HONEY, I'M HOME !!!!

     My husband is the cook in my family. It naturally evolved this way because when we were first married he worked a 6:00AM to 2:30PM shift at the United Air Lines Maintenance Operations Center in San Bruno, California.   I worked the 11:00 to 7:00PM shift at the United Air Lines Reservations Center near Pier 39 in San Francisco. If we'd have waited for me to come home and cook we'd have been eating dinner at 10:00PM. A lot of our empty nester friends dined out all the time.   Both of us had been single parents for a long time so he didn't mind cooking and he actually enjoys it.   I bake, I'm the baker in the family.  I love baking cakes and  muffins and my favorite cookbooks are dessert cookbooks. 
     Rod is a wonderful cook much better than I am.  He has so many specialties and anyone who has broken bread with us knows.  Chicken cacciatore is a good one and is our niece Bobbie's favorite.  She even asked him to make it for her birthday a few years ago.  His mother taught him to make fried chicken and it's so good my granddaughter Ally and I do the "fried chicken dance" in celebration when he makes it.  We used to go out for prime rib all the time until Rod perfected that dish.  Spaghetti has always been his own children's favorite and son Jimmy bragged so when he moved his North Carolina family out here to California they couldn't wait to try it.  My favorite is sauerkraut and peeled boiled potatoes with pork chops or pork meat.  Yumm.  I'ts a variation on his mother's sauerkraut and potato dumplings and my Mom's spareribs cooked in sauerkraut.
     My daughter Robin married a guy who is a wonderful cook, also.  In the summertime Rick will grill all day on Sundays and they'll freeze hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks, sausages, to have at meals during the week.  He does a dish with green beans and stewed tomatoes that's so good "it'll make you want to swallow your tongue" as my Dad used to say.  Poor Dad.  When Mom had her strokes all he knew how to do was cook a canned ham or fry spam or canned corn beef hash.  It took a while but he learned how to put a little pork roast in the oven and when I would fly home to Virginia he'd make the roast and Robin and I would make salad, green beans,  and mashed potatoes and a yellow cake with homemade cooked chocolate icing.
     I'm diabetic now which is a curse that's been handed down from my relatives on both sides of my family.  When Rod and I eat at home I do really well as he takes good care of me but I start getting in trouble if we eat in restaurants too often.  It's awful but I'll judge a place by how good their french fries are and my favorite are big french fried potato wedges.
     Before we retired Rod used to tease me I'd come home from work and pet the cat, get a drink, and ask "what's for dinner, Honey!"  My how times have changed.

STALKING DIANA

PRINCE CHARLES 

On November 9, 1985 Prince Charles and Princess Diana visited Washington D.C.  It was their first trip as a couple to the United States and a big gala was thrown by President and Mrs. Reagan where Diana danced with John Travolta.  Americans were so in love with Diana and we even had a TV at work to watch the royal wedding when she married Prince Charles.

DIANA THE PRINCESS

My friend Jackie Earley and I decided to play hookie from our jobs at Sears Service Center in Springfield, Virginia on Monday morning to go see the Royals as they were scheduled to appear at the J.C.Penny Store at Springfield Mall.  This was in conjunction with the store's promotion of British goods for sale at Penny's in the United States.  The Penny's promotion was called The Best of Britain.  It was a morning appearance and I drove down to Jackie's and picked her up after we both called in sick to work.

We arrived and parked at Springfield Mall and there were already barriers put up at the entrance to the store with just enough room for the limos to pull in and let the Royals out.  We stood at the head of the barrier and had a great view.  There was a photographer going around with a life size cardboard cutout of Prince Charles that you could have your picture taken with.  When they came out of the store they came across and spoke to the people who were directly in front and shook a few hands.  A friend of Jackie's who was not with us got great snap shots of them and gave Jackie and me copies.  One of these days when I find them again I'll post them 

SHAKING HANDS IN FRONT OF PENNYS

 The same day in the afternoon they visited a Drug Rehab place I can't recall the name of  so after they left Penny's Jackie and I grabbed lunch at Burger King  and then went and parked on Backlick Road across from the rehab to wait with hundreds of other people who were doing the same.  We talked to people who had come from Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.  It was fun to be in the crowd and I have never done that before or since..... stalked a glitterati.  Although we were right across the street from the rehab place we couldn't see them getting in or out of the limos we had a better look at Penny's but we did kinda see in the limo window as it passed by us.  I can't believe I actually did this.

 So there you have it.....stalked the Royals and spent a beautiful fall day in Virginia outdoors and got my Diana fix.  I've often wondered if Diana hadn't died in her prime if she would have ended up looking kinda like Camilla in her dotage.  Oh, too, I wonder if Diana was related to me as my Great Grandmother on my Mom's side was a Spencer.  Why not!?!

Post Script:  Found the photos hope you enjoy!

