THANKSGIVING

10 Days of Gratitude

I saw a post for a book where the topic was about the 10 people you are supposed to meet in your life. I took this very literally instead of thinking “my parents because they brought me into this world, etc.” I sat down to think of the 10 people who influenced me most in my life – whether through a good or a bad situation – and also the people who believed in me and built into me to contribute to the person I am. With Thanksgiving around the corner, I thought I’d take each day to give thanks for some of those people. Perhaps you could do the same. (These are in no particular order of importance.)

Day 2 – My Grandparents

I can’t include one set of grandparents without including the other. All but one were immigrants from Italy, and the other was born in the U.S., but Italian was her first language. These four people gave me a heritage, not only of my nationality, its food and culture, but also the heritage of my Christian faith.

I was closer with the first two, because we always lived with or near them. My brother and I drove with them to church every Sunday, we had our weekend meals together, and Grandpa Guy taught me how to ride my bike without the training wheels for the first time. When my brother and I each graduated from grammar school, they took us, respectively, on a Summer driving vacation across the U.S.

They were total opposites. My grandpa Guy was a quiet, little man who lived out his faith, who knew the value of a dollar, and who tried to keep the peace at all costs.

Gramma Jo was a fun, vivacious lady, who I think I am most like. She didn’t always filter what she wanted to say but always kept it clean. She was a talented seamstress who got her first car at age 50 – a turquoise Firebird from my grandpa! She and I used to go shopping in cute, little antique towns near our Midwestern city.

My other two grandparents, Angelo and Amelia, were already in their late teens when they came to the States, and so retained their Italian accents. Amelia was a wonderful Italian cook whose family was her first priority. I never thought to ask for her recipes because I wasn’t that interested in cooking at age 15, which is when she died. It took me many years to figure out the secret ingredient to her pasta gravy. She was a woman who had the gift of visions, but she ran if you had a camera in your hand!

Angelo was a stern disciplinarian (he had seven boys!) but I saw his fun side come out once in a while. He was a winemaker who had a locked room in the cellar. I guess that was his man cave. He and Amelia had a cute relationship, and I’m sure he missed her very much in the almost-25 years until he could join her after his own death. Both grandpas lived well into their 90’s. Must have been that clean living.

Day 1 – My Mom

How can you make a list of the 10 people you were meant to meet in your life and not include your mom? She gave you life. She carried you for nine months and gave birth to you.

Relationships between mothers and daughters can be complicated. When we’re young we emulate everything they do. We look up to them. We trust them. I still find myself doing household things the way my mom would, because – that’s how SHE did it!

I got my gifts of creativity and organization from both my mom and my Gramma Jo. Mom mostly worked in the cosmetics or design industries, although her jobs were administrative. But her talent was there, as was evident in her sense of style – the way she did her hair, the clothes she wore, the way she applied her makeup. Very put-together!

My personality is more like my Gramma Jo’s. My mom is more reserved and tends to be ultra-conservative in her choices. My brother is actually a lot like her, so as an adult, these two try to reign me in sometimes if they don’t see my vision for something or if they think a path I want to take won’t be worth the risk in the return I hope to gain from it.

And for those of you who have gotten past middle age whose mom is still alive, you are starting to see the effects of aging and the interesting role reversal that occurs, as you sometimes become the parent and your parent becomes the “child.”

Growing up, I remember my mother as this strong person always in control, never wavering from her position. A woman who might have appeared to others as perhaps being judgmental of those who did not agree with her. But once you got to know her one-on-one and explained your position to her, she softened to ideas other than hers after a time. But as years passed, a willfulness that also showed itself. A dichotomy for sure.

A woman who sang in the choir and with a woman’s trio in her young married years, volunteering at a local mental hospital. She was a mom working to raise her junior high and high school kids after her divorce during a time when being a divorced woman was frowned upon. A woman to whom family was of utmost importance in life, an entity to be protected from anyone who appeared to be a threat to its happiness and well-being.

