On David’s day off, we went to Biltmore, the mansion in Asheville belonging to the Vanderbilt family. I remembered that the staff would be in the middle of removing Christmas decorations. David missed seeing the mansion decked out in Christmas finery, so he thought it would be interesting to see some of it. The entrance, dining hall, and breakfast room were back to normal, but many of the rooms were still decorated. The trees were lit on the second floor.
In the music room, cleaners were on scaffolding on wheels replacing drapes and dusting the walls. The industrial-sized duster was enough to give me nightmares. Several people were un-decorating trees in the gallery. I was amazed that they were in the same box stage as John is at our house, with storage boxes near the ornaments. Their setup was highly organized. As I walked toward this area, a woman dropped one of the round ornaments, easily six inches in diameter. It rolled out of the restricted area toward the feet of visitors. A man deftly retrieved it for the worker, and everyone laughed. Despite the ball’s delicate appearance, it was tough!
Now you’ve seen how un-decoration is done with the rich, you can view John’s box stage at our house. The big difference is scope. I wouldn’t be surprised if John gets the job done before they do.
John’s sister Chris and Steve had a party for us celebrating two birthdays and a graduation. We met at a restaurant in Columbia, SC, roughly half the distance between our homes. I adore helium balloons, having not had them in my childhood. There was a balloon for three of us, tied to the backs of our chairs. When I took a photo of the group, I concentrated on getting all the faces.
The faces had smiles on them throughout the meal as we chatted about the joys of cruising (two for, two against, and one not experienced), mutual friends from our church on Long Island, special time that Dr. Mehrling spent with his children, one hilarious story about shoes in bed, and another about a dog house that turned out to be a pump house for the well. As usual, conversation never flagged.
Although the happy faces were no longer under the balloons, I thought the balloons deserved their own preservation. Wait staff and patrons commented on them in the restaurant, and we had many wishes for a happy birthday as we walked outside. Note to self: balloons are real attention-getters in a public place.
Our family gathering in Charlotte was technically still in the Christmas season, since it was the day before Epiphany. The date didn’t matter, because our hearts were festive. The celebrants were relatives of brother Bob and Beth. Because of illness, Bob and daughter Julie were missing. Those pictured are Susan, closest to the camera, and left to right Bill, John, Kathie, Sam, Max, Kate, and Beth. Husband John was standing with me and out of range. Everyone was smiling, probably because they didn’t have to move or pose formally. I didn’t look, but I’m sure John was grinning, because he avoided being in it.
We had a lovely afternoon visiting with each other. The hilarity broke out when we played Speak Out. The game has plastic pieces that stretch your mouth. One person reads a game card with immobile lips, and the others try to guess what he is saying. Max and Sam were good sports and volunteered to go first.
Susan went on the deck with her dog, coming back to tell us a deer was lying there watching them. Four or five of us walked out to see him, and he posed more willingly than humans. We were about 15 to 20 feet from him. He and his herd move freely on the land behind the condos that connects to a green belt. We saw at least six of them walking there. Can you believe I saw more deer in the city of Charlotte in one afternoon than I’ve seen in the mountains in four years?
I texted Beth to let her know we were home safely. Her drive to Winston Salem should have been shorter than ours to Waynesville. It wasn’t. A tire blew out, and AAA rescued her by putting the spare donut tire on the car. She made it home without further incident.
One day later niece Julie and her friend Tommy picked up our grandson Nathaniel from the airport in Charlotte. He was returning from Christmas break with his dad. They took him out to brunch and delivered him to his dorm. What a kindness that was!
Everyone is back in place and ready to resume normal living after a wonderful Christmas season.
Grandson David had a magnet in his hand as he walked by one of his cousin’s Christmas mobiles. He found the wires were magnetic, so we sat down at the table and played with it. David made it look easy to cause the stars to turn by moving the magnet in circles. If his hand went too close, the small stars jumped and glued themselves to the magnet. When that happened, we couldn’t stop ourselves from laughing. I tried it, and after a few moments, I handed the magnet back to the master mover.
Here is a photo in case you can’t see the video clip.
Our nephew, Christopher Pollock, is an artist, and he created the mobile shown here. I particularly like his mobiles and stick figures. This link to his blog https://christopherpollockart.com/tag/kinetic/ will take you to the kinetic area.
The rain was very effective here. John drove out to run a few errands and came back to get me to see the high levels of brooks and creeks. We came to Park Branch first, and it overflowed its banks on the left. This little stream dries to a trickle in the summer.
The tree above came down in the snow storm a few weeks ago.
Jonathan Creek was also impressive. Included are views up-stream, across, and down-stream.
While in town, we went to Richland Creek near the rec center. No one would want to sit on that bench.
Son John $ sent us a photo of the cabin he arranged for us to stay in after Thanksgiving. His friend Rose saw the full deck of a house floating by. Logs, picnic tables, and chairs are now hung up in low trees and littering the highway in his area. Old-timers there said they had never seen the river so high.
I haven’t read a paper or seen news on TV, so I don’t know if there was much damage from the storm. Maybe I’ll get back in touch with the world next year.
Neighbor Logan’s family had more visitors than we did over Christmas. There had been no time to give him the little gifts we had for him until the day after Christmas. His mom was busy cleaning up after company, and his dad was doing a project in the garage. Logan chose to have cookies first and then open presents.
A few weeks ago Logan was in the musical Elf. When we saw an elf hat in the store, we had to buy it. He popped it on his head and wore it while he finished opening his gifts.
Nathaniel handed him another small package, one daughter Kate had sent down from New Jersey. Logan had a big smile on his face when he saw it was the card game, Uno. David and Nathaniel played one game with him that lasted over an hour.
