Challenge Accepted

Passing the Complex Manager’s Office this morning, heading to the scale in the Game Room, I could hear her discussing today’s Holiday Party festivities with the two Maintenance Guys.

She called to me ... “Hey Shirley, you wearing your Ugly Christmas Sweater today?”

“I don’t have any sweaters”.

“Make one. Let me show you what ____ (Head Maintenance Guy) did. He hung ornaments on his sweater.”

“Clever”, said I, “But, it’s kinda late for me to put something together. Besides, I won the Halloween Costume Contest. Let someone else win today.”

I’d planned to wear my red leggings and black top, ala Santa’s red suit and black belt, accessorized with my Christmas socks, and a Christmas tree headband left over from the Gingerbread 5K two years ago, but staff’s ugly sweaters got my mind to thinking about putting something together after all.

My first thought was to print pictures of the Big Orange Guy onto transfer paper, and ironing his face onto my green top, because nothing says ugly more than that Orange Guy in the White House.

Inasmuch as some of his supporters live here, including Apache -- who is the Orange Guy’s No. 1 Fan, and who is becoming less and less fun to be around because of the stupid ignorant things he sometimes says in support of the Orange Guy. At any rate, I decided to keep politics out of the festivities and designed an ugly sweater around a green tee, using the headband I’d initially planned to wear and old Christmas socks.

Took me all of 15 minutes, with baste stitching so I can return the tee to it's original state after.

Can’t wait for Complex Manager to see I accepted her challenge and did indeed make one.

Bad Advice

Thursday’s Residents/Management meeting was quite pleasant, probably because none of the harpies, complainers and crazies were in attendance, except lazy Head Maintenance Guy (HMG) was there. However, even he was all smiley and pleasant. He even spent his own money and brought donuts for the group.

Discussed was the upcoming Holiday Party. There’s to be a Taco Truck -- all you can eat tacos and quesadillas, drawings and games.

Community Manager added, “Please play the games”.

Not sure why the plea, except some of our residents tend to be looky-loos, rather than engage, at the risk of appearing foolish.

I like to have fun, don’t mind appearing foolish, so whatever the games are, I’ll play and leave the eating to others.

There’s also to be an Ugly Christmas Sweater contest. I don’t own any sweaters, let alone an ugly Christmas one, so I’m out.

Also discussed was the New Year’s Eve Party.

That’s not a management-sponsored event. It’s the brain-child of my buddy Apache, back from successful knee surgery. He’s been pushing for a midnight party to ring in the New Year for like forever, and for me to attend. I’ve told him I’m usually fast asleep long before midnight, and that no I wouldn’t attend.

At the time Apache brought up the idea, I didn’t think it a good idea for seniors to be out on the premises in the dark, and now … after the early morning daylight incident with that young pervert cornering me in the mailbox area and exposing himself, I REALLY don’t feel it a good idea for seniors to be out on the premises after dark.

They’ve not yet caught or identified that young pervert, I’m still jumpy and paranoid over the encounter and feel certain he’ll hop the fence, come back and escalate his perversion. Only it won’t be with me, because I now always have a canister of pepper gel to the ready, in my hand, when I exit the unit – not spray, but gel, which supposedly has no blow-back and is farther reaching.

At any rate, Apache got his wish and the New Year’s Eve party is on.

The Community Room will be open all that day, until 2:00 a.m., for residents to ring in the New Year with black eyed peas, corn bread and apple cider.

Knowing Apache, I expect they’ll be some eggnog.

Also discussed was cars following residents through the driveway gate, once the resident has activated their key card entry and the gate opens.

It was suggested that residents should activate their key card, drive through the gate, then block the other car’s entry by waiting just on the other side of the gate until it closes.

Bad advice!

People are insane now days. You see road rage incidents all the time on the news.

One never knows who’s in the car behind you taking advantage of the few seconds after you enter before the gate once again closes. Could be another resident who will take offense, find you later, do damage to you or your car. Could be a visitor who will do the same.

I don’t think it the job of our seniors to put themselves at risk like that.

One last thing that came up at the meeting was the need to do something about young men, with devious intent, jumping the walls from the multi-family complex next door and onto our property. HMG said he experienced a similar problem at a property where he used to work. That problem was solved with oil.

That’s right, he said oil.

The top of the walls were coated with some sort of black gunky oil. 

Evidently, intruders don’t like icky sticky black oil all over their clothes, because jumping the walls ceased entirely.

I have to give HMG props for coming up with that one, but let’s see how long it takes for him to follow-through.

