Romney didn’t get in a stink fight with a skunk for a reason!

October 25, 2012
You folks who are thinking that Romney copped out at the third debate are ignoring a very important factor in the whole discussion. In the second debate, Obama stated an outright lie (about calling Bengazi consulate deaths an act of terror) and said he was offended and insulted for Romney disbelieving it.
 Now that I’ve heard the speech in the Rose Garden that he was referring to, Obama was making a bald faced lie. The whole Bengazi situation is clearly a bold and reckless coverup. There’s proof, in the form of State department testimony, emails and actual video footage that prove that Obama knew AS IT HAPPENED that it was a terror attack. But he did not in any way identify the incident as such for two full weeks and even then he equivocated. Worse is the fact that he knew IN TIME TO SEND HELP for the embattled men, AND DIDN’T!
 What I want to know is how did Obama even know about the video he blamed, since there was no indication in the intelligence that anyone in the middle east had seen it. Who paid the bloke out on parole to make a video? Who supplied the cameras and footage? Why is the guy still in custody? Why haven’t reporters had access to him? I think Obama concocted the video in advance ‘just in case’ there was an embarassing attack that showed the truth about terrorist organizations being as strong as ever.
So when the moderator jumped in to defend Obama’s version of what he said, she had apparently been primed for that response and perpetrated the lie.
 Now Joe Biden should be very angry because in HIS debate he said they thought it was a video all that time because that was the “best intelligence we had.” Shouldn’t someone have told HIM that they thought it was terror the very next day?  For that matter, if Obama DID mean that it was terror the very next day, why did HE himself, in his very own words on national TV say that he didn’t know and that he thought the mysterious video was to blame? IF they thought it was terror, why did the White HOuse spokesboy say it was a video to blame, why did Hilary say it was a video to blame and WHY or WHY did Ms. Rice go on 5 shows that Sunday saying it was a video to blame. I think it was down right rude of Obama to leave them in total ignorance when apparently he knew it was terror all along. Me oh my Mr. Obama you’re not very nice to your friends.
WHO was the first person to suggest that a video had anything to do with it. Stand up and confess!! Certainly if it’s true that someone in the intelligence community said it, someone knows who said it first!
Of course after agreeing that Obama called it terror the next day, the moderator of the second debate retracted almost immediately after the debate. But the damage had been done.
So in the third debate, except in a few instances where Obama misstated Romney’s own statements, Romney could not directly correct the president because Obama had shown himself ready and willing to say anything that would save face regardless of the truth. Romney was forced to expect that the moderator would also agree with Obama, regardless of the truth. Go down the list of fact checks from the debate and you’ll see that the only one that told whoppers was Obama himself. Even his pal David Letterman expressed disgust that Obama had blatantly lied about Romney’s position on the car company’s bailout. When Obama said “Check the record,” he didn’t expect anyone to actually follow through.
 So what good would it do for Romney to bring up facts and figures if Obama is willing to call him a liar and likely be supported momentarily by the moderator? You say that Romney should have hit him with the facts to engage in debate, but that had been shown impossible when Obama feels no obligation to use the truth as the accepted premise of the argument.
Take for instance the statement the Obama quoted that says that Obama said “if we got Osama Bin Laden in our sights, we’d take him out. Romney said he wouldn’t move heaven and earth to get Bin Laden.” Phrasing it that way makes it seem like Obama was committed to taking him out. But he also had the attitude that it wasn’t worth huge amount of risk or treasure to take out one man, but “if we got him in the sights. . . ” Either statement by either man could have been a continuation of the others’ statement. Ironically, George W. Bush’s policies and decisions made it possible for ANYONE to get Bin Laden, and it just happens that the pay out for those decisions came under Obama’s watch. I wonder if the earth would crack apart if Obama said, “Thanks to my predecessor, we got Bin Laden.”
And lastly, Barak Obama doesn’t claim to be Baptist, but merely “Christian”. The church he attended, while extremely militant in its stances, is the United Trinity Church of Christ. I doubt that it is affiliated with the Church of Christ, since they are very conservative and Wright’s church doesn’t apparently adhere to their doctrines. But Obama has distanced himself very deliberately from his long-time friend and “spiritual leader” since the first election, an action that Rev. Wright says has dismayed and disappointed him. So Obama says he’s Christian, but it is apparently more of a political issue for him than a matter of conviction. I could find no instance when he said that he prays. He merely said that he believes in prayer. He said it only when he was speaking in the south to a largely Christian audience. His surrogates later criticized Romney for running for president after praying long and hard. Ann urged him to do it, though he was more reluctant, knowing the slanders and misrepresentations he’d have to endure.
I would love to see someone stick to Obama and reveal his lies, but must be content that his fruits will reveal his true agenda. I think that Romney was wise to use the time to present himself instead of getting in a stink fight with a skunk. He would have ended up just as smelly as Obama if he had let himself be engaged by the president’s petty attacks.
  My PRAYER is that the lovers of freedom VOTE! Lovers of truth, VOTE!

The truth about Leftlist policy and rhetoric

October 1, 2012
 I have recently read some autobiographies about the Mao Zedong “Cultural Revolution” and the Russian move to communism during WW2. In those instances, where millions upon millions of citizens were purged, they were clear about their purposes. You’ll recognize the correlation in current USA policies.
 First was to bring down the rich. Government seized productive farms and businesses, or sacked them mafia style. This was done in the name of ‘evening out the wealth’. It was highly successful. The entire nation, other than high government officials were plunged into poverty and starvation. The error that the population that supported them didn’t anticipate was that once confiscated, they had killed the goose that laid the golden eggs and there was no more market for their products. The economy collapsed.
Second, Mao demanded the destruction of cultural values and tradition. Millions of books, libraries, ancient architecture, and religious structures were destroyed.Children were taught in Govt run schools to revolt against their parents and rewarded for humiliating them. Vicious gangs of youth were supported by the Chinese military to punish and torture the elderly and those they had been taught to respect. Genealogies going back hundreds of generations were burned in the streets.  So by destroying the traditional values that keep a society stable from generation to generation, they destroyed the roots and patriotism that might keep it from changing into a new world order.” WW2 filled the function in many ways for the Russians.
 Third, private property was a ‘sin’ against the people. So precious family heirlooms were stolen by ‘student’ bands of govt. authorized thieves. Personal property was said to somehow damage society in general. The horrid thing, too, is that billions of dollars of personal wealth were destroyed. They weren’t just stored in some giant warehouse to be retrieved with their society was right side up, they were smashed and burned in the streets.
 Fourth, scholarship and intellectualism was condemned. The best students previously were humiliated and forced into mundane factory jobs with the lowest, most ignorant and lowest intelligence governing them. Forced govt. sponsored abortions were used to trim the populations.
 All of this is reflected in the rhetoric from the left of which Obama is the leftest of the left. Al Gore tells middle school children that they need to teach their parents how our society ought to be run. High School students who speak up in favor of traditional family values are openly criticized and humiliated. Homosexual behaviors are tolerated in the halls of the high schools. Our president freely admits to doing drugs “enthusiastically” and admits to being in haze through high school. He reports these things not with shame or admonition, but with the careless, hip attitude who could engage in all these dangerous things without apparently consequences.
He actively advocates that the public should pay for all abortions, even viable fetuses in the process of being born. He argued against the comfort policies for babies born alive if the mother’s intention was to kill them before birth. He is indeed a wicked man! He has been A.W.O.L. on foreign policy when strength is the only stabilizing pressure in the world.
The Book of Mormon gives a blueprint for societal decay and when we’re following that decay, we know the consequence is destruction. Churches will not endorse a particular candidate, because that would be to endorse their policies and opinions and judgement overall, and that would not be appropriate from the viewpoint of either the church or the state. It could also harm them in the public view, if an endorsement were thought to have strings attached. Further, churches must protect their tax exempt status and becoming active in campaigns rather than issues could endanger that.
 
