Catching Up

Sorry for the long silence. My stupid keyboard broke, the little Bluetooth one that I use with my iPad Mini. A few keys still worked properly, but some did not work at all, and some would spit out completely different characters. I went onto some user forums to see if there was a way to fix it, and there was, but it did not work. Rats.

Sure, I could have borrowed Ted’s laptop, or written on our regular computer, but somehow it just never happened. I like writing on my iPad, but I can’t stand the stupid touchpad. When Christmas came around, I thought maybe I would get a new one as a gift. Nope. Then my birthday came around, and while I did NOT receive one, my lovely brother Richard gave me some spending money, to buy what I wanted. Having a birthday right after Christmas, money is a good gift, because a lot of things are on sale. I mentioned that one thing I planned to buy was a new keyboard for my iPad Mini. He said, “Oh, I have one lying around that you can have.” Fabulous! Of course, the problem with that is that you have to be patient and wait for it to arrive. Richard can sometimes be a bit absent minded about such things, so I worried it might take some nagging. It did not. Today’s mail included the keyboard, which I hooked up right away and wrote a ‘Thank You’ email. WHEW, what a relief.

So, what’s been going on with J? Well, baking day, Christmas, my birthday, and New Years came and went. Now it’s almost MLK day. I’ll give you little snippets of each big event.

Baking Day is our favorite holiday. Ted’s whole family gets together and we bake up a storm. No one eats much sugar anymore, but we like to give the treats as gifts to people who DO eat them. Ted made his famous Joan Lundon Rocky Road Fudge Bars, which are indeed yummy. They were gooyier this year than usual, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Maya made her favorite chocolate chip cookies. The trick is to slightly underbake them, so they stay soft.  I made two bar cookies. One was pecan bars, which is a shortbread crust and pecans, sort of like a very nutty, not too sweet, pecan pie. The other was a raspberry streusel bar cookie. I don’t like pecan pie, so I didn’t love that, but people who do, loved it. I loved the raspberry ones. So good. I bought three cute Christmas type ontainers and packed them up with cookies. One went to Stockton with me, to my Great Aunt Flo, who has a serious sweet tooth. One went to my friend Dana, who was on my meals on wheels route until very recently, when she moved into a retirement facility, as she is 93, and living alone was becoming too much for her. The last one went to my darling friend Neva, who also has a sweet tooth. I saw her for dinner, and she gave me a lovely orange handbag, in memory of my dad, as orange was his favorite color.

Christmas was hard. I was very sad about my dad. But there was still a lot of joy to be found. Christmas Eve morning, I was having bad dreams about him being gone, and I finally gave up and got up. Ted was on the early shift at work, so it didn’t disturb him. I went to Safeway at 6am and got most of what I needed for our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners. Then to Starbucks for some breakfast. Then to another grocery store, where apparently, people line up before they open, to get meat or fish for their holiday meals. I’ve been there on Christmas Eve and seen the long line of several hundred people before, but always later in the day. I didn’t know it started so early. The big draw around here for Christmas (or Christmas Eve) is Dungeness Crab, which is what I was after. I waited in the dark in front of the store along with maybe 50 other people unti they opened, and then I waited a bit longer inside, but I got my crab. It was not cheap, but it was delicious that night for dinner. I came home, and started on Mulder’s gift, which was home made peanut butter dog biscuits. He LOVED them.

Christmas Day I talked to my brother and his wife, my sisters, and my step mom. We spent the day at Ted’s parents’ house, and we had a lovely day.

New Years Eve is my birthday, and being a Sunday this year, Ted had to work the early morning shift at work. His schedule changes a lot, but he always works the early shift on Sundays. Maya and I got up and I walked the dog, then we went to breakfast. We got in an argument about her getting ready instead of making us late, which was not how I wanted to start the day. It wasn’t how she wanted to start the day either. My New Years Resolution is to try to avoid such things by communicating better about what and where we need to do and be, so we don’t have so many misunderstandings.

After that, we got dressed and went into San Francisco. We went to the Legion of Honor museum, to see an exhibit on Klimt and Rodin (hence the pictures, above), which we both really enjoyed. Then Ted was off work, and he came and picked us up…we went to one of my favorite San Francisco restaurants, The Cliff House, for lunch and a gorgeous view of the ocean. It was great.

New Years Day, I don’t remember what we did much, other than we were together and it was relaxing, and we took down our Christmas decorations. Now it’s MLK weekend. I have to say, I enjoy all of these 3 day weekends. We have another in February, and then no more until Memorial Day at the end of May. That’s OK, we’ll enjoy it. Tomorrow, I believe Maya and I are going to Berkeley, she has some clothes she wants to sell at a consignment/2nd hand store. It should be a nice day.