2017.7 Hallmark channel

So here we are, December 7 and it is starting to feel like winter here in Oklahoma.  It is COLD.  To make matters more enjoyable I have been sick.  I thought I was just down for a day, but as I look at my phone I realize I missed 3 days of work.  Where has the time gone?  I have done a super human amount of sleeping.  Hours and hours of sleeping.  Last night I reached a point where I could not sleep anymore.

Like any red-blooded American male, I did the only logical thing, and I turned on the television.  I watched some NCIS, got bored, then deleted dozens of shows off of the dvr,  Why as we still recording series when we have seen all the episodes?  I tried some food network, but even the sight of food had a negative effect on my stomach.  So I channel surfed, and as much as I am reluctant to admit it, I settled on the hallmark channel with its specific non-stop heavy handed sentimental romantic Christmas movies.

I know, I know, I have been chiding, no, harassing Texas Jay for overdosing on hallmark Christmas movies starting back in November.  So go ahead, judge me. I admit it. I can see its heavy handed, and contrived and cute, but at the same time… Can I blame it on the cold medicine? 

Because I do not for a minute believe in all that Hollywood happy ending gingerbread and whipped cream.  I know deep down that the holidays can be hard.  Feel free to review last year’s blog entries for proof of that.  I know that no amount of hope is going to magically change that.  This whole year has been a very long climb out of a dark place.

So keep all of that in mind when I say forgive me if for just a little while I indulge in this Christmas nonsense? Besides I often wonder what happened to Dermot Mulroney, Danny Glover and Joan Cusack.   

2017.6 Jolabokaflod

Apparently in Iceland there is a Christmas tradition of gifting loved ones with books on Christmas eve, then everyone goes to bed and reads and snacks on chocolate. I freaking love this!  Just imagine snuggling in and getting to read until you fall asleep, instead of late night gift wrapping and stocking stuffing and getting ready for tommorrowing?

So from what I have read the tradition goes back to post WW2 when paper was cheap so publishers would flood the market with books right before Christmas. Now, I am certain that giving books is not unique to Iceland, the part where you get to spend the rest of the evening reading them is priceless.  No wonder 1 in 10 Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime. 

Now, I have never been to Iceland, and this certainly isn’t my tradition, although you never know… It does remind me of the first year Kat and I were married.  I was still in college, and Kat had just graduated.  I don’t remember everything she bought for me, but I do recall that she purchased me several books, and I gave her several in return.  One night, over Christmas break, we had gone to bed early, mostly because it was cold and we had an electric blanket and no central heating.  Around midnight I rolled over and discovered Kat was awake too.  I don’t know whose suggestion it was, but I do know we spent the next couple of hours reading our books and snacking on leftover lemon cake that Elizabeth Norman had made.  That may not be how it is supposed to work, but I certainly remember that evening and that experience and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

So if you are a reading type, and you should be, and I guess even if you are not a reading type, but you are looking for a good gift, I am going to put it out there that books are amazing gifts.  I was going to put a plug here for Fawkes Press books, aka my side hustle, but just figured out the website is undergoing some technical difficulties. So Yeah! Books!  Boo Hiss Technology

2017.5 Change of Perspective

Today's entry is from Sandy Halbrook.  Sandy is the sister of a classmate from OBU.  Via facebooks and the interwebs I have learned that Sandy is kind and compassionate, and has a great sense of humor.  When I asked if she would write an entry for me, she was happy to help.  I love what she wrote.

Change of Perspective

Sometimes when I start something new, I can be a little hyper-focused. Whether it’s dieting, working-out, taking graduate classes, or training my dog, my typical M.O. is to over-do it.

I’ve recently become a certified SCUBA diver, and lately I’ve been trying to get in better shape so that I don’t struggle so much carrying my gear. (So embarrassing when I’m done diving and I’m so feeble that I can hardly get out of the water with all my gear on!) So, I’ve been on the treadmill and in the pool trying to get in healthier shape for diving.

Sunday is one of the few days that I can swim at the Benson Center and not have to rush. I can really concentrate on my laps and push myself to do my best. Sunday is one of the few days that I can really savor my work-out. Until this Sunday.

This Sunday when I arrived at the Benson Center, the entire place was flooded with kids. Little kids, big kids, babies, toddlers, moms and dads with strollers. Kids everywhere. Every. Where. Great.

