I had a rather hectic week leading up to the Idaho jaunt.
Monday I went for a wheel alignment and ended up without my car all day. The place, which Discount Tire had given me a $59 coupon to, was only a mile away. I walked home and later walked back there to get the car. They had to replace the wheel bearings.
Tuesday the Taurus wouldn't start and I walked to my computer lesson, and back...about seven miles total. Meanwhile, Dale Sr. figured out that the problem was only the old worn-out key, and also figured out that the reason the spare key wouldn't work was that it had no computer chip and this made the car think it was being stolen! He drove me to Ace Hardware, and I was able to get a new key made by having them copy the spare key (keys with a chip are around $80!) in time to get to drama club in the afternoon.
Wednesday I had the dreaded appointment at the periodontist. (Dreaded because my regular dentist had sent me there because he feared that my gum disease might have become dangerously worse due to missing two of my quarterly cleanings this year). It was quite a relief to find out I will not be losing any more teeth at this time, if and only if I get right on it and have laser surgery to remove some rotten infected tissue at the base of the pockets. The surgery will take place on December 21st, and I'll still be on a liquid diet through the 24th and a "mushy diet" for three weeks after that. (I e-mailed the family and Madelyn responded that she would contribute a delicious bean soup to Christmas dinner, how nice!)
Some time next year I will have to have a more extensive surgery. The periodontist will take some tissue from the roof of my mouth, where it is not needed, and insert it into my lower front gums, below the gum line, which will raise up the gum line and better protect my front teeth from bone loss. I have made an appointment to have this done in early June, after the end of my Mesa Community College semester but before Dale Sr. leaves to go up to the Northwest for his annnual fishing vacation.
The December laser surgery will be around $3,000 and the June procedure $5,000. I sure will make sure not to miss any of my quarterly cleanings in the future!
I'm going to make all four cleaning appointments for the whole year, so that if I have to miss one, the other appointments will already be made.
On the way to the periodontist I noticed that my old Taurus was making a high whistling wine. The third day in a row that my car was having problems! I called my regular mechanics shop from the periodontist (having forgotten my phone) and their receptionist said that the car should still be okay to drive home, it probably just needed greasing. I called my Arabic tutor and cancelled my lesson.
Thursday, after watering everything and doing most of my packing, I took the car up to the mechanic's and they gave me a ride to the Boys & Girls Club. Drama club, this month, means practicing Rudolf, Frosty, and Jingle Bells for a performance at an assisted-living place. Dale Sr. came to pick me up from there and take me home. I felt so tired that didn't feel like doing the things I still needed to do before the Idaho trip. I fell right asleep and set the alarm for 2AM so I'd have time to shower, pack, and get all the dishes done before the shuttle came to pick me up at 6AM.
Dale Sr. sent some frozen smoked tuna and salmon with me, for John and Kathy. It turned out that my bag had to be searched because frozen stuff looks like water to the ex-ray machine! When the inspector saw the frozen salmon, she said, "Smoked salmon! Can you come back with me to my house?"
Kathy had told me that they had not had snow, so I was delightfully surprised to see, from the plane window, Boise covered with a fresh blanket of snow! Kathy came to pick me up from the airport. The sky was thickly overhung with fog, and it was cold enough that mittens and scarf and ear-warming headband were welcome. I had thick fur-lined boots which I'd worn on the plane because they would take up too much space in my carry-on.
Driving through Boise was like driving through a living Christmas card. You could feel the cold air if you leaned near the glass of the car windows.
We got to their house in time for me to join in with John's Friday music jam, three guys named Roberto, Jim, and Mike. It was really nice, until Jim got upset at the end and started picking an argument with Roberto. It was fun trying to keep up with the chords and add some harmony to the choruses.
Their back yard was so lovely.
Saturday was taken up with prep for the party. The buffet menu list was converted into ingredient lists separated into produce, dairy, deli, etc.
John was fine-tuning the carol-singing set-up. It still has the same software it did way back when they brought it to Campus Dr., but a couple of years ago he replaced the old fat monitors with newer ones.
Out into the cold for the shopping, passing a park where a flock of dark-grey geese were eating grass from the circle of bare ground around a tree. A fine silting rain froze into little icicles on the trees, but was not enough to melt the several inches of snow on the ground.
Our first stop was to see their long-time friend Marcia, at her stall in a bustling indoor crafts market. It was great to see her, and I bought a couple of scarves. (John and Kathy always go to Marcia and David's for Thanksgiving.)
Then on through Boise,
Then to Trader Joe's for the wine and cheese, and a state-licenced liquor store for the hard liquor.
At Trader Joe's, a "wine advisor" was answering questions from a milling group of shoppers in the wine corner of the store. I asked her for a suggestion for a reasonable red wine, and she suggested one that cost around $8.99.
"I think she wants more reasonable than that," I said, as Kathy had told me they usually don't spend more than around $6.
