Meanwhile, Upstairs at Brio

Mmmmm, mmmm, mmmm. Mojitos! With sisters Grace and Frigga. Skol!

Got Ten Minutes?

This is easy to understand, factual, and accurate. It's also cute. And needs to be updated to reflect the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding ACA. Watch it!!

Dear John...

How could I have so thoughtlessly forgotten your birthday yesterday? Please forgive me, I will make it up to you. I hope you had some cake and were celebrating among friends. You remain my primary crush that I worship from afar. Nathan Fillion, Kyle Chandler and that half dressed fellow in the Old Spice commercials mean nothing to me. Allow me to wish you all the best in the coming year. And until we actually meet in person, I'll get by with multiple viewings of High Fidelity, Must Love Dogs, Serendipity, America's Sweethearts and Grosse Pointe Blank. Until then, I remain your ever loyal fan and servant who respects your personal boundaries and all current protection orders.


With adoration,
Bellona 

KC, Day Two

When our bathroom proved to have a water leakage issue causing squishy carpeting in our room, the Holiday Inn staff graciously moved us to another room. Who knew such fun could be had with a luggage trolley! Please, no smartass remarks about the old bag seated on the trolley.

Just down the street from our hotel was Country Club Plaza. Loads of shopping and eating opportunities. Solidifying Kansas City as a city of fountains, here we see the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain anchoring the northwest corner of CCP.

What a fun part of town for a walking tour! Kansas City is a treasure trove of art deco architecture mixed with modern glass towers. We enjoyed a lovely meal at Brio Tuscan Grille where Spencer took excellent care of three hungry and thirsty ladies. Upstairs at Brio's happy hour, we were introduced to the Mojito. I became enamored of the mango version. Seriously enamored. Dangerously close to crossing the line into mojithoe territory!

 After a refreshing dip in the pool we put on pretty dresses for an evening out in the Power & Light District.

Kansas City's six year old downtown revitalization project, the Power & Light District, contains every opportunity for night life imaginable. We found excellent food and more Mojitos! I recommend the berry variety at Bar Louie.

Do keep your wits about you in any urban setting! At the same time we felt very comfortable and safe in this friendly environment.

We are amazed and awed by all the pretty lights. Is this when the Mothership landed?

My pretty sisters! An excellent evening was had by all.

Thanks, Nora

My words are insignificant when Nora Ephron's are available. Watch the video.

Outside Fidel's

Since I tend to be a little nitpicky about chronology when it suits me, before we move on to day 2 in Kansas City, here is one more adorable pic from day 1. We considered cigars and ended up outside Fidel's where Pamela and Martine got cozy with the sandwich sign. Is it a sandwich sign when there is no person acting as sandwich innards? Aren't they cute? Yes, indeedy, they are.

Rest In Peace, Nora

Nora Ephron. I absolutely adored her. She died today at the tender age of 71. Next to Julia Sugarbaker, Nora was who I wanted to be when I grew up. Born to writers, she and all three of her sisters became writers as well. She was a successful novelist and also published collections of her essays. When Harry Met Sally, Julie & Julia, You've Got Mail, Silkwood, Michael, Heartburn. She produced, wrote and/or directed a number of my very favorite movies. I might throw a mini film festival in her honor over the next few days. She felt bad about her neck, remembered nothing, and worshiped butter. Earlier this year she appeared on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! When asked what she thought the secret to a happy marriage was, she replied, probably separate bathrooms. I'm inclined to agree. I'm certain she had at least a couple more wonderful movie scripts to write. In lieu of that, her unique voice lives on in her books and through the many, many talented actors who brought her characters to life.

Feeling Her Grief

A fellow blogger (although a famous one, who is also a successful entrepreneur and author) has something in common with me. We have both gone through a divorce. Though the circumstances and healing time are individual in nature, recovery from the pain and sadness is a process that takes as long as it takes. Not just time passing, but the conscious and difficult work necessary to rebuild a life. When did I start to feel better? This is my response to her question:


Truly, it is a process. I was married for twenty years and have two grown sons. Just last week was the sixth anniversary of the divorce being final, and it would have passed without my noticing except for the fact that it coincides with my elder son's birthday! After spending probably half of my married years unhappy, my first sense of relief arrived when the decision to split was finally made. Now I feel pretty great about my life! It seems that despite the fact that I'm half Norwegian I'm predisposed to being happy. The failure of my marriage remains regretful but is now simply a fact of life rather than a knife through my heart.

