Wishing You A Pathologically Sentimental Holiday Season

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published Dec. 3, 2015] ©2015

I absolutely love the holiday season but I confess I’m having a harder and harder time about the Christmas tree.

I’ve always had a thing for trees in general, not just the Christmas variety. They’re so beautiful and stately. They speak to me. It’s like they have souls. Whenever I’ve had to have a tree cut down, I’ve always felt like I was murdering it, even if it was already dead and about to fall on our house. I’d still have to go out and talk to it, apologize profusely to it, thank it for being such a beautiful part of our landscape, personally forgive it for all those Roto-Rooter calls.  Olof calls me a serial anthropomorphizer and he doesn’t mean it kindly. 

 

It broke my heart when we had to cut down the 40-foot Brazilian pepper tree, home of three tiers of tree forts. Even the kids got a little sentimental.

 

The 30-foot rubber tree broke my heart too. Unfortunately it also broke the pool deck and was working on the pool itself.

 

In recent years it has taken me forever to pick out a Christmas tree. It’s like they’re all saying “Choose me! Choose me!” Each and every one of them gave up its life to bring someone happiness. How can I reject any of them? (Olof’s answer: Um, because we don’t have room for 500 trees?) You’d think I was the kid who was the last one picked for dodge ball.  (Okay, I WAS the last kid picked for dodge ball.) Passing a Christmas tree lot the day after Christmas and seeing all those trees that weren’t picked, I have to close my eyes. This is definitely not good if you’re driving.

 

It was all a lot simpler in my grossly over-stressed single mom years. I felt the same way about trees then as I do now but I only had time and emotional energy for tree angst-lite. Maybe I could use some hobbies.

 

Of course, people are going to write and say, “So get a fake tree already.” Unfortunately, we have no garage in our tiny house so it would have to be up all year round. I suppose we could take the ornaments off and pretend it was a palm. Like anyone would fall for that. People who keep Christmas trees up all year round get reputations.

 

The four weeks each year that we have the tree up are absolute heaven.  The second a tree lot is open, we’ve got a tree. Opening the boxes of ornaments is like greeting old friends, a topic on which I always wax emotional and which for some reason annoys the bejeezus out of the kids. (“No! No! Not the ‘old friends’ speech again!”)  But the ornaments all have a history starting with the ones from both my childhood and Olof’s. (When she moved to assisted living, his mother sent me a shoebox of her Christmas decorations which I labeled “Olof’s treasured family ornaments,” not that the famously unsentimental Olof remembers a single one.) Then there’s the adorably hokey ones the kids (and even Olof!) made in kindergarten from construction paper or flour-and-water paste concoctions, and, of course, the ones I acquired during my travels or which were gifts from beloved people. Personally, I think there’s nothing wrong with having pathological attachments to inanimate objects.

 

During December, a month of multicultural mayhem at my house, I spend my evenings happily parked in my favorite chair with my CDs of Swedish Christmas carols on perpetual repeat, mesmerized by the twinkly tree lights, scarfing latkes, and hoping the menorah doesn’t accidentally ignite the nativity scene on the mantel. At least the menorah doesn’t make you feel guilty when you pack it up in its box until next year.

 

Taking down the tree is my least favorite task of the year. It’s usually a fire hazard by that time, of course, and more of its needles are on the floor than on the tree.  Still, when Olof hauls it out and puts it by the curb awaiting further disposal, I am a total wreck.  I can feel its anguished reproof: This is how you treat me after all the pleasure I gave you???? You cut me down in my prime (well, maybe not you personally but you know what I mean) all so that it could end like this??? News flash, Inga! Tomorrow I’m going to be mulch!  If it wants me to feel bad, it’s succeeding.

 

I like to think there’s an afterlife for trees where they can be happily sucking up CO2 and grow as tall as they like without being impeded by their natural enemies (house foundations and/or the gold spotted borer.)

 

I know. Cue the net.

