Ramblings....: 2012

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Bitter sweet Thanksgiving...

The holidays are getting tougher every year as my grandparents are ailing and such is the way life is. We have been prepared for this particular year to be extra rough due to the fact that hospice has been brought into their home and they now have 24 hour care. Most of the time 2 people at a time. Someone to care for my Papa who is pretty much bed ridden and one for my grandma. We usually have Thanksgiving over at my brother and his wife's place since she loves to host this particular holiday. This year mom was planning on being with the grandparents all day to take care of them (along with our male day nurse) and make them a turkey dinner. My brother and his wife still planned on having it at their house. I planned on hopping back and forth. Usually we have a larger crowd, but this year it was just us and my dad and his wife and D's father is in town so a total of 6. Since my mom usually brings over a lot of the food for Thanksgiving, she had still planned to make stuffing and send it over with me. I of course was bringing my usual bottle or two of wine. Mom and I were awoken to a 4am phone call. The paramedics had been called on my grandma. I got up with mom as she dressed to head over and my heart broke when she realized she wasn’t going to be able to now work the extra Black Friday job she had signed up for at the Disney Store to make some extra money. As I returned to bed I lay awake tears running down my face wishing I could do something. Anything to help her out, but I'm doing what I can. She knows it. I know it. But my heart breaks for what she is trying to juggle right now. I take a deep breath and think positive. I will keep my chin up. She pops back over around 8 saying grandma will be ok and released if the x-ray on her tummy comes back ok. She then broke it to me that I had to make the stuffing. Oh lord. Now for the comic part of my blog. So mom started to explain what I needed to do why I whined that something had to be open that I could just go buy some stuffing. She laughed and said it will fine and to use a casserole dish. When I asked what a casserole dish was she just laughed and lowered her head, pausing realizing how sad her daughter really was when it came to cooking. As she left to return to the hospital I puffed up my chest and thought "I can fucking do this." I laid everything out, glanced at the time and decided to get in a morning walk. It was beautiful out. I worked up my heart rate and returned sweaty and amped. "I can make stuffing." After my shower mom called and informed me they were coming home and if I could bring a change of clothes for her when I came by. I turned on my "Happy" playlist and started in. I was singing along and cutting celery when "slice". One of the celery sticks filled with blood. Yup. Cut my pinky. Shit. Tossed that celery piece, washed and bandaged my finger. This will not deter me. I then began cutting the onion. OH MY GOD. How do you people do it!!!! My eyes were pouring with tears. I kept walking into the other room trying to clear the air. I finally text my friend who is a ridiculously talented cook and asked her WTF. She told me to stick my head in the freezer. And no shit - it totally worked. She also said she wears goggles when she cuts onions so I felt a little less of a wussy. I turned to put the giant knife in the sink when Tweaks ran between my legs and I tripped almost impaling myself. Awesome. I learned what a chicken bouillon is and started to make broth. Who knew these ugly little squares can make a broth. As I was stirring them and trying to mix it up I started to smoosh them with a spoon since they werent dissolving as quickly as I hoped. Sploosh!! Bouillon broth in the eye. FYI - this does NOT feel good. Ok done. Melted the butter. Burnt it. Fuck. Melted another bowl of butter. Success. I mixed everything together with a mix, sprayed the casserole dish and read the directions to put it in covered. This is the one time I had to call my mother. "Can you put foil in an oven?" I asked. "Of course you can, why on earth would you think not?" mom asks. "Well you can’t put foil in a microwave!". I hear her sigh and I stick the stuffing in the oven covered in foil. Who knew? As I finished getting ready the house began to smell like stuffing. Real stuffing! Not burnt food! The buzzer rang and I took off the foil for it to cook a little longer. When it was supposed to be done I kept taking it out and putting it back in. I did this about 5 times. One time actually turning the oven off and back on again. Did it look right?! Was it cooked right?! How do you people tell these things. It tasted ok. Dammit. I crossed myself even though I'm not Catholic and packed it up. Off to grammas I go. I brought in the stuffing for mom to taste and she said it was just fine! Yay!!! That prompted this photo:

I can’t believe I actually made something. And no, this does not mean I like it or want to do it again. It took way too long and was way too much work. I'm just not a cook. I really need to marry someone who does :) I sat and tried to visit with Papa. He was pretty out of his mind today. But we had moments of clarity. He was proud I made stuffing. Gramma was sleeping so I headed out. Shane and D's Thanksgiving was lovely. We of course ate 2 hours later than we planned. This has become quite a tradition. D said every year they say "Maybe we should put the turkey in earlier this year". Every year. But the food was fantastic, Shane loved my stuffing - he was the main test - and we drank and ate like gluttons. It was nice but we missed mom. I only snapped one photo this year, I know I'll regret that one but I did get the usual shot of Shane and dad battling cutting the turkey:

My mind was elsewhere this year though. MRI's and doctor visits for me have my thoughts, I worry about my mom, I'm sad about my grandparents, so much going on it seems. I deal with things much differently now, but I still have moments of drifting. I said my goodbyes and headed back over to gramma's. It's a good thing I did. Mom was feeding Papa and I tended to gramma. Our man had left early and our other gal wasn’t coming until 6. Mom ate her dinner in between running around and we switched grandparents throughout the night. When I was visiting with Papa he looked at me. Really looked at me and said your mother is amazing you know. I said I know she is. We had a wonderful conversation that was real. I told him about moving out and he knew Shane was working on the place. We talked a bit about Chapman. And he asked about my dating life and told me that he really wanted me to find a man who would treat me right. Then he looked away and when he turned back I knew he was gone again. Back came the talks of people trying to steal trees and things being torn up and a park being built. I swear one of the hardest things I have ever had to deal with in my entire life is watching someone you love lose the mind. My Papa looks so meak in his hospital bed and I know he hates it and when he's with us he wants to be. I know it's life. I know the man is 97 years old and I savor every single second he's with me. But it's hard. As he drifted off again I thought to myself how grateful I am for so many things in my life. Yes, we have struggles and yes my family is going through a hell of a time right now with many things, but we have each other. Shane showed up a while later (I think my dad guilted him into coming) and Papa's eyes lit up. I am thankful for my life. I am thankful that the staff at St. Joseph’s Hospital helped save my dumb ass. I am thankful for my grandparents love and especially my Papa who has taught me how to love. I am thankful for my mother who is a survivor and a fighter. I am thankful for my dad and his wife who help when then can. I am thankful for my brother and his wife and that they have and love each other. I am a lucky girl. I have a brilliant family, wonderful friends, a roof over my head, health insurance, 2 precious kitties, a fantastic job and my creative and humor. I am thankful. I am grateful. So very much so. I wish nothing but peace and love to all of my readers and remember to always be grateful for moments. Hold on to them. Remember them. Write about them. Share them. Thank you .

Sunday, November 4, 2012

OC Chocolate Festival...

A festival. Of chocolate. How can you go wrong? I had seen this advertised last year and thought how cool it would be to go, but as usual just never got around to buying tickets or even researching it much more than a glance. Well, this year, my best friend emailed me the link on Facebook and said "We have to go!". I'm in. There were multiple options of ticket packages, so we opted for the $35 for 8 tastes and 4 spirit/beverage tastes. I mean if there's wine I HAVE to taste it. After watching the zillions of mouthwatering posts from the OC Chocolate's FB page we were excited to attend this past Saturday. It was held at the Hyatt Regency in Garden Grove. We were stoked when we drove past it and saw street parking just a few blocks down from the hotel. I had planned on driving around looking for free parking and there it was. We parked, excitedly got out of my truck and started speed walking toward the hotel. We were told the doors opened at 11am and we were walking up about quarter after. When we walked in there was a mob of people and lots of confused faces. Oh lord. I can tell you right now the organization in the front was disastrous. We asked the random guy asking people if they wanted to attend where we went if we already had tickets. He pointed to a table where frantic volunteers were trying to figure things out. There was no line, so we sort of guessed are way up to the table. A woman scanned our tickets then handed us wristbands. She said she'd cut them but didn’t put them on. Um. Ok. So Lib and I attached our own wristbands and joined the sort of mob that looked like a line. The doors weren’t open yet, so it was a bit chaotic. Along the left side was what looked like an auction table. I walked up and realized it was opportunity drawings. I told Lib I'll buy tix why we wait. The women said it supports the OC Boys and Girls Club so why not! The woman told me I had to buy the tickets where I checked in. Oh lord. I told the girl I wanted the 12 tickets for $20 and the 1 ticket for $5 (this was for a bigger prize). "That will be $46" she said. I picked up the little sign and pointed to what I wanted. "$31" she said. "Is there a lot of tax or something?" I asked. "I know I have an issue with math, but isn’t 20 plus 5 25?" Well apparently the machine said it was 12 tickets for $26. Ok forget it. I bought 5 tickets for $10. Well this started a war, because all the signage was wrong and the basket lady started yelling at the machine lady and a man joined in the yelling. The doors open and everyone vanished into the room of chocolate and there I stood with my tickets wanting to cry. I quickly filled them out, threw them in some baskets and ran inside. Good lord. Lib and I walked in and did a scan. It was much smaller than we anticipated. But we were still excited. There was this massive cake as you walked in and the banners introducing the place so I snapped these:

The first table we hit was this woman. Her business was called Le Dolce Vida and 100% of their proceeds went to an animal shelter! Oh my God I'm in!!! She was very sweet and explained what she had. "I have sweet and savory and wine!" she exclaimed. And you only had to use a taste ticket not a wine ticket. The wine was just a bonus. I started falling in love with her right then. The savory taste was a garlic/onion spread. OMG so good. The sweet was a hazelnut spread. Tasty! And the wine was divine!

Next we spotted cupcakes and Lib went in for a mint one. That's when we realized we could share our tastes and get even more! (This idea was regretted later). The mint cupcakes were soooooooooooooo good. The baker was called Bubba Sweets. They also had little cupcakes with bacon on the top! WTF?

We now decided we should survey the area and then come back around deciding what we wanted to taste. It didn’t take us long to circle the venue, but all the vendors had really great displays! Here is what it sort of looked like:

Lib had been dying to try this chocolate wine that was advertised. I knew I wouldn’t like it since I'm not a sweet alcohol type person - especially sweet wine, but Lib was game. The ticket got you 3 tastes!

I tasted one of the 3 that Lib said wasn’t too sweet. I didn’t like it too much, but it was a trip because it tasted like a normal red wine but then left this trippy chocolaty aftertaste in your mouth! Lib didn’t care for the other one too much, but did like the one that looked like a milkshake!

Next stop was Marco Paolo Chocolates. I was told it was hand painted chocolate. They were absolutely gorgeous, but I think they looked better than they tasted.

We then spotted the chocolate covered strawberries and ran that way but were told they were actually for sale for $5!!!! Down from $11!!!! For a strawberry! Um, we passed but look how good they looked!

We then chatted with this fellow. He had a trippy set up. We didn’t taste his chocolate because it was made with some really weird vitamany stuff but he had this chocolate truffle thing floating here. He had the personality of a weird mad scientist.

Then we smelled BBQ. Chocolate BBQ. What?! They were cooking pulled pork and had this chocolate BBQ sauce. It was soooooooooooooooooo good!!!!!!! It didn’t tasted like chocolate which I thought would be weird, but had kind of a smoky flavor to it.

Then we hit up Lovely Sweets. Lib bought Hailey a couple of cake pops and tried a chocolate peanut butter crunch covered pretzel. Very tasty!

Now we wanted some wine. So we wandered over to BBG Wines-King Frosch. Now, this vendor was a mess. They didn’t have a line, or really any sort of organization. They were packed and there was a man and a woman frantically pouring wine. We wandered up with a group and the woman ran over asking if we all wanted to try wine. Of course we did. So she gave us all glasses and started pouring. I opted out of the whites but Lib tasted those and I tasted the reds. Lib fell in love with a Chardonnay and I fell in love with one of their blends. The woman said we get to keep our glasses (awesome) and never took a taste ticket. Lib and I did each buy a bottle of the wine we liked, and I have to admit, part of my buying the bottle was I felt bad for the woman. One of the chocolate festival volunteers started helping and bitching at people who were trying to get more tastes and Lib and I realized we sort of scored. Whoohooo! But we did buy some of their wine so I don’t feel totally guilty.

We then found a woman who hand painted glass stuff from wine glasses to pitchers to carafes. So beautiful. I think Lib may order from her later. She was called Barbara's Delight. And I have to say - the woman was absolutely delightful!

Then I hit up Xan Confections and had a chocolate covered Carmel candy called Fleur something. Sooooo very good!!! I didn’t take a picture of it, but did take a photo of the adorable gingerbread candy next to it!