But members can observe and speak up and point out the things that harm religion and the religious, as well as society in general.
In my facebook comment, I chose those two models very specifically for the parallel situation. Amalakiah gained power by subtlety, giving a false agenda, misrepresenting himself. He came from a different background than the people he wished to rule, but tuned in to their sensibilities to get support. He was all about power.  Obama has used these approaches very similarly. There are mountains of garbage included in the health care bill that have nothing to do with health, but everything to government control —power. He was not raised in America, nor to have American values, but he is expert in appealing to the lowest common denominator in our society—the desire to get something for nothing. He is also constantly criticizing the “big money” backing Romney, but is perfectly happy to accept mammoth checks from the far left wealthy. He has usurped stunning amount of control through establishing and building bureaucratic agencies that bypass constitutional balance of power. By weakening the judiciary, he has over weighted his own power. He didn’t do it alone.
Everyone that has known Romney vouches that he is not only an honest, capable, intelligent, man, but that his life has been one of service and generosity and Christian values. Take a look at his tax return that has been so criticized. Of his total income, he kept a much smaller percentage for himself than Obama ever did. Happily, charitable donations are tax deductible.
His speech when he withdrew from the 2008 campaign was a rally call to support the cause of freedom. That inspiring speech brought to mind Captain Moroni’s Title of Liberty very succinctly.
 I’ve read what he has written and I’ve listened to his explanations of his policies as a governor and find that he has been true to himself and to our country. He did not allow his personal conviction that abortion is wrong (which he never said otherwise) to prevent him from winning an election in a state that is very left leaning. His state gave him extremely high approval ratings. He never endorsed govt. funded abortions, but he did say that he would not try to overturn it, because that was not the will of the people.

By their fruits, ye shall know them. We are called to beware of those who would deceive and oppress. Jesus said to judge righteously. He directed us to look at their fruit. That alone makes the most eloquent argument of all.   

Saturday Morning Short Story: The Secret

September 29, 2012

The Secret

I welcome this friend who has asked to use Chocolate Cream Centers to reach out to others with similar secrets. I am honored to guard my friend’s trust and identity.  Here’s the story in my friend’s own words.

Thank you to Mrs. Stephenson for letting me use Chocolate Cream Centers.

I have a secret that until today, only three people on earth knew. Lest you recoil and think it is some dark evil buried in my past, it is not. But though not evil, the loneliness of it has at last become unbearable.  I decided to reveal my situation through a friend who promised to hide my identity while sharing my stories. Who knows but what there are many like me who also shun the notoriety that a revelation such as I am about to make, would cause.

I fly. Not as a bird or a bat or any other living thing that I know of. I do it by the power of my mind. As some have said that gurus or hermits can levitate when deep in concentration, so I have accidentally discovered the nook of my brain that overrides Newtonian law and allows me to move above the earth at will.

As a young person not yet an adult, I often had dreams of flying. Vivid, realistic, delightful bouts of freedom from the usual gravitational rules. Dreams were my schoolhouse. I learned how it felt, not only in bodily sensations but in my head. Even in my dreams, when I would soar in the clouds and swoop in the crisp, cool air, it exhausted me. I woke ravenous and mentally weary.

But it was worth it. Like skiing or sledding or whipping down a fast mountain on a bike, it was worth it for just plain fun, I thought. I used to hope for dreams in which I might fly again, and they came more frequently.

I was approaching middle age when I learned the terrifying truth. It happened like this. I developed a skin condition that so troubled me that I sought first medical help and then resorted to quackery. The witch doctor at the health food store advised me to rub an exotic, expensive and malodorous concoction all over my face before I went to bed. I obeyed the instructions, wondering if I had been tricked into smearing pond slime on my face. I laid a rolled towel on either side of my head like a football player with a neck injury, to keep myself from fouling my white sheets with the greenish ointment.

Horrid as it was, it led to the revelation of my ‘gift.’ When I woke in the morning and looked in the mirror, I saw that the top of my forehead, the end of my nose and the tip of my chin had been rubbed bare of the slime mask.  I searched the bedding, the towels, and my pajamas for sign of the gunk.

I couldn’t find the smudges. The towels were somewhat displaced, and I had waked on top of the covers, but with no smudges. I concluded that my skin had soaked in the slime on those spots only.

But that night, having seen no improvement on my skin after I washed off the ‘treatment’ I lay in bed slime-free, waiting for my spouse to come to bed.

“It still stinks in here” my spouse said. There might have been another reason just then, buy I pretended the treatment was the cause. I rolled my eyes upward and found the smudges. They were almost directly above my face on my 10 foot high ceiling! There they were, lined up properly where my face had apparently bumped!

I remembered that I had dreamed of a collision with a sky diver as I went up and he came down the night before. When my spouse was out the next day, I placed a ladder and, using a long-handled scrub brush, I cleaned the ceiling. Sure enough, it stunk of stagnant pond.

 It took a year before I could do it awake.  Many evenings, I would retreat to some secret corner in my house and concentrate on moving upward. At first, it was just little puffs and piffs where I rose and fell like a Kleenex on an air vent. I learned not to do it while I took care of certain personal necessities, lest I spend the next ten minutes cleaning the bathroom.

I know you’re curious to try it. I do it by concentrating on the very center of my brain where inspiration, gratitude, delight and love reside. I become light. (as in weight) and I become filled with light. The joy of it is more than the fun! And as I concentrate on that high, holy, happy place, the center of my soul, I will myself to rise, to move free of all fetters: all hate, all disappointment, greed, and laziness. Gravity slips off and I rise into the air by the power of my will.

You may wonder what the point is. You may appreciate the mundane, pedantic, pedestrian approach we humans usually expect. But if you ever experience flying the way the angels fly, you’ll seek it again and again.

It’s funny to me to watch movies about super heroes. Superman flies at the speed of light. Heroes seem to fly by nature, like a bird flies. But to them, it seems merely for utility, without enjoyment or delight. I think the people who wrote those stories had not experienced unassisted flight.

I can only do it outside late on a Friday or Saturday night when my neighbors have been drinking enough to have succumbed to deep sleep. I fly with my mouth closed. Moths and other insects are attracted to my ‘lightness’. I have to be careful, too, since if my concentration breaks, I sink like an unopened parachute. That always gets my attention. I plummet toward the earth as I remember the year Santa favored my siblings most conspicuously. Not only did I have an average of $4.88 less value in my stocking, I had three fewer pieces of ribbon candy! Whoosh, down, down, down on the dark wings of a blighted Christmas! If I don’t remember that I still have half a box of fine chocolates in my sock drawer, I’m pancake batter.

I wrote that only three people know my secret. Obviously, the author who agreed to post this on her blog knows its source. My spouse does not know. My spouse is a strong, stable, unimaginative, lover of normality. Sublimely normal. My spouse defines ‘normal’ by her/his personal limitations. I have no need to upset anyone in my family. Not that I couldn’t easily prove that I can do it. But it would complicate my life and their lives more than it would benefit them or me.

My next-door neighbor knows, too. She is a gentle soul, battered and twisted and pummeled like a tenderized piece of beef. She has lost the will to deceive, to withhold love, to compete. She takes her simple joys in simple things. She keeps a lovely flower garden. She also keeps a vegetable garden since her husband died.

I guess the local crooks can spot a vulnerable type by their scent. One night, someone broke into her house apparently looking for prescription drugs. But my good neighbor had never needed anything more than an occasional gumdrop for her sweet tooth.

I was having a midnight soar when, through her upstairs window, I saw the intruders threatening her. I knew my face seen through the window behind the monsters was nearly as shocking as what was happening inside.

I learned then, that though the stimulus was entirely negative, I flew with tremendous super-man-like speed to rescue my friend. I zipped through another bedroom window, snatched up a lamp as I passed through the upstairs hall and clubbed the predator cold. I could fly, even with negative stimulus when I did it for love.

I don’t know what she told the police. The thug never saw me, so whatever it was she said was good enough to reward the fellow with twenty years of living off the public largess, complete with security system.

The day after that incident, I went over to check on her.

“I had the oddest impression that you were in my house last night.”

“I was.” I answered. I told her my secret. I explained that I had been out for a little fresh air. Upper air. “I’m sorry that you’ll wonder if you’ve slipped a screw from now on, but you can see why I keep it secret. The nut houses would overflow if I did it in broad daylight, without a cape, a broom, a nun’s hat or some other believable device.”

It’s not witchcraft. It’s not magic. Anyone that learns merely where their inspiration, joy and light are,  can use the power in it.

I’m sorry to be such a coward. If I had sufficient courage, I’d teach people to develop their joy. I’d give lessons on love and gratitude, on worship and peace. I’d help people find their heavenly light.

I have begun to wonder, however, if  there are others like me. What if hundreds of people keep their own secrets? So I decided to send this out into cyber space, via a trustworthy friend’s blog. Are there others as lonely as I?