A customer, a burly cheerful guy in a stocking cap, leaned in and grabbed up a bottle from the shelf. "I'll show you the best $4 dollar bottle of wine you'll ever buy!" he boomed. We did buy three bottles of that wine, and several other labels also. The $4 wine did indeed turn out to be good (luckily!).
In the afternoon we cooked and prepped some of the food for the party. My contributions were to make a tuna salad out of the one of the pieces of smoked tuna which Dale Sr. had sent, a spinach yogurt cottage cheese dip, and to cut up veggies and the onion/parsely/garlic/carrot "trito" to flavor the crock-pot beans.
That night, John made a dessert of "s'mores", using a unique method of melting the chocolate:
The next day was more cooking and prep, furniture rearranging, and short naps for John and me.
Kathy made our old family cookie recipe, "Aunt Sis' Brown Sugar Cookies". They really did turn out good.
The party really was quite wonderful. It was about half again larger than last year's, as Kathy said, "This time the 'maybe's' all came."
There was a great variety of food; added to by contributions of the long-time attendees of the party. Everyone raved about the salmon Dale Sr. sent. Their old friend Larry always brings a couple of plates of deli chicken, all cut up and ready to set on the table. Marsha brought those pin-wheel things made from tortillas, cream cheese and chopped green onion. One of the daughter-in-laws brought a peppermint devil's food cake and another guest brought a cherry pie. A true "groaning board".
Some of the new people were from John's music jams, some of whom had been asked to this party for several years but had not attended before. Those with church-choir experience enabled them could jump right in to sight-sing the alto and bass parts, I loved that rush of male voices coming in and out of some of those arrangements. (The younger generation has been attending the annual singing party since they were small children, so they know many of the parts by heart.)
There were only about three of us in the soprano group, and none of us were able to reach the high "g" which we all used to be able to reach. I and one of the other ladies talked about doing some practice during the year to get it back, such as singing scales.
Marcia and David's kids brought their grandchildren this year. It added to the fun that there were two young boys going up and down the stairs, alternately hanging out with the party or playing ping-pong in the basement. And a little girl with a delightful smile, who spent much time leaning against her grandma Marsha, holding the little sponge tone-thing in her hear, and sort of taking part in the singing.
Those who took part in the singing would drift in and out between the singing and socializing; it was very relaxed with much laughter.
John and Kathy's long time friend Larry is really a sweetheart and has had a difficult time for the last few years. There was a divorce which he did not want, and then a heart operation. John got to know him decades ago, through their work at Hewlitt-Packard. Larry now has his first grand child: his son and daughter-in-law brought their month-old baby, who calmly slept through all the noise and later, after she woke, looked around with a gentle, alert gaze as she was held by this person and that person.
Below, Kathy holds the tiny little girl while the baby locks eyes with her mother. (Kathy, you are welcome to send these two photos to Laurie and Larry, or any other photos you think they might like, or any photos to anyone whom you think would like them.)
Larry's ex-wife attended the party, for the first time since their divorce, which both Kathy and John felt was a very nice development.. She was the first to arrive and was a great help in finishing the deviled eggs in time. She had left him several years ago, and had not attended the party since then. They are not getting back together, but just lately have become friendly again. I noticed that their kids, though not exactly cool to their mother, were not exactly warm towards her either.
There is a really nice thing about being introduced to a group of friends of a family member. I received immediate friendliness and warmth from all of those people, just based on the fact that I was John's sister! Pretty special!
Similar to what happens at Campus Dr., the carols eventually morphed into the singing of other favorite songs. John moved the party downstairs. Some of the people had left by then, so we all fit into his music studio. It was really hilarious the way the young women were singing their songs, sometimes only a verse or two of each before someone would mention another one and off they'd go on that.
By means of constant urging, Kathy succeeded in getting everyone to take something home with them, and we were left with what Kathy quoted Madelyn as describing as the perfect amount of food left at a party, "a little of everything left, but not too much of anything". There was quite a bit of the spinach-cottage cheese-yogurt dip left over (I think next time I'll go back to making that dip with sour cream), but John and I had it for breakfast the following morning, with crackers, and it tasted good then. The broccoli salad and left over cooked chicken were the mainstay of the quick pre-airport lunch which Kathy kindly set out, for us to eat in the short time between when I finished getting ready and we had to leave for the airport.
A wonderful visit indeed. In addition to all the activities, we had some good conversations.
John told me some of his memories of attending Daddy's Friday lunch group at the faculty club. I write them here because I had not heard them before. You had to be invited to the group, which used one of the separate dining rooms, and they only invited one person from any one discipline (with some exceptions). Joe Tussman was philosophy, George Foster anthropology. They discussed all kinds of topics, politics, university issues, and news of the day. Albert Bowker was a member, but Erich Lehmann.was not, which I had not known. The discussion lasted about an hour and a half.
John said, "Papa would always go to the little bar at the Faculty Club and get a bottle of Anchor Steam beer."
I was sad to hear that John and Kathy will not be coming to Berkeley for the holidays this year. Travel is increasingly difficult, and travel during that crowded time decidedly more so.
Love,
Lennie
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