So as part of her birthday extravaganza I took the teenager’s mail and packages, compiled it into a box and gave it to her with her birthday cake during a small birthday dinner with her paternal grandparents.
I explained to the grandparents what this was all about— a monthly themed box of snacks from a certain region of the world.
I didn’t expect that after a mountain of meat loaf she could keep eating.
Best of the box:
The teenager loved the banana toffee.
We both liked the intense pickled onion rings.
The teenager enjoyed the shortbread.
Worst of the box:
The honey mustard potato chips were dull by my standards and too much for the teen. [after a while, the Mackie’s if Scotland crisps starting growing on me— the flavor and texture was perfect.)
We were all rather confused by the lamb and mint chips. They were weird. And not in a good way.
The teenager was born at 1:34 a.m. on June 23, 2004. I was induced on Monday the 22nd. I remember it as a Monday because of the disappointment I felt as the clock struck midnight…
Why? you ask…
Well, Tuesday’s child is full of woe.
The French day, “I have XX years,” vs. “I am XX.” I am pondering that today because it really is more accurate.
When the teenager wakes up in the morning, she will have finished 16 years on this earth.
Her birthday started this weekend with a scavenger hunt at her dad’s and his homemade peanut butter bars. He invited me over to share in their celebration.
Birthday at her Dad’s
Today she spent the day with my father riding his Harley through the Pocono Mountains, eating pancakes and buying coffee from convenience stores.
And my mother-in-law asked what she wanted for her birthday. The teenager asked for a meatloaf.
Birthday Meatloaf
Well, if your in-laws are bringing a meatloaf, they might as well stay for dinner. And if the in-laws are here, you might as well invite the estranged husband.
And I had some “presents” for her. Unbeknownst to her, a bunch of her packages came today while she was gone.
Among the goodies: most of her Dress Lily order, her June Universal Yums box, and her “low brass witch” customized color-changing tumbler purchased to support my former Target colleague as her family dealt with Covid-related unemployment while their middle child (age six) is battling Leukemia.
More on all of these things another day, as I had a business meeting at eight p.m. and I took a long walk in today’s heat with Nala on my shoulder. She did well,
This morning I forced the Teenager out of bed, bribing her with the prospect of a dog (which happened to be a Newfoundland) and a doughnut (from Easton Baking.)
The Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community has gone virtual this year and typically we raise almost $10,000 at the office for our nonprofit. The Palmer Kiwanis are our largest/most lucrative fundraising team. They are organized by Debbie Ashton-Chase, a ProJeCt board member and one of the lovely people who own and operate the Ashton Funeral Home.
Today, on this lovely summer solstice, the Palmer Kiwanis hosted their version of the Highmark Walk at the Easton Cemetery.
At the Chapel
The weather held out and the group was jovial. They cemetery provided historical guide books which made my history nerd self very happy.
I found out today that my blind friend Nan likes horseradish, would like to try Fireball whiskey and has never had a margarita.
Today, as it is the start of weekend and expected to be the hottest day of the week, Nan and I planned to head to Park Avenue Market to use some hoagie coupons from The Teenager’s marching band fundraiser.
But Nan hadn’t listened to the rest of my message— she was already distracted by thoughts of cucumber salad.
So we’re standing at the deli counter and I order a 10” Lebanon bologna hoagie with bacon lover’s cheese and lettuce, tomato and pickles for the teenager and I to share. And I order Nan’s turkey hoagie with bacon lover’s cheese, mayo, lettuce and onion.
We’re scoping out the salads and I ask her if she planned to take me up on my offer of coming over to eat our sandwiches together and mix up the apple pie cocktail from the ingredients I ordered from County Seat Spirits.
The teenager always likes to get one of the massive deli pickles. So as Nan was realizing we were about to have way more of an adventure than a simple trip to the grocery store, the teenager is pointing out to me that one giant pickle is 99 cents whereas two are $1.69.
Now no one needs two giant pickles.
But I say yes, get two.
She turns 16 Tuesday, I can’t deny her pickles.
So Nan excitedly accepts my offer to stay for dinner and promptly tells me that we need to buy apple juice.
While we wait for our deli orders— summer bean salad and cucumber salad for Nan and slab bacon and liverwurst for me—Nan and I explored the $1 bags of chips.
Apparently Nan loves horseradish so we picked up the horseradish cheddar potato chips for us and Jalapeño Popper Herr’s cheese puffs.
The teenager also wanted tuna salad, so I bought some celery and tuna.
And me, being me, I bought a cow tale and a coconut candy watermelon slice. You gotta have dessert.
We unpack the sandwiches and chips on my dining room table, and the chips were just like horseradish, some bites were just right and some the fumes went straight up your nose.
And then, we started mixing.
I get the vanilla vodka, cinnamon vodka, wine glasses, shot glasses, trays of ice and a cocktail shaker.
Nan is impressed that I have a cocktail shaker.
We pass the bottles around so everyone can smell the vodka. I usually hate vodka. This vodka is distilled from cane sugar and impresses me. The cinnamon vodka smells like Christmas.
First go:
2 ounces vanilla vodka
2 ounces cinnamon vodka
4 ounces apple juice
Result: strong
I add two more ounces of apple juice to the cocktail shaker. Nan approves.
I am merely tasting as someone has to drive Nan home.
I slice the candy.
Nan has never had a cow tail before.
