Pits? Or not.......

(I really do have a sign in my kitchen and a magnet as well that states: There is a kitchen because it came with the house.)

A Dollar’s Worth

By Alisa Dollar

If a can of cherries states “pit” does that mean pits have been removed?

I have a problem decoding can-speak.

In high school I took home economics. I took it because I had to. I took it because every female in my family could and still can cook. I took it because I thought it would be fun to learn to sew and cook.

Wrong.

I pin patterns to material every one inch. Mother looked at something and made it from several patterns and never pinned.

I wouldn’t mix patterns and for good reason. I made the only pair of walking shorts that ended up a tight skirt sown with legs. Don’t ask how it happened. There’s good, solid reasoning that only “I” understand.

If I could have figured a way for the legs to be separated, I could’ve been the inventor of leggings. Instead, I had a skirt/short that was so well put together I couldn’t walk, much less sit down. Plus it was a mess by the time I took it apart to try to read the pattern better.

Then the cherry incident happened. I claim fame to pie crust. I could flute with the best of them. I should’ve taken up sculpting.

I was a dismal failure at meringue and couldn’t stand those yucky eggs whites anyway, so I always made double crust pies.

For homework, I made a cherry pie. I was so proud of it because it really was pretty. It had the red juices oozing out of the top just like it’s supposed to–hot and ready to serve.

I put it in front of daddy and sat down waiting expectantly for accolades of how well I’d done, how good it was, and so on.

I wasn’t expecting him to spit out the first bite and hear a clunk on the plate.

I was horrified.

Daddy was choking.

The only thing he didn’t do was grab his throat and run.

I did the only thing I could. I sat frozen to the chair wondering what I’d done wrong; I’d followed the recipe.

He finally gasped I’d not pitted the cherries.

I went straight to the can and pointed to the pit part which I then realized must mean pits aren’t pitted.

Several morals apply.

Buy cherry pies, then you don’t have to worry.

Don’t choke around me, I freeze.

Especially if I’ve done the cooking.

Valentine's around the corner......

This was last year's....but it'll work for any year.....

A Dollar’s Worth

By Alisa Dollar

Alert! Valentine’s Day is fast approaching!

I’m working on a manuscript with the subject “what it means to be in love.”

At first glance it seems an easy topic.

First thoughts raced through my mind: first love, lasting love, brotherly love, agape love, fraternal love, familial love, marital love and so on.

As I started to compose with meaningful dialogue, I realized two words distracted fingers from sailing across the keyboard. They were “in love”.

Love is easy. “In love” takes on a new persona.

I remember the movie “Love Story” with the famous line: “Love is never having to say you’re sorry.”

That’s just not right! Saying you’re sorry is a part of love. If one can’t push those two words out as eloquently as the two that puts us together until death do us part...I’m sorry, but the ‘I do’ will be flat lined here and there.

I’d venture to say the words “I do” are easier to say than “I’m sorry” in most marriages, no matter how long they last or don’t last.

Saying either of the sets of words is a big step. The first is a  commitment one to the other. The latter should be as easy flowing through the lips as the first.

Why then, is it so hard to say? Or admit.

Pride? Ego? Anger? Hurt? Betrayal? Stubborn? The latter is what husband claims as my problem. I concur. Meeting 50-50 is often 60-40 or 75-25 or 80-20. I wonder why I am on the smaller end.

Stubborn. Okay, stubborn!

After thinking of many I know, including husband and me, who’ve been together through good and bad; those who didn’t make it but can still remember they once loved so deeply; and those not yet ready for committal, but have stars in their eyes and love in their heart–I still struggle over “in love”.

I know my being in love means having to say I’m sorry. It may take awhile, but I know over the last 42 years if I hadn’t said them when needed, I’d have bleeding ulcers!

On Valentine’s Day verbally say to each other what’s needed and don’t hide behind hearts, chocolate and flowers. If an apology is in order, do so. If you love them, say so.

Words are powerful, especially when spoken from the heart.

