*Sigh.*

That is all.

The Vacation

Here are some lovely shots of our vacation. We pretty much broke even, or maybe came out a little ahead, which was very nice -- our rooms were freeeeeeee -- but everything was pricey!
The Mojave desert at dusk

Check out the carpeting of our hotel

In the hotel lobby area

Even the public loos are posh here - marble and solid brass throughout
We had good food, great weather, lots of fun.

Presents

You all know how I love presents, and I received a surprise one Wednesday night before my husband's class at church.
The 10-year old daughter of some members gave me a lovely gift bag with a heart-shaped tag, on which was written, "Because... We Think You're Special" - I didn't want to open the gift in front of everyone, especially since one of the women actually did say, "Why do you get a gift? I didn't get one." Bah. What is wrong with people? I just said, "I'm the pastor's wife," and left it at that.
On the drive home, I opened the bag and inside were 2 bottles of nail polish. Now, unless you know me, that might seem odd - but I am a fiend for nail polish, so it was such a thoughtful gift.

Breadsticks and (insert something clever here)

I ran across a breadstick recipe that seemed really easy - and it was - and they tasted great (!), but they look like bloody fingers! See for yourself:
They were seriously very easy: pizza dough, red peppers, romano, rosemary, chives....

I have to figure out how to take pictures that don't brighten things so much, as they weren't this bright in real life.

Viva..............

So we are taking a mini-vacation later this week. While it is not something we would normally do because of $$$ (Read: lack thereof), we got 3 nights of comp'd rooms at a resort hotel whose name is shared by my brother. I am sure our room won't be the most lavish, but even the small rooms here are supposed to be quite posh, as the hotel bills itself as the only resort of its class in the world to have been awarded the Mobil A 5 star, AAA 5 Diamond and the Michelin 5 Red Pavilions. So I expect it'll be pretty fun, even though we won't be seeing any Cirque shows nor Barry Manilow, who is still performing (!), but I've already looked up free things to do/see while we're there, some of which look to be interesting. I also plan to stay away from the (in)famous buffets, which are supposed to be nothing these days but tourist traps.

Politics

You think national politics are evil? They've got nothing on church ones.

Everyday is Halloween

With apologies to Ministry, every day isn't, but yesterday was! We had plans to just stay home, hang out and pass out candy to the kiddies who came by. I had bought 2 bags of candy to start, but since this neighborhood is usually fairly active on Halloween, I went back and bought several more bags. I think one bag may have even done it - we only had about 25 kids come by.
My friend in Napa had NONE show up. Weird, eh?
I had bought a couple little decorations, but forgot to get photos of them: some bloody hand thick window decals for the glass on the screen door and an orange gauze-draped pumpkin lantern which I hung near the front door, where the hummingbird feeder used to be.
Since we all know how much I like theme dinners, here's what we had last night - we had butternut and bell pepper soup, italian breadsticks, apple slices with ricotta-gorgonzola dip (recipe courtesy Rachael Ray) and oatmeal pumpkin cookies for dessert, which were as good this time as when I made them a couple weeks ago.

We had thought about going to a haunted house, but since it's raining, we decided to forego that, and B suggested going to a movie this afternoon. I found that Clovis has a cheap theater (yea!), so we went to see "The Dark Knight" for $3 apiece. We will definitely be visiting again. Weird, though - the restroom is a single - isn't that odd for an entire theatre? Maybe the upstairs set is larger??? We both enjoyed the film and getting out - and B tells me that some yahoo drew parallels to this film with W and his cronies regarding the War on Terror. Please.

Chris Isaak Setlist - Fillmore Oct 9, 2008

Singing with his brother, Nick, the opener:

The stage beforehand
Wearing his turquoise suit:

Lonely With a Broken Heart
Somebody's Cryin'
Love Me Tender
I Want Your Love
We Let Her Down
Graduation Day
Speak of the Devil
Wicked Game
Best I Ever Had
I Want You To Want Me
Worked It Out Wrong
If Somebody Loves You

then they came to the forestage, and sitting on stools, played acoustically:
Two Hearts
Take My Heart
Just As Soon As I'm Off Parole
Nyquil Blues - Kenney Dale
You Can't Do A Thing (To Stop Me)
I'll Go Crazy (a James Brown song)
Guess Things Happen That Way
Only The Lonely (Orbison)

back to electric with:
Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing

then the encore, wearing the mirrored suit:

American Boy
San Francisco Days
Notice the Ring
Bonnie Bee
Blue Moon
Forever Blue

A new week

And it will be better than the last one!