I call for a meeting. No fingers to the side of the noses, no membership dues, no passwords. Just meet at your local church. When you take your next night soar, take a spin around the steeples. We’re bound to brush against each other from time to time. What a relief it would be to nod knowingly to another flier!  We’ll know each other! Not the details of your bumps and scrapes, but the in the moment of our eyes meeting, each will multiply our joy by two. I’ll see you there!        

Gluten Free Ultra super packed with Nutrients–muffins

September 26, 2012
The ULTIMATE super muffin

GLUTEN FREE!!!!
Okay friends, here is a winner. My family is patient with endless experiments, but they’ll be begging for this to rerun. These little babies are delectable and super-packed with high quality nutrients. The only catch is that you need a grain grinder. I have a Whisper Mill made by Bosch that I really enjoy. Several family members have K-tec mills and they also work very well. I think those two are about a toss up.
But I digress. You’ll only need a cup of each flour for this recipe, but you’ll want to make it again soon so start by grinding about 4 pounds of navy beans. This makes a very fine flour that looks and feels almost like corn starch. Then grind a couple pounds of lentils. I keep these two flours in zip lock bags in my cupboard and substitute them for at least part of the wheat flour in most of my baking including pancakes and waffles. (I’ve never tried using them exclusively in a yeast bread. I don’t think it would work without specialty ingredients like Xanthum gum.
 If it sounds like weird, health-food-nut behavior, just read the nutritional analysis of navy beans or lentils and you’ll see my point. They’re some of the most nutrient dense food you can buy, packed with protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals, including iron. And they’re CHEAP!! I buy them from the dry beans section in any grocery store but Walmart always has them. 

Super Packed Muffins
1 cup of quick oats
1 cup of skim milk (any milk will work but this is what I used)
3/4 cups of brown sugar (white is fine too, I like the flavor of brown)
2 cups of pureed (or solid pack) pumpkin (I used home-canned)
2 smashed bananas (or half a cup of applesauce or chopped apple)
4 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 scant teaspoon of salt
1 cup of navy bean flour
1 cup of lentil flour
12 oz semi sweet chocolate chips.
Dump all into bowl in order given Mix thoroughly and distribute into 36 greased or papered muffin cups. Bake at 350 for 18 minutes.
Tender and delicious. If you had to eat only one thing for a year, these muffins would be an outstanding choice.
 I’ll repeat my warning from earlier posts! Any batter/dough made with bean or lentil flour tastes yucky raw. Trust me! (go ahead a bake it. Prepare to be amazed!)
 

Saturday Morning Short…post: Politically Incorrect.

September 8, 2012

What it means to me to be a mother

I never answered truthfully when I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. It wasn’t that I didn’t know the answer, it was that society was like the salmon we saw in Alaska. It had continued for thousands of years in one function and form and as it neared the end of time, roles were changing, growing long, vicious teeth and beginning to decay. It was no longer okay for me to say, “I want to be a mother,” because society, (I thought) would think “JUST a mother.” “Why don’t you have some IMPORTANT ambition??”

 To me, ‘Mother’ meant ‘seamstress’, ‘cook’, ‘home decorator,’ ‘shopper,’ and ‘storyteller.’ It meant that I could plan my own days and prioritize my time according to the needs of my children. It meant being a celebrity in my family. It was the only life that insured that I could be vitally important to some other people. It was the only career where God would be one of my two partners. I wanted to do something BIG in life. Raising human beings, children of God, was the biggest thing I could imagine.

Oh CHILDREN! I wanted eight or ten or twelve of them. I would help them with their schoolwork and my husband and I would take them on adventures. We’d teach them to be fearless, to love our Heavenly Father, to keep themselves morally and physically clean. Our children wouldn’t fight with each other because they’d be having too much fun together. They’d all love to read and to learn. They’d be physically fit and spiritually diligent.

I never dreamed about my wedding. For one thing, a marriage in an LDS temple requires no planning for the ceremony itself. The sealing rooms are always beautifully decorated. The altar in the center of the room is under a brilliant crystal chandelier. There are huge mirrors on facing walls so that they reflect the couple back and forth into eternity.  I didn’t think about my wedding, but I thought about my marriage. I imagined my husband quiet and tender, a blond, blue-eyed fellow, somewhat tall, very righteous. . .and that’s about as far as I got.

Thirty four years and three weeks ago, I married my husband Jeff in the LDS temple in Oakland, CA. It’s high on the bench overlooking the San Francisco bay. Our dress was appropriately white and the sun and the future were bright. We had fun parties afterward. Everybody dressed up. We had chocolate cake.

Thirty three years ago today, I became a mother. But that event was NOTHING like I’d planned. Babies don’t take well to planning, I’ve learned since, but Sept 8 1979 was a crash course.

I went into labor early in the morning on Sept 7. My mother had told me that labor felt like really bad menstrual cramps. I went all day having “REALLY bad menstrual cramps.” I was sent home from the hospital three times before late the next morning they let me stay. By then, I couldn’t think or move or even breathe through a pain. An hour or two later, I lay quivering, suffering, beyond anything I could ever have imagined. I couldn’t fathom how Jesus Christ could have suffered MORE than I was suffering then, and lived. I had forgotten that the suffering was purposeful. There was nothing but the pain.

The nurses came in and read the monitor. Then they shook and prodded my pregnant tummy, telling me that my baby was getting tired and was ‘falling asleep’. Once the heart rate returned to normal, they left me to suffer undisturbed. I didn’t want to have an epidural because it cost $50 and wasn’t covered by insurance.

Oh the miracle when the pain changed just a tiny bit! Instead of the bottomless, slick pit of pain, my body suddenly caught a toe hold I could push against. Jeff called the nurse and she checked. “Oh Yay!” she said. “Go ahead and push!”

It wasn’t that pushing didn’t hurt, but it was like pressing your hand against a wound. It seemed that there was some trace of control over the pain.

About fifteen minutes after that first ‘pushy’ feeling, Tricia was born. The doctor stepped in front of the mirror and once her body was free, he held her high looking into her mouth. “She’s not quite as perfect as we’d like her to be.”

I was still bathed in the wonder of the pain having gone away.

“She has a complete cleft lip and palate on the left side.” He turned her and laid her on my flat stomach. She had long black hair and a round little head, (it hadn’t molded a bit. . .hence the 36 hours of labor), Her skin was more olive than I expected, but her rosy cheeks were plump.

The year before, I had attended a plastic surgeon’s before-and-after slide show, with my roommate Dawna. So for the instant between the doctor’s warning and the moment I saw her, I knew that it would be fixed and that that the result would look pretty normal.

Tricia was very strong, and amazingly alert. She pushed her little head up and looked at me. “Hello Funny Face,” I said.

After a few minutes, they whisked her away to check her heart and listen and look and clean. Since the face and palate develop at the same time the heart is dividing into ventricles, (before the mother even knows she pregnant), cleft palate and lips are sometimes associated with heart defects. But Tricia was otherwise fine. They bundled her up and let Jeff hold her for a while as the doctor stitched me up.

When I was snugged into the warm blankets, they gave me the Bundle that changed my identity. I was a MOTHER! I was HER mother!

All at once, my spiritual eyes were opened and I felt/saw this imperfect baby’s ‘trailing clouds of glory.’ I felt the wonder, awe, and weight of the trust my Heavenly Father had bestowed on me, to make me the mother of that beloved daughter. I knew he would give me all that I needed if I would turn to him. Because I would fall short and need Him to make up the difference.  A mother! I was bathed in the joy and solemnity of God taking my hand in His to guide this human being back to Him. Tears filled my eyes. I could not speak.

And then the delivery nurse wheeled through the swinging doors and the nurse that had helped me through labor came and looked into my face. She saw the tears and mistook their cause. “I’m so sorry!” she said and tears started in her own eyes. “You had such a hard time! I wish . . .” The delivery nurse saw my face crumple and whisked my baby out of my arms. Sympathy undid me.

Suddenly the weight of worldly judgment and the sorrow that would come to me and to my little girl settled on me like a black condor and the majesty of the moment dissolved into self-pity.