Olof's (slightly moldy) 1951 Santa tree ornament

and kids' nursery school ornaments

Crime And Pestilence

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published Nov. 19, 2015] ©2015 

It's not often that I get an email from a friend that begins: I am sending this email for two reasons: (1) to advise people to pay attention while pumping gas, and (2) to check your kids for lice. Intrigued, I  just had to read further.

I’ve written before about San Diego’s most prominent plagues: rats, mold, and termites. In fact, on Halloween a few weeks ago, a young princess came to our door and solemnly advised, “I wouldn’t leave your door open like that. We have a really big rat problem at our house!” Amen, sweetheart. So do we!

But somehow, I’ve managed never to cover their companion perils: lice, roaches, and fleas. Or, as happened to my friend, people stealing your purse out of your car while you’re pumping gas. I plan to rectify those omissions now.

It would be an understatement to say that my friend was having a bad week. After a note came home with her fourth grader about a lice epidemic in his class, she noticed her head was itching. But then, say the word “lice” and people automatically start scratching their heads. See? You’re doing it right now. But since she was a frequent volunteer in the classroom, she decided to stop in at the local Hair Fairies place and have them check her head since her husband made it clear that even under the “for worse” category, this was not covered in the marital vows.

Hair Fairies is a chain of salons that deal exclusively with head lice, and let me tell you, I would have killed to have had them here when my kids’ classrooms got hit with it. When I was growing up in suburban New York, we never had head lice yet it’s a chronic problem in schools here. I can only assume it’s because there’s no frost and, like, fleas, the little buggers can proliferate all year round.

When the La Jolla Hair Fairies first opened up, I could only wonder what the restaurant adjacent to them felt about having the local lice eradication emporium next door. But hey, it’s not Roach Fairies, although I would have been glad in the day to have had them here too. We had been lucky enough to avoid them until some nearby housekeeping-challenged renters were evicted unleashing a cockroach diaspora onto the neighbors.

Anyway, my friend learned that she had only a mild infestation of head lice – “3 babies and some eggs” – but that’s like being a little bit pregnant. Ironically, her husband, kids, and the nanny were all cleared but she obviously had had “hair-to-hair contact with an adult female.” (Louse, not person.) Those close-contact reading circles can be really hazardous.

The teacher, in full pediculosis offensive, had instructed the kids not to wear hats to school and even not to hug. Girls were to wear their hair in pony tails until further notice. The word “nit picking” was employed true to its actual origins.

So, already having a bad lice week, she stopped one evening at the gas station at the intersection of 805 and Balboa to fuel up her high-end SUV, chatting on her cell phone while she pumped gas as her purse sat on the seat with the passenger door unlocked. Some “sliders” (named for the way the thieves slide in below the eye level of the door) opened the passenger door of her SUV and took her purse including house keys, car keys (blade and ignition sensor), two ATM cards, driver’s license, check book, etc.

Worse, since they now had the automatic ignition sensor in her purse, she had no way to start the car to get home.

Not only did she have to get eight house doors re-keyed, the fancy computer-programed ignition sensor was $496 to replace. Even so, for the first night, since the thieves had both the ignition sensor AND her address from her driver’s license, they could have stolen her SUV right out of her driveway. I confess my crappy 2005 Corolla with its low-tech keys was looking better and better. (And in my case, I would have hoped they’d steal it.)

I invited her over for a medicinal glass of wine. She vowed never ever to pump gas and talk on her cell phone again. She was still trying to decide which was worse: a class vermin epidemic or replacing everything in her purse plus re-keying her house and car. She was trying to juggle locksmith appointments with follow-ups at Hair Fairies to make sure her son’s classmates hadn’t unleashed anymore adult females on her. (That could be the weirdest sentence I ever wrote.)

A few days later I received an email: “Heading for bed as I am supposed to chaperone a field trip tomorrow to the USS Midway with the lice-infested kids.”
Now there’s an optimist.

 

 

 

The Grandma Scam

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published November 5, 2015] ©2015 

The voice on the other end of the phone couldn’t have been more enthusiastic.  “Hi grandma!” said a late teen-early 20-ish voice.