An addendum---chocolate and flowers definitely add a nice touch!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Pink Pig Love

(This was not published because, I guess, it was to risque for the newspaper!!! This was Christmas last year.)

Maxwell Smart Dollar, our 18 month old miniature dachshund had a really great Christmas. I have to go back to when he first came; husband had said no more dogs (we’d just lost our beloved border collie Freckles). I thought fine until I fell in love with the most precocious tri-color mini-doxi and he bought me. It was love at first sight.

Daughter and kids were here when he arrived and immediately wrapped husband and them around his paw which is attached to his playful and animated personality. He was spoiled rotten. Everyone loved him and he loved everyone.

Daughter had brought a huge stuffed pink pig which Max immediately thought was his. It was quite funny seeing a five pound long skinny body with short legs running around dragging Pink Pig by the tail. It was love at first sight.

It was a riot until, unfortunately, Max fell in love with Pink Pig. I was horrified because I’d never had male dogs and didn’t know they showed their uh…..affection quite so openly. Funny at first, it became downright embarrassing. He was "in love" with Pink Pig. Really. In. Love.

Pink Pig went to dumpster land because Max couldn’t mind his manners. You’d think he’d have forgotten about her.  We found out that wasn’t so.

Bree and Speedy came over to exchange gifts. She brought me a stuffed red Elvis, with a mop of black hair, a cape and sunglasses! Max wanted Elvis until she put a tiny pink pig in front of him and I kid you not, Max grabbed Tiny Pink Pig and ran around in circles and disappeared down the hall and came back prancing around like he’d won the lottery.

All we could do was laugh.

The reason we know he remembers his first true love, is because Max is OCD (in our house that means Obsessive Compulsive Doggie) with stuffed toys. When he’s given one, it is like clockwork seeing how long it takes to get all the stuffing out, find the squeaker and drag the leftovers around to play pull and tug.

Tiny Pink Pig is in perfect condition. He carries her around by her little curvy tail. He brings her to lie down beside me to nap with her. It's so ridiculous I almost feel badly about dumping Pink Pig…I had no idea!

New pink pig is small and hopefully Max has grown up.

I’d like to think so.

I doubt it though.

He is a male.  

Bathroom Technology

A Dollar’s Worth

By Alisa Dollar

New technology is a big deal. The most updated, speed demon, exclusive computer in a matter of months is outdated. Same for TVs and cell phones.

The ladies room is one area of technology I never dreamed would irritate me to no end.

Used to one could go to there and everything was easy.

The toilet paper dispensers didn’t look like flight panels to decipher and toilets were manually flushed. Now buttons are hidden and sometimes on the wall. The scariest is “no hands”---meaning the thing goes crazy by standing up!

Water flows readily by putting hands underneath the faucet. This is only after you have looked and squeezed anything looking like it turned on or off. 

Soap dispensers vary. One can push, pull, slide or put a hand underneath and soap automatically releases. Soap used to be soap. It looked, smelled and washed like soap. Now big squishes of foam blobs out and it doesn’t look like soap. It smells too pretty and we can only hope it’s really soap.

By the time the soap is on and rubbed in and around, the water’s off and you find yourself standing in front of a mirror with hands similar to a doctor’s pose. Only difference, they look professional and you have soap foam and water running down to and dripping off elbows.

My personal favorite is the way in which you can dry those hands. There are so many ways and each one a polar opposite of the last one.

There’s the blow and go. I dislike these. There is just something wrong with blow drying drippy hands. Blow dryers are for hair.

I prefer the handle that’s obvious. I spent so much time looking for a way to get paper out on one machine my hands were air dried. A lady who was waiting finally showed me it was a swirly hard-to-see thing on the side.

The ones I really don’t like are those that require a swift move of the hand. There is always a picture showing one “how to” but they don’t always work for me. I swish here and there and at one point I felt I could give the Karate Kid a run for his money.

Men’s rooms must not be as complicated because husband always asks, “What took you so long?”