Even with the willfulness and challenges of aging, I am so glad that she is still here with me. I will be lost when she’s not. I know that many have complicated and even unsafe relationships with their mothers, and I am truly sorry if you did not have a safe environment in childhood that left you with a fragile sense of self. Perhaps the only positive takeaway is that your situation can be a lesson in how to be different than that with your own children if you have them. If that situation still affects you as an adult, I encourage you to get professional counseling to work through these issues, as they affect every other relationship in your life and how you relate to people and situations. You will never heal if you don’t.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

When you meet someone for the first time in a social situation, do you ask the same old questions, such as, “What do you do for a living?” “How many kids do you have?” “Are you vaccinated?” (Okay, maybe we should stay away from that one…)

As you prepare for your weekend of socializing, here is the first of Friday Conversation Starters, based on “The Complete Book of Questions” by Garry Poole. It runs the gamut of very light get-to-know-you questions to more serious ponderances that you can do with friends at a party, during your lunch break, or with a small group.

1^st Question: “What’s something you’ve won, and how did you win it?”

My Answer: When I was in my early 20’s, working as an Assistant Manager for a well-known women’s clothing store, there was a year-long contest for all the stores in the country. Each month, one winner from each of the six regions would win a 3-day trip to New York with the company’s Accessory Buyer and visit some of the vendors. It was all-expenses paid, staying in a hotel across from Central Park and dining in Greenwich Village, to name a few things. Because my store was the largest in the country, it was impossible for me to win the way the contest was set up, but because of the volume of handbags I sold, the Accessory Buyer herself called and invited me as her guest on the next trip. And since she and several of the company’s executives were flying from New York to my store in Chicago, I got to fly back with them on the company jet! Pretty exciting!

BOUNDARIES…

FATHER’S DAY: GRIEF & GRATITUDE

With the month of June being named after Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage, home, and family, and also coming off of Memorial Day and celebrating Father’s Day in June, I have been thinking about my stepdad, Ron, a lot in recent days. I wanted to honor his memory by posting some thoughts…

Ronnie first came into my life when I was in Junior High.   It would take me several years to see him as more than an intrusion in our lives who was taking my mother’s attention away from me and several more before I would really appreciate him for the father figure he became to both me & my son at different points in our lives.

During those first few years it was an adjustment having a stepfather in the house.  Each decade had its own set of challenges for a stepfather.  Then when I turned 16 Ronnie was the one who taught me how to drive.  I remember telling him that I was terrified of driving on the expressway, so he would just take me all over – sometimes running errands for hours so I could get the practice in behind the wheel. Well this one time we were on River Rd. in Chicago & as we approached this curve in the road he told me to turn on my right directional & follow the curve in the road.  What I didn’t realize at the time was that it was an “On” ramp to the Kennedy Expressway.  You see, it didn’t have an incline in the road, as most ramps tend to, so I had nowhere to go but forward. 

After graduating high school, when I was trying to make it in the field of modeling, Ronnie would drive me to Downtown Chicago on his day off so that I could make the rounds passing out my composite to modeling agencies & photographers.  When the Ritz Carlton Hotel first opened on Michigan Avenue he took me there for lunch several times, and we also used to go to Zweig’s Deli in Niles since we both loved the Sweet ‘n Sour Cabbage Soup and the Combo Corned Beef & Pastrami Sandwich on rye. Since we both worked retail jobs at one point, many a day was spent with one of us driving the other to work. 

Then when I was in my 20’s Ronnie found out about a secret I was keeping from my mother & I got a good dose of fatherhood from him.  He refused to cover for me & threatened to tell my mother if I didn’t.  I was mad at the time, but he told me that his first commitment was to my mother and this wasn’t something he could keep from her.  Let’s just say it made those car rides VERY uncomfortable!