But that was 33 years ago. That black-haired baby’s hair grew in blonde and then after a few years, turned dark again. We had many long nights. I shed many a private tear where she could not see. She was a friendly little busy body with a huge imagination. She was always the best student in her class and always tried her best to ‘be a good girl.’ She graduated with honors from High school and went to BYU on scholarship. She did her student teaching in Xi’an China and after teaching a year, served a Russian speaking 18-month mission in Ukraine. After her mission, she moved to AZ, and after another year of teaching school, she decided she wanted a master’s degree so she could be a reading specialist. She sold her car to save expenses and with working two part time jobs, earned her Master’s degree in literacy in a year. She has a brilliant website, “CleanReads.net” almost ready to launch, that will change the world. (It’s functional now, but she wants 500 titles minimum before she starts promoting it.)  

I have six sons, too. I could brag shamelessly about each of them, too. But bragging doesn’t truly express what it feels like to be me. Motherhood is not only everything I dreamed it would be, it’s a thousand times more. It’s a thousand times harder and a thousand times sweeter. There are no words to explain what it feels like to have a little boy’s sweaty body sprawled on your lap in sleep. There is no expressing the feeling when I was called out into the snowy morning for the twentieth time because one of the boys had just mastered the “jump” on the snow hill behind our house. There’s a special kind of honor in being the person in all the earth they like best to spring a successful prank on. What strange tears flow on the day they leave for the far reaches of the earth to serve the Lord in the Philippines, Ukraine, Alabama, Guatemala, Mongolia, Zimbabwe and Yet-to-be-Known (Thomas is only 16) for two years. And oh the sense of being folded in their arms, as they rise from the altar across from some beautifully righteous person in the temple on their wedding day!

When I visit my sons’ homes and I watch them gather their families for evening prayer, and their tiny children bring the scriptures with them, I can’t hold back the tears. It’s not a show for Grandma’s sake. It’s what they do!

I had a hysterectomy this summer. It became medically unavoidable. I anticipated it with dread, even though my heavy periods were getting unmanageable and increasing in frequency and duration. I had always wanted to be a mother. Even at 52, I felt the conflict of removing the possibility of ever having another baby and taking proper care of my body. I shed some private tears as I thought of it. We call that procedure ‘getting fixed’ in animals. It seemed like ‘getting broken’ to me.

The week before the surgery, one of my boys told me that he’d listened to a lecture by an anesthesiologist for one of his classes who said that he personally would never go under general anesthesia. . .it was too risky!  Thanks for telling me.  (Another prank?)

The night before the procedure, I asked my good, loving husband to give me a priesthood blessing. Jeff is a Marketing Finance Manager for Farmers Insurance but as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, every worthy man may be given priesthood authority to lay hands upon others to invoke the power of God in their behalf. We call it a “Priesthood Blessing.”

As Jeff lay his hands upon my head, and began to speak, I felt the words affect me. He told me that my Heavenly Father loved me and was watching over me. He said that I had been greatly blessed to be a mother and that it was a good thing to have the procedure. He blessed me that I would be comforted and not suffer emotionally. And he also blessed me that the surgery would go well and my health would improve because of it.

In that moment, I was filled with gratitude and it has not lessened as the weeks pass. My dreams of Motherhood have come true. It is enough. I love each of my children more deeply and joyfully than they will understand until they have lived through what I have lived through. I didn’t get 8 or 10 or 12. I only got seven, but to me, they are the magnificent seven!

I’ve been a mother for thirty-three years. . .in about two and a half hours. Oh it is indeed a day for celebration!   

 

Saturday Morning Short story: The Eighth Year

September 1, 2012
Welcome back to Saturday Morning stories. I’ve had friends and family visiting and surgeries for myself and two of my family members and taken a few trips in between, so stories have been spotty. I’ve been working hard on my novel and it’s hard to root Essie and Little Jack out of my mind long enough to tell the other stories that wait in the sidelines.
 I think you’ll like “The Eighth Year.” I am pleased with it.

                                                  The Eighth Year

The scent and heat of Queeny’s body curled against her woke Shanequa early on August 1. She laid her arm over her little sister so she wouldn’t roll off the side of the twin bed. Queeny always crawled into Shanequa’s bed for the first few weeks in a new foster home. The rules said they had to have separate beds, but when the door closed, they crawled close enough to  close enough to touch each other, in case someone tried to take one of them away in the night.

The sweep of the eight-year-old’s long, curling eyelashes on the pillow woke six-year-old Queeny. She smiled at Shanequa. “Today’s the day! Do you feel different?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You better put it on now, Shaney, so the magic can start.”

Both sisters rose, stepping on the case of pop-top soup their new foster mother kept between their beds. Each morning, for the week they had been at the Wilcoxs’, Shaney wondered if she loved Mrs. Wilcox. The other foster mothers had scolded her when she tucked food into the hidden corners of her bedroom. They threw it in the garbage or stuffed it into the fridge so it could mold and be thrown away from there. Their second foster family had given them back to Social Services when they found a mouse nest full of food from her hidden supply. But once awakened, the instinct to gather food against the days of hunger that had come so often with Mama, was hard to lull back to sleep. Mrs. Wilcox understood. She had given them canned food with lids they could open themselves without a can opener, to keep beside their bed.

Shaney lifted the pink tutu from her bottom drawer. Mama had said that it was magic and turned the girl who wore it into the most beautiful princess in the world. So Shaney didn’t wear it often. She didn’t want to wear out the magic.

 Queeny’s eyes shone as she watched her pull it over clean panties. “I can see the magic!” she breathed. Shaney knew that she meant the silver glitter sprinkled over the pink tulle skirt. But she could feelthe magic, too. She was long and lithe with graceful arms and legs. The pink leotard neutralized gravity so she could float like dandelion fluff without visibly moving her feet.

Shanequa brushed her bushy hair into her hand, pressing and pulling it flat on her head. She held it with an elastic band while she twisted the black, fuzzy mass into a sedate bun and pinned it tight.

“You’re so beautiful!” Queeny’s eyes were wide, as though Shanequa had been transformed before her into a good fairy.

The year before, the girls had been in their third foster home about a month and when Shaney had  gone to breakfast in her tutu The family had laughed and the foster dad made her go back and put on her usual summer attire of a stained tee shirt and faded shorts. Shaney had obeyed, telling herself that it was better to save the tutu’s magic for another year than to risk it being ruined by a spanking. And later that day, she heard the foster mom talking to the case worker on the phone saying that she shouldn’t have to spend money on a foster kid she’d taken in an emergency, even if it was her birthday.

The pink float-on-the-breeze tutu was Shanequa’s birthday magic. Her grandmother had given it to her when she turned six. It had been too big then, but now it fit and the magic was in full force.

Queeny’s hand trembled as Shanequa clutched it on the way to breakfast. Even if Mrs. Wilcox made her put on her usual clothes, she couldn’t take back the year she gained on August 1st.  Yesterday she was seven and today she was eight, and nothing and nobody could change that.

“Oh my!” Mr. Wilcox said. “Somebody whooshed away the old Shaney and left a fairy princess in her bed. But how beautiful she is!”

Shanequa smiled faintly. Too much glee might shake off the magic.

Mrs. Wilcox saw the girls standing tentatively by the door. “Come and eat!” she smiled. “No Walt, she’s not a fairy princess. That’s a ballerina if ever I saw one. And ballerinas need lots of energy to dance their best, so you two better come and eat. I made French toast. I hope you like it!”

The girls had never heard of ‘French toast’ before, and they cast furtive glances toward Mary and Melissa who were already eating. The twins were ten and often showed them what was expected. That was one thing about the Wilcoxs that Shaney liked. Nobody made you feel dumb when you didn’t know about something. She picked up her knife and fork and cut Queeny’s food into bites. Mary passed her the syrup. “Here. Squirt some of that over it and it’s really good.”

The French toast tasted more like dessert than any breakfast Shaney had ever eaten. But what did she expect on a magical day?

“I like your tutu,” Melissa murmured. But she wasn’t being mean. In fact, when Shaney glanced at her, secret excitement sparkled in her eyes. Melissa turned to her mother. “When are we going to do it? Can we do it before Dad goes to work?”

Her father looked at his watch and then at Shanequa. “We’ve got plenty of time to do it now.”

Everything seemed in slow motion to Shaney. She heard what they said and she felt their glances and the magic was so strange and different than she expected that she thought she might cry. Queeny felt it too and squeezed her hand for security.  She tried another bite of French toast but it was hard to swallow with the magic in your throat.

