One Year Anniversary

I got Jack a year ago this week.  It doesn't seem like that much time has passed by already!  I must admit we had a bit of a stressful period of time getting to know each other.  I had just come out of a 20 year relationship with another cat, and Jack was young and frightened.  It took us a few weeks to get to know each other.  Now, we rub along fairly well together.  It's a process.

This morning, Jack was having a good time playing with his Turbo Track.  He still shows a lot of enthusiasm for the game.

 All I had to say was, "Jack, I want to take some pictures, can you pose for a minute by the track?"

I think he did a very good job of posing.  He's so sweet and obedient.  He kept fairly still and stared at the ball until I got a good shot.  Thanks, Jack!

And then I noticed his little bit of kitty engineering - a tiger tail shimmy - obviously applied to make the track run more smoothly:

It cracked me up.

And, yes.  He placed the flower there, too.  He stole it from my "Time Out" doll's back pocket and carries it around the house with him.

A friend told me I named him after the wrong Richard Dean Anderson TV character.  Instead of Jack O'Neill, he should have been called MacGyver.

Ya think?

Good McMorning!

Did you know there is a McDonald's restaurant right on the Champs d'Élysées in Paris?
A-yup.

(Hint) This isn't it:

Morning in Pico Rivera

Okay.  True confessions time.  My guilty pleasure is to pick up breakfast here at this Mickey D's on my way to work.  It saves me having to cook and I get to see the familiar friendly faces of the employees here at this location.  This is in Pico Rivera, so they are pretty much all Hispanic.  Maybe that's why they are such a nice bunch.  And they really are nice people  They know I like extra salsa for my breakfast burrito without me asking.  Which probably tells you way too much about me and my bad habits!

But, when you live alone, there's a lot to be said for seeing nice people first thing in the morning, who ask you how you are doing today and give you a big smile.  In return, I counsel Cesar, the cashier, on how his mother is right when she says, 'no more tattoos, mijo'!  And I tell the manager how much I like his staff.

You can't put a price on that personal interaction.  It's certainly worth the price of a breakfast burrito.

Gracias.

Good Friends

Lauri

When two old thespians get together, there's always a lot of story-telling and laughter.  My friend Lauri is one of the finest comic actresses around.  I consider myself blessed to have shared the stage with her a time or two.  [Among other productions, we've done Blithe Spirit, Camelot, and, more recently, It's a Wonderful Life together,]  In a perfect world she would be rich and famous and entertaining millions on a regular basis...  Instead, she occasionally graces the small stage at Whittier Community Theatre, and uses her talents to entertain the students she teaches and inspires.

I really enjoy getting together with her.  We recently spent a few hours together for a nice, relaxing steak dinner.  As much as I think there are great benefits to a vegetarian lifestyle, I have to admit there is nothing like a good steak every once in a while.  We got a special that included ribs and prawns.  Oh yum.  Hog heaven. 

We don't see each other often, so it was great to catch up. Good food, good friends and laughter are such a great combination.



Yours Truly



The Morfs Celebrate Their 50th

My brother's In-Laws are two of the nicest people on the planet.  I have grown to love them dearly, and I love it that when we see each other we sit down for a real gab fest every time.  As I believe I have mentioned before, to my niece and nephews they are called by the Swedish Mormor and Morfar (literally Mother's mother and Mother's father), and nick-named the Morfs.

Here is their wedding picture, from 50 years ago.

Merwyn and Britt

Here is a wonderful picture Linnea took of them a few weeks ago.  Don't you just love it when you hear a marital success story?  I mean, it just shows that it IS possible to love someone, marry them and truly live happily ever after.  How nice to have someone loving and kind to weather the storms of life with.

It's no accident that the cake was decorated in Swedish colors!



Hans, Arne, Eric, Britt, Merwyn, Kirsti and Anna

Here are the Morfs with five of their six children.  (I believe Linnea took all the pictures, with the exception of the Morfs wedding photo! That was a bit before her time.  For more of Linnea's wonderful photos, see LinneaFarnsworthPhotography.com.)

I'm sure glad my brother went to that Swedish club dance umpteen years ago and met a little blond girl named Kirsti.  I can't imagine what my life would have been without the association of these terrific people.  And I kinda sorta think my brother would have missed out on a lot of good stuff, too.  Ya think?

