College Capers

Last week, I strolled back in time and toured a college campus.

That's because my daughter Lindsay is a campus tour guide at Michigan State University where she is a senior and I wanted to see her in action. I tried to blend in with the group of excited future students and anxious parents and secretly snapped a few pictures from the back.

Then Lindsay announced, "If you see a woman with a camera along with us today...she's my mom!"

Of course, everyone looked at me and smiled at my camera. I was being the typical mom.

I was so proud of my sweetie...so witty and bright, knowing all those facts about MSU.

She spieled about the sport teams, lectured about the library, and saturated us with safety on campus. Then she showed us a dorm room staged with comfy comforters on the bed and real clothes hanging neatly in the tiny closet...like that would ever happen in college. The mothers smiled as she talked up the fun of dorm life. As we walked out of the residence hall, a mom sidled up next to Lindsay and asked,

"What REALLY goes on in those dorms??? Is it one big party?"

I snickered to myself as I recalled my own dorm days at Ohio State University in the late 70s.

I lived on the top floor of this big dorm.

We called it The Penthouse.

Yes, it was a sweet time with my fab friends. This is just how moms HOPE dorm life will be for their children. That's me on the top left rolling Shelly's hair as she gabbed on the phone. No cell phones in those days!

We threw innocent popcorn parties...

And slumber parties in the study lounge.

But we also had our share of rip-roaring FUN! Imagine our total delight when 25 years later, my roommate's nephew attended Ohio State.

He told Aunt Jan that he heard the dorms were wild in our era.

"The girls in one dorm used to soap down the hall floors and hold 'slip and slides,'" he told my roommate.

Jan e-mailed us pronto because those girls were US, the penthouse gals!!!!!

We are dorm LEGEND at Ohio State and PROUD OF IT!

Yep, we used to hose down the hall and add dish soap.

The gal with the arrow is Lari of Lari's Tomato/Basil Pie Recipe fame.

After the soap down, we used to shove each other down the hall...it was so slippery, you would slide down to the end on your knees with ease.

We also snuck into the boys' dorm in the middle of the night with water balloons that we taped above their doors.

We also tied their doors together with rope so they wouldn't open.

And, toilet-papered the joint.

Please do not report us to campus security.

The boys walloped us enough when they reciprocated by sneaking into our dorm in the middle of the night and leaving behind a thick layer of motor oil on the hall floor with popcorn kernels and toilet paper, plus shaving cream on all our doors. Our resident advisor was furious and we were up all night trying to clean it up. Even a slip and slide wouldn't have rid the horrible smell that lingered for weeks.

I didn't share any of those shenanigans with the worried woman on Lindsay's tour. I know she was actually concerned about drinking and drugging!

I know it's scary to send a child off to college knowing of all the temptations. My son will be joining Lindsay at MSU in the fall and it scares me, too!

But, as I did with Lindsay...I will just have to trust that I spent 18 years teaching my son

integrity and  responsibility.

It worked with Lindsay. She amazes me every day and I was one proud mom on that tour!

The kids need to work hard and get their education,

but they also need to throw in lots of fun and create lifelong memories and friendships.

Note to my kids: Please don't do slip and slides in the dorm hall...you might get hurt!

Mom's have a very different perspective...

A Birthday & A Basil Recipe

The partying continues at our house as we celebrated my mother-in-law's

75th birthday over the weekend!

She's so beautiful and YOUNG at heart!

We hosted the gathering and despite my complaints about baking,

I made the cake!

I chose Paula Dean's FABULOUS recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes and decided to turn it into a cake instead. I whipped up the batter and poured it into two round cake pans.

It took FOREVER for the innards to cook, but when I plopped the cakes out of the pan to cool, I noticed the edges were crusty.

Sweetest Hubby thought I should just frost it up and it would be fine, but I hate

over-cooked cake.

While he ran to the store to buy more ingredients for me to make the cupcakes instead, I tried to move one of the layers to a cooling rack. A big hunk broke off, so I tasted it.

YUMMMMMMM!!!!

It was scruptious, just like the cupcakes.

So I glued it back together with the icing and frosted the cake.

Meanwhile, I have given up any dreams of opening a cake decorating business.

I know...it's an ugly cake!

I can't, for the life of me, write on cakes.

To simplify things, I bought a tube of green frosting for the edges.

My decorative tip did not fit the tube, so I had to HOLD it in place as I squeezed.

It was such a mess, I ended up just squirting around the edges...It was NOT pretty!

I just hope Mom could feel the love exuding from the cake.

