Passing a Bone Density Test

I was a bit late starting to have my bones scanned. The first two times the scans were done in New York where they were quite passive. All I did was lie comfortably on a table as the arm of the equipment passed over me.

Time went by as I became more aware of aging. Old folks’ magazines harped on balance, among other things. A few weeks ago I added a short routine to the dressing schedule – standing first on one foot and then the other for several seconds. That was harder than it used to be, especially on the side that didn’t recover well from a total knee replacement. Little did I know that this was going to be beneficial for the upcoming bone density scan.

The friendly technician filled out a form as she asked me questions about smoking, drinking, exercise and such. Then she threw me a curve. I was to stand up and balance on one foot. Ah! I had unknowingly been prepping for this! I knew I could do it. She didn’t specify which leg to use, so I chose the better one. She said, “Cross your arms and put a hand on each shoulder.” How bad could that be? Well, it wasn’t bad, but it was almost impossible to do. If I couldn’t balance, would they send me to the emergency room at the hospital next door? “Sending over unbalanced woman for immediate observation!” Panic set in. “Do it, Anne. Just do it!” It didn’t help that the woman’s lips moved as she counted. How far did she need to go? A minute? An hour??? Each time my other foot touched the floor, she began again at one – one potato, two potato, three potato. I wanted to tell her to give me a break and start with five the next time. I swear her potatoes got bigger and bigger. I thought of demanding a stopwatch that didn’t get slower with each successive count. Finally, before I fell over and damaged something in the room, she pronounced herself satisfied. We could have been there all day!

Days later my doctor’s office called to give me the results. I have yet to see any number associated with the scans, but this time there was a name attached. It’s not good when you slowly slide into named diseases! The advice was to keep taking calcium and Vitamin D and to keep walking. Of course, I’ll keep walking! I probably started running about 72 years ago. I didn’t say that, knowing she meant walking as exercise. A morning walk of at least half an hour was my norm for the last 22 years. It was upped to an hour about six years ago.

Complacency might have been the correct label for my mental state. I was doing the right thing and would continue secretly working on balance. That was before I got blasted out of the water again. A smug article upped the ante. Can you guess what it suggested? It said to balance on one foot for a full minute, like when brushing your teeth!!! Golly Pete! If I can’t hold a pose with arms crossed, what is the likelihood I could do it while brushing my teeth as thoroughly as you are supposed to do? I challenge you to give it a try and let me know how well you do. Don’t fall. Knocking your teeth out while trying to balance is not recommended.

Nerf Warfare and Time with David

Neighbor Logan begged to play with David, telling his dad it was the last day our grandson would be here. As it turned out, it was the last chance Logan had to be with him, because we were out the next two afternoons. The house was totally quiet for a few moments, then there were shrieks and a barrage of gunfire. These two cycles were repeated endlessly. Logan helped pick up the bullets before he went home, yet we were still finding them in odd places for days. You’d think all that hubbub would disturb us old geezers, but we loved it.

030717 Nerf warfare Logan and David.jpg

We spent half a day at the Biltmore mansion, always a pleasurable outing for us. David sees more movies than we do, and he particularly enjoyed seeing the costumes on display. Books that the staff knew George Vanderbilt had read were on display, along with costumes from recent movies of those novels. We had one photograph of David taken near the entrance.

030817 D at Biltmore.jpg

Because we had trouble with the car at the last visit, David did not see the greenhouse and garden shop. He loved all the orchids and borrowed my camera to take a photo of the bluest one he could find. In the shop, I lingered beside each water fountain until the fellows pulled me away with the promise of lunch at the Moose Cafe.

030817 D photo in greenhouse.jpg

Another day I stepped outside to look at the daffodils and was surprised at how warm it was. While I talked to plants that were about to bloom, David began cleaning oak leaves out of the pool.

030917 D cleans pool.jpg

I was happy that both Nathaniel and David had one lunch on the porch. As I’m writing this, snow is falling outside my window as a teaser. It isn’t likely to stick until the middle of the night.

030917 D JC eating on porch.jpg

The day David was leaving, I asked him to pose for one closeup of his face. I needed one of each grandson to use as a desktop until they come back.

031017 David.jpg

Fondue!

When grandson David was 10 years old, he was already wearing braces on his teeth. He meticulously followed instructions, never chewing gum or eating hard candy. That year he was with us on our vacation as we visited our daughter Lise. We bought him a tiny wax bottle that had sweet liquid inside, never thinking it would harm him. In an instant, things were hanging loose and flapping about in his mouth. He was wearing a Herbst appliance that had rods connecting the upper and lower jaws. One of the rods had come undone, and it was most uncomfortable. We contacted his orthodontist in New York who referred him to a dentist in North Carolina. The appliance was repaired the next day. We were very proud of David for handling this crisis so well. Aunt Lise made an offer he couldn’t resist. She said as a reward she’d take him out to eat at the restaurant of his choice. She expected him to say McDonald’s or Burger King. What popped out of his mouth was, “Melting Pot! Can we go to the Melting Pot?”

