Dead Relatives Tour 2012 was good. We were constantly threatened with rain, but were not rained on. The relatives are still resting in peace. The view is still good.
Tag: family
Decorating is fun
I enjoyed decorating at my Mom’s house this afternoon. Mostly because last year she had handily taken pictures of each part of the house and included them in the boxes so all we had to do was find the object in the picture and put it in the proper place.
As there were a lot of boxes, this was a very good thing.
Afterward, we had delicious pulled pork sandwiches and potato salad. Yum!
Highlights from Dead Relatives Tour 2011
Fun to say:
Another picture of a German grave just so I can hear Matt pronounce it.
As usual on the Dead Relatives Tour we visited my great-great grandparents (my grandfather’s maternal grandparents) and my grandparents’ (my mother’s parents) graves. New this year we bumped up over the hill from my grandparents’ cemetery to visit my great grandparents (my grandmother’s parents) graves. My great grandparents are buried at Skyline Memorial Gardens. We had to stop and get directions to the graves because the MAunts hadn’t be there in awhile. Although their remembering of “down that way” turned out to be true. Much to my delight the sections of the cemetery were named. The names were fabulously retro: Last Supper, Terrace of Serenity, Mediation, Prayer, Old Rugged Cross, Sermon on the Mount, Devotion, Gethsemane (I had to ask what that was) and Apostles, as well as others.
My great grandparents were thankfully not buried in Atonement (I’m betting that section had slow sales, except when purchased by long suffering wives as a good place for their not-so-great husbands to be laid to rest) but in Everlasting Life!
With the help of our handy map, we found the graves, and were sad to see that they had been neglected, apparently for several years. Both of them had sunk a bit and most of my great-grandmother’s was obscured by a thick coating of dried mud. We didn’t have anything to clean the gravestones with, so Aunt Pat arranged the flowers and we took leave. Next year we will bring some broom/mud scraping objects.
Mom’s House
“You should take a picture of the front of my house so I can enter it in this house redo contest.” My mother said when I was over for Thanksgiving preparations. I did. But then I never sent her the pictures. But here they are here.
Thanksgiving Rolls
So I need to confess my “thing” about Thanksgiving Rolls. I love dinner rolls. A nice hot, flaky dinner roll made with white flour and topped with melting butter is one of my favorite food things in the world. I rarely have dinner rolls. The yeast, the rising, the this, the that. They take forever to make and I’m a busy person. But at Thanksgiving, there HAS to be dinner rolls. Not Rhodes Bake-N-Serv rolls. Actual scratch-made dinner rolls. Usually I volunteer to do this. And I make some good rolls. Except that one year I forgot to plan out my baking schedule and it turned out I didn’t have time to make rolls. That year we had cornbread biscuits. Those were okay, but not the transcendent dinner roll experience I was looking forward to.
So this year I’m informed that my Mom’s friend Linda was coming to Thanksgiving. Yay! We like Linda. Then my mother tells me that Linda will bring the rolls.
“Wait.” I said, instantly suspicious, “does she know about the importance of Thanksgiving rolls?”
“Oh, yes.” My mother replies.
“But,” I continued, not believing her, “does she understand that they have to be from scratch?”
“She said she was bringing rolls. She has the perfect recipe.”
“But there are a lot of kinds of rolls. Does she know how to make them from scratch? They aren’t going to be Rhodes Rolls, are they?”
“Oh no,” my mother assures me, “Linda can cook. She’s a good cook. “
I am not convinced.
I arrive at my mothers house Thanksgiving morning to find Linda working on her rolls. At the time, she was heating butter and coloring it pink. When I asked why, she showed me the mold. She was making pink doves out of butter. I tried to integrate pink doves into my flaky, fresh baked from scratch dinner roll concept. It sort of works. A little. I guess.
“So tell me more about the rolls,” I say in a casual, no big deal manner.
“Well, it actually was kind of a pain,” Linda begins her story. My mother chimes in intermittently. It seems that the store (store!) was out of the kind of rolls (rolls!) the recipe calls for. They had to go to three different stores before they gave up.
“What exactly were you looking for?” I asked. My vision of Thanksgiving rolls–even ones with pink doves of butter melting on them–began to fade. Memory doesn’t serve as to the exact answer, but it seems that Pillsbury or some other manufacturer does not make the exact kind of refrigerated (!) rolls specified by the recipe. They eventually gave up and bought another kind of refrigerated rolls.
While half watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and then the incredibly boring Dog Show, I keep an eye on roll preparation going on in the kitchen. The sheets of refrigerated rolls are being cut into strips. Linda is arranging them on a baking sheet. There are green sprinkles appearing?
“What are those for?” I ask, unable to let the green sprinkles go by without comment.
“The rolls.” Linda answers. As if green sprinkles are often paired with rolls. Although they do seem to go with pink doves of butter. At this point I’d resigned myself to the Thanksgiving rolls I’m getting, not the ones I want and I amble over to see what Linda has created.