She DOES look happy with the cake and loving family surrounding her.

Notice Hubby staring at the cake in a daze. I think he was thinking...

WHY are we serving this ugly, over-cooked cake??

Speaking of over-cooked...

Our 90-plus degrees over the last few weeks has really heated up the herbs in my planter.

It went from this:

To this!

Buried in the topsy-turvy vines are lots of green tomatoes.

Up top...the basil has grown into a MONSTER!

Even though I hate to bake...I LOVE to cook!

I also love when people share recipes on their blog, so I'm going to share a fabulous recipe my college roommate sent me last summer. It's called

Lari's Tomato Basil Pie

I name recipes after the people who give them to me.

I made this for Mom's birthday party and everyone loved it!

Here's how you make it.

Pie innards

3 to 4 Roma tomatoes sliced

About 3/4 cup mayonnaise

1 cup plus 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

1 cup loosely packed basil leaves

4 cloves garlic

Crust

1 sleeve Ritz crackers

1/2 cup Kraft parmesan cheese

5 Tbs. melted butter

Start by slicing tomatoes and laying the slabs on several layers of paper towels to absorb the moisture.

Now, make the crust.

Smash up the Ritz crackers. I did this in my food processor.

In a bowl, mix in a half cup of Kraft Parmesan Cheese from the green canister.

Add the melted butter and mix well.

Press this into a glass pie plate. I used a quiche dish, and bake at 350-degrees for 10 minutes.

While the crust is baking, finely chop the basil leaves and 4 garlic cloves.

I did this in my mini food processor.

In a bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, one cup of the mozzarella cheese and the freshly grated parmesan cheese. I didn't have the fresh stuff on hand, so I used Kraft.

Add the basil/garlic mixture and combine.

When the crust comes out of the oven, sprinkle it with the half cup of shredded mozzarella.

Pat excess liquid off the draining tomatoes with a paper towel.

Arrange the tomatoes over the melting mozzarella.

Now, smear the mayonaise/basil paste over the top. I then grated on fresh pepper.

Bake this in the oven at 350-degrees for 20 minutes or until golden.

This recipe is delicious served with grilled chicken or pork chops.

I'll share some cilantro recipes in the days ahead!

ALL Jobs are Important

Summer is already half over and my kids are hard at work in their summer jobs.

Here's my son painting fire hydrants for a living...part of his job doing outdoor maintenance for our township. I hunted him down so I could snap some pictures for our scrapbook.

I didn't want him to forget this important job.

I think every job prepares you for the future.

My first job was as a waitress at a pancake house when I was sixteen. I learned to tote up to seven sizzling plates, lined along both arms.

I became adept at serving these same plates without dropping a single piece of bacon.

The experience paid off later when I could easily transport a twenty-pound diaper bag, various toys, blankets and an eighteen pound infant seat with a burp rag and baby slung over my shoulder.

With the other hand, I held onto a two-year-old.

Of course, I did require shoulder surgery the following Christmas.

One summer in high school I worked at King's Island Amusement Park in Cincinnati.

They put me in a stand that sold foot-long hot dogs.

I had to face the public every day and was surrounded by weiners.

I used that knowledge countless times over the years.

The next summer, I moved up to King's Island Marketing Department. My job was to interview park patrons for market research.  This job scared me.

The park patrons had paid top dollar to be flung around on rides, feed on fatty foods, and be joyously entertained for a day. The last thing they wanted to do was stand still for five minutes while some chick questioned them for a survey.

Although I squirmed often on that job as a market researcher...

I pretty much did the same thing as a reporter.

In college, I headed to Cedar Point Amusement Park for a summer where I was assigned to this dinky stand back in Frontier Land.

It had no air-conditioning, yet look at all those workers crammed in the stand and that large vat of smoldering grease in the middle for making hot dogs-on-a-stick.

I almost melted in there!

Oddly, our stand also sold sno-cones. I would stick my head in the machine for relief.

We had to change the oil every few days.

One night, the oil from our storage drum leeched into a decorative creek that ran by our stand.

I was ordered to filter the scum off the top of the water.

My job had sunk to a new low...scum dipper.

It took me several weeks and lots of sweat, but the waterway looked great.

The higher-ups visited the creek and admired my work.

I'm expecting a call at any moment to help clean up the gulf oil crisis.

I taught my children to take tremendous pride in every job they perform because NO job is meaningless.

Recently I watched a TV show where the CEO goes undercover among the workers to see what the lower jobs are really like.