The meeting actually wasn't pretty, with the biggest complaint that the pastor does not let his "elders" know every single decision he makes - for instance, the theme of next week's sermon, BC material, who he meets or talks to and when (about ANYthing), but at least the yokels may calm down for the moment.

Reformation Service was nice yesterday, and several people actually showed up in red. In addition, there were 3 new members welcomed in - a very difficult decision for 2 of them, as they were both raised in the Roman church and are having to endure the hostility from the families regarding leaving the RCs and becoming Lutheran.

I'd have liked to have gone to the service in San Mateo, but it was just not going to work this year. After service, we went to a reception for the other new member, and the trip to SM would have just been too much, especially since we had gone to Cupertino last weekend.

There also seems to be a problem with the radiator in one of our cars - hint: rising temperature at stops and going uphill. Thankfully one of the members did a small Dx yesterday stating a faulty cap, so B plans to get a new radiator cap today. Hopefully that's all it is.

A Yokel Witch-hunt

The outcome of this afternoon should be interesting. My husband meets today with two devil's advocates and a semi-honcho. The DAs called for the meeting because my husband, who is a pastor, acts like one - or is, at least, attempting to act like one, and the minions don't like it. They want him to be under their thumb of control in all matters. It is truly unfortunate that one's own insecurities and false intellect push so far that another's livelihood may be at stake for their own selfish motives for power.

How dare he communicate the Eucharistic elements to himself! (arrogant)
How dare he read the pericopes! (arrogant again)
How dare he want to send a letter to non-attending members, inviting them to come back! (offensive)
How dare his wife use a different surname (the nerve of her!)
Surely his meetings, conversations, sermon and class preparations, visiting cannot take 40 hours by any means! (walk a DAY)
How dare he make any decision - what to wear, how to preach, how and what to teach - without consultation of several other people.

One would think he could barely get out of bed each morning by himself.

I suspect it will not be a pretty meeting.

I'm tired

...and annoyed. Not a lot of humor and joy today.

That is all.

20 recipes to get you through the month

I got a link in my inbox this morning for The 10 Healthiest Foods on the Planet and when I clicked there, I found
Lemons
Broccoli (an almost perfect food, according to my mom's radiation oncologist)
Dark Chocolate
Potatoes (this one surprised me)
Salmon
Walnuts
Avocados
Garlic
Spinach (the other almost perfect food, according to the RO)
Beans (as well as legumes, peas)

When I got there, there was a link to recipes using these foods - talk about easy meal planning, it also comes with a shopping list for each week! Yes, 20 recipes for 31 days, so there are a few repeats, but that doesn't matter. And the recipes are super-easy and not expensive. Some of the recipes not only call for salmon, but also chicken and shrimp, but I figure I can modify those without much difficulty.

I'll have photos, no doubt, if when I make them!

Of Pizzas and Migraines

I awoke with a migraine yesterday and the Zomig helped me feel well enough to run several errands, but when I came home, I was exhausted, took a 2 hour nap and didn't feel like making dinner at all, so my husband picked up a pizza for us on the way home.

Today is much better, but I'm still tired and -- staying home, giving myself a mani (OPI Tropical Punch)and pedi (OPI I Only Drink Champagne)! Today (Tuesdays) is also the day I normally chat with one of the parishioners, but I am just not in the mood. Too much drama there.

Parton and Klaus

The weekend was good. We started very early Saturday morning - 5 am early - to pick up my mom in Fremont, then headed to Cupertino to see a Craig Parton seminar, "From Evangelicalism to the Evangel," and if you ever get a chance to see him, do it! Much of the material is covered in his "The Defense Never Rests: A Lawyer's Quest for the Gospel" and "Religion on Trial," and is inspiring and hopeful. Parton is fiercely intelligent and a great presenter, being a trial attorney himself, and is an apologist extraordinaire, both following and walking aside such as John Warwick Montgomery.


Sunday we spent time talking with Ken Klaus. While we didn't hear him preach, as Rev had his own congregation to attend to, we were able to talk to him alone after lunch and he is gracious and charismatic on a personal level, asking about my brooch, commenting how it matched my shoes and that the photo I took of him and my husband is better than what his publicist uses.

Cookies!