It definitely wasn’t one of my grandsons, the oldest of whom is seven.

“I’m sorry,” I said politely. “But I think you have the wrong number.” I was about to hang up when he said,

“I knew you wouldn’t recognize my voice.  I’m sick. In fact that’s why I’m calling.”  He coughs for effect.

And in a flash I knew: grandma scam! While it would have been tempting to just hang up, this suddenly seemed a lot more interesting than paying the property tax bill on-line which I’d been doing at the time. 

“So which grandson are you?” I say, deciding to play along. 

“Geesh, grandma, you don’t know?”

“Timmy?” I say.

“Yes, Timmy,” he replies. “Here’s the problem. I went to Mexico for the weekend with some friends and got really sick. And now they won’t let me out of the hospital if I don’t pay the bill in cash. Mom and Dad didn’t know I was going and they would just kill me.  (Pause.) You’ve always been my favorite grandma.”

Woo-hoo! This script was right out of the AARP Senior Scam Playbook. Now I was intrigued.

“So how much do you need?” I said.

“$2,000,” says my fake grandson Timmy. “I know it’s a lot of money but I promise I’ll pay you back.”  Another pause, and a voice of contrition. “I’ve learned my lesson.” 

“Are you sure they won’t take your medical insurance?” I inquire.

Timmy starts to sound a tad annoyed. “I already asked. Cash or nothing.”  He decides to up the ante. “My friends are leaving this afternoon to drive back so if I can’t get out, they’ll leave me behind.”  Upping the ante some more: “I’ve heard they put people in jail who can’t pay their bills down here.”  Escalating to Defcon3:  “I’m really scared.”

“Don’t worry, sweetie, “I say in best faux-caring grandma voice. “Just tell me how I get the money to you”

If one could hear a happy dance across optical fiber, this would have been it. “Can you wire it to me via Western Union?” he gushes, that rasp in his voice temporarily gone.  “Just go to WesternUnion.com. It’s really easy.  Have you got something to write with?” (Pause.)  “You really are the best grandma ever.”

Oops! The property tax line is about to time me out. Don’t want to have to start all over again.  As much fun as this has been, it’s time to wrap up TimmyGate.

“You know, Timmy,” I say, “You’ve never been my favorite grandson. In fact, I’ve never really liked you at all.”  And I hung up.

Burning questions consumed me for the rest of the day after this phone call.  The first being: how does anyone actually fall for this scam?  There were dozens of specific questions I could have asked him that would have exposed him as a fake. I’ve read that the truly artful grandma scammers have done a little research, sometimes found out the names of the actual grandchildren, maybe even their birthdays, or their parents’ names. Maybe the family pet.

But this little dweeb hadn’t even bothered and was hoping to deflect questions with aspersions on grandma’s love for him. Get HER to come up with the right grandchild name. I have to say that as a grandma scammer, he wasn’t very good. My one shot at grandma scamdom and I get an amateur.

On-line research on the subject later in the day suggested that the reason the grandma scam works is that grandparents are desperate to hear from their deadbeat grandkids, regardless of the excuse.  Saying “I love you” is the closer.

That people still fall for the much-publicized Nigerian scam is even more baffling. Have they been living under a rock? (Or have the brains of one?) A wealthy Nigerian prince/businessman sends total strangers an email (I’ve received dozens) and wants to give them ten million all for the minor inconvenience of letting the prince/businessman use your U.S. bank account to transfer some of his funds out of his war torn country.

But my other burning question about “Timmy” was: how did he get my number?  Is AARP selling us out?  Is there a list of grandmas you can buy on the internet at grammy-scam.com? Or do they just cold call until they get a woman who sounds old?  (I DO NOT SOUND OLD.) 

I would have loved to have asked him before I hung up, “So Timmy, I’ll actually wire you $50 if you tell me how you got my number.”  But he would never have told me. And I would never have sent the $50 anyway.