KC, Day One

One week ago today my sisters and I converged upon the unsuspecting residents of Kansas City, MO, in order to celebrate life and sisterhood with food, drink and love. And shopping. They flew in and I drove in my trusty Subaru Outback. They don't warn you ahead of time that the Kansas City International Airport has three terminals. Three! Separate and distinct buildings labeled A, B and C. The various airlines are divided up amongst the three terminals. I panicked just a teensy bit because I pretty much needed to be in two different places at the same time, terminals B and C. I'm good, but not that good. Between texting and landmark identification we managed to locate each other quickly. Much dancing and giggling and hugging joyously ensued. Except for getting the stink eye from a bus driver whose humongous vehicle was blocking the turning lane, things went pretty smoothly and we located our hotel. Okay, finding the hotel was a little tricky and when we got to the Boulevard Brewery, we turned around and took the other Main.

Here is Miss Martine in the hotel shuttle. We became well acquainted with Washington, our frequent driver. Having a free shuttle available is a most wonderful thing. It saves you from getting lost or having to appoint someone as the designated driver. All three of us prefer to be the other DD, designated drinker.

Miss Pamela Jean enjoying our shuttle drive to the Westport neighborhood, where we had a frabjous dinner at McCoy's. I highly recommend this eatery! Finishing up with their signature bread pudding was amazingly delish!

After dinner we explored the neighborhood with cameras in hand. Brick alleyways are so photogenic, as are Pamela's boots. Secretly, we feel sorry for her because she so totally lacks pizzazz.

Martine has pizzazz to spare. I'm not certain at this point if she is leaning on the walls or if she is holding them up.

Abandoned storefronts also make for interesting photo backdrops. I have mastered the timer feature on my camera enabling all three of us to be in the same shot. I can move pretty quickly and manage to sit in a skirt without injuring myself. Worship me.

Later, back at the hotel bar, our favorite bartender Bryan demonstrates proper bottle lifting technique for Pam.

Seriously, I have no idea what I'm doing here. It was late, I was tired, I had enjoyed numerous beverages. It was clearly time to retire for the night.

The Orb

You've never been in awe of a knick-knack in the lobby of a Holiday Inn? Must be in the eye of the beholder. We'll be hearing from that spokesmodel talent scout any day now.

Divine Dictionary

mo-jit-hoe noun /moe-heet-hoe/ 1. A woman who will clearly do anything, and I mean anything, for one of those various flavored rum drinks with the muddled mint leaves. Anything. Really. I kid you not. 2. What a woman becomes after consuming one more mojito than necessary.

Home Again, Home Again

I was having too much fun with my sisters to bother with things like blogging or checking Facebook. I went online for directions to interesting things like bars and pancakes and the outlet mall. Until I post in detail about our adventures in Kansas City, be informed that Pamela Jean and Miss Martine and I shall henceforth be known as Frigga, Grace, and Heidi, the Shuttlecock sisters.

Countdown!

Aced the Sunday crossword and cryptoquip. Yes, I do them in ink. For even more excitement, when I realized it was raining, I ran out and grabbed the hammock while still in my jammies and brought it into the garage. Good thing it was the back yard. Good thing I noticed before the downpour began! Cookies are baked, car is full of gas and I'm mostly packed. Nineteen hours til Sis Time! 

My Head Hurts

His name is Einstein. Not to judge as far as his pillow choice is concerned, but this does not look comfortable. And therefore doesn't seem very smart. Next time a pillow isn't handy when I wish to nap, just for experiment's sake I'll try a shoe as a headrest. Then I'll be judgmental.

Things I'm Pretty Sure Don't Decompose That I Fear May Take Over The World

* Those little nylon thingys that attach price tags to clothing
* Dental floss
* Perfectly preserved baby poop inside of disposable diapers in landfills 
* Twisty ties
* Plastic bottle caps
* Hair
* Old sneakers
* Twinkies
* Window caulk
* 8track and other various video and audio tapes, as well as the cases they aren't necessarily confined to
* Dwarf bread, which is mythical in nature, but just the idea of a food that is forged rather than grown or baked has potential for nightmare fodder
* Lost and discarded cell phones
* The zipper portion of ziploc bags
* Pantyhose