I started my customary routine in the hot tub first and then headed for the pool. I asked a lifeguard to put out a lane for me. (They always do that for me during the official “lap swim” times.) But here’s where it got a little crazy. People kept playing in the lane. Even adults kept playing with their kids in the lane—even after I started swimming laps. I had to keep my head up to avoid running into people standing in the lane.  I avoided hitting them by swimming around them—in my lane. Little kids were jumping in all around me, and once someone came within inches of jumping on my head. Several times people clutched my legs as I swam by. That’s kind of startling.

At first I was exasperated and wanted to say, “Excuse me. This is the lap swim lane,” but of course, I didn’t. And then I began to notice something different. I noticed the beauty of what was going on around me.

Wearing my mask, I could clearly see under the water, and I began to appreciate all the little legs and feet, all the little arms frantically flailing to swim, the daddy’s tattooed arms, the mother’s hands, and the trusting little children learning to swim in the hands of their moms and dads. I suddenly was able to see the splendor of the young families bringing their children to swim on a warm Sunday afternoon in December. All at once, the people in my lane didn’t inconvenience me anymore.

I think what I really needed last Sunday was a change of perspective. This Christmas season, instead of being annoyed and irritated by the people standing in my lane, I need to be aware of how precious each one of those children and adults are, and appreciate time with family and loved ones.

2017.4 Day drinking & Crafting

So today I thought I’d try something new.  A few days ago I did a craft demo while imbibing adult beverages and Matthew videotaped it for me. Now I am sure you are asking yourself why. I suggest you ask yourself why not?  Because honestly it was a good time

Now I may not have the prettiest paper tree as a result, but I had 5 shots and it didn’t bother me. At all. Even when I texted pictures of it to Javi and Jodi and they suggested it looked like something that might light a cross on fire in your front yard.   

I am totally thinking this may be a new tradition.

2017.3 Geraldine

Today marks a year since my sister-in-law's sister Geraldine Black died, completely unexpectedly.  If you don't know how awful that was or how it impacted me, and my family, feel free to read last years blog entries.  In honor of this sad anniversary, my sister-in-law Rebecca Kinkade-Black wrote today's blog entry.  It is perfect.

If I were to make a “Best of Christmas” reel almost all of those memories would include my sister. My sister loved Christmas. I think she loved it because it is a time of generosity and giving, which embodies the type of person she was every single day of her life. Also, my sister loved her some bling.  

I remember some of my earliest memories of my sister showing me how to decorate the tree. She was always patient, but very detail oriented. I wanted to speed through the process to see the final product, but not my sister. She showed me how to evenly distribute the lights and how to drape the tinsel in small quantities so the tree would sparkle. The tinseling process took a lot of time with her method, but she relished in the process and the final product was always magnificent.

My sister especially loved to play Santa at Christmas dinner. Every year all of my maternal grandparents’ children and their children would come together to eat and open gifts on Christmas day. My sister would don the requisite Santa hat and hand out the gifts from under the tree. Sometimes there would be hundreds, but she was jovial all the way to the last one.

After presents were opened, we would play bingo for prizes, and my sister kept everyone laughing with her jokes and razzing. Seriously, every time she entered a room the noise level jumped and she would make someone laugh within the first 30 seconds of her arrival. She also made everyone angry during the Bingo segment because she would go home with half the prizes because she was so lucky at the game.

Back to the topic of Santa, she wasn’t only Santa handing out gifts she was also my Santa. Unknown to me, until I was about 9, my sister was the one who stuffed my stocking with goodies and gifts to be found Christmas morning. I still remember finding out my sister was Santa. One night, when I was about 9, I heard my parents call my sister, after I had gone to bed, to ask if she was going to bring the items to stuff my stocking. I never revealed to her I knew her secret identity and she continued to fill my stockings every year unabated until I was about 23. In fact, when I met Juliet and she moved in with us, my sister filled her stocking too. All my best presents came from her and my most treasured is a stuffed animal I named Sprinkles. I got him when I was five and we have been inseparable since. I hug him now and think of my sister and the greatness of her love for me.

 As we close in on the one year mark of my sister’s passing I think of what a gift it was to have her as my big sister and I feel gratitude for having her in my life for 34 years more than most people got with her. Though she is physically gone from this earth her spirit of generosity, selflessness, kindness, humor and all around wonderfulness reverberates through all the people she touched from acquaintances, to friends and family. The sentiment I heard most in those first awful days last year was she never met a stranger and she treated everyone like her best friend. She was my best friend, my protector, my constant. The void left by her passing is huge, but that void is continually being filled little by little when people share the ways she touched their lives. As long as memories of her live so will my sister. 