Mrs. Wilcox brought in a large flat box wrapped in paper with pink balloons on it. The twins carried in a smaller box wrapped in the same paper and Mr. Wilcox tapped his suit pocket where a pink envelope peeked over the edge. Queeny clung even closer lest the tide of magic sweep her sister away where she could not reach her.

Mrs. Wilcox pushed her plate back on the table and placed the large flat box in front of her. “Happy Birthday, Shaney.”

Shanequa stared at the box like Pandora, wondering what mysteries it held and whether it was better to open it and find out or save it as it was in case the magic was dangerous.  But Mrs. Wilcox nudged her. “Open it up, Honey.”

Mrs. Wilcox was full of powerful magic too, and she dared not disobey. Her fingers trembled as she tried to untie the shiny purple ribbon.

 Mary produced some scissors from thin air. “Cut the ribbon. You’ll never get it untied.” But  the ends curled in ringlets and she’d never had a box tied with ribbon before. But she knew the twins understood this sort of magic and perhaps cutting the ribbon was necessary to weaken the magic so it didn’t overwhelm you.

She cut the ribbon and untapped the ends of the paper without tearing it. Mr. Wilcox laughed and said perhaps he didn’t have plenty of time. But she folded the pink balloon paper neatly, wondering whether she would use it to make something beautiful or just save it like it was. 

The white box under the paper was also taped and Mary told her to use the point of the scissors to slice it. She had heard of story of a dragon slayer who used a magic sword to kill the dragon and she looked closely at the scissors. This was a new and different world where scissors might not be as they seemed.

Tissue paper printed with pink and green butterflies lined the box and Shanequa thought that she had always loved delicate tissue paper and this was the prettiest she’d ever seen. She thanked Mrs. Wilcox with moist eyes and Mrs. Wilcox laughed. “It’s inside the tissue paper.”

So she touched the paper with her bare hands and inside was a white dance leotard with silver sequins in the shape of a butterfly on the chest. Shanequa gazed at it, held in the spell of the sparkling garment.
Mrs. Wilcox lifted it gently from its treasury. A diaphanous silk skirt wafted from the waist.

“Ooooh!” Queeny half wailed.

Shaney replaced the lid, hoping that it would be easier for her to breath with the potent glitter covered.

“Here. This is from Melissa and me.” The influence of strong magic subdued Mary’s tone, too.

Shaney denatured the ribbon with the scissors and unfolded the paper. The tissue paper was delicate white.

Satin slippers nestled inside, sleeping like newborn kittens.

Silently, Shaney covered the slippers and raised huge liquid eyes to Mrs. Wilcox.

“It’s a lot to think about. But your eight now. Eight-year-olds have a special powe that helps them get used to all the new things in their life.”

Was it true? Shaney felt herself all over inside and she did seem different. Her lungs were tighter against her skin and head felt lighter.

Melissa’s smile shone with empathy, as though she remembered when the magic first came to her. “Wait till you wear those slippers. You’ll dance like a butterfly.”

Mr. Wilcox glanced at his watch. “I need to get to work, Birthday Girl. But I want to give you one more thing.” He handed her the pink envelope from his jacket.

The foster child opened the envelope and gazed uncertainly at the contents. It was a contract.  Her eyes wandered lost over the lines.

“It’s a membership in the dance studio where the Twins go.  Tomorrow you’ll have your first lesson.”

Though eight-year-olds have powers to withstand strong magic around them, Shanequa’s self-conscienceness dampened her new powers and tears welled up in her eyes and she didn’t know where to look or what to say. Fairies in stories always seemed very self-assured and she wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t have worn her tutu on an already magical day.

Mrs. Wilcox put her strong, steady hands on Shaney’s shoulders. “It’s a lot to absorb, even for an eight-year-old. Shaney, tell them ‘thank-you’ so Mr. Wilcox can go to work.”

She did and they all exchanged secret smiles and wished her a happy birthday. And she was left in the room with Queeny and the magical boxes that bore the burden of an eight-year-old.

Mrs. Wilcox showed her a chocolate cake, glittering with sugar sprinkles, with eight guardian candles circling the top. She said it was for dinner that night. She said they would have ice cream, too.

Shaney grabbed Queeny’s hand and fled to her bedroom where she buried her head in the familiar, common, unmagical scent of her pillow and cried.

 

Pressure canning/cooking meats and meals

August 27, 2012
I think of my pressure canner very much like I think of my microwave. I could live without it, but I would sure miss the convenience.  I’ve taught pressure/cooker/canner classes many times to women’s clubs, church groups etc, so I’ll post some responses to the frequently asked questions.
1. Are pressure cooker/canners safe?
Pressure cookers are designed with safety valves that make them fairly idiot proof.  The BIG precaution you should take is to check to make sure the pressure valve where your gage fits is open before you start to use it.
2. What kind of pressure cooker do you recommend?
I love the Mirromatic. Mirro uses a gauge that never needs to be recalibrated. And the gauge also keeps the pressure constant and signals naturally when the cooker is up to pressure.

 I am too distractible for something that needs constant monitoring. I have two Mirro 12 quart sized cookers and one small four quart cooker of a different brand that I bought for cooking stuff fast (like potatoes for mashing) and not having to clean the big pot.
3. Do you need to sterilize jars or boil lids before hand?
No. I use the lids right out of the box and wash the jars in my dishwasher first. If they were stacked on a shelf, I rinse them to get rid of dust. But there is no germ that will survive processing at a higher than boiling temperature.
4. Do I cook meats first?
The only meat that I cook before I can it is hamburger. It has nothing to do with sanitation, but I HATE the sight of the grease that will rise to the top of the jar. It looks ugly!

Beef stew with the fat layer floating on top. Looks ugly, tastes YUMMY!(It looks fine once it’s out of the jar.)
That said, I love to can pork or beef  or chicken breasts by almost filling the jar with  raw meat, adding a handful of chopped (raw) onions and then filling the gaps with sauce. It can be barbeque sauce from a bottle, tomato sauce with taco seasoning added for enchalada filling, or teriaki sauce. (a combination of soy sauce, sugar, garlic and ginger). Pressure cooking gives the same flavor and consistancy of slow cooked meat.
5. Can I really start with raw ingredients?  Probably the best thing about a pressure cooker is the ability to start with raw ingredients. I use quart jars for this process, since it produces the right number of servings.
Soup containing dry beans, (bean and bacon/ham or chili) does better with beans soaked an hour or two  first. It’s hard to get the right amount of water for unsoaked beans and still have room for other ingredients.
6. Do noodles hold up in the pressure cooker?
Not too well. They’ve always been kinda mushy, but I’ve always used spaghetti noodles. I bet penne pasta in a marinara sauce would be better. I prepare my spaghetti sauce in a huge batch loose in the pressure cooker, take enough out for a couple of days and  load the rest into quart jars. I rinse out the pressure cooker, put in the rack and then process the bottles. (Don’t forget to add an inch of water at the bottom of the canner)
7. What’s the shelf life? The shelf life, if kept in a cool, dry place like a pantry is limited only by the life of the seal. I have meats and stews that I’ve had for 5 years and they don’t seem to have lost any flavor and the seals are still VERY tight.  If you have a seal break, the contents will spoil and you’ll know very clearly that it’s no good.
8. How do I know for sure that my gauge is still accurate?
If you don’t have a Mirromatic (Mirro) your pressure gauge can get out of whack. Your county extension service should be able to test it for you. For you lazy folks, they’re readily replaceable. If you haven’t used the cooker in serveral years, and don’t have ready access to an extension service, you can just buy another one. If your rubber gasket/seal is cracked or dried up, you can order those off ebay too.

One benefit of pressure canning meats is that the high temperatures release the fat and it rises to the top. It looks ugly in the jar, (most meat-containing foods look ugly in the glass jars. Serve them in something else!) but is easily skimmed and discarded for super low-fat foods.

This jars are left to right, beef stew, beef in gravy, chicken gumbo soup, Beef and sausage spaghetti sauce, chicken breasts(pint) pumpkin puree(pint) and my chili cookoff entry chili.

Here are a couple more ready to eat recipes to prepare from raw ingredients and cook as they process. The chicken gumbo recipe posted earlier works great raw too.