BEST DAY

     Yesterday someone posed the question what was the one event you would love to relive and why?  I've decided it has to be the party Rod and I threw to announce our engagement to my family in Virginia but you need some background.  Rod and I met when we were both single parents in 1968 the first Friday after New Years January 5.  We went together off and on for years while living in the San Francisco Bay Area and our kids were great friends...even though we couldn't make it work back then we were always each other's best friend. When I moved back to Virginia in 1978 the relationship lasted through eleven years of living in different states with weekly phone calls and cross country visits on his part and most particularly the death of his youngest son in a motor cycle accident.  During that time we both had relationships with other people.  Our relationship was always up to him I never called him although I was always so glad when  he called or visited me.  In 1989 he asked me to go to the Reno Air Races with him and his group of friends from United Airlines (we called them "As The Propeller Turns" because of all their wonderful drama).  That trip started this last phase of the Rod and Sandy Saga. I ended up quiting my job and going to work for United Airlines so I could travel, too, and our relationship could be on an equal footing.  We dated cross country for four years.  Without ever saying that we were going to get married we went and picked out rings and I brought his home with me and the next weekend he came back to Virginia and I invited my whole family over for dinner.  My Aunt finally and knowingly said "and what is the occasion for this party?"  With that Rod got down on his knees and asked me for my hand in marriage before God, my family, and all of Heaven and I said "YES".  He then took my engagement ring over to my mother and showed it to her as my sister and daughter are laughing and yahooing in the background. My mother looked in his eyes and said "You know she's always loved you."  Perfect.

PUMPKIN

Pumpkin sleeps at the foot of my bed on a terry bath mat of which I have many because every night when I set him on the mat he sniffs and sniffs and may reject it for some unknown reason so I replace it with another mat or a piece of clothing Rod or I have taken off.  In the morning after my ablutions I pick him up in my arms careful to give support to his little paws and walk down the long hall to the family room.  If I walk down the hall and forget to bring him with me it may take a half hour for him to sniff his way down the hall taking tiny tentative steps. I wonder what his thoughts are in that little cat brain.

♥

PICTURE PRETTY

Someone yesterday told a wonderful junior college story that reminded me of something that happened to me. I had enrolled in a painting class at Skyline Junior College in San Bruno, California. On the first night of the class I'm painting away talking to this very good looking young man with great hair and a beard. We're painting and talking and painting and talking and the inevitable "where are you from ?" came up 'cause no one is a native of California. He said he was from Springfield, Virgina!!!! I gasped and sputtered and choked and finally said I was from Fairfax! As we talked away I found out he was divorced (yay he's single) and an MIT graduate and his profession was electrical engineer. He had also worked as a dishwasher at the Streamliner Diner/Bob's Beef House at Fairfax Circle while a student at Annandale High and I had gone to school with Chuck Parcelles who was the owner's son. Well, we had break together and after class got pizza at a local restaurant and I found out he was the owner of the Lotus Europa I had spied in the parking lot on my way in to class. When I got home that evening and went to wash my face for bed I looked in the mirror and I had a big glob of alizarin crimson paint on my forehead and smeared up into my hair and other assorted smears all over my face even though I had washed my hands with the brushes at the end of class. He never said a word about the paint. We dated for a year.

"YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I WANT! OOUU OOUU OOU HONEY"

     Dating the "bad boy" of the Class of '65 got this Sandy no date for the Prom.  Going steady and wearing your boyfriend's ring meant you didn't go out with someone else, right?  Wrong.  When Mike said he didn't want to go to the Prom and that it was alright to find someone else to go with should have sent off smoke signals but I was too young and inexperienced to see.  Finding someone else to go with made me feel funny.  So I decided instead of the Prom we should go to the beach instead.  That sounded to me like the right thing to do.  All my friends were asking me up to a certain point was I going and I kept saying no we were going to the beach.  Wrong.

     The last night of the Senior Play, Lil Abner, was the last straw.  We all went over to Bob's house for a big party after the show.  Mike saw some friends and said stand here and don't move, I'll be right back.  I stood there and stood there and he never came back so I left my "spot" and can't remember anything much of the party but Kathy had a slumber party at her house and that's where a bunch of us ended up.  

     The long story short is that Mike was flirting and talking with Sherry and when I found out I confronted Sherry who was Class of '64 and had always been a good friend.  I threw Mike's ring at her and told her SHE could give it back to him in a big gesture full of high school angst.  

     And there I was the "Sandy" who didn't go to the Prom because she had paired up with the Danny Zucco of the Class of '65.  Had I learned my lesson?  You betcha, that's why you don't date bad boys.  Lesson learned too late.   

         

      

ROTTEN STORIES FROM THE LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS

 I've been reading lately posts from friends in Florida about all the crazy stuff going on in that state and also all the coverage of the slaying of the young boy lately by a Neighborhood Watch person who may get away with it because of a new law which allows anyone to kill someone if they only think they're in some kind of danger.  Well, Florida is a new member of the Crazy State Brotherhood.  California has always been the leader as the Land of Fruits and Nuts.


     On trial within the last few months  in the north state is the convicted sex offender father who abuses his teenage daughter who then runs away with her father's convicted sex offender brother and who has now been abused by both and they found the runaways in San Francisco weeks later.  Holy Cow!


     Or the girlfriend who beats almost to death the under ten year old son of her boyfriend because she's jealous of the mother of the child and who was helped by her own brother in doing the terrible deed and is now on trial saying, although she confessed to the beating at the time of her arrest, she was on drugs for anxiety which made her have hallucinations and the boy was actually injured in a traffic accident days earlier and at the time showed no signs of injury.  Where was the actual mother and father when this was going on?  Holy Cow!


     Or the thirty something son who beats his mother to death (maybe shoots her?) and drives around all day with her body in his truck then finally decides to dispose of the body in the septic tank of her rural home.  Holy Cow!


     I'm amazed by it all what are we coming to?  One explanation is drugs steals your soul.  Sandy