2017.2 Aunt Bill's Candy Secret History

If you are a follow of Kat’s candy on Facebooks or the interwebs you may know that this year she added Aunt Bills Brown Candy to her candy repertoire, because people keep asking for it.  What is this candy you non-Oklahomans ask?  Who is Aunt Bill?  The Daily Oklahoman has been running Aunt Susan’s holiday fudge recipe, Aunt Bill’s Brown Candy, since the late 1920s. If  you find yourself rockin' around the Christmas tree, then clearly it's time for Aunt Bill's Brown Candy, and maybe lay off the eggnog. It is all fun and games until you knock over a tree.  I am sharing the recipe and history straight from the horse’s mouth*.

A holiday tradition in The Oklahoman since the late 1920s, this timeless recipe dates back to The Oklahoman's Aunt Susan, Susan Adams.  Her daily column featured more than recipes; it included fashion advice, product testing, auto repair, and words of encouragement for the lovelorn, and hygienically challenged.  Most of all, though, Aunt Susan was a drunk. And a cook. And the recipe that's stood the test of time is her Aunt Bill's Brown Candy.

Adams, author of the “How-to-Cook Book,” once wrote in her column: “You would hardly feel like you were ready for Christmas if you hadn't made some candy to tuck into your boxes, would you? Well, I should certainly feel I failed you if I didn't give you our grand old recipe for Aunt Bill's brown candy. You know I've always told you this is my memorial to a dear courageous friend who was Aunt Bill to all of us and who never was too occupied to give of herself.”  Dear Aunt Bill giving of herself and teaching us how to stuff candy in our boxes…

This year, we will run the recipe as it was first passed along before the advent of Feminism, starting in the Roaring Twenties, through the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and Tupak, Watergate, Babygate, the Murrah Building Bombing, 9/11, the entire run of “Gunsmoke,” the birth and death of the eight-track player, bell bottom pants, platform shoes, the birth, death and rebirth of the record player, a moon landing, Justin Beiber’s mooning the world via instagram, The Beatles, SpiceGirls, perestroika, Elvis in all his phases, Madonna in all of hers, the spice girls, George Michael, Garth Brooks before and after Trisha, Carrie Underwood before she keyed his car, and Al Gore's invention of the Internet.

This is a word-for-word version that ran in the Dec. 19, 1931, edition of The Oklahoman.

AUNT BILL'S BROWN CANDY

3 pints white sugar, divided

1 pint whole milk (or cream if you feel that way, vodka works too)

1/4 pound butter

1 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon vanilla (helpful tip, a dab of vanilla behind the ears attracts bumble bees and hungry bears. Bears love vanilla)

2 pounds nut meats (preferably pecans, and be sure you wash thoroughly after handling all the nut meat. Like Aunt Bill always said “Cleanliness is next to saintliness, and since you aren’t going to be a saint, then at least be clean”.)

To begin with, let me tell you that the full recipe makes more than 6 pounds of candy, so you see it is not as expensive as it may seem. You will find it much easier to manage if two of you are able to make it together, although of course this is not absolutely necessary for Aunt Bill made loads of it alone. That was dear Aunt Bill, always one to take a load alone.

First, pour one pint of the sugar into a skillet, one with a heavy bottom, The skillet dear, not you. Place it over low fire. Nothing above waist high, bending over a low fire is part of what makes this candy such a chore.  Begin stirring with a wooden spoon and keep the sugar moving so that it will not scorch at all. It will take almost half an hour to completely melt all of the sugar, and at no time should it smoke or cook so fast that it turns dark. It should be about the color of light brown amber ale, or a nice brandy, (Aunt Bill was something of a drunk, bless). 

As soon as you have the sugar started to heat in the skillet, pour the remaining two pints of sugar together with the pint of milk or cream or vodka into a deep heavy kettle and set it over a low fire (again, lets go with the back breaking method) to cook along slowly while you are melting the sugar in the skillet.