Libby and I were now starting to feel the angst of too much chocolate. Our tummies were starting to churn and I a slight buzz and a huge sugar high. We sat down for a spell and I spotted this:

I mean what’s a Chocolate Festival without a chocolate fountain right? I grabbed a pumpkin bread and doused it. She didn’t take a ticket. I tried to force it upon her but she laughed and said no need. We tried to get our wits about us and moved on. We came across this table where you could log onto your Facebook and write a review and get a free goodie. Um of course we'll take free stuff! Lib and I both opted for the giant coffee mug that says chocolate on it.

There was a long line for the gelato taste but we weren’t in a hurry so we got ourselves some. IT was called Mangiamo's Gelato and it was pretty awesome.

Then I saw this!

You have got to be kidding me! A wine slushy! That can’t be good! But oh was it!!!! They are called D'Marie Gourmet and I plan on ordering some of their stuff next summer!!! Talk about a perfect summer beverage! This was about the time we realized we had still so many taste tickets for food and drink still left and we were dying. Between the sharing and some people not even taking tickets we were hurtin. I was bound to at least use up my taste tickets so we hit another one called Pretzel Sensations. Toffee pretzel crunch things. Amazing. Then I grabbed a chocolate covered Carmel from Amelia Carmel’s. The man started trying to sell me something but my now turning green face turned away. I then grabbed a vegan cupcake. Ok, these won’t be too bad - healthy right? Um nasty.

We were handed a vegan macaroon from another vendor that was equally nasty. I don’t know how you do it vegans, but those were not good at all. We now were done. Both of us felt sick and need to eat a salad or something. So I decided to use my last taste ticket on the first woman who was by far my favorite of the day. So I went back and she gave me an extra wine and I promptly bought a jar of the garlic/onion spread and a bottle of the wine. I gave my last two drink tickets to a man who worked there and told him to give it to someone worthy. Libby gave her remaining tickets to a darling little old couple. We were thrilled when they made an announcement that 10% of all purchases were going to Hurricane Sandy relief. SO all in in all it was an ok festival. There were food demonstrations, but I honestly don’t think anyone was paying attention because you couldn’t really hear anything going on on the stage. They were at least an hour and a half behind schedule so the list of times/events was now void. It seemed a bit of a clusterfuck as a whole. But it was still fun, and Libby and I had a great time. I hope the vendors get some great new business because it really was great for them. We rolled out of the hotel and took one final shot. Chocolate Overdose!!!!

Noches de Altares 2012...

I have started attending this pretty regularly now for a few years. The Dios de Los Muertos Celebration is technically November 1/2 but the 1st Saturday in November, whatever date that may be, they have what is called Noches de Altares in downtown Santa Ana. I am fascinated by this Mexican holiday that celebrates the lives of those passed on. The altars are set up usually with marigolds, flowers, sugar skulls and many many other types of decor. There is usually a few items that the departed enjoyed (booze, items, food) and something for them to wear (perfume, cologne) when they return on this day to celebrate. It's a beautiful celebration with gorgeous altars, the air filled with sage, living flame bringing a spooky beautiful atmosphere to the event. Usually my friend T builds the altar for our friends at Bistro 400 and paints my face. This year she was unable to attend so I attempted to paint my face on my own. My friend Ber joined me and came over a bit early to attempt to paint her own face as well. I think we did pretty good!

This festival co-incides with the Santa Ana Artwalk they have on the first Saturday of every month so it's grown to be quite an event. Parking is always a nightmare and this year was no exception. Ber and I ended up parking across 1st Street in some neighborhood behind Original Mikes. The festival was as usual beautiful. The altars were gorgeous. The festival has seemed to grow though and I would say it was much more crowded this year than years past. We met up with another girlfriend of ours and two of her friends. Then another pair of our friends Petey and Bobby Dean joined us. We had dinner and drinks at Bistro 400 as we always start and end our evening here usually and off we went. This year we had a hard time staying together and ended seeing the festival in different groups. But the crowds were mellow (with the exception of a drunken incident with some dude crashing into Ber) and people for the most part polite. Folks were friendly and happy to share a story about thier loved ones. We looped the entire festival, no merchandise puchases this year but had a lovely evening. After final drinks at Bistro, we didnt stay since we were all a bit worn out and the festival was just a bit to busy this year for us. But I snapped some great shots as you can see below! Enjoy!

This was an altar built for foster children and the woman was having people write notes and messages to the kids. I filled one out "Always love who you are".