Happy Mother's Day, Happy Sunday, Happy Friends
To all the amazing Mom's out there who teach their children the right things and continue to teach them through their lives. To my beautiful Mom who continues to teach me the value of friendship in life. I don't think I can express in words the amount of love and friendship that was on stage last night. There must of been a beam of light coming from that building. It truly was a magical night.
Tonight there is going to be a funky good time at the Rochester Opera House in Rochester, NH. Remember our friend Brett? Hubby's buddy that has the brain tumor? Well tonight all of Brett's friends are gathering to put on a show, one heck of a show for him. The best part, Brett is going to be there and rumor has it he may be playing a few songs as well. Because he is doing AWESOME!
It is the CD release benefit show. You can read an interview with Brett and Joe HERE This CD project is a gathering of all of Brett's musical friends from all over the country. Brett wrote all the songs on the cd and each friend picked their favorite and recorded it. Hubby's band Wooden Eye did a lot of the back up music on it. Then all of the mixing, editing and mastering were done at Tillie B Studio, (a.k.a. our basement). Many of these folks have flown in to perform their song tonight.
The main act tonight is Daniel Johnston. Brett has been Daniels guitar player for a very long time and travels the world performing with him. If you are a documentary lover like I am put, The Devil In Daniel Johnston on your list of docs to watch.
I'm just excited it's going to be a fun night of music at a beautiful music venue and filled with a room of great friends that love Brett. It's gonna be a great time. Wish I could beam all of you in for this.
Have you seen this before? I'm sure you all have and I'm going to be perfectly honest, I thought it was something only medical responders dealt with. These are hanging on the wall at the gym. This is what saved my friend J's life. I'm seeing this symbol all over the place now. I noticed one in the parking garage the other day. This is the symbol for the Automated External Defibrillator These are designed for anyone to use, they are now automated and talk you through everything. The guy at the gym said it's nerve racking as hell but it tells you everything you need to do. I'm trying not to be preachy because I fall into the category, "ahhh this won't happen on my watch." I think we all want to fall into that category. We only want to see it on tv, not at our side. Let's not feel bad, lets just do a little brushing up on our CPR/First Aid skills. There are tons of You Tube videos on CPR. Watch one. The Red Cross offers classes all the time on this. Do a little brushing up.
Now for a little advertisement. Several years ago Justine bought me one of these.
We both have these on our running shoes. Most of my cycling and running buddies have these. My friend Tina recently encounted two coyotes out on a trail and while she was deciding what to do she thought, "PLEASE don't eat my right foot!" They didn't and they didn't bother her either. Phew. You don't have to know or be a cycling running person to have a RoadID. You can read all the testimonials on their site about people that have passed out and had on their RoadID's. They have fun bracelets and dog tag type products. But maybe you are thinking, "ahhh I go out walking, I have my phone on me, I'm fine." Well J~ would always take her phone, she has an iPhone, she has a password on it to use it, I don't know her password. (J~ we will be discussing that;) ANYWAY, you guys get the idea and who knows anyone's phone number by memory anymore? These RoadID's are cool. Great gift idea!
Really I don't want to lecture anyone and be like that. I know people get all wound up when something traumatic happens to them. J~ is still in the hospital, she is healing, she is tough. Super tough! My job is to remind all of us to take a minute and brush up on our first aid skills. Because it can happen to anyone.....
"Sprint to the stop sign"
Hugs
Marjorie
It's official, it's spring. I am always amazed on how green it can get and who made up that April showers bring May flowers line? Because it seems to me in May it just rains a lot. That's okay, it's all good. Off to Lucky Pet. Hug someone today.
Time to catch up on a few things I've wanted to share with all of you. I saw the sweetest little article in the paper the other day on Little Free Library.
Have any of you seen these? Go to the web site and just poke around. So dang cute and fun! I'm not sure if I could put one up here, then again finding a Little Free Library where you least expect it could be pretty cool. I just loved the story.
