Friendship – Page 4 – Valerie's Voice

Juicing

Mission, Texas is home to hundreds of Winter Texans, which the surrounding communities embrace, which are also home to many other Winter Texans. The Winter Texans bring a lot of business to the area and there are signs all around welcoming them.

Our friend’s backyard patio with planters and a glass table my friend made in her glass class.

It was fun to see where our friends spend their winters: in a nice, two-bedroom home in a 55+ retirement development. They have a community room with a library, game room, swimming pool, indoor and outdoor hot tubs and a fully equipped tool shop and art studios. My friend discovered she can paint and has painted several pictures already, with lessons from an art instructor. She also enjoys making cut-glass art pieces. Her husband likes to spend time in the tool shop. They have enjoyed getting to know their neighbors and made some good friends over the years. It was fun to hear stories as we walked through the neighborhoods.

Right across the street, at the end of the driveway, our friend’s neighbor fills a three-tiered metal basket with surplus fruit from his backyard trees, free for the taking. We grabbed a couple of grapefruit to enjoy, and I also picked one ripe grapefruit still hanging on our friend’s tree.

Their backdoor neighbors have a lemon tree, also overflowing with fruit, and we were free to pick lemons anytime.

Friends down the block brought a big bag of oranges from their trees (twice while we were visiting) for us to make freshly-squeezed orange juice. All the fresh fruit was a special treat. We soon got in the habit of making fresh orange juice or grapefruit juice, usually in the mornings. One day we picked enough lemons to make a fresh pitcher of lemonade. Our friends had an electric juicer, which made the job very easy and fun.

Using the electronic juicer for squeezing the lemons.

Delicious lemonade from freshly-squeezed lemons.

We really enjoyed that fresh, off-the-tree citrus fruit which we don’t get in Minnesota.

Sugar Cookies

A few days ago I received a text from my friend with a photo of her two (of three) granddaughters, ages 4 and 6. The girls were decorating sugar cookies, with the caption “Leaf Cookies!”

I was surprised how quickly my mind went down memory lane.

Before I called Northfield home (in 1994) I would sometimes venture to this town for a day trip. Northfield’s downtown area is, and always has been, a fun destination for a getaway from the city.

In the mid 1980’s, on a fine, autumn day, my friend (the grandmother of the two girls in the photo) and I went to Northfield. While walking down the main street we looked in the windows of Quality Bakery. We were impressed by the cookies we saw there. They were sugar cookies, in the shape of leaves, decorated with frosting using fall colors. We loved the idea and immediately went out and bought leaf-shaped cookie cutters: an oak leaf, a maple leaf, and an elm leaf .

Often in the fall, I would make sugar cookies and recruit my boys to help frost the cookies. The cookies always looked festive because any touches of the red, yellow, orange or green colored frosting on the leaf shape made them look great. I remember putting two or three colors on a cookie and taking a toothpick to swirl the colors together.

So when I saw her photo come through on my iPhone what surprised me most was the emotions that swelled up within me. It brought tears to my eyes. I thought back to when my own boys were 4 and 6 and the good times we had, I thought about my friend’s two little boys and my two boys playing together and now one of her sons is deceased. And, then back in the present, I was filled with such joy to see my friend’s two sweet, granddaughters frosting leaf cookies.

So in this season of Thanksgiving, I am thankful…for friendships, children and grandchildren, and traditions.

Pancakes and Scanners

My friend, who lives in Indiana, and I like to meet in WI when it works and it worked last week. We shop antique stores and thrift shops. It’s hard to explain the joy we get from going from shop to shop. It’s great fun and great therapy (or does the therapy come from our rich conversations?)

We stay in hotels and eat breakfast at their breakfast bars. We are used to the eggs and sausages in warmers, bread and bagels next to a toaster, oatmeal in crock-pots next to cold cereal, and the waffle maker machine – which was a great invention but has been around awhile. This time, at the breakfast bar, there was something new…a pancake machine.

Looking through the window of the pancake machine.

You press a button and plop goes the first blob of pancake batter onto the conveyor belt, then a second blob of batter is dropped and as the belt moves along they are cooked and within minutes out comes two hot and tasty pancakes! It was very fun to ooh and aah over this new machine.

Later that day we stopped at one of the largest grocery stores I’ve ever been in. We find what we are looking for and as we check out we experience another new technology…360-degre scanners. You simply unload your cart one item at a time, place it single file on the belt, and your items are automatically scanned and no one has to handle the merchandise (except for bagging it).

Who knew we’d discover not one, but two new-to-us modern technology devices in the southern Wisconsin town of Janesville.

Retirement, so far…

Over the summer people asked me if I was enjoying my retirement and I answered, “I’m not sure yet since I always had summers off. I’ll see what it’s like this fall.”

Well, fall has come and it has been busy with our annual trek to the north shore, our son home from Africa for a week and going to New Mexico to see the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Those activities were wonderful, and a sign of retirement, but it wasn’t until last week that it really hit me.

Last Monday was the first day of Christmas Festival ticket sales. That was part of my job for the last 12 years so when the clock struck 9 on Monday morning I visualized the hustle and bustle going on in one little office area of St. Olaf College…producing huge results. I thought of all the folks racing the clock to order their tickets online and all the chaos of the moment. A wonderful and smart 2016 St. Olaf graduate took my job. He worked with me last year on the Christmas Festival so he knew the ticket sales system, and he knew of the usual chaos that goes along with it. It made for a smooth transition.

