CHRISTMAS AT BRACEBRIDGE HALL Part I

In the 1970's I found this little booklet entitled Christmas At Bracebridge Hall, written by Washington Irving. A friend informed me that the Bracebridge Hall Dinner was a yearly event at Yosemite National Park, Olde English in style and costume, held every Christmas.
Since I live relatively close to Yosemite, I called there and  learned one must submit a form to attend and the attendees are then selected by lottery. If your name comes up, you get to buy these very expensive tickets for this two day event, a grand Old English dress ball and banquet. I submitted an application for three years in a row and finally my name came up. But, my husband was seriously ill that year and we couldn't attend. By this time it didn't matter, though.  We'd had an opportunity to attend a similar dinner at the Old McHenry Mansion in Modesto, costume, authentic food and all.

 This picture from that dinner, dressed in costume is one of my favorites. (It was tough to get George into a tux.)
 In later years, reading this little book inspired me keep menu cards for very special dinners, mostly Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners I cooked at home. With French people, food is a religion and we certainly made it so at Holidays. Its the difference between food and a feast. With what I cooked and others brought, we were likely to have five different deserts, 10 varieties of cookies, nuts, and fruits and cakes and pies. Three kinds of cranberries, two kinds of sweet potatoes, six or seven side dishes. The turkey, roast or ham, done up in a special way. Much of this food, shipped across country or imported;  fruits, wines and oils we hadn't even heard of when we were growing up. I guess I've come to say, during this Christmas Season, as someone before me intoned:

If you have a roof over your head, food on the table, a warm bed at night, you are certainly better off than 75% of the people on earth. If you have the type of bounty I'm describing, you are among the wealthiest 8% of people on earth. Be thankful, celebrate, share with others, and make Merry at Christmas.
I decided to go on-line, (Isn't the internet wonderful?) and find the avenue to the Yosemite Park's famous Christmas Dinner for you to see.
http://www.nationalparkreservations.com/yosemite_ahwahnee_bracebridge.htm


Wait a minute. Washington Irving died in 1859. This 17th century dinner has been celebrated at Yosemite since 1927?

A BIG LOAD

My friend Ron sent me an email with pictures of this "Big Load" moving on public roadways. 

For the past few weeks, a "super heavy" load has been making its way from Hardeeville SC, enroute to Boiling Springs NC. It is a large electric generator destined for a clean coal power plant. The generator weighs in at 1.98 million pounds and isn't something you just jump on an interstate freeway with and truck it on down the road. 
The whole thing kind of made me wonder how the Chinese would move this big generator. Since I visited China and saw how they use more manpower than machine power, even in their road building efforts, this gargantuan project made me curious. I remember people carried huge loads on their bicycles, tricycles and small motors. It was very interesting and I took many pictures but none as good as this series that I received in an email. 

Tires are really quite easy to stack. And moving a ladder with a bike (in the background) is nothing. But, just try it.

 

This guy doesn't even have the advantage of a bike. He has to keep moving. No one in China thinks a thing of a load like this. Its very common.

It doesn't matter what you have to carry, if it stacks, it moves. 

 

Stacking is an art in this country.

 

A great place to visit.

FASCINATION

Some people have a bad hair day. At least, its a temporary condition.

For me, its bad feet, not temporary. Since enduring an ankle replacement 10 years ago, my feet are very particular about what they are wearing. Friday and Saturday, I visited good friends in the Bay Area and worked a few hours at the Archive. On the way home I bought a pair of shoes. Extreme for me, bright red athletic shoes. Athletic is just an affectation of the ad men. What we used to called tennis shoes or gym shoes,  have become the norm for everyday wear. Truth be told, they are comfortable.


Extreme shoes can be found at Nordstroms and other retailers you wouldn't expect. Major designers have gotten into extreme shoe designs. Ankle breakers are dangerously  uncomfortable. A pair tossed one model off the runway at a famous fashion shoe a couple years back.  But they still fascinate me.Here are some I've recently found on-line.

These remind me of the Chinese bound feet.

Is there an art shoes trend?

These look more like a deadly weapon, women's self defense. I would question if a woman could even stand up on these spikes.

These two pairs were obviously meant to be worn.

  

THE BEST GIFT

 

This morning, I received one of the best gifts I'm likely to receive this Christmas. It may look like a bag of garbage, and that is because it is a bag of garbage. I received this picture from my partner, Jim, with this message: 

I RECYCLED THESE YESTERDAY. WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T TRAIN AN OLD DOG?

Now, let me tell you, I was extremely proud of my guy who finds living with me on the road a pain in the butt sometimes when I insist on gathering everything recyclable and saving it until we find a place to deposit it. Not an easy job. Limited space, constantly moving from community to community makes recycling daunting. Different states have different rules. Some charge. Often recycling places are difficult to find; usually located on the outskirts of town, off the beaten path. Half the citizens you ask can't tell you where the recycling place is located because they don't use them. 