Martha Caroline

When I was a child there were a few occasions when I insisted that I had to have been adopted. I was serious. For the most part, we grew up around members of Mom's family. And my three siblings very much resembled those Norwegian extracted relatives. From among the granddaughters, I was the shortest and the only one with dark hair. I was a shrimp among blonde Amazon-like creatures. The only reasonable explanation was that I was adopted. When I shared this observation with my mother, she wryly remarked that I was not chosen, that I had been thrust upon them. At the age of eight this sounded vaguely sexual to me and I pressed her no further for clarification. The summer I turned fourteen I came into possession of a group photograph of my paternal grandmother and her three sisters. This is her, Martha Caroline Register Broome at around sixteen years of age. Mom was right. I wasn't adopted after all, I just took after the side of the family that I was less familiar with. I think it would be fun to recreate this photo with me in a similar dress and hairstyle. Using extremely soft focus. At my current age, I can see how I resemble my mother and sister more than ever before. This is the only photo I have of Martha Caroline, so I have no idea if I now look like she did in her fifties. One thing I do know, my life has been very different from hers. I expect she was never more than a hundred miles from where she was born. She taught school as a young woman but mostly she was a farm wife who raised four sons and two daughters. I find myself wondering what hopes and dreams lay behind the eyes of this lovely young woman. If any of them came true. If she was happy. I have no reliable memories of her, I only saw her when I was a toddler and she died when I was nine at the age of seventy-five. I regret that I never really knew her.

Waiting

Stoplight. I glance to my right and see a college professor behind the wheel of an acid green Prius. This is a small town. I actually know who he is. To my left is a loud, obnoxious Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Piloting the bike is a chunky fellow wearing jeans, black work boots, a jean jacket, sunglasses, a black stocking cap and has a cigarette dangling from his mouth. This is a small town but I do not know him. Smack dab between them, I am in my Newport Blue Pearl Subaru Outback that has just accumulated 50,000 miles. I am in the middle. In more ways than one, I imagine.

Moongarden Magic

This is magical. With some help from Reid, which was more of Obviousman Strikes Again than anything, though I am still grateful for him pointing out the obvious, I can upload photos to my blog from Picasa after uploading them from the sd card from my camera to Picasa. That was an awfully clunky explanation for something that is quite simple. The photo is of my moongarden, which is really neither here nor there as far as deep meaning is concerned, the point is simply that it is there! Actually, it's in my back yard. This is the thing. I now possess the knowledge of how to take a picture with my camera, transfer that image to cloud photo storage, and then publish the picture here! I prefer to think of it as magic. The technical explanation isn't nearly as much fun. This means that, gasp, I have mastered scanning photos as well as this uploading thing. Pardon me while I'm very impressed with myself.

Let's Make This Complicated!

Well, why would you hang this with a wire when there is a perfectly serviceable sawtooth hanger already attached? Are people rabidly insisting upon installing a wire hanging device even when it's not necessary? Is this happening at epidemic levels that I'm not aware of? Must be of great importance since it was printed on a yellow label. Just to be safe, I didn't hang it with a wire. There I go being cooperative.

After reading all of this pertinent information, I shrugged and ignored every last word of it. I found a small nail. Then I was too lazy to go out to the garage or down to the basement to locate a hammer, so I just used the pliers immediately at hand to poke the nail into the wall. That was Saturday afternoon. It's still hanging there. I will be so annoyed if I wasted a miracle on this most mundane of tasks.

Mr SnS?

It has just occurred to me who that guy was on Friday night. I caught him surreptitiously studying me from a table across the way. He looked vaguely familiar in that sort of vaguely familiar way. I conferred with Aundrea and she thought he was vaguely familiar, too. If indeed it was Mr SnS, the intervening time has not been kind to him. Rumpled plaid shirt, several extra pounds around his middle, and a questionable change of hairstyle, perhaps including a perm. The eyes were the same, though. Yup. They were still deepset and brooding. Perhaps he was feeling regretful over the perm.

Miss Tallulah

Reid asks, Mom, where were you standing when this picture was taken? Why, I replied, on my swollen pregnant feet! 

He didn't recognize the location. Trees do get larger in twenty years and change the landscape, so I thought I'd re-enact the photo in approximately the same place. Miss Tallulah, my life size Barbie doll, is graciously standing in for moi. The dark blob just to the left of her elbow is a grill located near the bottom of the deck stairs that can be clearly seen in the earlier photo. Miss T is posed in the area that still requires weed removal and grassing in. The tulips are long gone.

Miss T has been part of the family for a number of years. I find it enjoyable to dress her up according to holiday themes. Here, my brother-in-law Bill is sneaking her in through the back door. The grin quickly disappeared from his face when he was informed by my husband that Miss T lacked any functional orifices. With great disappointment she was returned to the garage.

I do love Halloween. So, it seems, does Miss T. All gussied up in classic witch's garb along with Reid and Michael in the fall of 2001. The little ghoulish guy shows how creative one can be with a shop vac, eye patch, superball that looks like an eyeball, and a foam skull. He's stylish with a plaid scarf that tenuously secures his head onto his mechanical body.  The effect is made complete with a hooded cloak. If I remember correctly, Michael is probably holding the poor guy together for the photo. We may have later resorted to duct tape.