David, Logan, and Nathaniel play Uno.
This was Nathaniel’s last full day with us, and he made us a proper chicken pie. By proper, I mean it was made from scratch. He roasted chicken breasts in the oven, used the drippings as a base for the sauce, shredded fresh carrots, cut up celery and onion, and cooked peas and corn to go in it. He had planned to make his own puff pastry for the top, but we were running out of time. He made pie crust instead. It was delicious. The vegetables had just the right amount of body to them, and I liked the very fresh taste of the onions. He spoiled us to the end of the visit.
Chicken pie, and yes, that’s a train on the table
I insisted on one last informal portrait of the fellows, to have their smiling faces all together.
We were not going to forget the mirror ritual this time. Nathaniel started high and ended in a goofy stance to check his appearance. Until next time….
Christmas is a time we often gather around the table to celebrate with family and friends, so there are an inordinate number of foodie photos. On the Fourth Sunday of Advent we went to a Japanese steakhouse after church. The chef was home-grown. He had lived in the town next to us and learned to cook when he was a dishwasher at a Japanese restaurant in Asheville. We laughed through the delicious meal.
There are natural and flash photos to show John’s Christmas tree. No one could be more meticulous in the placing of lights and ornaments to make it a work of art.
Grandson Nathaniel cooked a festive dinner for us on Christmas Eve. David worked all afternoon at Burger King, joining us in time to eat part of the meal. He finished in the car on the way to the 11 pm service.
For the foodies: We savored roast pork with a sauce, roasted asparagus, and baked sweet potato.
The service was beautiful. Midnight is not the high point in a day for me, but I stayed
Our church at 11 pm Christmas Eve
awake and thought the message good. This was the fifth year for me to celebrate not being on the organ bench – a benchmark of sorts.
A few days before, I pressed the boys for suggestions of something Santa might bring them. David agreed to a quick shopping trip, but Nathaniel wouldn’t play the game. He said, “I need a toilet bowl brush for the dorm, but I don’t want Santa to bring it.”
What would you have done with nothing else to go on???
Nathaniel was not awake when the rest of us looked at our gifts from Santa. We stood around watching him with his stocking. He posed with a bag of chocolates and set of measuring cups, not looking down at the floor again. He seemed to be studiously avoiding the toilet bowl cleaner.
I asked, “Nathaniel, are you going to look at the other thing Santa brought?”
“What? Oh, no!!!” he said, as he keeled over with laughter. “I didn’t see that!”
After that, he wore the toilet brush proudly.
Neighbor Connie made Christmas stockings for all of us this year. Aren’t they lovely? We were very touched and pleased with these gifts from the heart.
Nathaniel took it one step further and tried his on without touching the floor.. He said it was perfect, but it could have had a bit more toe room.
After the 10 am service on Christmas Day, neighbors Dawn and Jeff shared our traditional family dinner. I took a photo as the flame from the pudding died down. Logan was with us for only a few minutes of the day, but that was fitting. We consider him neighbor, family, and friend.
John, Logan, David, Jeff, Dawn, Nathaniel
Foodies: We had the Chicken and Stuffing casserole, cranberry sauce from a 100 year-old recipe, peas, lemon-lime Jell-o salad, frozen cranberry salad, Christmas pudding, Lebkuchen, and coffee.
The four of us had at least one gift each under the tree, and we opened them around 9 pm. The last photo of the day shows John with his new shower curtain. Daughter Lise helped me locate it on line, and it arrived on Christmas Eve. As Nathaniel held it up, John began to tell us about the name of the engine and much of its history. That was much more information than the manufacturer provided.
I was promised snow on my birthday, which pleased me. No snow fell, so thousands of others were happy. How could I be sorry?
Grandson Nathaniel baked his special biscuits and lit a candle on mine. Your assumption is correct, they were scrumptious.
Nathaniel practiced piping with chocolate, as he was supposed to do during the holidays. Taking parchment paper, he cut and rolled small piping bags. He snipped off the tip and made designs on paper. David took a stab at it, then piped the rest in his mouth. I liked my name in chocolate. As delicate as the designs were, we could pick them up after they cooled.
John offered to take us out for lunch, and I opted for pizza. It was something I was sure I could taste, despite my head cold. The red pepper flakes helped.
We ended the day with chocolate cake and Nathaniel’s eggnog. As a rewards card holder at the supermarket, I was given this cake for my birthday. For Miser Me, that was super special. We knew the eggnog was going to be wonderful, because Nathaniel prepared it for us last year. A year is a long time to wait for a treat like that.
It’s hard for me to remember numbers, but it’s going to be easy to recall my age this year. I’m pegging it to the song from Music Man, “76 Trombones”.
Misers do not throw things away lightly. When a head cold struck, I searched the bathroom closet for something, anything!, to make me feel better. Since my children regularly check for out-dated medications, I was confident nothing dangerous lurked there. I found cough medicine in a new-looking box. The expiration date was December – so far, so good. The year? 2006. It was 12 years old! I moved that box from New York to North Carolina when it was eight years old. Did I think it would improve with age, like wine? I certainly was not improving with age.
A day later, we bought cough syrup in the supermarket. Wouldn’t you think pharmaceuticals would have improved in 12 years? I thought so. I’m still getting worse after three doses. It must not be a miracle drug. I think my eyelids are swollen, because they don’t feel like they fit on my face any more. I would take a selfie if I thought it would prove I’m still alive.
My name is Suki, my human is a writer, and this is about my world. The world according to Suki The Cat. My humans smell funny, look weird, and I can't understand a thing they say, but they feed me, so hey, what are you gonna do?
Mehrling Muse 