Out on a Ledge........

Sometimes it pays to break the rules!.....and then again, sometimes it doesn't.....

This past 2 weeks I spent in Utah and Northern Nevada respectively. It was an interesting road trip filled with the unexpected. First, a REAL date with a REAL gentleman that actually got out of the car to come open my car door. (I have a soft spot for men whose mothers taught them right). Next after the class I was teaching was over, came a small road trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats to get my co-worker Steven to unwind. At the Salt Flats I did my first ever do-nuts! (I didn't know that you aren't suppose to put on the break and never take your foot off the gas when encountering mud....we did get out).

Next I was in Reno. I picked up my rental car and headed for Winnemucca for a long weekend with my Sun and his family. They are getting married June 2010. Jenny's mom came in for the long weekend and it was our mission to take Jenny wedding dress shopping. Winnemucca is a 2 1/2 hour drive from Reno. About 20 miles out from Reno a car pulls up along side me and begins honking and pointing down. I'm not so sure here but I think 2 things. One! He is making a lewd gesture and suggestion as we are passing the infamous Mustang Ranch. and Two! there is something wrong with my car. I travel a ways till I see a couple of cars pulled off to the side of the road with occupants sunning themselves on rocks down at the what I think is the Truckee river. I get out and inspect my car and nothing is wrong with it so I head on to Winnemucca and I go out on a limb and figure the man's gesture was a lewd invitation.

About 10 minutes on the road, yet another car is pulling alongside and honking, this time, if it's lewd, it's REALLY kinky cause it's a family van equipped with a family and a dog and they are making the same gesture. but you never know, this IS Nevada and I am not yet familiar with the customs. I stop at the side of the road and inspect the car and find nothing wrong with it. By this time I have, however noticed that the roads are smooth and the car has a shimmy and likes to pull to the right. I figure there is something happening but there is no evidence of bad tires or broken tie rods, nothing hanging from the undercarriage and I have not run over anyone. I head on to the nest town of Lovelock, where everything is closed and continue on to Winnemucca.

The state of Nevada is bigger than you think and the towns are farer and smaller than you think, this isn't a bad thing, it is what it is. Nevada was a surprising green and it was a lovely drive except for the road noise of the cars honking and the tendency for my car to pull to the right. I figure Winnemucca will have a place that can look at the condition of my rental. when I get to Winnemucca, all the garages are closed for the Memorial weekend. I go out on a limb and figure I can have the car looked at on Tuesday morning, in the meantime, I have fun to have shopping for wedding dresses and swimming with The President and getting to know Jenny's mother Wanda.

As Luck would have it Winnemucca was hosting Run-A-Mucca, the Burning Bike Motorcycle Rally. So after a day of wedding dress shopping with Jenny and her mom and breaking my diabetic do-well diet with a regular size piece of chocolate birthday cake complete with low carb ice cream (I was bad but not That bad) my blood sugar soars and we decide to go for a walk downtown to see what the Run-A-Mucca is all about. Bikes everywhere, leather everywhere, stuff to buy everywhere. We happen on a drag-a-shack that houses a tattoo and piercing business. I have been wanting a tattoo so we look through the books, discuss the placements and I go out on a limb and get one. I haven't put it on yet but I have one.

Tuesday comes and I take the car into the local tire place. They remove the right front tire and find the wheel is bent. All those honking people are just so nice now. Waaay bent. I call Avis and they can't get a car to me for 2 days and my next stop in Elko doesn't have cars available. Les Schwab (I so recommend this place!) puts the spare on the car, explain it will be safe at speeds under 65 and I head off back to Reno. About 15 minutes outside of Winnemucca the light for the tire pressure comes on. I pull to the side of the road where Avis assures me that the light is on due to the difference in tire pressures and my donut on steroids is good for 3K miles, but they have no idea how many miles are currently on that donut.....donuts........? Could this be my Karma for taking my last rental out on the Bonneville Salt Flats and doing donuts? I washed the last rental before returning it. It was only 2 donuts before I scared myself by almost getting stuck. I head back to Reno cautiously slow and am eased by the fact that the road is so much smoother going back, the car likes to stay on the road and no one is honking anymore.