“So what exactly are you making?”
Linda explains. “See, the rolls get shaped into a tree, and then I put the sprinkles on and a little star at the top and then, after I bake them, I put the doves in the tree.”
And lo, she did.
“What are these?” Chris asked as they were coming around the table. He’d been over at Aunt Pat’s all day, and missed the initial roll preparation. Linda explained all about the rolls.
“Would you like one?” she asked.
“Well, they are interesting…” Chris trailed off, but took one. I think he might have a thing about Thanksgiving rolls too.
I took one. And ate it. And ate another. Not bad.
Birthday BINGO
For my birthday, the MAunts and I saw BINGO! the musical at the Broadway Rose Theater Company. It was splashy and zippy as promised. And, we got to play BINGO during the production. I particularly enjoyed the turns of phrase in the song “Gentleman Caller.”
I thought winning the BINGO game would be a nice birthday present, but it was not to be.
Heading home: Oregon Trail Interpretive Park.
On our way home, we stopped at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Park. This was a great park with two short loops that walked you through the pioneer experience.
A succinct summation of your supplies.
It was interested to see the different “roads.” In my mind a road is a paved surface that climbs and descends slowly and steadily. This park drove home (hah!) the idea that a road was where the wagons went. At one point in the park you can see where five “roads” converge.
This was a point in the journey when the pioneers were very tired and they still had to get over the mountains before the snow came.
A view of the trail.
This tree bears the scars of the wagons rolling over its roots. How cool is that? This actual tree witnessed pioneers rolling right over its roots.
More of the actual trail.
A wagon, for your picture taking pleasure.
The first time I saw a covered wagon, I was pretty disappointed. They seemed so small. They were also much taller than I expected.
Commemorative picture.
I can’t look at the back of a wagon without thinking of Jack, Laura Ingall’s dog.
Friday Night in Enterprise
In order to visit 6 Ranch, the MAunts and I had to stay in Enterprise over the weekend. After a long drive across the state, we arrived on a Friday night.
I was excited to see a Benson Bubbler here! As the sign explains, this is one of the few that is located outside of Portland.
Enterprise is the county seat of Wallowa County.
Four lovely ladies in front of the Wallowa County Pioneers Memorial.
It was the weekend of the county fair! We went. It was a very, very small county fair that seemed to have 4-H and not much else. Not even food carts!
I did snap a photo of this sheep’s snazzy coat.
More sheep.
After dinner, we retired to our motel and played a few card games, then turned in for the evening.
Happy 90th Birthday Aunt Dorothy!
Dead Relative Tour 2009
I love cemeteries. They have so many interesting things to see. Here is a smattering of them:
I plan to be cremated, but if I were buried, the last thing I would want is this heavy slab on top of me.
No, not that Jimi Hendrix
“Is that a…?” “I think it might be….It is a coyote in an urban cemetery!”
The whole road through the cemetery is lined with these highly pruned holly trees. I kind of like their super structure.
Christ!
I took this picture just to hear Matt say their name with a German accent.
Which he did without prompting.
I know him well.
Either Mrs. or Miss Fenstermacher was a member of the Wahkeena Chapter of the DAR.
Oftentimes it is fun to say the names on the gravestone. Say it with me: “Slack.” I also like Mrs. Slack’s name: Nettie Elnora.
I was surprised by the very Disney looking Bambi carving on this stone, but this must have been before Disney started cracking down on its copyright. Or maybe they had a whole line of Disney themed gravestones? That wouldn’t surprise me.
Poor Leo. It looks like Mrs. Schlesinger found another place to rest her head. Also, I like the simple flower carvings and the font.
The section of the cemetery we visit has more than a few abandoned husbands. Mr. Van Winkle is not going to wake up from this nap.
These are fake flowers, but I did check to see who had this grave. Most of the graves in the section we go to aren’t very decorated.
It turned out to be a baby’s grave. Those are always sad, but someone hasn’t forgotten this child.
I can never resist taking pictures of the mausoleum where my Great Uncle Tom is. Swinging early 70s meets quasi religious touches meets a TON of artificial flowers.
Marble AND a brass chainmail curtain? I love it!
“We’re not religious, but we will throw some stained glass up for those of you who are.”
Different cemetery: The MAunts (looking more and more like my grandparents every day) decorating Grandma and Grandpa’s grave.
My Grandparents’ view.
The only problem with cremation is you don’t get a gravestone. They always look so nice to me.
Their neighbor
I initially stopped because I liked their last name because it reminded me of the nursery rhyme.
But I liked what they had carved on their gravestone. For Jean: wife, mother, teacher.
For George: Father, Musician, Horseman. (I’m trying not to be annoyed that he hasn’t listed “husband” to go with his partners “wife,” because overall, I like the concept.)