Since it's autumn now, I figure I may as well use what I have - so Wednesday morning I made pumpkin oatmeal cookies. I had an old pumpkin bread mix, so to it I added eggs, butter, oatmeal, nutmeg, cinnamon, etc - and they turned out great! The photo is much brighter than IRL and it looks like my cookies from before, but I assure you, they are different

Big Fair

Saturday, we went to the County Fair. Well, county fairs are usually a bit odd in several ways - a totally different lifestyle, lots of dust and dung, and lots of deeply fried food. We were not disappointed, and in fact, even had an extra bonus.

Since we didn't print out our tickets online (lesson learned), we stood in a looooooong line, had my purse searched, Rev got wanded - funny, the men get swept by the wand and we get out purses checked - what if I had something hidden on my person? Anyhoo, we wandered through some commercial buildings where hawkers were hawking some crazy and tacky wares, strolled through the flowers building where we saw some lovelies, went back out to get some grub - a block of curly fries. Literally, it was a block, and even sharing it we couldn't finish it all. We wandered through the midway, which is always a sight - the workers without teeth, the whole carny thing. Quite its own lifestyle, I understand - and one reason I would never go on the rides - who knows when they were last maintained properly? Eek.

In the livestock building, we saw mostly baby lambs (as in days old), sheep and cows. The lambs were soooooooo cute. I am just sad that their fate is to be someone's food.

A highlight of the day was a wedding at the Fair. Yep, you read that right - someone actually chose to be married at the Fair. Not just at any spot, but at Catfish Falls, which is exactly as it sounds. Unfortunately, we did not see the wedding itself, but happened upon the scene after the happy occasion, while photos were being shot. Oh, yes, we got piccies, too, so you can see the party adorned in their zoot suits and tattoos.

Jack London and SF Thursday

While my husband was at the District Pastors Conference last week, somehow I didn't have the energy to write. I don't think the two are related, just how it happened.

So, at any rate... for our year and a half wedding anniversary, he decided to take me to the Chris Isaak show at the Fillmore. Since he was in South Lake Tahoe, I took the train from Fresno to Oakland's Jack London Square and spent a couple hours before he made his way down the highway to get me. The weather was absolutely beautiful, so I found a bench on which to sit, where my face and head were out of the sun, but the rest of me could enjoy it. This was my view from the bench:

When we left JL, we headed straight to SF so we wouldn't get stuck in any traffic going over the bridge. As seems to be our custom, we went straight to North Beach - first stop, Vesuvio, for a quick drink, then to get a late lunch/early dinner. Well, if you're ever going to North Beach, keep this in mind: A lot of the restaurants are closed between 3 and 5 to clean up after lunch and get ready for dinner.

We did find L'Osteria del Forno open, where we were told we could sit at "any small table." Well, there was only 1 other group (a couple and their small child) in the entire space, so we chose a table by the window, sort of secluded. The waitress was never very friendly to us - good thing to food was good. In fact, while we were there, a family of 4 came up and were turned away "because the chef was too busy," but could they come back in about half an hour. Funny thing - they did come back.

After we left the resto, we headed over to Western Addition/Fillmore so that we could park underground at the Kabuki instead of on the street next to the projects. We also wanted to get there early enough (ok, *I* wanted) so that we could be close enough to the front of the line that we wouldn't have to be in the back at the show. Since it was still really early, we actually could have been first in line, but I wasn't that obsessive. Ha. So we wandered around the neighborhood for a while, then ended up at Rassela's, the Ethiopian food/jazz joint. Not very friendly there, either.

When we crossed the street to the Fillmore, we were probably about 30 deep in line, so all was well, and when we entered I headed to the right side, where the banquette and a few small tables are, but alas, those were "reserved" already, so we ended up between Chris and Hershel, about 5 feet from the stage. Rev had to elbow some rude interlopers who were trying to push their way to the stage and make fools of themselves, and my husband was quite popular after that.

Chris' brother, Nick, opened the show, and it was not the best performance I've seen from him, though it was decent. Chris was, of course, wonderful. He is consistently entertaining, with great vocals and style.

The drive home, however, was rough! We had to stop twice to nap, but yes, it was well worth it.

Wow - a whole week!

I don't know what happened to last week - guess I didn't have a lot of energy for the most part, but beginning at the later part of the week, things began to get active again. Will post again tomorrow with details.

Floppy French dinner!

There are no photos from last night's dinner because while it tasted good and didn't look so bad, it wasn't what I'd hoped for, alas, so I was a bit frustrated.

At any rate, it was an attempt at potato gallette ... topped with haricots verts, tomates, un petit chipotle. Yeah, so it tasted good, but I guess I wasn't in the mood for a photo.