In the interim, I’ll stay on guard during the day, inside at night.

Third Time’s the Charm

I’m glad that’s over.

After three tries at building a gingerbread café, over two days, I can finally stop obsessing and get on with my life.

Will I ever make another?

Absolutely. I’m looking forward to what kind of café Starbucks offers next year.

It frustrated me at first that I couldn’t get the hang of it, but the first and second build were good practice for what turned out to be a nice third build.

The winds returned to this area with gusto this morning. Even my Pokémon Go app is issuing a warning.

Not to worry, I’ll be staying indoors, keeping an eye out that patio decorations don’t go flying off.

I will step outside later this afternoon to attend the Residents/Management meeting. Can’t imagine anything important is on the agenda, but I’ll pop in and sit near the exit door, so I can escape if it gets boring.

Next Tuesday is our Holiday Party, hosted by management. Probably nothing I can eat, but I’ll go down for a little while.

BTW, I didn’t tell you I’ve lost 20 ½ pounds in like a three-month period.

I kept wondering how it was that, because there’s so much I can’t eat now, and I’m literally forced into clean healthy eating because of gut issues, that I’d not lost a pound. Then one day I noticed my leggings looked a little loose in the caboose, took some measurements and saw my inches were slightly down. Weighing myself on the scale in the Game Room, I was slightly down there as well.

After so many failed attempts to lose weight, because of a slow metabolism when I was desperately trying, I was afraid to trust I was actually losing weight without trying, so I stayed away from the scale, until feeling thinner, looking thinner, I jumped on the scale this last Tuesday and found I’m down 20-1/2 pounds.

That’s a lot of weight for me, in a relatively short period of time, so I’m wondering if that’s why I’ve been so overly tired and dizzy lately -- the body adjusting to sudden weight loss. On the other hand, proponents of the grain-free lifestyle, which I’ve been following as a way to manage my gut issues, do say “lose the wheat, lose the weight” -- (i.e., once the wheat is out of your system, weight loss is a natural occurrence).

I’d been losing the wheat since 2015, receiving no weight loss, but with fewer and fewer gut issues. Then all of a sudden BAM! … 20-1/2 pounds gone. It’s taken all this time for my body to get over whatever damage I’d done to it in the past, and begin to regulate itself.

Good Advice

Deciding to bake cookies for yesterday’s Cookie Swap after all, recalling the epic fail earlier in the year when I made cookies for the Cookie/Cocoa Social, which cookies came out burnt, I followed Dkzody’s advice, left as a comment on that January post,  and baked the cookies 10 minutes less than what the recipe called for.

Gingerbread Molasses Cookies came out perfect and were the first to go.

The Baker asked for the recipe, so I shared with her my secret.

The Cookie Swap was not well attended. I blame the timing – the fact there were too many activities lumped together on the same day. First was Pizza Delivery, followed by Bingo. By the time 2:00 rolled around for the Cookie Swap, residents were tired and back in their units.

I skipped pizza delivery, skipped bingo and went down to the Community Room specifically for the swap and to decorate ugly sweater cookies.

It wasn’t the ugly sweater cookies I’d expected, instead we decorated round sugar cookies provided by The Baker.

Had I known, I would have brought a couple ugly sweater cookie sets instead of baking, yet and still I gave the round cookies a shot.

The sugar cookies must have been pretty tasty, because others were eating them up as fast as they got decorations on. One late arrival didn’t bother to decorate. She dumped like a third of a cup of royal icing on one little cookie, ate it like that, then repeated the process several more times.

My sweet tooth seeming now to be a thing of the past, I wasn’t tempted to eat not one cookie. Nor did I bring the ones I decorated back to my unit. I left them on the counter and, as there are folks around here that will eat anything left out, I’m sure someone came in later and enjoyed them with a cup of coffee.

Later in my unit, I began tackling the Starbucks Gingerbread Café.

Last post, I did say I’ve never attempted a gingerbread house of any kind before and, working with a kit where everything was pre-made and provided, I posed the question “how difficult can it be for my inexperienced self?”

Answer is … a picture is worth a thousand words.

It was enormously difficult and, as you can see, I suck at using piping bags. I did, however, excel at innovation because, when my little gingerbread man broke at the waist, I turned him into a walking dead zombie.

The red part at the waist, which is where he broke, is blood and guts pouring out.

Disappointed that my first foray into gingerbread house decorating, came out looking like a child’s project, wanting to prove to myself I could do so much better, I purchased another kit.

It failed completely.