Thinking Outside the Wall

Inga blog - Huffington Post - posted Friday, October 30, 2015  and "Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, posted Nov. 11, 2015 (slightly modified from Huffington Post version)   © 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/inga/thinking-outside-the-wall_1_b_8426698.html

I don’t usually write about political topics because it just isn’t my area of expertise, but this whole immigration thing has prompted me to weigh in where my husband assures me I shouldn’t. I should mention that my husband is a Republican and I am not, so you might imagine that dinner table conversation on this topic is spirited. 

It just seems to me that the Republican presidential candidates are not thinking outside the wall. We who live in San Diego have an obvious interest in immigration issues since we are (a) on the Mexican border, and (b) have a high population of the very individuals that the Republican candidates wish to evict.

The current crop of GOP candidates seem really fixated on building a Great Big Wall along the U.S. border with Mexico similar to the one in China only with more barbed wire. This will allegedly put a stop to the entry of rapist-drugdealer-criminals. Then the only problem is to repatriate the undocumented folks who are already here. Voilà! America will be great again!

Since the office seekers don’t live on the border, or even in California, I feel compelled to point out some issues they should be considering, and even some alternatives.

First:  San Diego, and California in general, is known as a place that not only has a high population of undocumented persons, but shamelessly employs them as well. There’s a long-standing joke in San Diego that nobody in the county could run for a high public office because we’ve all hired undocumented workers. Except, of course, that it’s not a joke. We really can’t. It was no accident that on the podium at the Republican presidential debates, every state in the union was represented except California.

Even when you hire an “American” company, the people who are dropped off at your home are often undocumented, especially if a part of the job is particularly nasty. As it turns out, the home owner is in violation of the law even if they didn’t hire the illegals themselves. This means that there no lack of of U.S. citizen miscreant-scofflaw-malfeasants in San Diego who will need to be harshly dealt with as well.

The current plan, as espoused by one of the Republican candidates, is to deport the undocumenti at a rate of some 500,000 a month, assuming a figure of 11 million illegal aliens in the country.  But now certain office seekers are saying the number could be as high as 34 million.  Seriously, folks, could we pin this down? It’s going to be tough nut to meet your quota if you don’t even know how many you have in the first place.

This could be a new question on the California State high school exit exam:  If the President wishes to deport undocumented aliens, including their annoying anchor baby offspring, at rate of 11 to 34 million in 18 to 24 months, how many INS helicopters will he need in the sky before it looks like the Ride of the Valkyries scene in "Apocalypse Now"?

The next issue is one they haven’t thought out at all:  Beware of what you wish for. Once the wall is up and the undocumented are gone, the only produce the U.S. is going to be eating will be from Guadalajara, at least until all those unemployed Americans who have been pining for careers as tomato pickers come up to speed. It will be a YOOGE boon to the Mexican economy.

And here’s another short term issue the Republicans haven’t thought through: one Republican contender claims he will force Mexico to pay for the Great Wall by imposing sanctions.  Good luck with that! The Mexicans can just withhold the veggies. Sort of a guns-for-cauliflower thing. The average American doesn’t care about NAFTA worker visas but it would be a serious mistake to mess with the availability of organic kale.

This whole deportation scheme will be tremendously time consuming and expensive, no matter how you look at it.  So if I were a Republican president, I’d just cede the entire county of San Diego back to Mexico, thereby deporting the undocumenteds and punishing the employer-felons who hired them, all in one fell swoop.

Heck, while you’re at it, let Mexico have the whole state. Trying to clear the undocumenteds out the Central Valley agricultural areas is going to be onerous at best.  It doesn’t matter if Mexico even wants us.  If you can make Mexico build a wall, you can make them take California. Surely some legal hotshot can find a loophole that will void the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by which the U.S. acquired California. Then: all yours, Mexico!  Not to worry: it was a blue state anyway.

 

Psychological Warfare

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published Oct. 22, 2015] ©2015 



 It’s Halloween time and the season for scary stories. I just happen to have a few. 