It's Personal, Folks!

From my brother's Deseret News blog:

"This is personal, folks. Glenn Beck said on his show that the youth camp on Utoya island in Norway where scores of young people were slaughtered by a madman last week was a camp that "sounds a little like the Hitler Youth or whatever."

Unlike Beck, Norwegians actually know what real Nazis were like. My mother, may she rest in peace, was a Norwegian who spent her teenage years under Nazi occupation. My grandfather was a member of the Labor Party that ran the camp on Utoya, and he put his life on the line in the underground fighting against Nazis during World War II.

Whether I would agree with his politics today is irrelevant. My grandfather is my hero. He was arrested by the Gestapo more than once and tortured. Once he was turned in by a member of the Mormon congregation over which he was branch president. But he never gave up the fight.

He wasn't alone. Scores of patriotic Norwegians and their children were tortured, sent to frontlines as cannon fodder or executed by Nazis during those years. To even raise the name of Hitler in this manner during the aftermath of the biggest tragedy in Norway since the war years is not only insulting, it's painfully ignorant.

But here's the best part. Glenn Beck asks, "Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing."

Turns out a tea party group in Florida sponsors just such a camp for kids.  [see the Desnews blog for the link:  http://www.deseretnews.com/blog/33/10012129/Perspectives-on-the-news-Glenn-Becks-insult-to-Norway.html]

I wrote my own, similar letter to Mr. Beck!   But since it's unlikely he will read it, I'm posting it here.  Sometimes you have to take a stand:

Dear Mr. Beck:

I don't think you have any idea how horribly offensive your comments regarding the Norwegian Labor Party summer camp were - in likening them to the Hitler Youth. It shows a deplorable ignorance of facts.

Norway suffered horribly during the 5 years of German occupation during WWII. I know, because I was raised on stories about things that happened then. You see, my mother was born and raised in Norway, emigrating to the US in 1950.

My mother was forced to attend a real Hitler Youth camp as a young Norwegian. As a patriotic Norwegian, she suffered for it!

Even mentioning Hitler Youth in the same sentence with a pleasant 5-day youth camp just creeps me out. I can't believe you would use those terms! I'd like to see you use Hitler Youth and, say, Boys' or Girls' State programs across America in the same sentence!

Likewise, the Norwegian Labor Party was started by people who earnestly sought humane treatment for workers in Norway. I know this, too, from my family history, as my grandfather and his brothers championed the Labor Party back in the 19-teens and 1920s. They fought for humane conditions and fair wages for the ordinary laborer in a time when frightful conditions existed.

To Norwegians, in a tiny country with a population of only 4.8 million, this is their 9/11. I can't believe you were so disrespectful and insensitive of the grief they are experiencing as a nation.

I think you totally deserve the flak you are getting for your idiotic and poorly thought-out statement. The press in Norway is having a field day with it, I see. I hope you are not planning a Scandinavian vacation real soon.

Maybe you should be more careful next time!

Sincerely,
Anne-Berit's Daughter
Marianne Evensen

Thanks for letting me vent.  I feel better now.

 

A Girl Named Hayley

This is a girl named Hayley.



Hayley

Hayley is the granddaughter of a wonderful woman that I loved very much for her creativity and enthusiasm, a woman I performed with on many occasions; and the daughter of another wonderful woman who is a dear friend.

Hayley is a beautiful girl.  To me, she looks like she stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting.

But it's a dry heat...

This is my handsome and intelligent friend Steve.

Steve is an engineer.  Steve lives in Arizona where it is hot.

Very very hot.

Steve likes to experiment.

He decided to try baking cookies in the car during the 3-hour Church block on Sundays.

Anyway, I believe that's how it started.

Here you can see the dashboard "oven".

The cookies turned out beautifully, and were delicious.

Next, Steve tried baking bread in the car.  (Yup, bread!)

 He's a Scout, so there's no stopping him...

 Amazingly, the bread baked...

It doesn't look great, but it was totally edible.

Thanks for sharing your culinary experiments with us, Steve!   I always knew you could bake in a car in the summer without a/c, I just didn't know  you could literally bake in the car.  It boggles the mind.

It's also a good reminder not to leave kids and pets in the car!