Ham and bean soup:
Place in clean quart jar
1 generous handful of presoaked white beans.
1 handful of chopped onions
1 handful of chopped carrots
1 handful of chopped ham
1/2 teaspoon garlic
1/4 teaspoon of black pepper.
4 oz of tomato sauce or 2 T tomato paste.
Add water to within 1/2 inch of top. Wipe rim, place flat canning lid, screw down with ring, Place canner on stove, Place jars on rack in pressure canner, add enough water so that it comes up about an inch on the bottom of the jars. Check canner’s hole to be sure it’s clear, place on top, set gauge to 15 pounds, turn heat to high. When it reaches pressure, turn down to maintain for an hour. YUMMY and FLAVORFUL

Tomato beef soup:
Place in clean quart jar
1 handful of beef chunks
1 handful of chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
double dash of black pepper and of salt
1/2 teaspoon of Italian seasonings OR a few leaves of fresh oregano and rosemary and basil
Fill to bottom of rim (1/2 inch of top) with fresh tomato puree.
Process 45 minutes on 15 pounds. So delicious!

Rice soup combinations do well when added raw. Use your imagination!

Basic Pressure canning Instructions/hints.

August 27, 2012
Pressure Canning

Newer pressure cookers are safe. They have several safety devices including a pressure valve if in case the vent is plugged. It’s inconvenient to replace the pressure release valve, however so ALWAYS check to be sure the vent is opened before you place the pressure gauge.

Jars, lids and rings should be clean but there’s no reason to sterilize them. Lids are fine right out of the box.

Feel free to post questions on the blog. I’ve experimented with lots of different types of recipes.
You may load either raw or already cooked food into the jars. Fill with liquid (if the content is not liquid) to ½ inch of top. At salt or other seasonings. Wipe rim. Place lid. Tighten band.

Place in pressure cooker on rack. If jars are short enough to allow stacking that’s fine.

They must be upright. Add an inch and a half or two inches of water.

Double check to be sure you can see light through the pressure valve (top center). Secure lid, being careful to keep rubber gasket in place under lid’s notches. Place on burner. Attach pressure gauge.

15 pounds for meats. 10 pounds for veggies, 5 pounds for fruits and applesauce.

For Mirromatic pressure cookers:

Turn heat to high. The cooker will steam and may drip. That will stop and the cooker will begin to hiss/rattle when it reaches pressure you determined on gauge. When it starts to hiss, turn down heat until the hissing becomes intermittent, (about every 15-30 seconds for a few seconds each time. When it hisses, start timing.

Raw Meats, Poultry, Beans 1 hour (at 15 pounds)

Vegetables including pumpkin puree 45 minutes (at 10 pounds pressure)

Fruits, applesauce or tomatoes, 15 minutes at (at 5 lbs pressure)

You may: load jars with raw ingredients, back fill with liquid and cook and process at the same time.

Fill jar with raw meat (add a little salt if you’re using water) add at least some liquid to fill gaps.

Make a big recipe of soup, stew, spaghetti sauce etc serve it and bottle the rest. (It’s faster if the food is still hot.)

Cook chili with raw beans and raw meat without jars in about an hour and 15 minutes and it will taste like it simmered for 10 hours.

You’ll never use your slow cooker again.

Prepare mashed potatoes from whole (clean) potatoes in 15 minutes.

But don’t forget as you experiment, there MUST ALWAYS BE LIQUID in the pressure cooker. You CAN NOT broast in it without ruining the pan (and the meat).

Recipes are archived on my blog www.ChocolateCreamCenters.blogspot.com. Go to the older post button for recipes.

The inland wilds of Alaska

August 25, 2012

After waiting over an hour in the drizzling rain, Jeff finally got the keys for our rented little Subaru. He asked for directions to the Whittier tunnel.
“Go that way.” The proprietor pointed with a grin. That’s a huge convenience in lots of the small Alaskan towns. There’s only one road so it’s very hard to get lost.
 

The Whittier tunnel is no ordinary structure. The walls are solid, ragged granite, and it’s not lined or well lit…kinda spooky.  It’s the only tunnel of its kind in North America. It’s shared by train traffic and car traffic. Being only one lane wide, traffic flows in each direction on a schedule and since we had such a long wait at the rental office, we had about twenty minutes to wait outside. We waited in the sorting lanes and soon realized that it isn’t even first come, first served. The tour busses took top priority and were released to drive through at about one minute intervals.

We birthed from the mountain into the splendor of the Kenai Peninsula. Mountains soar thousands of feet and streams and waterways meander (‘rush’ or ‘crash’ might be better for some stretches) like veins of life blood. The vivid greens offset the white capped mountain tops, and many are streaked with mini glaciers or snow fields year round.
 

The weather that Saturday morning continued drizzly all the way to Seward where Jeff had reservations for us to go sea kayaking. When we arrived at “Sunny Cove Kayaking Adventures” the wind was clipping, the clouds spitting and the sea on Resurrection Bay looked much too choppy for novice or nearly novice adventurers. I had a stomach ache and was chilled through, too. Waaa, waaaa, waaaa!The guide said they weren’t sure about the weather and called a manager to come scope out the sea chop. Tricia and I admitted that we each hoped they would cancel our excursion. I have WAY too much pride to admit that I was too afraid to go if the guide was willing to take us.

The manager shrugged off the chop as “very do-able” so the guide proceeded with a safety lecture on what to do if our kayak overturns, how to wait for rescue, etc. She urged us to be layered up, so we donned every layer we owned from our luggage, including the freebie hats we got in Ketchikan. We snugged the life vest over that and the kayak skirt, (the device that goes over the shoulders like overalls and then fastens like a Tupperware lid to the rim of the kayak’s cockpit. We also pulled their rubber boots over our stocking feet.
 

There were a dozen tandem kayaks on the rainwashed beach. These kayaks were like nothing I’d ever paddled. They had rudders!  The person riding in the back controlled the rudder by pushing right or left on foot pedals. The instructions on how to release our skirt from the kayak in case of a capsize, how to paddle properly, and what to expect from the rudder controls seemed like a lot to absorb all at once. But Thomas and I grabbed a boat and launched onto the bay.

I took this picture by holding up my camera over my own head. Unfortunately, I got my head in the picture and that’s what the camera auto-focused on. But you get the idea.
The guide explained that the bay got it’s name when a Russian ship was caught in a storm many years ago. The storm was so violent that expected to die and just as all hope was lost, they found the mouth to a deep, landlocked bay. They sailed from death into flat water on Russian Orthodox Easter morning, and so named the bay, “Resurrection.”

Sea Kayaking is FUN!  What looked like too much chop was just enough to make it fun. In the pictures, it looks almost glassy, but there REALLY WAS about a three foot chop. The kayaks were not only super stable but wonderfully maneuverable. The paddling instructions, (twist at your waist so your core does the work instead of your arms,) were so effective that my arms never did get tired.

We saw jumping Salmon, bald eagles, other little silver that shot out of the water and flew several feet before they dropped back into the water, and a friendly sea otter who floated along on his back with his picnic spread on his chest.

By the time our three hour tour ended, I was wishing we’d signed up for an all-night kayak camping trip. . .except that the next day was Sunday, and that wouldn’t be appropriate.
 

Having just come from visiting Brian and Kelsi in Juneau, we tipped our cute little guide, (who looked remarkably like Kelsi,) very well. (above) We drove from Seward to Anchorage, which drive is so scenic you need eyes on all sides of your head.

Anchorage seems to be a clean, inviting city. Some friends here in OK told us to go to “Mooses Tooth” Pizza so we put it into the GPS and found that it was only three miles from our scruffy little motel. There was a crowd waiting outside, but we took a number and went grocery shopping during the 1 hour promised wait. Groceries were astonishingly high. We wanted to buy enough food to carry for picnics later in the week and since the next day was Thomas’s birthday, we also bought a birthday cake. I paid about $80 for what would have cost about half that in OK.
 
 

We still had to wait at outside the Mooses Tooth. It was 8:00 on a Saturday evening and the place was PACKED. We waited another half an hour for our Pizza and by then were so famished, they could have served us Totino’s, but that Pizza was unbelievably yummy. So next time you happen to be in AK, stop by the Moose’s Tooth.

We attended a local ward and enjoyed all three hours. The ward seemed healthy, without too may nuts or kooks!  We took a walk in a pretty strip park with a bike path that followed a stream. Later, we drove over to the Anchorage temple. TEENY. But very pretty.
 

