It's complicated

Kent says he doesn't know all the rules, he just knows that I have rules. So for your amusement, here are a few of the Rules According to Elizabeth:

• Coffee is meant to be drunk only in the morning and only before brushing your teeth.
• Peppermint ice cream is the best ice cream flavor in the universe.
• Breakfast can be served for dinner; the reverse is not true.
• Toast and bacon should be nearly burnt.
• Fruit should almost always be eaten raw; the exceptions can be counted on one hand.
• Also fruit and chocolate are an unnatural pairing—both are great separately but combining them brings ruin.
• Brussel sprouts are disgusting in any form.
• Always clean from the top down.
• Toilet paper should be pulled from under the roll, not over the top—this is so you use less of it. Not that we do this since we have a cat who destroys the roll no matter how it’s hung. We keep ours in a storage canister by the toilet.
• Dust after vacuuming.
• Meat is a condiment and not a major portion of the meal.
• Dogs are good but cats are much, much better.
• I can’t eat restaurant pizza now, thanks to Kent. His pizza trumps any other pizza in the world.
• Steel-cut oats makes for a perfect breakfast; just add a little brown sugar and enjoy.
• Most comedies are stupid.
• Chick flicks are too.
• The book version of something is almost always better than the movie. The only exception I can think of—and it wasn’t better although it was as good—was Name of the Rose.
• And because of the books and movies rule, I rarely watch movies.

Hawaii, Youth Challenge version

<----This picture is what most people think of when they think about Hawaii. And yes, I did see this part of Hawaii when I came down the mountain each day to my hotel.







But this video is the Hawaii I see at work. The site is located up a mountain at just over 5,000 feet elevation, and used to be a correctional facility. The Youth Challenge program is scheduled to open in January, which is why I've gone there twice and have two or three more trips planned.

I think I was missed

I have Wally sitting on my desk with his face up against the exhaust fan of my laptop (he likes the warm air blowing on him). Eddie is pretending to be a monorail cat looking something like this across the top of my chair. And Chloe is milling around at my feet.

It’s good to be home. It would be even better if Kent were here too but he’s in Detroit this week and some of next week also. Then I leave for Hawaii. Rotten timing, huh. But this beats unemployment by a long shot.

Edited to add that last night when I went to bed, I got swarmed and then Eddie insisted on getting under the covers with me. He does this by yelling (there's no other way to describe it) and head butting. Then he snuggled me. There's something very comforting about a warm kitty body pressed up against you purring away. At least it is to me; I know others who would be horrified at the thought of a cat under the covers. Your loss!

Stories

I’m not sure that I can write well enough to say what I want to say without this devolving into something maudlin and sentimental. If it goes there, please pretend it didn't happen because that’s not my intent at all.

People tell me things. Kent says he’s never seen anyone get strangers to talk about themselves the way I do. I don’t agree with him that I have a particular talent in this area although I do make connections with people and they do tell me things. Everyone has a story and almost everyone wants to tell their stories. Mostly I like making those connections because I’ve talked with a lot of exceptionally interesting people. Conversation like that makes flying go by faster.

Yesterday was one of the rare times I sort of wished I hadn’t started a conversation—although as I think back, I’m pretty sure he would have said what he did anyway. On the flight from Minneapolis to Boston, I got the first class upgrade which was perfect timing for me. It’s a lot easier to sleep in first class than in coach. I think the man in 1C also got an upgrade because he came up from coach. I asked him if he lived in the Minneapolis area (he did), and asked what was taking him to Boston. Business, he said, although it was going to be a very short trip. In fact he was returning on Monday, because he needed to go see his son in the burn unit.

Turns out his son is in the burn unit because he’d gotten notice that the bank was foreclosing on his house. The dad said he flipped out and threw himself onto a fire in the back yard. It took four male fire fighters to pull him off.

I know from personal experience that this recession is really bad and affecting a lot of people. Kent and I have both had long periods of unemployment, I have friends who also need jobs, and my younger son had to sell his house in the Detroit area as a short sale which meant he lost everything he’d put down on the house and also lost money on the improvements they made. But I haven’t talked with someone who has been so affected by the recession in the way this man’s son has. And to make things even more horrible, his other son is also losing a house to foreclosure.

Who knows how or why both sons face financial disasters. All I know is that yesterday I sat next to someone who needed to tell his story. The least I could do was listen.

My favorite things and other observations

Here’s a random list of things I miss when I’m gone:

• Kent (this is a no brainer but true nevertheless)
• Eddie sitting on the back of the toilet trying to swat the water as I brush my teeth or wash my face
• Wally chirp-meowing at me in the middle of the night so I’ll roll over on my left side so he can flop on me (the right side doesn’t work for him)
• Our coffee in the morning—Via beats the crap in the hotel rooms but I do prefer to have fresh-brewed stuff in the AM
• Our shower
• Our bed—even though it’s a cheap mattress and topper from Ikea, it’s really comfy
• Taking my lunch to work—we’re good cooks and I like what we make

Weird and/or interesting things I saw on this trip:

• Saw a man with a whole lot of ink, which isn’t unusual. But the tattoo at the base of his neck sure was: it was a very pink lipstick kiss mark.
• Sat near three burly construction guys carrying three enormous boxes of fresh bread from Hilo to Honolulu—plus they had several bags of chocolate
• Got introduced as the only white person in a meeting while in Hilo (it’s true, I was, everyone else was of mostly Hawaiian or Guam or Philippino descent)
• Watched the feral kitties hunt in the exposed rocks at low tide around 4 AM the first day
• Heard a 35-ish year old man call his wife “mommy” (yes they had two children but EW) (apologies if you call your spouse "mommy" or "daddy")

The perch

Our cat perch has three levels; the bottom level is a tube that runs horizontally and the cats do use it when they are in the mood to zoom. Then there's a larger tray for the second level and a smaller tray on top. The top tray is usually, but not always, Wally's domain.

Last night Chloe did something she rarely does: she got on the perch. That triggered Eddie's bullying instinct (and yes this cat can be a bully). Here's what happened.

My mother will be so proud

Last night Kent and I celebrated our anniversary by having dinner at Tremont 647. We opted for the Chef’s Tastings (five course) with the wine pairing. As Kent said, there was remarkable freedom in not deciding what we were going to eat or drink. All we had to do was inform the chef of any allergies. Given my recent throat closing experience with shrimp and my previous, known, issues with scallops, shellfish aren’t in my diet anymore. Otherwise we didn’t put any restrictions on what we were served.

My mother (and to be honest, my husband) will tell you I’m a picky eater. It’s true, I’ll own that label, although I do my best not to inflict my pickiness on anyone else. So I put a lot of trust in the chef's selections and to be honest, I wondered if I would regret it.

I’m pleased to say I ate—and liked—almost everything we were served. I gently pushed the braised spinach with garlic aside (I cannot abide spinach in any form or at any stage in the growing process). I also gave Kent all the bananas in the banana cream pie—I grudgingly eat bananas but they have to have a fair amount of green on each end and not taste like bananas. Honestly the only reason I do eat them is because they are a cheap, readily available source of potassium. Otherwise I find them vile and can’t understand why anyone would eat them or put them in banana bread.

Anyway.

The best part of the meal, aside from being with Kent (and I mean that so don’t roll your eyes), was the wine pairings. We are not particularly good at pairing wine with food; we tend to drink big, bold reds with everything even after reading Food & Wine for years. The pairings worked for me for all five courses although Kent didn’t think the port with the banana cream pie worked. It’s probably because he actually ate those bananas, silly man.