Jim grumbles a bit while he is looking up on Google where the nearest place might be. But, he does it and I am grateful. But, for me to be home and for him to recycle was a great surprise. Thank you, Jim.  

California is very progressive and its easier to find places to recycle. When I see a guy point to his "down" filled vest and tell me "... this is stuffed with recycled plastic bags." Or when I hear my friend Jerry tell me, "...my motorcycle lights are made from recycled cans..."; or when I see the public bathroom doors made from prescription bottles at the Solar Living Center, you have to know this is a growing and viable industry. Recycling projects would astound you.

CLARK CLEMENT MOORE AND MAJOR HENRY LIVINGSTON JR.

   Yesterday, when I spoke of the Christmas card with the poem, "T'was The Night Before Christmas", I deliberately didn't put the author of that poem as Clark Clement Moore, even though I'm ancestrally related to him. He was a sour, difficult,  and mean spirited man and there is evidence to suggest he was not the author. His peer, Major Henry Livingston Jr., related to Moore's wife, is more likely the author. I read a comprehensive article some years back  about the investigation into the true author of the poem and came away convinced it was Livingston's name that belongs next to this poem. Just for the heck of it, I looked it up on Wikipedia and I was amazed to see Wikipedia has a briefer version of the debate. You may look it up if you'd like at this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Visit_from_St._Nicholas

The poem has had major influence over the magical games we play at Christmas with our young children. It has, in essence, given definition to the gift giving, charitable figure that left presents for children in their socks or shoes over the centuries in many cultures. The actual title of the poem is "A Visit From St. Nicholas."  St. Nicolas was a real person with a history of his own that represents the charitable side of man's nature, mostly lacking during centuries of hungrier times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas
 There are cards that depict St. Nicholas, with his flowing beard, walking with a staff, with his pockets overflowing with presents. I couldn't find the one I had in mind. But with that poem we metamorphosed St. Nicholas into the jolly red suited fat man we know as Santa Claus. And, even he has changed over the years.

From an old fashioned guy like this one...

To a slimmer, hardworking guy like this one. Its all fun.,
Wikipedia, by the way, is a free service. A very valuable one in my opinion. They are stressed for operating cash and are looking for donations. If you can send them a fiver once a year,  we can hope they will always remain free. There isn't very much that is truly free these days.
Cheers!

E-MAIL AND CHRISTMAS CARDS

I love e-mail for one very good reason. We've moved from one place to another and many of our friendships and relatives have been reduced to a Christmas card per year. They are the people we know and love, who have busy lives as we have. We rarely see them, never forget them, but time displaces the closeness you once had.
E-mail changes that. You can zap off a quick note once a month, or once a day, like neighbors over a fence. You can share a cute picture or send a joke and keep more personally in touch. I've cursed this machine, but I'm grateful for its ease of communication. I just relocated old square dancing buddies, Dave and Sandy Barron and we exchanged about 10 years of catching-up.

The Post Office, once the only profitable government institution, has suffered because of e-mail. People don't send as many cards as they used to because of e-mail. E-cards are animated, beautiful and enjoyable. But paper cards, especially Christmas cards, have their own appeal to me.
Over the years I've collected every greeting card and post card ever sent to me. And, those of my parents, friends and anybody who was willing to share their's. I have a huge collection of greeting cards in scrapbooks, and I never get tired of them.

  Many of them are themed, such as dog cards, or cat cards, or Santa cards. It started when I was a 2nd grader. My mother was writing out her Christmas cards. In the stack was a Santa card with a fuzzy red suit, both his front and back, with the famous poem, "T'was The Night Before Christmas," on the inside. Oh, how I wanted that card to be my very own. Mom wouldn't relent, no matter how much I begged. But happiness was assured when I found the card on the Christmas Tree Christmas morning addressed to me. I was hooked.

Now, I never let a card get away.

We are the rat-packers of the world. Without us, much of history would be lost. Some say we are insane. But, I care not. I love my old cards and letters, Christmas and otherwise. Merry, Merry!

ALL ELECTRIC MOTOR HOMES ARE HERE

MVP RV has built an all electric RV. Brad Williams CEO, and his partner Winston Chung, who developed the special ion battery for it, each own their own luxury electric RV. "Chung says, telephone lines came after the first phone call." Williams' all electric RV, on its first trip,  traveled 180 miles at 60 and 70 MPH. It has two flat screen televisions, washer, dryer, dishwasher and all of the comforts of home for only $750,000. It takes 20 minutes to charge with a 220 volt station, or as much as 24 hours with regular electricity. Until there are more electric charging stations in California, the Winston isn't for sale.

We had a fascinating  glimpse of the past RVing world in August. at the RV Hall of Fame in Indiana.

The basics is what you could expect then.

Even so, I have good memories of taking our kids out in a tear drop trailer similar to this one and cooking off the back. The kids slept inside.