First kit, I ignored directions to decorate first then build. Instead, I built first. That went well until I was called upon to use my non-existent piping skills, and produced the above shaggy dog effect.

Second kit, I followed directions, decorated first then did the build. However, once the decorations were fully dry, they began breaking off during the build stage and the building would not hold, it collapsed.

I tried to save it by scraping off corner icing, removing some of the decorations and building again but, after a second and third collapse, into the trash it went.

Refusing to give up without a fight, I purchased a third and final kit this morning.

So far so better.

Cookie Swap and For the Troops

Online at 11:35 PM last night, I was startled out of my socks when it felt like a giant had picked up my building, then quickly dropped it back down.

EARTHQUAKE!!! I’d posted on facebook.

I must have been the only one up and online, because usually there’s a flurry of back-and-forth postings. Instead, there was nothing – not even today.

Measured at 2.8, it felt a lot stronger, but I guess coming off the fire alerts and looking at all the devastation in other areas, an earthquake is now considered no-big deal, not worth mention.

Barring any unforeseen Mother Nature circumstances, we’re slated to have a Cookie Swap here in the Community Room on Tuesday. Simultaneously, the Baker is hosting an ugly sweater cookie decorating event and collecting Cookies for the Troops.

Of course, the cookies for the troops have to be packaged, not personally baked.

Decorating ugly sweater cookies is my kinda thing, and would be fun, but what to do with the cookies after?

This time last year, I attended the Residents Christmas Party at the multi-family complex next door, as granddaughter was working in the leasing office and invited me. She's since working on her degree and has relocated to Huntington Beach. At any rate, that was my first introduction to decorating ugly sweater cookies, after which I devoured the cookies because they were shortbread -- my favorite. 

What a difference a year makes, because cookie decorating kits are now big business -- kits of every kind everywhere, and now cookies have been added to the list of what I cannot eat without a violent gut reaction so, not wanting to be tempted, I’ll probably not get involved with those cookies, but I do have a Pike’s Place Gingerbread Café kit I picked up in Long Beach to assemble.

I’ve never attempted a gingerbread house of any kind before, but it’s a kit – everything is pre-made and provided, so how difficult can it be for my inexperienced self?

Also, while out and about Friday, I ran across the Danish Butter Cookies I use to be so fond of at Christmas, only now, instead of the 12-ounce tins, which I had no problem polishing off in the past, I found they’re being offered in 4-ounce single serving tins.

Perfect for the troops and, priced at 2 tins for $2.00, or 1 tin at $1.39, it behooved me to gather up a couple sets of two.

The New Normal

Waking up to fire trucks once again racing down the street this morning, it occurred to me I’d better stay prepared because, though the trucks are not now for my immediate area, that this is my new normal.

We’re always on the alert for fires on Little Mountain during the periods of heat waves, but this is the first time the Santa Ana’s have brought threat of fire with it, and this time it was way too close for comfort.

Red area is location of fire, and I’m just on the other side of the mountain in the black circled area.

My archeologist friend, living on one side of me, didn’t have to evacuate, but was getting phone alerts to stand by.

A former coworker friend, living on the other side of me, had officers driving down her street, with bullhorns, shouting for everyone to “get out now!”

It was just an insane day.

I stayed prepared by piling up what I thought I’d need to take to the car by the door, sleeping partially dressed so all I’d need to do was slip on pants, bra, shoes and not wanting to risk having to rush out the door with a bare face, folks seeing me without makeup, I slept with my makeup on.

It’s vain I know, but some things should never be seen.

At any rate, once the threat was declared over, I returned what I’d piled up to its proper place but later, watching a program on the Discovery Channel, wherein a fleeing criminal rushed by a location he'd prepared in advance to pick up a “Go Bag”, containing money, fake IDs, etc., the thought occurred that since this is my new normal a go-bag would be a great idea.

I’m in the process of putting one together containing clothes and toiletry for a few days in the car or at a hotel. My important papers are already located in one place, in something I can easily grab as I head out the door with my go-bag.

This additional step of preparedness will give me time to focus on saving the Creative Memory photo albums.

Winds seem to have died down for now so, with no fear of the wind huffing and puffing and blowing my little Saturn off the freeway, on tap for today is heading to the Amazon Locker to pick up a delivery of butter coffee and shirataki noodles, with a stop by the mall to pick up a delivery at one of the boutiques. I order so much and so often that I can’t keep track. What I’ll be picking up at the mall will come as a complete surprise.

I’m a good shopper, frugal even, so I’m sure whatever it is that I got a good deal and the item is necessary.