I don’t even try to explain.

Possessive Pew Person

A Dollar’s Worth

By Alisa Dollar

I never suspected I’d be a possessive pew-dweller hugger.

Yesterday I found I might be.

Bree, Speedy, husband and I generally sit on the 2^nd row, right side of the pulpit. Yesterday, the pianist’s friend was in our seats!

I was in the nursery waiting for the nursery worker and Bree came to give me the news. We were going to be sitting on the front row.

“What?” I don’t think I’d ever sat on the front row.

“It’s either that or ask that man to move.” Bree sighed.

“You think he would?”

She refused to ask, so front row it would be.

I never dreamed so many things came into actuality on that row.

There was no place to hang my feet. There was no place to put my coffee to readily reach. There was just no place to hide writing notes.

Mind you, not notes back and forth (okay maybe one or two); but notes on future writing projects or grocery lists or even notes on the sermon.

I sincerely hope the preacher thought my note taking was on his well delivered discourse. I should’ve known better because of the twinkle in his eye as he walked my way was surely to alert he was on to me!

This does not by any means denote when on the second row I’m actually hiding anything. It’s just that on the front row, one feels so vulnerable and exposed. Open to finger pointing. Although my preacher doesn’t point fingers, I mentally felt them yesterday. It was though he automatically took this row as the accountability row.

The way I see it, I can get into enough trouble by myself without having any extra guilt, pressure, or wrongdoings thrown my way.

That front pew added pounds of responsibility. I even looked back once noticing a few empty seats available. However they were on the wrong side which is another malfunction in my pew selecting. I can’t hear as well on the other side. All in my head I know.

The front row pew blues is all in my head as well.

I fully intend to be there early and snag our seats next Sunday. Maybe even ask pianist boyfriend to move.

I already feel the nagging voice of God saying “Does it really matter what row?”

Have you ever won an argument with God?

Me either.

Going South

(This is a for real story....Toby.....I hope you're reading this....you handsome devil you!  This was when we were in Temple and I decided I needed to do this and it worked amazingly well until Monty woke up one day with cancer and everything really did go south on this plan anyway.....I have a LOT of funny stories about this personal trainer episode of my life, most not printable, but a hoot....this guy wouldn't let me get away with anything....his hunkness kept me from hurting him. This is our first meeting. It was not love at first site......)

Going South

     The first of the year is always depressing.  For two months every magazine displayed holiday meals and desserts with clever, subtle promises of no weight gain.  Pictures portrayed mouth-watering fare, pleasing to the eye, artfully camouflaging every calorie.  Then all of a sudden, ads start to flow in abundance for weight loss programs.  Gyms guaranteeing a body-to-die-for with a resounding - ‘just join now and start the new year right!’

     In one of those low moments of self awareness, I did the unthinkable.  I critically examined myself sans clothing in front of a full length mirror.  Oh my.  Everything had gone south.  Literally.  Those love handles overnight had mutated to rolls of cottage cheese!

      I made a decision.  I would join a gym.  Tomorrow.

      Funny how one day having a personal trainer sounded great. The next day I found myself rethinking the heroic delusion of grandeur, as I watched a hunk, about the same age as my son,  walk--no, saunter--towards me, and realized he faintly resembled a heavily muscled action figure from my grandson's toy collection. 

     Yes, I was a relic in the making.  This sober knowledge hit in its entirety when the mass of brawn smiled, showing his perfect pearly whites--some people really do have it all--asking in a rakish voice, “And what are we doing here?”

     “We?”  My voice squeaked much like an overgrown mouse who’d just lost its cheese.  Quickly regaining control, I arched my eyebrow, hoping my stern don’t-you-make-fun-of-me-young-man look was totally in place.

     “I think it should be more than obvious why I’m here.  I am mid-fifties with everything going downhill on my body faster than I can drive!”  I knew right away I was in trouble when my breath caught delivering the indignant reply.