Moxie & Otis
Hi there. I didn't fall off the planet, felt like it though. I'm just gonna lay it all out there because well this week has sucked. Down right sucked. My dearest "bestest" friend who I have hiked, biked and run with for 17 years had a heart attack on Monday night at the gym. The shock and disbelief was, is and still overwhelming. We ran 7 miles on Saturday, we are training for a 1/2 marathon....we run in the middle of no where most of the time. So sparing you from the details and the emotional awakening one gets when CRAP like this happens, my buddy J~ is on the mend. She is getting her own personal little ICD so she doesn't do this again. We will find a name for that device I'm sure. We rename everything. I've been at the hospital, I've been taking care of their pets, I've been sad and happy at the same time and cried....a lot. This was not on the spread sheet she sent me last week of our training schedule. Life is not a spreadsheet uh? We both just got the cutest little running skirts and I asked her yesterday if she had that on at the gym Monday night. She is pretty "loopy" from whatever they pumped into her to save her and her reply about the skirt, "THANK GOD NO!" She's confused but I knew by that answer, she's still J~
On another bittersweet note, these two in the photo above have a lot to tell. Otis is in training to be a therapy dog. My friend Rick is a puppy raiser for NEADS (therapy/service dogs) It is time for Otis to go on to his next level of training. He will be off to one of the prisons in New England that train service dogs. There it will be determined what type of service dog he will be. A lot of the NEADS dogs get placed with veterans with PTSD. Otis is laid back, I know he would of calmed me the other day that's for sure. Then there is Moxie, she is Ricks next "project" and from what he said he will have his hands full. I think she is going to be one busy girl.
I know some of you are thinking why I would write about dogs and friends in the same posts. Because I'll be thinking of J~ tomorrow as she gets her heart fixed. I will also be thinking of Rick who is saying good bye to Otis knowing he has a purpose to go on and take care of someone who really needs him. That's just what friends do.
Back in my pastry chef days I would experiment with different types of chocolate mousse recipes. My "go to" one was a Grand Marnier chocolate mousse with orange whip cream. But once I tried a mousse recipe out of a Moosewood cookbook. I posted about Mollie Katzen before, the author of all the great Moosewood cookbooks. She is kind of like the Godmother of vegetarian cooking. Her books were in every hippy kitchen. I worked with a vegetarian baker and she had left her hippy cookbooks at work one day. So I made the Chocolate Ricotta Mousse out of an early Moosewood book for the Friday night dessert cart The Friday and Saturday night dessert cart at the Stage Neck Inn had to be spectacular. In a pinch to fill the cart I made this mousse:
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 lb ricotta cheese
1.5 teaspons pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup honey or other sweetener to taste
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
Combine melted chocolate, ricotta cheese, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and honey in a blender or food processor and whirl until very smooth. Pour into dessert cups and chill.
Just before serving, combine heavy cream, .5 tsp of vanilla and maple syrup and whip until stiff.
Serve topped with whipped cream and garnished fresh fruit or shaved chocolate.
Note: I used low fat ricotta and it was still yummy.
Prep: 15-20 min.
chill: at least 1 hour
It's been at least 25 years since I made this. It was a fast and easy dessert to make. That night I had taken some home for Joe, for the last 25 years every so often he mentions this. I've looked for the recipe before with no luck. Well it popped up in a search the other night. I made it for Saturday night's dessert, it was consumed, it is GONE, it is lick the bowl clean gone. Yep, it's still worth talking about and I've made an official copy of the recipe. (Note I did tweek it and used less honey 1/4 cup is plenty, oh and I added cinnamon) I won't be waiting another 25 years to make this, I'm going to buy more ricotta today.
My thoughts exactly! Tis the season for mowing around here. I fixed the broken fuel line on our mower yesterday for $2.10. I felt so thrifty and I always want a gold star when I fix something with a motor. Then I mowed....and mowed. Grass is overrated.
It kind of feels like a week of Mondays around here. I know hubby will agree. You?