My supervisor, who became a dear friend, also retired in July (that was instrumental in my decision to retire). She had been at St. Olaf College for 31 years and the two of us were responsible for the C’fest (our affectionate term) ticket sales. We got together last week for coffee, which turned into 2 1/2 hours of conversation. On our way out of the coffee shop a retiree from St. Olaf stopped us to ask about Christmas Festival tickets…we smiled…and there we were…talking tickets sales once again.

It was fun to sit down with my friend and visit without time constraints. It is peaceful to go to the doctor’s office and not feel hurried to get back to work. The freedom in retirement is nice.

I’m grateful for the interesting job I enjoyed for 12 years. And I am grateful that I am healthy and able to enjoy retirement.

So now when people ask me, “How’s retirement?” I can truly say it’s great!

The Joys of Biking

My husband is an active member of the Faribo Flyer’s bike club. They ride their bicycles all over southeastern Minnesota, usually on Saturday mornings and Wednesday evenings. Sometimes I join the trail riders on Wednesday nights. After the Wednesday night rides both the road riders and trail riders meet up for snacks and fellowship.

Once a year Vicki hosts the groups and spends the day making homemade pies, usually four to six pies.

Raspberry and blueberry cream pie with lemon zest.

On this particular evening I did not pedal nearly far enough to burn off the number of calories I consumed after tasting so many treats from the delicious array of homemade goodies available that evening.

Nanaimo pie…a Canadian treat…think Almond Joy.

Vicki’s four homemade pies, another homemade blueberry pie (made by Tim), Mary’s weekly deviled-eggs contribution, and homemade Sun-dried tomato/pesto bread and cheese made for a delicious feast!

Mary’s deviled eggs, the sun-dried tomato and pesto bread, and cheese.

It’s a good thing this pie-making event happens only once a year!

Playing Piano

I took piano lessons as a child and played for several years. I also learned how to play an organ, and my folks bought one for our family, but then it mostly sat idle. For a short time I took piano lessons as an adult, but it was still hard to find time to practice. It’s not like riding a bike…I forgot a lot.

Our Kimball, spinet piano; circa 1940’s?

When our sons were younger we wanted them to have a general music background so we had them take two years of piano. However, after two years they could choose to keep taking lessons or not. One did, one didn’t. We bought a used spinet piano at the Schmidt’s annual piano sale (with the little money we received from my grandfather’s inheritance-it wasn’t much but we bought a piano) and we still have this piano in our house. I play and practice a little (very little!) and when my son comes home he usually sits down to play. I enjoy listening to him play.

What I have really enjoyed the past few years is playing duets with a friend. She’s a piano teacher so she plays the more advanced part and I play the easier part, and it works! We both enjoy our time together and laugh a lot…while making music. We look forward to playing together and we hope to find more opportunity to do so now that I’m retired.

She has a beautiful, grand piano and we practice at her house most of the time. And when she goes out of town I “water her piano!” Who knew…some pianos have humidifiers and they need to be filled with water every few weeks…so instead of watering plants I water a piano!

Try It, You’ll Like It

It worked for my friend and I to meet in Wisconsin for a couple of days to take time out to visit in person, and to hear stories of her journey thus far, after her son’s death in December. God blessed our time together and it was very good.

We always enjoy our dinners out (breakfasts are usually in the hotel). The first night a dessert option caught our attention: Salted Caramel Bourbon Bread Pudding. The listed ingredients were bread pudding, caramel sauce, topped with candied pecans and salted caramel ice cream.

I mentioned to my friend that I had never tried bread pudding. I never thought “bread pudding” sounded appetizing. My friend however, likes bread pudding and explained how she makes hers and encouraged me to try it. This flavor sounded tempting, to both of us, but we were full from our fish tacos so we decided to come back another night to try it.

We did go back. The bread pudding portion was large (we shared) and it was delicious! We savored every bite.

Turn of the Century

I took the back roads to my friend’s, new-to-her, town house and it was a beautiful drive. We were getting together to catch up with our lives after a few months apart. Since that time she had moved into a town house in a neighborhood where she wanted to live. She had created fliers and dropped them off on doorsteps in the area letting people know she was interested in buying a town house – if anyone was interested in selling theirs. And it worked!

She enjoyed showing me around the spacious end unit. She had it repainted and the great room, bedroom and sun-room she had re-carpeted. Natural light came in through the large windows on west end and the patio door on the south end, and the empty room looked spacious. The new furniture she ordered had not arrived so we sat down on her new, soft carpet in front of the fireplace. As she laid out the upholstery samples of her sofa, chairs, ottoman, pillows and cushions I “oohed and aahed” over her choices and imagined all the pieces in their place. She has had fun decorating and soon her place will be as she has envisioned it over the past few months.

So I asked her, “when was the town house built?” and she answered, with a sly smile, “at the turn of the century.” I laughed, then realized she was serious. Then realized that now means around the year 2000.

Clever!

A Very Special Birthday Card

envelope-clipart-cliparti1_envelope-clip-art_05 I sent a card off in the mail this week. I went to the post office to get it stamped and the clerk warned me it would cost extra because it was so thick. I responded it’s OK, I expected that. Then I told him it is a birthday card that I send to my childhood friend and we’ve been sending it back and forth to each other since 1979. That’s 37 years! It began during the push for recycling and the card suggested we save it and send it back to the recipient on her birthday the following year. So we did. We keep adding cardstock for room to write our birthday greetings, thus its thickness.

One year it fell out of her mail box on to the street and vehicles ran over it before she was able to retrieve it. Some of the writing is smeared but most of it is intact.

It’s very special, she’s very special, and we have lots of happy memories together, growing up living across the street from each other.

Happy Birthday Diane.