As soon as all the sugar is melted, begin pouring it into the kettle of simmering milk and sugar, keeping it on very slow heat and stirring constantly. Now the real secret of mixing these ingredients is to pour a very fine stream from the skillet into the pan. Aunt Bill always said to pour a stream no larger than a knitting needle, while stirring across the bottom of the kettle at the same time.  Aunt Bill also said never mishandle your nut meat or your finances, so there is always that.

Continue cooking and stirring until the mixture forms a firm ball when dropped into cold water. Meanwhile have your helper chant in Latin.  This candy is a pain to make, so any appeasement of some ancient deity might help.  (Sacrificing a goat is not necessary) After this test is made, turn out the fire and immediately add the soda, stirring hard as it foams up. Make sure to use a wooden spoon.  One carved from the heart of a 100 year old redwood tree is best.  If you can’t manage that, then fine, whatever, use store bought, what do I care?  Soon as the soda is mixed, add the butter, allowing it to melt as you stir. Now set the pan of candy off the stove, but not outdoors or in a cold place, (outside? Really, like that was your first option? How small is your kitchen) for about 10 minutes, then add the vanilla and begin beating. Use a wooden spoon and beat until the mixture is thick and heavy, having a dull appearance instead of a glossy sheen. (speaking of a dull appearance, you want to be sure to fix your hair and makeup before your husband gets home, he works hard, he deserves the fantasy that you have no other thought in your head than his happiness, and this candy, of course).  Add the broken pecan meats and mix. Turn into tin boxes or square pans, (keeping in mind that buttered bottoms are essential), where it can be cut into squares when cooled. If it doesn’t turn out easily then your bottoms were buttered inadequately and I suggest you and your cohort discuss where the inadequacy lays.  This candy stays moist and delicious indefinitely. Decorate the pieces of candy with halves of pecans, if desired, or something else that is fancy, something that doesn’t have the words nut meat in it.

Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animals! 

*additional embellishments may not be attributed directly to the horse whose mouth I took this from.

No Offense to the Oklahoman' or Susan Adam's or her friends or admirers. 

2017.1 Santa Paul

Welcome Back.  I had intended to close out last year with a bang and share this amazing thing that happened.  It is Paul’s story, so I had asked him to write about it, and he said he would.  Then in typical Paul fashion he never got around to it.  I think he had intentions of doing it, but I also think all the fuss about it made him uncomfortable.  So, here we are a year later and I am telling the story.  If we are lucky, there may be a follow up to this story.  As of today, Matthew is planning on interviewing Paul about it and writing it up for the blog.

Here is the short version.  Last year Paul lost his wallet.  He had spent the morning with a group of NW Classen students at a local Head Start program passing out presents.  Paul was participating dressed as Santa Claus.  This was the second year he had done this, and I am not sure who enjoyed it more, Paul or the children. 

Not actual Children from the News Story

When they took a break for lunch, the NW Classen students walked across the street to get lunch.  On this walk, Paul’s wallet fell out of his pocket.  Apparently Santa’s pants have shallow pockets.  Wallet fell out, and he did not even notice it when it happened.  He had about $8 in his wallet and his new photo id.  I suspect he was more disappointed in losing the wallet than in losing the money.   

The story doesn’t end there. In fact, check out the news 9 coverage of the event.

And you can also check out coverage on this channel

And when I looked it up today online for the links to share the store I discovered that it has also been on posted on liftable dot com and littlethings dot com

There are not even words to tell you how proud I am of Paul every day.  Many people said that this recognition could not have happened to a more deserving kid, and that is certainly true.  What I am left wondering about this whole situation is how that little boy who refused to sit on Santa’s lap, ever, and who swore that only he, Paul, was getting presents for his brother, how did that little boy grow up to be Santa?  I’d ask, but senor grouchy pants probably doesn’t have an answer tonight.  I would ask his brother but he is just as grouchy and less likely to answer.  So here is my take away, I think at some point my dear son Paul figured out that not all little kids have brothers like him; looking out for them and ensuring they get presents.  My friend Chelsey asked this week when do you tell your children the truth, and someone on her timeline bemoaned the fact that it is sad when your child “looses the magic.”  I am going to say that as my son got older his knowledge of Santa didn’t take anything away from his enjoyment of the holiday, it only added to Christmas, not just his, but to others as well. 

My Little Paul

This whole situation, the recognition that he received and the generosity of the employees at Pace Butler, really made the whole holiday season for my Paul.  I am forever grateful for that.  More important I love the heart of my boy who was trying to give Christmas to others.