Avis is great. I have rented about 40 cars in the last year from them and this was the first time I had a problem. I have no complaints. But now, I can't make 2 of my appointments in Ely and Elko and realize I will have to fly back into Reno at a later date to take care of these accounts. I rearrange my schedule and head to Carson City, my next stop but I am a day early. I try to change the dates on my inspections but the accounts can't accommodate me. I check into my hotel a day early, pick up my freebies from the front desk to play in the casino and head to my room.

Last year I stayed in 98 different hotel rooms. Keeping track of where I am and what room I'm in is a task. You wouldn't think it would be but it is. I have taken to immediately putting the "Do Not Disturb" sign out upon entering my room so that I can find it if I leave my room later. My inspection schedule is shot so I decide to return phone calls and e-mails. I have the phone in my hand, speaking to my surviving brother when I spot a sign on the glass of the balcony door that reads "Keep door shut at all times to prevent pigeons from flying into room". Sounds reasonable. The balcony is about 2 1/2 feet deep and overlooks and interesting part of Carson City. I walk out on it while talking to my brother and I follow the instructions and close the door (after all, I was not raised in a barn), in the course of the conversation, I have to go back in......and I find it's a self locking door. I am locked outside, on.....I think it's the third floor....but I don't remember what room I'm in and thank God! the sign is right there or I wouldn't even know what hotel I was in. I end the conversation with my brother who is now dying of laughter and google the hotel to find the phone number, call the desk and ask them to send security to open the door. Dead silence. The rest goes like this....

Desk Clerk..Are you going to jump?

Me...No I just want someone to open the door so I can get back in my room.

Desk Clerk...(giggle)Do you have some ID?

Me...Yes, but it's in the room

Desk Clerk....(giggle) I'm sorry ma'am, but we can't open the door if you don't have ID with you. What room are you staying in?

Me....Dead silence.....I don't know. I'm going to go....um..... out on a ledge and say it's somewhere on the third floor

Desk clerk....(robust laughter) I'm sorry ma'am but we can't just open a door to all the rooms to find you.

Me....May I suggest you walk to the parking lot and watch me wave? I think, I'm pretty sure I am on the third floor, you can find out what room I'm in by my name and I put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, feel free to disturb me, really.

Desk clerk...(snorting laughter) Name please? Security will be there in a few minutes....(Stifled laughter and chuckles) I'm suppose to ask you if you are safe and do you intend to jump. And I need to tell you that this has never happened, and I apologize if I don't seem professional and I hope you think it's funny.

Me....Of course it's funny! But for $10 of free play in the Casino I will...um....go out on a ledge and ....um.....overlook any lack of professionalism....(there is a knock on the glass and security is opening the door) "click"......

Now what does this have to do with diabetes and Salt Lake City?......Let me go out.....on a ledge...and tell you. As I disembarked the plane in Salt Lake City I passed a kiosk for Rocky Mountain chocolates. Immediately the voices in my head started screaming "EAT THE CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!" I tried to ignore the voices because I had just sat for hours and was looking at another couple of hours of sitting in the car to go to Wendover Utah for an inspection but alas the voices won over and I looked...feasted my eyes on the forbidden chocolate and to my surprise, there was a whole counter of wonderful SUGAR FREE CHOCOLATE!! I had a couple pieces and went on my way and found no adverse effects to my blood sugar. Woo Hoo!! I like this! On the way to Carson City I spy the Chocolate Nugget, a whole building devoted to the yummy creamy concoction and I figure if Rocky Mountain can make sugar free chocolates, The Chocolate Nugget can too. I think I'll stop and see if they have diabetic chocolate. AND THEY DID! Not only did they have diabetic chocolate (the caramels are unbelievable) but they have the best salt water taffy in every flavor you can imagine and I buy $10 worth. (relax, it was a little pricey and you pay for it in more ways than one).

So now I know it's not going to effect my blood sugar my inner censor goes on vacation and plans to win big in the Casino and pay for Jenny's wedding dress. I try ALL the flavors, one right after the other and make disgusting moans and groans as my sweet tooth is safely satisfied, I think I bought 8 different flavors, its all a blur now after the traumatic locking myself out on a ledge incident.......which brings me back to the incident......in case you didn't know it, diabetic sweets are not made with sugar but instead sugar alcohols. I'm not sure what this would do to an alcoholic and I don't think it raises your alcohol blood level but I must check this out at some other time, hopefully not on the company clock......but it does have an....um....urgent effect on your digestive system. It seems that if it goes through your system quickly, and I do stress QUICKLY...it won't show up on your prick test on the glucometer....And there I was...Out on a Ledge.....Thought I was gonna die!!