Dreamy

Okay. So, the word confessions is in the blog title. You can't say I didn't warn you. I do love kicking things off with a disclaimer! Nearly as fab as starting off the day with sturdy coffee and a rationalization or two. Rationalizing is pro forma if cookies are on the breakfast menu. Although they weren't today. Despite the fact that I bought a bag of my fave cookies at World Market yesterday. But I digress. Here's the deal. I've been having partially naked, semi-sweaty dreams about a specific man. Probably half a dozen times over the last three months or so. A man that I happen to know, not some latent George Clooney fantasy that's resurrecting itself from the darker recesses of my brain. The thing is, I don't know that I'm actually attracted to him. Not that I couldn't be, I've just never considered him in that way. The idea is pretty darn interesting, though. I most definitely would not say no if he was to express an interest in me. Sadly, I don't see that happening. And this is one of those situations where I can't comfortably make the first move. Since you asked, yes, of course, he's younger than me. Colleen will be relieved to know that the man in question is well beyond his twenties. What is my perv brain trying to tell me? Sigh. I expect I'm overthinking this. But it was a pretty terrific naked sweaty dream. 

Happy Birthday, Sis!

There she is, my newborn baby sis in our father's lap. That's almost fiveyo, gap-toothed me on the left, and almost sevenyo brother Scott hiding from the flash on the right.

Adorable tot Martine at not quite two. What a cutie pie!

WYSIWYG

Does anyone else lovelovelove the new Blogger compose thingy? Because I do!! Photo uploading is so much faster and positioning them is easier. I also enjoy the preview, which looks just like how your post looks when you publish! A true wysiwyg. This is what is needed in the man department. A true wysiwyg. It would save a lot of time.

Baby Maples

The adorable thing about tiny, just germinated maple seeds is how the leaves are teeny tiny maple leaves! Now who would have guessed that! Just like the ones the size of your hand that you rake up in the fall. Only on the diminutive scale. If you ask me, these are right up there on the cute scale with baby shoes.

The Boys Are 6

Newton now

Einstein now

Baby Newt

Baby Steinie

We Wuz at Zorbaz!

On the lakefront patio.

Theze people have a zenze of humor. They're Norwegian, too. Amazing.

They take their clever mizzpellingz zeriouzly.

Oh, yeah, there waz a band, too.

And adult beveragez.

In the Zorbaz ztore. We couldn't rezizt the shirtz. They had zunglazzes, too.

Ze view from our table. I zwear I'm never going back there, it juzt wazn't any fun at all.

Camping Observations

* It has been revealed that my superhero power is the ability to fart and frighten deer off the bike trail. Perhaps this shall open the door to unconsidered career opportunities, such as strapping myself to the hood of a vehicle and reducing roadkill!


* We had great fun at Zorbaz in Spicer, MN. Live music on their huge outdoor patio with a panoramic view of Green Lake. Couldn't resist their gift shop tshirts as well as the don't-take-it-so-seriously atmosphere where they substitute Z for S wherever possible.


* Thank you Karen! For owning a pickup with room for people and stuff, including bikes, and a comfy pop-up camper!  And for driving! 


* If you are ever in Willmar. MN, I recommend Grizzly's. Reasonably priced very yummy food. I had the applewood bacon wrapped sirloin. Delicious.


* The campfire transforms Nacho Cheese Doritos and beer into haute cuisine.


* Thanks to Karen again for whipping up an excellent campsite breakfast of eggs and hashbrowns and venison bacon. 


* Thanks to Colleen for the most excellent salmon mousse and fresh, home baked bread for our Friday night treat!


* Considering all of this wonderful food, it's probably a good thing that we biked over twenty miles and took a couple of long walks around the park. 


* Twice I proved my single match campfire lighting prowess. This former Campfire Girl totally rocks the category.


* A major discovery in finding that inserting inappropriate language into Christmas songs can be outrageously funny. Yes, it was late. Yes, we had been drinking. Still, it was pretty darn funny.

Open Letter to Reg

Dear Reg,


It has been a fun and pleasant stretch of text, email and phone exchanges. Unfortunately, my patience, interest, and BotD have once again reached their limit. Despite your reassurances that you are working on it, let's be honest,  clearly you truly are unable to give me what I want or need. In six weeks' time you haven't accomplished setting aside a few hours to share a meal with me. One last opportunity to discover if our connection was worthy of giving a relationship one more try. I will leave you with a quote from Suzi Loomis in the movie Duets. You'll be jerking off to my memory on your deathbed. You, sir, have been deleted.


Sincerely,


Bellona

Minnesota Biker Girls

Colleen consorts with the local wildlife.

Karen, me in the middle, and Colleen. Not quite halfway through our 24 mile ride and still smiling!

Colleen. Cute in her pink baseball cap.

On the Glacial Lakes Trail somewhere between Spicer and Willmar, MN .