Monday, we drove up to Denali, making some stops along the way. We took a nice hike to a waterfall, (Which Thomas almost refused to do, since it was an easy path and he thought that it would be mosquito infested. (He hates mosquitoes but they LOVE him.) We sprayed the repellant and he finally came along.

Thomas, on the left won’t unfrown when he came agaisnt his will, but he took the next picture for me. I was reluctant to navigate the muddy bank to get a shot of the bottom thirty feet of the waterfall.
 

 We also had to stop in Talkeetna. Talkeetna AK is famous for its annual event of Moose Dropping.  They shellac moose poop and drop it from airplanes at targets.  I didn’t ask what the winner gets for a prize. . . We wanted to see it, (it’s not often you meet people so comfortable in their own skin that they admit to being excited about a poop-flinging festival.) This is a moose turd I found up in Denali. It is in its pure, organic state. (completely dry and odorless.)

 I showed it to the kids, which disgusted them. They decided to hike to a crag that Jeff and I didn’t care about, and as soon as they left, I found 11 dollars in a wad by the stream. Nobody else was around, so I pocketed it. When the kids came down, I said “If you open your mouth and close your eyes, I’ll give you a big surprise.” But neither of them would. . . So I said that if they’d close their eyes and hold out their hand, I’d let them keep what I’d found. They still wouldn’t. So I had no choice but to keep my treasure. (the money, not the turd.)

By the time we got to Denali, (the TRUE name for Mt. McKinley) it was busily making its own weather and wore its wizard cape of fog. Thomas did indeed refuse to take the short hike to a lookout. . .and there were lots of mosquitoes.

Jeff had reserved a room in “White Moose Lodge”, which sounds very chic and upper crust, but was merely clean and adequate. There WERE pictures of the white moose namesake. Jeff snored so vigorously that I didn’t need to wake up special to take the midnight photograph I had planned.

The following day, having had little sleep, (Jeff felt GOOD!) we took our Safari! Yes, the trucks were as fun as they looked and our guide diligently scoured the scenery for wildlife sightings.
 
 
Either a bear foot print or a clever ruse!
 
 
 We saw some moose, various birds and Caribou. They took us up to another old gold mine where we had lunch, (we supplied,) and then we hiked up to the spongy tundra to get a closer look at the caribou, (no red-nosed species that day) and to look for Grizzly bears. The artic ground squirrels knew the drill and were tame enough that for a bit of cookie, he let me pet him.
 

 
 
 
The monster truck tour was pricey, but knowing how way leads on to way, I knew I would not pass that way again. . .I was glad we did it. The scenery off the beaten path is so vast and wild and free, it made an imprint on my soul that will not be soon erased. My eyes have traced land that no man has ever trodden. The fish grow mammoth and the bears grow huge because there’s nothing to stunt and confine them. God’s fingerprints have not been scrubbed off by bulldozers.  In fact, we’ve been home about three weeks and every night, I dream I’m in Alaska. It’s not that I need to rush back to it, but it changed me, got into my blood so that I think a little differently than I did before.

The last full day, we drove back down to the Kenai Peninsula and found our lodge on the banks of the turquoise Kenai river at Cooper Landing. Our suite had a full kitchen, two bedrooms and a nice clean bathroom.

Our river rafting excursion with the Kenai River Adventure company was set to start at 6:00 p.m. We had seen Dahl sheep and moose and reindeer and caribou and salmon and bald eagles and even squirrels but spoiled as we were by then, we wanted to see a BROWN Bear. (The species called “Grizzly bear” in the mountainous part of the country is called ‘brown bear’ in the salmon-eating areas. The salmon allow the brown bears to grow several hundred pounds heavier than an average ‘grizzly’.  The tour guide gave us overalls and boots and raincoats and life vests. It was spitting rain again by the time we launched, but we were so bundled that no fingerling of cold could find our bodies.
A trusty teepee always comes in handy. The color of the water was so interesting and lovely.
 
 
 
 

The salmon were running strong up the Kenai and the red (or sockeye) were jumping a foot or two out of the aquamarine-colored water.  Our guide honored our tour by running us aground on an island, (he claimed it was the first of such mishaps) (I pretty much believed him),  but just after that we saw a Brown bear sow with her cub. The cub looked like about a three hundred pound butter ball. Just a few minutes later, we passed some fishermen, (there were LOTS of fisherman along the way) and saw a black bear about 100 feet down river from the men. Black bears are actually dangerous to humans, even though they are much smaller than the brown bears. They don’t discriminate in their diets as much as a brown bear and will hunt and eat a human. (Rare, but occasionally) (That’s not ‘rare’ as in undercooked, it’s ‘rare’ as in ‘unusual’. Some VERY mild rapids made the rafting ride itself fun. We didn’t have paddles, so we were mere passengers.
This poor fellow agreed to pose for us at the airport. His living counterparts were not so accomodating.

The following day, our flight was to leave Anchorage at 5:00 p.m. so Jeff drove down the Kenai just to see the scenery. On our return trip, we saw a big, big, BIG brown bear swimming in the river.  Since Jeff couldn’t stop where we were, we turned around and pulled off. Happily the critter was still fishing as she swam. The water wasn’t deep so we got a good view of her whole body when she stood up. Jeff recognized the place as the same as where the guide had said a brown bear sow likes to crash into the stream and fish from in the water. 

Weariness began to overtake us as we waited for our flight. We noticed something interesting at the airport. For every one woman, there were about 40 men. And most of the other women were dressed like they’d just come out of the hills. . .wait a minute, so were we! We were out of clean clothes and didn’t much care.

Our flight took us out over Prince William Sound and down to beautiful Seattle. Seattle to Houston and Houston to OKC. It was over a hundred by the time we got to the car the next morning. It was 65 degrees in Anchorage that day.

 The stark, glaring sun reddened our tired eyes. The lawn grass was long but the back yard had dry spots where the 115 record heat had scorched it. The missionaries had half-moved out of our upstairs while we were gone. (They’d left the mission furniture. . .not gonna work!) But the heat felt good. The privacy felt good. The raisin bran tasted good. And even after our high adventure, there’s no place like home.    

This is our back patio sporting the seatcovers I just refinished. It is indeed a lovely place to sit and read.
 

August 21, 2012
The day after Juneau on our Alaskan cruise was spent on board the Diamond Princess. I had never been particularly interested in cruising. I’m not that kind of girl. I’m down to earth and appreciate things like a healthy garden, brisk walks for exercise, family time, worship, glorious scenery and natural flora and fauna and relishing the majesty of God’s creations in all forms. 
The delight of a cruise is that it can be anything you want it to be. Casual relaxing around a pool, fun-filled shore trips, shopping, gambling, marathon eating, social mingling, culturally enriching, (every flavor of music on board!) and educational. You can relax on an ample deck chair with a good book or watch the midnight sun set over the mountains.

For my readers that don’t know me personally, I love a bargain. 85% of my clothes come from thrift stores.  The rest are gifts, from Kohls, Ross, or home sewn. I was one of the best dressed folks on board! Not that we were a scruffy band, but people dressed for comfort. Think ‘vacation’ with many different nationalities on board. Different cultures create a fashion melting pot. There were indeed a few ritzy diamond-crusted ladies showing their wrinkled, over tanned bosoms on formal night. But there were more sweatshirts and jeans (or polyester pants) than anything. Fashion just didn’t seem significant. People were comfortable, (and mostly bundled to the eyes in the chilly wind.)

Thomas is checking out the bergy bits with a lifeboat overhead. (He never saw Titanic, but he looks a little worried!)

   I’ve raved about the food, but it’s such an intrinsic part of the experience, it’s hard to drop the subject. (Not as hard to drop as the extra pounds, but still hard). Even the buffets had many attentive waiters. In the afternoons they would set up specialty buffets. One day it was sushi,  and another day it was exotic desserts. If you sat at a table anywhere on deck, a waiter would offer you something to drink. Delicious lemonade and hot chocolate are hard to resist when your thirsty or chilled.

The “pastry extravaganza”. Oh my!
Bald eagle ice sculpture with carved watermelons. Do they teach that in art school? See the shark’s head watermelon in the background?
This chocolate piano made my heart sing!