In my 30’s both Ronnie & my mom were a great support to me after my first divorce & Ronnie became the male role model in my son’s life.  In my 40’s, after they moved to Arizona, they took my son for the summers to give me a break in my single mom duties.  More recently, since moving out here after another life transition, Ronnie & my mom once again showed me support in more ways than I can say.  Having experienced many senior moments, they kept telling me that I moved out here just in time.  There was one Sunday, a few weeks before we knew of his illness, that we were out to dinner at Olive Garden.  We were outside, waiting for my uncle – who was still inside, when I noticed Ronnie still had the cloth napkin from the restaurant tucked into the front of his pants.  We laughed so hard, & of course I saw it as a Kodak moment to post on Facebook, which was very popular with my friends.

Then a few weeks after that, he was eating a fortune cookie & realized that he ate the fortune along with the cookie!!!   After those incidents he said to me, “Dawn, you’re living with old people.  You moved out here just in time!”  Little did we know that those two incidents were likely a manifestation of the confusion that came with the brain tumor that we did not yet know existed. 

The week after his first surgery, Ronnie was singing a song that mentioned something about time being short.  He said to me, “No kidding!  We’re all running out of time.  Would I have done anything differently in my life?  Well, I would have married your mother sooner.”

The last several months of Ronnie’s life were very challenging, as the Ron we knew was now a different person due to his illness.  This was Ron, the new guy, who revealed a new face on a daily basis.  All one could really do was try to find the humor in it – and laugh we did!  There was the time we were having a conversation in Japanese – only Ronnie was speaking real Japanese & I was winging it.  Then there was the time he sent me out to “round up the guys & go buy several six-packs of beer” because “you can’t go fishing without beer!” He would not let up on the subject, so we had to just play along.  My first response was that the only six-pack I was picking up was if it was part of a cute guy’s abdomen.  The second was to tell him that the guys couldn’t bring back the beer because this was a dry state.  “Don’t you mean county?” he asked.  “No,” I told him, “state.”  “The ENTIRE state is dry?  Really?  Well, if somebody could figure out a way to get a liquor license they could make a lot of money!”

In the movie, “Eat, Pray, Love” the character of Julia Roberts has a friend who tells her to look at each person she’s met in her life as a teacher.  As a stepfather Ronnie was a great teacher.  One of the things I learned from him is not to live in the past but to always be moving forward (kind of like that ramp he took me on back when I was 16) & not to let anything put off or stop you from living your life.  When you can no longer move forward on this Earth, there’s nowhere to go but upward.  In comparing life in Heaven to life on this Earth, one of my good friends said to me, shortly after I told him of Ronnie’s diagnosis, “Why would you want to stay by the pool in Arizona when there’s a pre-paid ticket waiting for you to go to the beaches of Fiji?!!”

And that’s the cool thing about walking with Jesus!  Because for those of us who are Believers, we will, literally, be walking with Jesus when we leave this Earth.  And I know that someday I will join Ronnie in Heaven.  In navigating my own way from this point forward, what I can do is to remember him as a teacher in my life and what I learned from him, to remember him always with love, & until the day I am reunited with him, to get on with the business of living.

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

DRINKS FOR THE NEW YEAR

With the start of the new year a few days away, I thought I’d post a few drink ideas for those of you who might be celebrating the end of 2020. And don’t we all feel the same – that this has been an exceedingly difficult year in so many ways?

You might wonder why I’m posting drink recipes on my “Relationships” page. First of all, because no one should drink alone! (I’m kidding. I’m actually somewhat of a tea-totaler myself). Second, with the exception of this year, many people either attend or throw New Year’s Eve parties, and there is usually something to drink. Parties are celebrations of relationships, friendships, and family. If you’re not able to be with those you love at this time, perhaps the taste and aroma of these drinks will bring warm thoughts of previous celebrations and hope for future get-togethers.

For those of you living in snowy, cold climates, there is nothing as good as hot chocolate to warm you on a Winter’s day. The first recipe is for slow-cooker hot chocolate, by Arlyn Osborne for the Food Network Kitchen. I can remember going outside to shovel snow growing up in Chicago. Hot chocolate was a good reward afterward, and this recipe uses semi-sweet chocolate – my favorite!