The teenager tastes the alcoholic beverages and approves. We have a discussion about her 21st birthday.
Nan and I plot a trip to the liquor store and mixing Fireball with diet ginger ale.
I mix a batch of the cocktail which I put in a quart mason jar with a plastic screw lid so Nan can keep it in her fridge.
I drove Nan home as the rain started to fall. I had slipped a cocktail into the freezer for myself. This is good vodka.
I’ve tried to incorporate the spirit of my “staycation” two weeks ago into my everyday life. I have tried to embrace a more carefree joie de vivre.
I think to some extent it is working.
Scrolling through my blog feed, I see lots of random home-cooked meals, even more pizzas and fast food… I mean, what crazy mood swing prompted me to eat TWO blizzards from DQ in one night???
My dental work on Wednesday was a huge success and has prompted such a physical and emotional relief— because when you’re slowly paying off more than a thousand dollars in dental bills and something is not right, it drains you.
It reminds me, as life often does, that our struggles never really end. The only destination in this journey is death, regardless of what milestones we try to hit along the way.
Some days it’s harder to get out of bed than others, but hopefully there is something for all of us to appreciate and something we can do for the world.
I opened my Lock Keeper Gin from County Seat Spirits last night. Mixed a shot of so with equal parts carbonated water and a light French lavender soda.
Gin by itself has a clean but bitter taste, in my opinion, with the Lock Keeper Gin bursting with a strong citrus aftertaste. The light blend of lavender gave the gin just enough sweetness to be undetectable in my cocktail. I find gin way smoother and easy to mix than vodka, which I know is an unpopular opinion.
It’s not everyday that starts with a 9 a.m. dental visit (in the middle of a pandemic where you end up getting some restoration work done when you thought it was a quick and easy crown adjustment) and you end up thinking— “This is a good day.”
My dental staff had a very gentle touch and it seems like (fingers crossed), I should have no more issues for a while.
The dentist was very optimistic as she set to work and I reminded her not to get too cocky, as dentistry has to be a lot like plumbing— the older the house gets the more you don’t know what you’ll find until you really get inside.
She liked my analogy.
I also told herself about the time they gave me so much Novocain, I went to blow my nose and almost exploded my ear drums because I couldn’t feel anything coming out because my nostrils were numb.
For more on my dental disasters, visit this entry: My dental past.
In other news, I took these cheap fish nuggets and made fish/cabbage tacos. I dressed them with bacon ranch.
I planned to use my lunch break today to host a business meeting with my supervisor from my new volunteer position. I’m helping a relatively new non-profit hone their grant-writing skills and work out some communications strategies. I’m hosting a meeting with their summer interns tonight.
The news that we would be hosting someone in our home sent the teenager into a cleaning frenzy.
When our afternoon guest departed, the teenager turned to me and said, “It was so nice to hear the two of you talking.”
I only get 30 minutes for lunch and it looked like a gorgeous day outside so the teenager and I walked to CVS to get my medicine.
Too many of my days I remain indoors like this:
(Except I usually have a cockatoo on my shoulder not a cat on my lap.)
I said to the teenager, after paying for my prescription, I have $8 left and $6.17 on a CVS gift card— Can we get lunch for the two of us?
She promptly replied, “I probably can’t, not here at CVS, but you probably can.”
We checked out the frozen pizzas, the Hot Pockets and the Lean Cuisines. All of which were buy 1, get 1 50% off.
The teenager wanted to try Lean Cuisine Sesame Chicken. (Regular price $5.39)
I will never understand how they process out all of the nutrition from the vegetables.
The teenager was pining over her sugary jugs of Arizona iced tea. I had one last surprise— the 20+ ounce cans of ALL Arizona flavors were 4 for $2. I picked one and let her select three.
Well, if the pandemic’s been good for something it certainly has given me the opportunity to experiment with some of the samples I’ve received in my Ipsy Glam Bag.
Today I wore the Maëlle Clearly Brilliant Tinted Lips in “Nectar”— which I say looks orange and the teenager says “it’s lip tint, Mom, it will look pink when you put it on. It will look good on you.”
I liked it. Not as thick and sticky and messy as lipstick and leaves a nice color on the lips.
The essenHERB tea tree foam cleanser was an add-on item I bought for $3. After a lesson in how to contour from the teenager, I went to show her how to use bronzer. Except I grabbed the highlighter and plastered that all over my face.
So that cleanser came in handy. I washed my face and didn’t think anything of it until I realized that my skin was abnormally soft.
The teenager touched my face and agreed.
I bought Sugar eyeliner for the teenager and she really likes the dainty pen and the ease of control. Again, a $3 add on.
The other lip gloss I also purchased because it looked like a really pretty purple-glittery color.
The highlighter powder went right into our unopened container for future use as I still don’t “get” how to use highlighter and I have one with my bronzer.
I bought a set from Ipsy last month.
The nail polish I tossed in my nail polish container. The lotion I gave to the teenager.
I am in love with the lemonade lavender gin cocktail from County Seat Spirits. So light and refreshing. I’ve always loved lavender and I’d forgotten my fondness for gin.
Some would say that make me an old woman.
I ordered the spinach feta speciality pizza from Dominos and had them swap the provolone and onions for hot sauce and chicken.
I sprinkled the pizza with purple pepper and crushed red pepper and I must say it is heavenly.
Angel Ackerman 