mind really. It's only mildly annoying to have your parents brag about your blog as if it was incredibly profound and entertaining. The only thing is that now I don't know who's reading this. Mom could have sent it to anyone and his neighbor. I can't imagine that no one reads it anymore. This is more than mildly annoying. It's almost distressing.
Maybe I'll crawl back into my shell.
Maybe I should ask every one to sound off.
Actually, I don't really want to know who's reading this.
Maybe I should have made mom swear to secrecy.

*Sigh*

Hi every one. This is my blog. I hope it was worth your time clicking on the link.