It was 9:00 p.m.one October night and I was processing Cub Scout badges at the dining room table while my 10-year-old, Henry, sat opposite doing homework. My irrepressible adopted older son, Rory, age 12, was presumably asleep after being banished earlier for a now-forgotten but at the time tragically common act of misbehavior.

Henry and I heard it at the same time: someone was on the front porch. We looked at each other with alarm. As a single parent, I was fortunately religious about keeping the doors locked.  

“Who’s there?” I inquired, trying to sound calm.  No answer. Instead, the person was trying the doorknob. We could see it moving back and forth. Henry and I both froze.

A few seconds later a flashlight beam came from the porch through the closed shutters. They couldn’t see anything but it was disturbing that they were trying. 
“Henry,” I said loudly, trying to control my quaking voice, “tell your father to get the gun while I call the police.” We obviously had no gun. (Short on men too.) This was also when everyone still had land lines that were firmly attached to land, er, a phone cord. In another room.

Instead of departing, we heard the intruder come down the porch steps and go around to the living room side, rustling through the bushes. The flashlight beam came through the closed shutters on that side as well. And then to our horror, we could hear someone trying to pry open the window. About ten years of my life expectancy evaporated on the spot.  Henry and I were both shaking in terror. All I could think of was: must protect the kids. I pointed toward Rory’s room and whispered urgently, “Wake up Rory and go out the back door to the neighbors!” Henry was gone like a shot while I ran for the phone.

A moment later Henry was back. “Mom!” he cried. “Rory’s gone! And his window is open!”

Oh, no! This was even worse than I thought. They’ve already got one of the kids!

But then a moment of clarity in all that panic. I walked to the front door and threw it open to find Rory tapping ominously on the living room windows with the barrel of the flashlight, happily starring in his own personal Halloween horror movie. I honestly think I would have been acquitted of justifiable homicide at that moment.

“Darn!” he said with a big smile, disappointed that the jig was up. “How did you figure out it was me?” He had loads more stuff planned. As I wrote about in some detail in my book, Rory looked for excitement.  And found it. There was nothing he enjoyed more than terrorizing adults, with a particular fondness for scaring the bejeezus out of Mom.

On another occasion, Henry and I were watching TV around 8 p.m. on a November night; Rory was due home from a school function at 9:00. I thought I detected a moving shadow out on our patio but when I looked again it was gone. To get into the patio, one would have to have a key or scale a six foot tall locked gate. Must have been a reflection from the TV, I decided with some relief.  But then suddenly a figure appeared at the glass door to the patio and stood there, silhouetted in the dark, not moving, just staring at us. Henry and I both stopped breathing. “Mommmm,” wailed Henry. But then something looked vaguely familiar about that silhouette.  I got up and walked over to the door and snapped on the patio light. Rory.

“Geez, Rory, why did you do that?” I said. I don’t know why I bothered to ask.  His school function had let out early and rather than just walk in the front door with his key, why waste a perfectly good opportunity to terrify Mom?

On yet another occasion, after multiple threats (Rory could push any limit), I ejected the wretchedly-behaving 14-year-old Rory from the Boy Scout car pool on the sidewalk a half a mile from home at 8:30 p.m. He needed to know I meant it when I said cut it out. But punishing Rory had always been an uphill battle. Sent to his room for a time-out as a child, he would open his windows, pound on his bed with a tennis racket, and yell “Please stop beating me, Mommy!”  Or worse: “No, no, don’t touch me there!”

When Rory hadn’t arrived home at 9, then 9:30, then 10, I started to panic. Henry and I drove the route he should have walked and every other street parallel.  At 10:30, as we walked up the front steps, I said “I’m going to call the police.” That’s when Rory popped out of the bushes where he’d been all along, listening to me freak out for the last two hours. He was more than a little annoyed that I hadn’t called the police sooner. It would have been like, totally cool to watch the police come and take me away in handcuffs for child endangerment. Two hours in the bushes for nothing! Not even Miranda rights! He may never have gotten the police to come with all those tennis racket incidents, but it was never too late to try. It had been fun, but time for bed.