There was a vast difference in price between fast food and a meal at the special fondue restaurant, but she stuck with her bargain. It has been part of our family lore ever since.

062305 D L fondue.JPG — David (10) and Lise at the Melting Pot in Charlotte 2005

Several weeks ago I was looking for something and opened a door in the old family secretary. There was our fondue pot! I thought it had been moved here and was very happy to find it before David’s visit. Does anyone remember when fondue was all the rage? It must have been in the late 60s or early 70s. We had not used that set since then. I looked on the internet for recipes and jotted down some ingredients from two of them. Meanwhile, David wanted to know what we were going to use the French bread for. I led him to the living room and opened the door with a flourish. His face lit up when he saw the pot and the long forks.

030717 D with fork poised for fondue.jpg — David ready to begin our fondue

We thought it tasted pretty good. Special thanks to grandson Nathaniel and his dad for the kirsch I added to the cheese mixture. Nathaniel left the bottle here after using it in making the Black Forest Cake. Thanks to daughter Lise who rekindled our interest in fondue. We will do this again.

David on the Move

Grandson David had been here less than 24 hours when neighbor Logan came over to play. Going outside to kick around a soccer ball was good for both young men. Logan always has excess energy, and David had sat for hours on the long trip down from New York.

030517 Logan D with soccer ball.jpg

I brought out the battered airplane that neighbor Dawn picked out of the evergreen trees last week. It had been a favorite before the tree grabbed and hid it. David and Logan played with it for a while and then went back to the more intense ball kicking.

030517 D Logan fly old airplane.jpg

As most college students do, David brought dirty clothes to wash here. He was flapping about in the den, finding the corners of a fitted sheet to fold it. A still photo doesn’t do it justice, because as he moved, he looked like a flying angel.

030517 David folding a sheet.jpg

I was most impressed with that sheet when he finished. It was so perfectly flat that it looked like it had just been unwrapped from the store. I wouldn’t let my sheets see it, because they would have been jealous.

Thank You

To all of you who follow me, thank you. It makes my day to know you’ve read a post and liked or commented on it.

To those bloggers I follow, thank you for your patience. Over the last several weeks I gradually realized I hadn’t heard from some who had been posting regularly. When one commented on something of mine, I saw there were published posts I had not seen. That was strange. Why had I not been notified via email? That’s when I discovered about 20 of you had become disengaged. I don’t know how that happened, because I had not yet found the manage area of Reader. I think I am now reconnected and look forward to reading and responding to your posts again.

Following was my solution to the problem:

At the top left of my blog, I clicked Reader and then Manage. The bloggers I follow appeared. Clicking on the arrow to the left of the first one, I saw “Emails for new posts”. On the right side of the page, the button was set to off. No wonder I hadn’t been getting notifications! I went through the whole list, checking each name and clicking the offs to ons. Some people who were blocked were recent additions, and others were ones I had followed for a year or two.

Crepes!

Chef Nathaniel cooked his last meal here – cookie dough crepes for breakfast. He said he looked at a standard recipe for cookies and melded it with his crepe recipe.

022517 3 Crepes for breakfast.jpg

Our grandson has unlimited patience when cooking, a trait I envy. He buttered the pan, poured the batter, swirled it quickly to cover the bottom, and placed chocolate chips by hand. When the crepe was cooked, he folded it in half by pulling one edge over with his bare hand! He folded it in half again with his hand and only then used the spatula to put it in the dish.

022517 1 Turning crepes by hand.jpg

He put the dish in the oven to keep the crepes warm until we were ready to eat. Being a simple homemaker, I would have put the dish on the table. Not the chef! He plated the crepes and drizzled chocolate sauce on top, shown in the first photo. I haven’t decided yet if they were as good as they looked or better. I think I’ll rate them much better.

022517 2 Cooking crepes.jpg

We did other things during the week that I didn’t write about. The most important for Nathaniel was touring the campus of Johnson and Wales University in downtown Charlotte. He made the appointment himself, planning this trip with GP (Grandpa), and had the enthusiastic approval of his culinary arts teacher. For his junior year in high school, he has academic classes in the morning and vocational training in the afternoon. The woman at the university went over his academic record, recommending subjects for him to take next year. She discussed steps for applying to the school and getting financial aid. Both John and Nathaniel were impressed with the campus. Being in an urban setting, it was more vertical than horizontal. About half the students are there for culinary arts. The dorm rooms seemed spacious compared to David’s at Concordia, and the kitchens were impressive. They saw students cooking thick, juicy streaks and were given samples of candy being made in another kitchen.

While the fellows were Johnson and Waling, I spent several hours with former neighbor Amy. Amy left the house next door and moved to Charlotte to be near her daughter and grandchildren. I hadn’t seen her since she moved eight months ago. She looked younger than before! She talked happily about her new friends in the neighborhood, connecting with a high school classmate, getting roped into reunion activities, and enjoying her relatives. Her condo renovations and decorations were finished, and the place was fantastic. She has more floor space now than she did in the log house next door to us.