One man cleaned port-o-johns for a living.

As he sprayed down the stenchy stalls, he puffed out his chest with pride and said,

"I always clean these well knowing that's how I would want it if I had to use them."

I actually shed a few tears because that statement was so profound and true

and exactly how I have approached every job through the years.

EVERY job affects SOMEBODY!

So, while Sonny might think this task is trivial.

Some day, a firefighter will need to know that the green cap in front means to hook on the green sized hose.

 

And, it just might save a house...or a life.

No job is too trivial to give it your best effort.

My son...proudly painting fire hydrants for his fellow man!

I wonder if he'll use that experience to paint our fence this summer...

My Mom's Blog!

As you know from reading my blog...I adore humor and laughing!

I inherited this love from my mother who has always been hilarious and also

wrote a humor column for her local newspaper.

I told her I was having a ball writing my new blog and insisted she would love writing one.

So, at the age of 85, she started a blog, too!

Please check it out at Late Life Lunacy and leave a comment.

Tell all your older friends about it because she will be reliving the past with great hilarity.

Thanks...and enjoy!

Michigan's Upper Peninsula

If you don't live in Michigan, you may not even know that it has an upper peninsula jutting out from the shoulder of Wisconsin.

We call it the UP pronounced You-Pee. People who live in this vast, forested wilderness are affectionately called Yoo-pers and make up just three percent of Michigan's population.

The UP's only physical connection to the Michigan "mitten" is the majestic Mackinaw bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere.

We drove across it to stay in St. Ignace, our home base as we explored a bit of Michigan's upper peninsula.

Our first day there, we drove north and ran smack into Paradise!

Yep, Paradise does exist as a city in Michigan's upper peninsula and I'm glad we made it!

At that point, my brother-in-law Joe (far right) declared it would be paradise for him to see a moose.

Moose roam freely in the UP and tourists sometimes spot them.

We made it our mission to find a moose for Joe.

Meanwhile, we meandered on to Whitefish Point Light Station one of the first lighthouses on Lake Superior.

It's the oldest light still active on this northern lake.

My brother and his family were thrilled to finally dip their toes in Lake Superior something they had already done in the other four Great Lakes.

Lake Superior is known as the graveyard of ships.

Gordon Lightfoot epitomized the stormy lake,

and its northwest winds that whip up mountainous waves

 in his famous song about the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The vessel is still buried at the bottom of the lake.

The beach at Whitefish Point is vast and serene.

This was the only time we saw darkish skies on our

Michigan vacation...a reminder of Lake Superior's fury.

Our next stop was at a quaint little restaurant to eat pasties...prounounced PAST-ees.

They are hearty meat pies chowed for lunch by miners and lumberjacks.

 Can't find them yummier than in the UP!

Our eyes still peeled for moose, we headed to Tahquamenon Falls in Newberry.

It's one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi River.

It looked kinda rusty to me, but I learned the

amber color is tannin, the stuff that colors tea,

and leaches from flora in surrounding swamps.

ambling back down the wooded path...

WE SAW IT!!!

A MOOSE!

Well, sorta...

Okay, it was just a moose's head.

But we thought we'd better snap a picture with Joe in case we never saw the full animal.

And, while we were in the wild animal mood,

we turned in here because we wanted to see bears.

We not only saw them, we got to pet them!

Here are some bear butts:

This big guy was eating Froot Loops off his belly.

Oswald's Bear Ranch was fun, but what I really wanted to do in the UP was visit this:

Billboards line I-75 all through lower Michigan tempting you to visit

The MYSTERY spot.

I adore a good mystery. Heck, I write mystery novels.

I am CURIOUS by nature. I even picked up that brochure in the hotel lobby.

When I learned the Mystery Spot was within minutes of our hotel in St. Ignace,

I begged my brother to take us there.

Finally, I would unravel the mystery of this spot.

"That's a tourist trap," Bro said.

HE WOULDN'T TAKE ME THERE!!!!!!

At least Joe got half a moose...I got NOTHING!!!!

Out of utter curiosity, I looked it up on the Internet and found this picture posted by Craig S. Thom:

Now, either Craig's family is a bit tipsy or something very mysterious is going on there.

Craig said on his web site "the laws of gravity do not apply at the Mystery Spot."

Being the curious reporter that I am, I asked the hotel clerk about it.

She said The Mystery Spot is a series of rooms and buildings built on angles to give the optical illusion that things are tilted.

Finally...the mystery is solved!

WHEW!

Yes, my vacation was wonderfully fulfilling.