Halloween itself has always been so tame in comparison.  

 



It's In The Bag

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published October 15, 2015] © 2015 

 

Dear grocery store bagger guys:

Could we talk? I mean, this conversation is way overdue. Here’s the problem:  You guys are young and strong. I am not young, and, after having my chest broken by a drunk driver, not strong. It doesn’t matter whether I bring my own re-usable bags or you bag it in the store’s plastic ones, you guys put ALL the heaviest stuff – like both half gallons of milk AND the half gallon of juice – in the same bag. Then instead of putting that bag in the child seat where I might have a fighting chance of wrestling it into the trunk of my car, you stash it under the child seat where I’d need a forklift to haul it out. 

Now, I know the word “heavy” is really subjective. So when I say, “Would you put the heavy bags on top?” I realize that to you, none of them are heavy. Which is why all the heaviest stuff seems to end up in the bottom, or worse, in the rack UNDER the cart.  I really really hate when you do that because I really really can’t get it out of there.

An avid recycler, I initially purchased a bunch of your store’s re-usable bags. But seriously, I could never lift a single one of them by the time you’d finished stuffing the contents of my entire grocery cart into just two of them. Fortunately, I happened to make a donation to the World Wildlife Fund and they sent me four smaller recyclable bags. But it’s still amazing how much stuff you guys can get into even those. Yes, I know you're willing to put the bags into my trunk for me, but I still need to be able to carry them into my house.

I really hate to complain, because you guys are generally adorable. And really trying hard to please. And having to deal with the general public who are going to whine no matter what you do. I’d shoot myself after one day of working in retail. Which is why I’m trying to be really nice about this.

I actually have more sympathy for your job than you know. For two years starting in 2005, my husband and I lived in Sweden. There, you not only bring your own recyclable bags to the supermarket, you bag your groceries yourself.  I didn’t understand that at first, and stood there smiling at the grocery clerk who wasn’t smiling back. Neither was anyone standing in line behind me who were shooting the equivalent of rabid moose darts into the back of my head.

Even after I caught on, I squished a whole lot of groceries in those early weeks.  You really had to be bagging your stuff fast so you wouldn’t hold up the line. Really important not to let the tomatoes get under the laundry detergent. Or the herring either. Really hard to get that herring smell out of your bags. 

But bagging was only the first step. There were still plenty of opportunities to make fruit salad out of your produce before you even got it home. After you bagged, you had to pack it all into your Swedish shopping trolley and wheel it home. Loading your shopping trolley for optimal food survival was an art all in itself.

When we first got to Sweden, I noticed that everyone left their shopping trolleys in the front of the store by the checkout stands while they shopped and but I didn’t want to leave my shiny new one there since I was sure someone would steal it. You just don’t leave anything of value unattended in my neighborhood in La Jolla if you ever want to see it again.

It soon became apparent that the Swedish national ethic frowns on stealing shopping trolleys. I should have known. When we were at a wedding in northern Minnesota (serious Swede country) some time back, Olof and I were aghast to see people leaving expensive fishing gear and bicycles in the parking lot of the motel where we were staying.  Finally we said to the owners of this stuff, “Aren’t you afraid someone will steal it?” And they looked at each other and shrugged, “City folk.” 

But I did become a pro in the field of grocery bagging while we lived in Sweden.  It was a comforting feeling to know that if my boss laid me off while I was gone, I’d be a shoo in to work at Vons.

So I’m way more empathetic to the tribulations of your job than you might realize. So when I ask you to not make any of the bags “too heavy,” I mean no more than one half gallon of any beverage (adult or otherwise) in any bag. And could we spread out the canned goods too?  Maybe give that box of laundry detergent a room, er bag, of its own? 

Or, maybe I should quit whining and bag it myself since I actually know how. Duh.