For those who prefer a cold, alcoholic beverage, the second recipe is for traditional Red Sangria. It will keep for 48 hours and is Vegan-friendly, gluten-free, and dairy-free. It can be found on the Minimalist Baker website.

As I mentioned, I’m not much for alcoholic beverages, but my first trip to Europe was to Madrid, Spain, and I LOVED the Sangria. You can read part of my funny Sangria story on my “Travel” page in the “Europe, Here I Come” blog post.

SLOW-COOKER HOT CHOCOLATE

Ingredients

• 6 cups whole milk
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• Kosher salt
• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped*
• Mini marshmallows, for topping
• Whipped cream, for topping
• Crushed candy canes, for topping
• Salted caramel sauce, for topping

*Chocolate chips can be substituted

Directions

Special Equipment:

 a 6-quart slow cooker

1. Add the milk, cream, cocoa powder, sugar, vanilla and 1/4 teaspoon salt to a 6-quart slow cooker. Whisk until combined and the cocoa is dissolved. Stir in the chopped chocolate.
2. Cover and cook on low, whisking every 30 minutes, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is hot, about 2 hours 30 minutes.  
3. Ladle into mugs and top as desired with either some marshmallows or whipped cream sprinkled with crushed candy canes or drizzled with caramel sauce. 

EASY TRADITIONAL RED SANGRIA

Ingredients

There is no traditional “formula” for Sangria, but it includes the following ingredients that you can tailor to your own taste:

Fruit (like apples and oranges)
Orange juice
A sweetener (like brown sugar or cane sugar)
A liquor (like brandy or rum)
Bold, fruity, dry Spanish red wine (like Tempranillo, Garnacha, or other Rioja wine)
& Ice (for chilling)

Below are the ingredients used on the Minimalist Baker site:

• 1/2 medium apple (cored, skin on, chopped into small pieces)
• 1/2 medium orange (rind on, sliced into small pieces, large seeds removed/plus more for garnish)
• 3-4 Tbsp organic brown sugar (or 3 Tbsp (37.5 g) organic cane sugar as original recipe is written)
• 3/4 cup orange juice (plus more to taste)
• 1/3 cup brandy (plus more to taste)
• 750 ml bottle dry Spanish red wine*
• 1 cup Ice to chill

Directions

1. Add apples, oranges, and sugar to a large pitcher and muddle with a muddler or wooden spoon for 45 seconds.
2. Add orange juice and brandy and muddle again to combine for 30 seconds.
3. Add red wine and stir to incorporate, then taste and adjust flavor as needed. I added a bit more brandy, orange juice and brown sugar. Stir to combine.
4. Add ice and stir once more to chill. Serve as is, or with a bit more ice. Garnish with orange segments (optional).
5. Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours, though best when fresh.

Whether your choice of beverage to ring in the New Year is hot or cold, please celebrate safely, and may you have good health and prosperity in the New Year.

TAMARINDO!

Posted by AZSunrize19  Jul 16, 2020 FAMILY & FRIENDSLeave a CommentEdit

So, I’m sitting there one day watching my (former) sweetheart putting an inordinate amount of cream into his coffee, (or should I say, he was “having a little coffee with his cream…”), and I was reminded of the first time I tasted coffee.

During my childhood my brother and I would often take the CTA bus in Chicago and go to my Grandma & Grandpa Gerali’s house after school.  The meals we had there were like none I had ever tasted – yet so comforting and familiar.  It took me YEARS to figure out what the secret ingredient was in Grandma’s spaghetti sauce!  How I wish I would have asked her to teach me how to cook while she was still with us.  She died when I was 15 – not an age when I was really thinking too much about recipes….. 