022117 Amy in Charlotte.JPG

We spent a day at Biltmore, the largest private home in the United States built by George Vanderbilt. The family has not lived there since the 50s, but it is kept up meticulously, with cut flowers in many of the rooms on the tour. There was one thing in the gift shop that really appealed to Nathaniel. He wears a suit to school almost every day, so formal clothing is a real interest for him. He tried on the top hat and would have bought it if he had the tuxedo and money to match.

022317 N in top hat.jpg

Chef and the Black Forest Cake

Grandson Nathaniel’s vacation project was baking a Black Forest Cake. He had prepared one at home and agreed to do another for GP (the boys’ favorite text name for Grandpa). We watched, licked pans and bowls, and waited patiently for the ceremonial cutting.

He baked the layers on Monday, soaked the cherries on Tuesday, and put the finishing touches on the cake on Wednesday. Before you read any more, you need to know that he cleaned up all his utensils every time he was in the kitchen. Every time!

After the first layer was on the stand, he added cherries and the filling.

022217 1 First layer and filling.jpg

Next came the second layer with more cherries and filling.

022217 2 Second layer.jpg

Whipped cream frosting covered the whole cake.

022217 3 Frosting.jpg

The finishing touches included piped borders and miniature chocolate chips. What patience it took to place every chip where he wanted it!

022217 4 N poses with cake.jpg

022217 5 Black Forest Cake.jpg

The toy camera was still in my hand when Nathaniel took his own photos of the finished product.

022217 6 Chef takes official photo.jpg

And the taste? Simply marvelous! A sharper knife would have cut cleaner slices, but at that point we didn’t care what it looked like. We wallowed in chocolate, cream, and drunken cherries. Hail to the chef!!!

022217 7 Black Forest Cake.jpg

Chef on Holiday

Nathaniel joined us for our daily walk to the creek. He always gets up very early for school, so it wasn’t a stretch for him. It’s traditional for the toy camera to record the event, at least the first time of a particular visit. The fellows were bundled up, since the temperature was slightly below freezing when we set out.

022017 JC N at creek.jpg

After our grandson said he had made a Black Forest Cake at home, John hinted he wouldn’t mind if he made one at our house. I went in the kitchen with him to make sure he could find everything he needed. I said, “I’ll sit here and read the newspaper, so I’ll be close if you need anything. I know not to talk while people work in the kitchen.”

That’s when I found out the difference between a home cook and a chef. I can’t do two things at once, so if people talk to me while I’m cooking, everything comes to a halt until the conversation is over. Not so with Nathaniel. He said, “It doesn’t bother me if you talk. I work in a noisy kitchen all the time.”

Nate asked a question, and I was fine until I turned to reply. I burst out laughing, not being able to talk to someone who looked like he was wearing dangling earrings, swinging wildly. His phone was in the pocket of the apron because he was listening to music as he worked. I had permission to video a reenactment.

Lunch was a family affair. John started the charcoal fire, and Nathaniel cooked the meat while I cleaned off the table. This was the first time this year for us to eat on the screened porch. Usually we work up to it gradually, going outside and wearing heavy sweaters when it is really too chilly to be outside. We left the kitchen door open, because it was warmer outside than in. Despite the reality of the weather, Nathaniel will still be praying for snow.

022017 N JC eating on porch.jpg

The Chef in My Kitchen

I was surprised to find myself intimidated by the New York chef in my kitchen. If he had been cooking alone, I would simply have left him to get the job done. As it was, the menu was mine, and I had to cook beside him. Granted, I had more experience than he did, but he had standards and techniques above mine.

021817 NY chef in my kitchen.jpg

The chef was none other than grandson Nathaniel (17). Why, you want to know, was he wearing his full uniform? It’s because that’s what he was wearing when he came home from school Friday afternoon. He has academics in the morning and attends classes for culinary arts in the afternoon. He had half an hour to pack after coming home on the bus, and John picked him up for the long drive to North Carolina. Driving through the night, they arrived here at 11:30 Saturday morning. As soon as they came in the house, I admired the checkered pants and white jacket. Nathaniel put on the apron, still sporting a bit of tomato soup on the front. For the full effect, he donned the hat, as well.

We sat down to visit until time to cook our main meal, and he offered to help. I was thrilled to accept such assistance, but the balance had changed in a subtle way. I was aware that he wouldn’t cook with dull knives or Teflon pans. He is learning to present dishes with flair for eye appeal, and he is a purist at heart. He chopped the onion, celery, and green pepper for the fried rice while I cooked the broccoli and salmon. I set the table and got out serving dishes as he finished cooking the rice and the Hollandaise sauce. We had no garnishes on the plates, but we enjoyed our meal with conversation and laughter. What more could you want?

021817 Salmon, broccoli, fried rice.jpg