Sometimes the best things are worth repeating!

Happy Mother's Day Mom! Orange Marmalade!

When my dad was stationed on the USS Observation Island we lived in Satellite Beach Florida. Truly one of the best times of my life. We lived a mere 2 blocks from the beach and at the age of 10 there was not a day that went by that my oldest brother Bill and I weren't down at the beach. To this day, I have not been able to find the freedom of those days. And what is so funny is that my mother could not swim but would not hold us back from our adventures, misadventures and explorations. Come to think of it, she didn't let it stop her either. I think it's funny, brave and very giving of her as I recall our afternoon fishing trips on the canals. She couldn't swim and yet there she was many an afternoon with 4 children on the canal bridges. Biggest trout I ever caught was with a string bean. She didn't know a thing about fishing but she taught me so much about it. How does that happen? She had a lot of those tricks. She also didn't bake (except from a box) and yet when I tried my hand a baking years later she had magical ingredients like cream of tartar...and she didn't bake.

My mom had a lot of magic to her. Just raising 4 kids, mostly on her own as my father played Water Hero with the Navy was magic. But the magic I remember the most today was Mother's day. One Mother's day in Florida, I scraped up enough pop bottles and turned them in for what I thought was the Ultimate Mother's day present....Breakfast in bed! There was a bakery down by the beach and they made whimsical breads, one was an alligator. At 10 I thought this was the bees knees and wanted to share this with my Mom. I bought the bread and being in Florida, Orange marmalade was plentiful and cheap....cheap cheap if you bought it at the commissary. Mother's day came and the alligator bread and the orange marmalade was the breakfast menu..with Tang to wash it down, we were, after all in the Space Center and Tang was the latest and greatest. Truth is, I remember the bread was horrible, cute but horrible. The orange marmalade, nothing special, nothing remarkable and the Tang, was just Tang. I remember thinking that it just wasn't much of anything to celebrate her day with. And she, being the magic that she was, made such a big deal over the orange marmalade that for years afterward, I made sure that every Mother's day also had orange marmalade.

Years later, when I made her angry just trying to learn how to live in the world, I could always smooth things over with an apology and a small jar of orange marmalade. For decades, when I sent her flowers, I never signed the card with who I was I always put 2 words...Orange Marmalade. The florist in her small retirement town remembered this odd habit when she made up the spray form my mother's casket and had the card signed Orange Marmalade. Mom died last year on Mother's Day. It was a beautiful day, bright, breezy, and we had had our Mother's day Orange Marmalade. I just don't have the words to describe how and how much I miss her, she truly was my best friend.

So here is the recipe for the Orange Marmalade that I made for her on our last Mother's day on this earth. Be brave, it is really very good, and not just because she said it was, it really was.

Carrot Orange Marmalade

1 Orange
Juice from that orange
2 lemons
Juice from those lemons
2 1/2 cups carrots
water
sugar

Squeeze the orange and lemons like a bear hug from your mother. Set the juice aside.

Sliver the orange and lemon rinds. Cook rinds in just enough water to cover until they are as tender as the touch of your mother's hand.

Grate carrots and add to the rinds. Cook till as tender as a kiss from your mother.

Add juice.

Remove from heat when tender.

Measure mixture and add equal parts water. For every cup of water/fruit mixture add 2/3 cup of sugar.

Return to heat. Bring to boil stirring constantly.Cook about 1 hour till syrup reaches jelly stage. (to find out if it's jelly stage, stick a plate in the freezer and every once in a while drop a bit of the syrup onto the cold plate, put in the freezer for 1 minute. When it is jelly stage, you can take your finger and push against the side of the syrup drop and it will wrinkle....like the corners of your mother's eyes when you make her smile) Jelly stage is also recognizable when the syrup sheets off the spoon instead of running off in a thin steady flow.

Remove from heat & pour into prepared jars.

Process 10 minutes in a water bath.

Share with someone you love.

Happy Mother's day to all the Mother's that hold the magic and make the world turn.

I miss you Mom.