Reunion Wrap-Up

I'm still working on the reunion wrap-up. I returned the borrowed life-jackets and the tables and chairs. I washed all the beach towels and put the serving dishes in their proper place. I cleaned out left-overs from the refrigerator. I mopped the floors and cleaned windows. Those were the easy jobs.

During the reunion, I agreed to produce a newsletter summarizing the event. I also said I'd send attendees the recipes. Those of us with digital cameras promised we'd make CDs of our pictures and mail the CDs to each other.

My plan was to create a recipe book (done), make the CDs (nearly done), and write the newsletter (undone) and send all these in one mailing, thus avoiding piece-meal shipments and saving postage.

I gathered the recipes and typed them into a publishing application I'd used to create a booklet of memories distributed at the reunion. Should be straightforward to use the memory booklet as a model for creating the recipe booklet, right? Not so. I didn't allow enough pages when I created the recipe document, so I had to solve some formatting issues. I won't go into details. My PC and I are on speaking terms again.

Busy during the reunion, I didn't take as many pictures as I normally do; but I had some to share. My Canon PowerShot S500 was "a little under the weather." The week before the reunion I realized that when a neighbor borrowed it, she must have dropped it and returned it broken. The LCD monitor, that previously showed the subject and gave information about mode, shutter effect, battery, and so on, now showed a black and white spider-like picture regardless of what buttons I pressed. The monitor or the shutter was cracked. No time to get the camera repaired before the reunion. Test pictures taken through the viewfinder and uploaded to the PC were okay. At the reunion, I used the viewfinder and hoped for interesting pictures.

A few days after the reunion, I transferred the reunion snaps from my camera to my PC. Despite my camera woes, I got many great shots, including this one of the whole gang taken by the aforementioned neighbor as she balanced on a chair at our dock.

About ten days after uploading the pictures, I bought the CDs. Now I need to create the CDs. Won't take too long, right?

I haven't started the newsletter....

Lemon Framage

Since I've retired, "follow through" hasn't been my strongest quality. Note that I started blogging in June, it's nearly September and I'm just getting back to blogging. My apologies. I intended to blog regularly....

In my defense, I've been busy planning and hosting our second family reunion. Last year's inaugural event welcomed thirty-seven of us, aged younger than two and older than seventy, to Wausau, Wisconsin. This year's reunion at the Lake continued the reconnection of siblings, cousins, nieces, and nephews. The youngest of five, my husband has two brothers and two sisters. His family lives coast-to-coast -- in California, Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

The family's patriarch and matriarch, both deceased now, were Danish. To celebrate that heritage, Friday night's opening event was a Danish dinner. What's a Danish dinner? The menu offered remembered dishes my mother-in-law was famous for serving.

My husband's sister, Miriam, arrived from Asheville two days early to help cook. She and my husband made trays of smors bord, Danish open-faced sandwiches. Served as appetizers, these tiny squares and triangles of butter-smeared bread were topped with cream cheese and olives, cream cheese and salmon, salami and beets, thinly-sliced cucumber, and hard-boiled egg. They were pretty as well as tasty.

For the main course, my husband stuffed the cavity of pork loins with prunes (morbrad med svesker) and roasted them. Miriam and I fried ten pounds of frikkadeller (Danish meatballs), spooning the beef-egg-parsley-onion-crumb mixture into hot butter, frying the ovals until they were crisp. We boiled four pounds of red cabbage with apples in red currant jelly and vinegar. We made three kinds of Danish cookies. The crowning glory of dinner, though, was lemon framage (pictured above) -- a cold, frothy, tart-tasting chiffon dessert made and served with real whipped cream.

In my husband's youth and later, lemon framage accompanied all high occasion meals, such as birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and special visitors. A family favorite, the dessert is made in several steps. While the gelatin is dissolving over hot water, the bowl and beaters for mixing are chilled in the freezer. Lemons are squeezed and added to beaten egg yolks and sugar. This mixture is chilled until it begins to set. The cream is whipped and the egg whites are stiffened and folded into the thickened lemon mixture.

On Friday morning of reunion week-end, we stuck Danish flags along our driveway welcoming family members to the reunion. We flew the Danish flag at the boathouse. Miriam's eyes filled at the sight of the flag. She thought of her parents' happiness if only they knew their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren were together.

Friday night, our culinary efforts were rewarded: laden, then clean, plates. Even kids who won't eat pork with prunes like meatballs and cookies! And when he saw the two bowls of lemon framage Miriam had made, my husband's older brother, David, brushed tears from his eyes. He hadn't seen that treat since his mother's stroke in 1984. He ate two large whipped cream-topped servings!

Getting Started

I retired from the Federal Government in July 2003. At the same time, we moved from frantic-paced metropolitan D.C. to slower, more courteous south central Virginia. My husband and I live in paradise: Smith Mountain Lake, a man-made heavenly body of water. This picture is a view from a recent outing on our pontoon boat. We have a new home, three successful adult children, and two gorgeous grand daughters, aged 4 and 2.

Life is good at the lake. What more could I want?

Three years ago, in addition to my desire to swim, boat, and laze on the dock, I had a four-pronged plan for retirement - 1) hone my golf game, 2) write something other than bureaucratic techno-babble, 3) get arty , and 4) become a percussionist.

Hubby nixed the planned timpani performance and refused to invest in a set of drums, so make that three retirement goals.

Nearly thirty-six months retired...I'm considering selling my golf clubs on E-Bay. My drives are pathetic, my fairway shots are worm-burners, and what used to be my crowning glory -- the short game -- is ailing. Some Tuesdays and all Thursdays the ladies play; couples play after church on Sundays. (Our course is closed on Mondays. More on my golf game in later blogs.) I took a golf lesson this past Tuesday. Within three minutes of watching me chop at the ball, the pro told me "it's all between your ears." That's what he thinks!

Almost 156 weeks retired...I'm a member of Lake Writers, a support group for real authors and wanna-be's (like me). The group meets every other Friday. I've written several essays and read them to the group. They are quietly encouraging, probably underwhelmed by my efforts thus far (as am I). Now I've created this blog as an incentive to write regulaly. I have things to say. Does anyone what to hear them? My writer colleagues tell me "just get started." That's what they think!

Over a thousand days retired...I took a couple of art workshops in Boone, NC -- one on acryllics and one on water colors. (I'll write about those experiences one of these days!) I like the intense colors from acryllic painting, but I abhor the mess! When my fingernails are red, I want them red from polish not paint. Working with acryllics, I wear disposable gloves (like those dental hygienists wear), sparking ridicule from real artists. I'm fond of water colors - no mess! I joined an informal art group that paints on Wednesdays. I have a small water color travel kit, a perfect investment for my fledgling talent. My artist friends speak of showing and selling their pictures at various galleries around town. I'm hoping to paint something worthy of hanging in my laundry room. Just be creative, express yourself. That's what they think!

Know what I think? Three years and I'm just getting started. Time is running out on achieving my retirement goals. Now where did I put the snare drum and those cymbals?