Tonight's pizza night, so I don't have to think about dinner, but I'm already trying to plan more tomato dishes!

I did a lot of work on the church's website, though, so that's ready for the world - it's not great, but at least there is pertinent information and people can find out proper service times, and there's an updated photo of my husband, etc.

Tomorrow is a DAR meeting, and really, I am not looking forward to going. I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but I just feel kind of awkward there - I just transferred to the new chapter where I live, so I don't know anyone there - but also, every meeting is at a hotel restaurant, so it's $16 every meeting. There are usually 2 choices, and neither are vegetarian, so to get a veg meal, you have to make a special request. So... not only am I new, I have to have a special request. Yeah. So tomorrow I'm not ordering lunch, but part of the program happens during lunch, and the Opening is before lunch, sooooooooo... yeah. I plan to sit as near to the rear of the room as possible when I arrive tomorrow. Too bad I can't bring a book - ha!! Mom suggests seeing if they do activities with their VA hospital and participating that way, so I'll keep my ears open tomorrow if anything's mentioned.

Favorites

Something I find most aesthetically pleasing is a bare tree - deciduous trees that have lost their leaves. In addition to that, I appreciate "dead" trees whose remaining trunk is in an interesting shape. There is one such trunk that I see and on which I comment every time we drive the 31 miles to the church. Yesterday afternoon, my husband stopped on the side of the highway, got out, tramped through the dead grass on the side of the road and walked up a small grade on highway 41 in Madera County between Fresno and Coarsegold to get this for you

and this

For some reason, the lines of this tree are pleasing. It's really sculptural and I could see this copied in bronze.

The same family brought us more tomatoes last night. Wow. 18 red globes and lots of yellow pears - and some jalapenos!

Cookies and Brooms

Here are the roses from our front yard

Had a headache today, but worked on the church's website, made some gingerbread cookies - and I'm trying to streamline the housecleaning process. I've never been a Merry Maid by any stretch, but it's really dusty around here (and believe me, it's more than a small matter - the floor itself has a fine layer of dust every single day), so it means literally daily sweeping and wiping things down. My husband (and his elderly mother, who lived here before I came) had a housecleaner in here on a weekly basis for years, so he doesn't realize the upkeep or little daily maintenance that than help. It's a good thing I'm not working outside the home - If I get a job, I don't wanna think about the dust.

On to tonight's dinner: made with the yellow sauce on the pasta

I think I need a popsicle now to help me with my head pain.

Fresh food and flowers

I picked a lovely assortment of roses from the yard yesterday, so see, it isn't all bad.

Last week, one of the congregation members gave us many vine-ripened red globe and small yellow pear tomatoes. With the globes, I made two tomato-focused salads:
* chopped tomatoes * chopped onions * garlic * basil * EV olive oil * white balsamic

and a few days later
* chopped tomatoes * chopped onions * parsley * corn kernels * EV olive oil * honey mustard


Similar though they were to each other, there was enough variation to make it interesting. Sadly, I am allergic to tomatoes (migraine food), but I did sneak a bite of each, and they were delish - thankfully my wonderful husband thought so, too, as he is the one who had to eat both creations.

With the yellows, I made a sauce, which I think will be used in tonight's dinner. The sauce was super easy, too - just warmed up some light olive oil, tossed in some basil (which gave it a bit of a smoky flavor), added just a few chipotle flakes, let it all simmer to a nice mashy sauce, et voila!

Appalachia, California??

Yes, the foothills of Madera County are where Appalachia meets California.

I had visited my husband's congregation a few times before we got married a year and a half ago, but nothing could have prepared me for its reality of existence.

While this area is only 30 miles north of Fresno, the mindset of its population is very much "us against them." The "locals," and I use the term loosely, as so many of the people are transplants, look upon those who live in the Fresno metro area (my husband, their pastor, and I included) as flatlanders and therefore as outsiders. With apologies to Chris Nolan's film Insomnia, "There are two kinds of people in [Coarsegold/Oakhurst, etc]: those who were born here and those who come here to escape something." If they don't work in Fresno, it's like pulling teeth to get someone to go there for any reason.
There is a lot of homeschooling, hunting, libertarianism (which also extends to practices they want/don't want in the church), and personal hygiene seems to be a problem among many. It's a challenge indeed. The media is shunned to a degree - TV, internet - but Rush Limbaugh is an icon here. Oh, remember the guy whose skin turned blue from ingesting too much colloidal silver? Yeah, he's nearby. Welcome to my world.