As grandparents are sometimes known to do, they allowed us a “treat” during our visits that our parents never allowed us to have at home.  One of these treats was a “cup” of coffee, with lots of milk.  It was as familiar a “treat” as the sip of wine Grandpa used to let us have from his basement wine cellar.  (And when I say “wine cellar,” I literally mean “wine cellar.”  Grandpa used to MAKE his own wine in the basement in a corner room behind a locked door, located behind the tabletop shuffleboard game.) 

So what, you say, does coffee and wine have to do with Tamarindo?  And what is Tamarindo, anyway?

According to Wikipedia, Tamarindo is “an agua fresca drink typically served in South American countries and Mexico. It is made from tamarind (a legume: tamarindus indica) after it has been boiled in water, has had its seeds removed, and has been liquefied and combined with sugar. It is typically sold at taquerías in Mexico, and Central and South American restaurants. “

The way I remember it, it used to sound like Grandpa called it, “thumbarindo,” almost like Thumbalina, the doll I used to have – LOL!  But somehow I got the name right when I Googled it and found it right away.  Anyway, that’s neither here nor there, I suppose, other than to extoll the praises of the Internet when it’s used in a positive way.

So, back to Grandpa’s.  What was it about Tamarindo that was so good?  As I recall, it didn’t have much of a taste – sort of like drinking a flat Coke.  Was it special because none of my friends had ever heard of it, and so I felt special that I knew what Tamarindo was and they didn’t?  Was it because you couldn’t buy it in a store, thereby making it more special because it wasn’t readily available?  The only way we could get Tamarindo was when the peddler man walked up and down the alley at Grandpa’s house, pushing his cart full of fruits, vegetables, and…..Tamarindo!!!  The peddler man didn’t peddle his wares every day, or even every week.  From what I recall it was once or twice a month.  Sometimes we’d go to Grandma and Grandpa’s and ask to have Tamarindo with our meal, only to be told, “We don’t have any more.  The peddler man isn’t coming until next week, but we’ll save some for you for the next time you come.”  Such disappointment!  And such anticipation for the next visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s house!  Or was it because we thought we were getting away with something that we thought our parents didn’t want us to have? 

Ultimately, looking back now, I think the real reason Tamarindo was so special was for one reason, and one reason only.  Relationships.  The relationship-building that came from spending time with my grandparents.  The relationship that developed because my grandparents made us feel special – that we were special enough to get a treat each time we visited.  And that was no small feat considering that Grandma and Grandpa had 11 grandchildren at that time.  MAYBE my brother and I didn’t get our treat every time we visited because Grandma and Grandpa were saving it for one of our cousins – it wasn’t our turn yet.  They had to share it with us equally so we would ALL feel special. 

And that was one of the wonderful things about growing up in my family.  All the cousins, all the birthday parties, New Year’s Day dinner at local restaurants (“Table for 50!!”  What do you expect with an Italian family?), playing Hide-and-Seek in Grandpa’s basement while the “grown-ups” played dirty BINGO.  (Cousins, you know what I’m talking about!)

So people, cherish the time you have with your loved ones and friends.  Make every moment count.  Make memories.  Leave a legacy for your children and grandchildren. 

And speaking of using the Internet in a positive way – I initially started using social media as a way to stay connected with family and friends after I moved across the country from them.  It’s not about the quantity of friends you have, but about the quality.  Some of you are relatives of mine who I don’t see often due to geography, but whose lives I love keeping up with because of a crazy social media website that allows us to do so.  Some of us share a former workplace, some of us share our faith, some of you are a former boss of mine or a former school instructor, or former classmates.  Some of you make me laugh with your wit, make me cry with your trials, and allow me to share in your triumphs or watch your kids grow up.  And some of you might be reading this for the first time and can relate to a story in your childhood that connects you in a powerful way.  I might have more than one type of connection with each of you, but I’m grateful for them all.  So raise your glasses!  (Any substitute for Tamarindo will do…)

Here’s to love, family, friendships, and memories.  Thank you, Angelo.  Thank you, Amelia.  And thank you…..Tamarindo!