      Pearly whites provocatively agleam, he gently assured me that after he measured me, put me on a good diet, and exercise regimen, I’d be buff.

     Buff?  Did he mean naked?  Did he say measure me? I began to sputter in earnest.  

     “You don’t understand.  I don’t do buff.  I don’t do spandex.  I don’t do thongs.”  Sighing deeply, I added, “Oh, and I don’t like to sweat.”

     “Calm down, ma’am.”

      Ma’am?  I began to hyperventilate.  This wasn’t what I had envisioned.  I was supposed to walk in and a miracle would happen.  My thighs would disappear while exercising gracefully in baggy sweats–barring sweat, of course.  There would be no measuring, no buff, no--

     “Excuse me, what did you say about bon bons?”  I demanded as his words broke through my already exerted thoughts.

     I finally recognized this first impression hunk, quickly becoming a demon of torment and pain, was actually laughing at me.  “Do you want to be one of those ladies who watch soap operas from the couch while eating bon bons?”   

     Could he not tell I was a Snickers woman?  Did he actually state I would learn to love sweating?  Surely my overworked brain heard incorrectly.  The gym, workouts, and a handsome personal trainer were making my brain sweat.  I began to reexamine my love handles.  Maybe they weren’t so bad after all.

     As I followed the well-built figure of physical fitness on a tour, I couldn’t help but be a bit dubious of some of the so-called exercise machines.  How on earth could one get themselves into these contraptions, I wondered.            

     “You what?  You want me to get in that, that...thing?”  I asked in a pitiful ‘oh-please-not-today’ voice.

     Pearly whites evenly glowed over encouraging words of reassurance.

     I did what I knew couldn’t be done.  The impossible.  I wadded my not-so-flexible torso into an extremely awkward and contorted position inside the apparatus while this specimen of a man proceeded with his tutelage of torture.

     My first encounter with a personal trainer changed me forever.

     I learned from this experience.

     I am too old to be a pretzel.

     Pass the bon bons.

Martha Stewart Where ARE YOU?????

(This happened before we left for Phoenix to see Jenny and after Thanksgiving about 3 years ago)......

A Dollar’s Worth

By Alisa Dollar

I was reading last week’s paper and saw a headline “Kitchen Fire…..” and stopped cold before reading the rest. I still haven’t read, but must to make sure everyone is fine.

About three years ago, I decided in late fall to fry some okra I’d put in the freezer. Now mind you, it did not come from Mac’s absolutely wonderful farmer’s market. I still can’t believe all the choices of fresh vegetables and fruit he had when I went there with Kathryn. 

My okra came from the grocery and was farm grown (I supposed everything is, but this was ‘fresh fresh’). I always buy okra and peas when I can.

I’d put this in the freezer ready to fry….sliced with healthy doses of cornmeal shaken about evenly.

It was close to Thanksgiving and I decided one Saturday we needed to have fried okra and almost, but not quite fresh tomatoes. Here again, they were hot house but not near like Mac had.

I put canola oil in the pan (one must be healthy while frying, right?) and did the most irresponsible thing I can think of for that moment. Or that’s what husband said anyway.

I went to check my email. And yes, I forgot the oil I’d left on the burner to ready for the okra.

I heard husband yelling before I heard the fire alarm. I ran into the kitchen and there was smoke everywhere!

Husband had turned the burner off, but with electric that doesn’t do much. I thought he was telling me to take it outside.

My brain only works in emergencies involving the dog and my kids. I knew I was in trouble with husband and I knew I was wrong to not have stood there watching the stupid oil get ready.

In my eagerness to please (no laughing please) I picked up the pan and ran to the front door pouring hot grease here and there over carpet and myself.

When I got outside I wondered what I was supposed to do with it when husband ran out with a horrified look. He’d put the fire out he’d started trying to grab the pan with a kitchen towel and ran after me.

After ER, new kitchen and living room flooring, that was the most expensive okra I’d never eaten.

I got a fry daddy too.

Just in case.