 

Keeping It Fresh

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published October 8, 2015] © 2015 

When you look at our idea of excitement now, it’s hard to believe that Olof and I met 50 years ago as intrepid 17-year-old adventure junkies spending our senior year of high school in the Amazon.

How times change. This summer, the celebrations we had for both our 20^th wedding anniversary and Olof’s 68^th birthday caused our younger son Henry to drily observe: “Now don’t get too crazy.” 

Henry had tried to talk us into doing something special for our 20^th anniversary. Maybe a trip to Europe, he said. Actually, our celebration stayed a little closer to home. We sat outside in our Adirondack chairs drinking a really nice bottle of champagne, watching the sunset, and reviewing all those betters and worses that we so naively agreed to two decades ago. Then we had an extra-large anchovy pizza delivered to the front yard. It was the best anniversary ever.

The evening satisfied all of our current criteria for a successful celebration:  (1) we didn’t have to get dressed up (2) we didn’t get in the car, and (3) somebody else cooked it. We’re SO easy to please.

Not that this celebration did take at least a little planning. Annoyingly, fewer and fewer places make anchovy pizza anymore. Half the time, it comes with artichokes instead because they didn’t really believe you really wanted what is uncharitably referred to as a “bait pizza.”

Anchovies get no respect. People won’t even let you have anchovies on your half of a pizza, insisting the anchovies will contaminate theirs.  When we order Caesar salad at a restaurant, the waitress will ask if we want anchovies, already noting “no” when we respond “heck yes!” (Somebody has to eat up all those dusty cans of fish that restaurants keep around just in case.) Finding – and even better, marrying – a fellow anchovy lover has been one more plus in a long list of compatibilities.

A few weeks after our anniversary was Olof’s 68th birthday.  When asked what he wanted to do for the occasion, he replied "bake a cake,” something that has been on his bucket list for a while. Mostly I think he wanted to haul out the Lamborghini of stand mixers (it even grinds meat!) he bought to make cookies for my book launch last December. Olof has baked exactly twice in his life: the first time two years ago to try to recreate his family’s Christmas cookie recipes from his childhood, and the second time to make cookies for my book event.

The Christmas cookies resulted in a column called “How an engineer makes cookies” that won a first place at the Press Club awards. Olof baking has to be seen to be believed. The spreadsheets! The flow charts! A re-formulation of the recipe into engineer-speak with headings like “Integration of Components.”  Who knew a degree in nuclear physics could have such practical applications?

Of course, his other motivation in baking a cake was that he wanted a chocolate cake that included raisins – impossible to find unless you bake it yourself. My dear friend Susan perfectly expressed my sentiments about raisins in chocolate cake:

As much as I am a "live and let live", freewheeling kind of gal, I'm afraid I too must draw the line at chocolate cake with raisins.  My position is that the raisins are taking up valuable real estate better served by, say, more chocolate.  Replace the raisins with chocolate chips and we've got a date.  

After considerable research, Olof modified an Ina Garten recipe to his specifications which in this case included the addition of TWO CUPS of raisins. I thought it came out beautifully (if seriously raisin-y).  I always take a photo of Olof holding his birthday cake that indicates how old he is. This year, just to add a little hilarity, we switched the candles around for some of the photos to say 86 instead of 68. We’re such cut-ups. Laughed ourselves silly. This is where the kids start rolling their eyes. Sorry kids: fun is where you find it.  We all have to keep it fresh in whatever pathetic ways we can.

Amazingly, Olof made this first-ever cake totally on his own with only a couple of minor assists from me, like How to Turn On The Oven. Nuclear reactors are a cinch compared to the controls on our massively-nonintuitive stove. The only person who can figure it is our tiny granddaughter, who turned off the Thanksgiving turkey two Thanksgivings in a row. 

It’s still a few months until my 68^th birthday where we’ll probably have a celebration of a similar type. Maybe go wild and crazy and order in Chinese food. But as far as our anniversary and Olof’s birthday celebrations are concerned, for the moment we’ve had all the excitement we can stand.

Seriously raisin-y cake