They had different nationality themes at different meals. And I’m not just talking of Italian and French, there was fare from the Orient, and the near east. I  tasted foods and preparations that I had never heard of before and the only thing I tried that I didn’t like was an octopus salad. Too chewy, too fishy.
I had worried about the awkwardness of dining while seated with strangers. Once when we went to the more formal dining room, we were indeed seated with strangers at our table. It wasn’t uncomfortable, really, but when we made an advance reservation, we got a private table by a window, as requested.  We were passing through the College Fjords during that meal and it’s hard to describe the sensory overload of filet mignon in the mouth, a glassy sea with snow topped mountains outside the window, live music in the atrium, and the faintest sense of motion through the water.

   The ship is like a floating resort. There is a 9 hole putting green, shuffle board, 5 pools, a theater with a big variety of presentations and shows, an outdoor movie screen mounted over the biggest outdoor pool. There were ping pong tables, deck mounted viewers, and a wrap around deck for joggers and walkers.  Just two and a half times around was a mile. You have to run around a football field four times to go a mile!

The Promenade Deck/track/observation point

One fun aspect of the experience was that there was a naturalist on board. She broadcast over the P.A. system on certain decks and on the in-room TVs when we were travelling through wildlife-rich areas.  She’d ride up on the 15th deck and spot whales and sea lions and otters and other stuff and tell us where it was in relation to the ship. Early one chilly morning, we were in an area where there were lots of humpback whales, and she said that they were breaching on the port side of the ship. We overlooked the starboard side, so I pulled on a turtleneck, over shirt, sweatshirt, jacket and knit cap and went over to have a look. Since the Promenade deck is closest to the water and runs all the way around, I chose it. I did get to see the whales, but I also got to see the uniformed sailors swabbing the deck. What’s an ocean voyage without sailors swabbing the deck? Neither of them had eye patches, hooks or peg legs. They must have been new to the sea.
    There were only a very few events that were not worth the trouble on board.  The magician/comedian was not especially entertaining, but the comedian Gary Larsen, (not the one that draws the Far Side) was hilarious. Tricia and I also went to a program titled “Never have another bad hair day” and it turned out to be mostly geared to selling their products.  They did undertake to tell us what our face shape was, but everyone in the room seemed to have square or rectangular, and it just wasn’t that helpful. One of the presenters had her hair pulled back in a nondescript bun and the other admitted that all of her hair was false.  So I suppose the answer to my bad hair days is “wear a wig!”.  We didn’t stay for the personal consultations, and that might have been a little more useful. None of the movies shown on board appealed to us, but then again, movie watching in general seemed like a waste of time. We can do that anywhere.

The head chef’s cooking show and kitchen tour was fun and entertaining. But the head chef burned his fingers during the show and that was a bummer. I hope it didn’t cost the assistant in charge of turning off the burners his job.  The kitchen was not currently in use, and I wanted to see the chefs at work. I can’t imagine how they could take that huge kitchen out of commission long enough for the tour, when the food is produced round the clock.
There’s a ‘gift shop’, a jewelry store, a perfume store, an arcade, and a casino on the ship, none of which particularly interested us. I did see my first “northern lights” topaz and wonder that everyone everywhere doesn’t wear it. It’s absolutely lovely. I’ll buy more next time!
The next morning, we made port in Skagway. That rollicking cauldron of sin is now a collection of gift shops and jewelry stores. We hiked out to the point where there was some fun rock hopping and then dragged our men-folk through a dozen or so shops.  There were coupons in the on board booklet for  a free sterling silver necklace (no purchase necessary) in a jewelry shop there. They cheerfully gave us the item, (and I did succumb to some well-priced topaz.) But another shop with a similar ad was selling overpriced jewelry and said we had to listen to a pitch. After 15 minutes of pitching bright yellow diamonds priced like good quality, she said, “what do expect for a price like that?” Well… I didn’t answer her, but she wouldn’t give me the freebie since I didn’t like her wares and didn’t buy anything. That was the only shop among the dozens along the cruise stops that didn’t cheerfully deliver as advertised.

Hobos

We rode the train 30 miles up the mountain along the trail that prospectors took to get to Dawson City and the gold fields. To call the trail, still visible from the train that was  built while the gold rush was on, hazardous, is like calling the Arctic chilly.

This scree field is part of the original trail. I think this is the section called Dead Horse Gulch. It’s several hundred feet down. 

 Once they got to the end of the trail 90 miles inland, they had to build a boat and float the lakes and rivers another 500 miles to the gold fields!  The Canadian government required each party to have provisions for a minimum of a year before leaving Skagway. That’s equal to a ton of supplies. It weren’t no backpacking trip, no sir! Only a very few struck it rich, of course. The horrible irony is that a few years later, they discovered that easily accessible Juneau, right on the passage, had loads of gold. Parts of the Mt. Roberts mine are set to reopen soon.

Thomas overlooks pirates’ cove, just beyond Skagway.
The Skagway river. The color indicates that it’s glacial water.
Skagway’s didn’t have a red light “district”. It’s history is one of organized crime, shootouts, and a whore house on every corner.

Yet innocence prevails

Why don’t people sled on glaciers? (Glacier Bay, AK)

A funny story from Glacial Bay. We stood on the deck for over an hour, listening to the ‘white thunder’ as the glacier cracked and shuddered. How we hoped we get to see a major ‘calving’, as the chunks of ice are pushed off the end of the river of ice. There had been a few little bergy bits born, but nothing too major.  A ship’s photographer came around and took pictures of the various parties with the glacier in the back ground. We had our camera, but submitted to the request. The friendly people beside us had a high end telephoto lens. They’d had it pointed at the glacier for over an hour, focused on the area where there the most activity seemed to center.  But rather than make a scene, they turned around for the ship photographer. . .with their backs to the glacier. . .just as a many ton calf broke away and crashed to the water. Jeff yelled at them when it started to fall,  to turn around, so they glimpsed it, but didn’t have time to get their camera focused. Sigh* (Chuckle)

The College Fjords are spectacular.  They are named ‘College Fjords because those who have seen them are forced to contemplate their past, present and future in light of the grand scheme of things. They inevitably consider things like “I wonder which college is best. Where should I have gone? or if they’re younger, “Where would the Creator of all this beauty and grandeur want me to attend school to start me on the best path? Or probably most common, “Where should I teach my children they should prepare to attend college? Where will they be safe, but get a first rate education? They muse on these things as they float along, looking at the glaciers that flow to the fjords. And then they get their answer in clear handwriting!

Go Cougars!  (The ‘B’ and the ‘U’ are on either side of this, but don’t show in the picture.)

I took these between 11:00 and ll:30 p.m.

As with all lavish pleasures, our appetites were eventually sated and we were ready to be done. It happened to coincide with the last day of our cruise. Not that we hadn’t gotten any exercise, we had. If on board we walked laps on the Promenade deck and on land we hiked up steep mountains through lush forests to our hearts’ content. But it felt good, somehow, to revert to Subway sandwiches (our usual vacation fare) and crumbled oreos from a grocery bag. We spent the following week in the Alaskan interior and OH! the sites (sights?) we saw.

Tricia waits in the rain outside the car rental office that doubled as a bait/convenience store.

One more memorable incident happened after we disembarked with our luggage at Whittier AK. There is only one car rental place in the tiny burg, and a long line formed quickly.  It was drizzling rain, and most of the other customers had lots of luggage with them, too.We stood on the rickety porch while Jeff waited in a very slow line.  There were two employees there. I imagine that they have no business at all, except when the ships come in. I think that’s only Princess, so one day a week.
After we were stretching our backs and becoming genuinely weary after an hour or more of standing in the rain, (the porch was too flimsy to shelter many of us) an Arab or Indian fellow strode up with his sari-draped wife. (Saris seem rather out of place in Alaska, but that’s just my opinion.) He pushed through those of us waiting on the outside, into the rental shop. There were about 8 patient people ahead of him in line. Ignoring the quay, he placed his hands on the counter and demanded, “How do I get next?”
The proprietor responded mildly. “Only if you want to arm wrestle these other customers for their place in line.”
“Who is the owner of this business?” he cried.
The man who had answered him said he was.
“This is not good! Very bad! How do you be in business with no service? I should not have come here!”
The owner watched him mildly. If he wanted to rent a car, there was no where else in town.
 The Crown Prince from the Island of Rude stormed out of the rental office onto the porch shouting. “I should not have come here! The man who has business does not know how to speak!” He stormed off into the rain, dragging his wife and child behind him.
We watched his vanishing back with gratitude for the diversion. It’s a small world, after all.  

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