This little Airstream trailer looks like a miniature, but they were an industry icon at one time and there are still many of them on the road today. Oh, to own an Airstream, aero-dynamic, less wind resistance...that is how the industry developed, better mileage, greater comfort.  

The amenities eventually came, indoor plumbing.

Heating and refrigeration.

Todays RVers own every type of vehicle imaginable. We see many, huge, luxury behemoths on the road, but most are more efficient, modest motor homes like ours.
 It doesn't really matter what type of rig you have. RVers want to be outside, enjoy nature and get away from it all.
As an electric vehicle owner, I'm very interested in the development of electrics. I love my zippy Prius Hybrid. My electric scooter is a handy machine.  Electrics have come a long way. I hope they make them affordable soon.

"OH, THE PLACES I'VE BEEN"

 After the Community Club Christmas Party Saturday, when I unloaded my pictures from my camera, they appeared in two folders? I was astounded that I had hit the 10,000 mark. The second folder had nine pictures in it numbered from 000001 to 000009.
It brought to mind the lyrical words of Dr. Seus:

"Oh, the places you'll go, there is fun to be done,
There are points to be scored, there are games to be won,
And the magical things you can do with that" -
Cannon PowerShot A710                


Dr. Seus didn't have a camera in his story, but I began reflecting on all of the places I've had the good fortune to travel with the magical excitement his words suggest.  This camera has been recording memories with me on trips to China, Japan, Costa Rica, Peru, Florida and Thailand.

And, just since I've met Jim, we've traveled to Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada!  That's 29 states including California. Plus Mexico.

Traveling to these places is one thing, but the adventures along the way and the digital memories definitely have me humming and singing,

Oh the places I've been,
There's more fun to be done.
There are sights left to see,
Let's not miss a one.

There are states to explore
And friends we can't miss
How could we have known
Life would be like this.

COMMUNITY CLUB AND ROTARY

 

Last night, I attended the Murphys Community Club Annual Christmas Party. President Jim Creighton started a short speech with a phone number: 728-1948. "That number is significant because it is the number of the Community Club, but also 1948 is the year the club was founded."

Just prior to that, my table companion, Cindy Neiman asked me,  "What does the Community Club do?" She and her husband are Rotarians from Copperopolis.

 I've been a member for 30 years and I realized that I didn't know how a Community Club functioned when I first joined either. Unique among small towns like ours, community clubs supply, as volunteers, the basic functions of government. They own and maintain the local community park; provide public restrooms, clean and stock those restrooms, place garbage cans and recycling bins around town, pay for street lighting, rent the park for weddings and other functions, mow the grass, maintain a stable playground and river bank, paved walkways,  and...well, everything a city should do. The area is high on volunteerism and people who visit have no clue that all is accomplished through the hard work of local citizens. And it has always been so.

The annual party was a combination of two area Rotary Clubs and the Community Club. Jay and Clayre Quick have been long time Rotarians, both having served as President at one time. They were given a special award from Rotarians for the many years of work they've provided to their club. But, Clayre and Jay have given years of service to the Community Club as well.

Jim and Peggy Lucas, active volunteers, were singled out for their efforts to Community Club.

As were the Friedmans. Bill Friedman solved a very knotty problem in an old fashioned way. The park was troubled with vandalism and Bill decided not to call the cops. Instead, he got them aside and talked with them about what they were doing, and taught them about the function of the park and what the local volunteers accomplish there. It solved the problem.

Tammie Lundin is a Rotarian who makes it a point to get to know everyone in the room. The Rotarians also have this reputation for doing good works in their communities. Just a great bunch of public spirited people who make volunteering worthy and fun at the same time.

 There are more pictures if you'd like to click on my link below. The dinner dance was held at Kautz Winery.

http://picasaweb.google.com/1579penn/121110ComClubRotaryPrty#

POKER PARY

If you are going to have a poker party, you may as well be comfortable. You may think Janet and Becky are wearing their pajamas? Right you are! Pajamas are comfortable.

Janice and Jerry hosted with flair, wearing feather boas over their pajamas. The popcorn and nuts, (not Sallie and Karen) were at the table. The money stacked, the dealer called the game. We played 7 card no peekie, 5 card stud, 7 card stud, five card draw, each game a bit different and quite fun. Sallie was the wicked high better, risk taker. There's one in every game. She upped the bet as much as a quarter!!

Someone had to get the boobie prize. But it wasn't me. I came as a floozie. Karen got the boobie prize. I've played poker a time or two in the past, but so few times I needed a cheat sheet to tell me what configuration of cards beat others. I may even have won the most money. What a thrill. The pots were in the neighborhood of one or two dollars. Nobody was counting. If you folded too soon, someone would put in for you to keep you in the game. Its probably safe to say it wasn't a conventional poker game.

Everyone was a winner, with good food, good company and good fun.