300 Days In ...

It's hard for me to believe that I've been working on my DayZero goals for the better part of a year now.  It seems like I've just started, and yet, a few days ago, I realized that I could no longer easily list all of the items that I've checked off when someone asked. 

The last three months have seen two big projects in my life ... the first was my murder mystery party (which was part of my list and highly enjoyable) and the second was fixing my roof (not on the list).  I'm very happy to have a brand new chimney and steel roof; however, it was an expense I had planned for a few years out rather than this spring.  And, though the contractors were only here for a week, I spent much more time agonizing over who to hire, how to pay for it, etc.  I'm also looking at time commitments and realizing that a certain portion of my summer is going to need to be spent fixing the interior water damage from this spring's ice dams (the reason for the new roof).  I don't mind painting, but a few spots will need some plaster repair (a new skill for me to learn) and two rooms are going to involve moving lots of stuff in order to have enough room to work.

Along with the big projects, I've been doing quite a bit of work in my yard and am very close to finishing two of those goals.  I'm over halfway through with two of the three year-long goals - playing my harp once a week and donating to charities.  I've been taking lots and lots of photos for the photography course I'm taking and have the first assignment almost ready to send in (just one more photo to print).  I've decided to incorporate some of my reading tasks into the goal that I always set for our library's adult summer reading program.  And, while I work on fixing up the other rooms, I'll be redecorating the bathroom as well.   So, I have lots planned for the summer even though the big task of repainting isn't on my DayZero list.

Those numbers don't mean much

This post is in honor of my friend Leisa whose birthday is this week ...

Sometimes it's hard to face the years where your age ends in a zero.  My friends who are older than I am tell me that life just gets better.  You become more of the person inside of you rather than the person that others want/need you to be.  You stop worrying as much about the opinions of people who really don't matter in your life.  You find what your passions are ... anything from crafting to skiing to writing to cooking ... and you have more free time to pursue them (either because your children are out on their own or you don't put your entire self into your career or some other reason).  You learn what your emotional needs are and find ways to meet them through other people - and, yes, it's probably the plural people and not the singular person.  Mostly, what they say seems to sum up in the old adage that age equals wisdom.  And, I would certainly say that wisdom is worth having even if acquiring it can sometimes be painful.

As part of my birthday party this year, I put out a "tip" jar for the bartender (me) with a twist.  Instead of cash, I asked people to give me their thoughts and advice on getting older.  Here's what they said:

• have TONS [underlined 3 times] of fun, you won't live forever!
• feed the kitty
• numbers matter less than how you feel inside
• get a fan, the hot flashes are murder!
• life begins at 40!
• eat more cheesecake
• be yourself and everything else will fall into place
• younger men can be a good choice
• keep smiling with your chin up - good for "under your chin"
• The Best [underlined 4 times] is yet to come!!
• It's all beautiful, it's all a miracle
• Lift up bras really work
• Make FUN your #1 priority!
• Don't sit in chairs even if someone offers one
• The older you get the better life is :)

Thanks, everyone, for the advice. And, to everyone who is facing one of those dreaded "zero years" out there (and I know that this week that includes both Leisa and my sister Janet):  Happy birthday and don't stress out about it, you'll still feel the same inside as the day before!

Recipes for the Bookworm and the Sexy Librarian

For a sweet kid-friendly cocktail, try this ...

The Bookworm

The Bookworm
1.5 oz. apple juice
2 oz. pineapple juice
3 oz. ginger ale
Mix these together with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with a gummy worm!

This cocktail was something that I didn't spend too much time experimenting with ... though I am very grateful for the opinions of all of the family members who tried it at Easter.  Everyone agreed that the gummy worm garnish was a must (even those who don't like to actually eat gummy worms!).  I liked the taste of an even higher ratio of pineapple juice but more will make the juices look particularly murky and somewhat unappetizing.

The second cocktail took much more time.  I wanted all of the ingredients to have a symbolic connection to librarianship, and I decided to use Benedictine fairly early on.  However, one of the other ingredients that I really wanted to include was Godiva liqueur (symbolizing social activism).  What I didn't think about was that the Godiva has a creamy base, and it looked like really old sour milk when I added other ingredients (especially things like vodka).  I did lots of experimentation - even trying the addition of ginger ale which got rid of the curdled aspect but added a light brown foam that also looked weird.  A friend suggested garnishing that version with a chocolate curl, but it still didn't look right and actually wasn't all that tasty.  At that point, I had the recipe down for the Bookworm, so I decided to drop the Godiva and use the Bookworm recipe as a starting point.  Because how else do Sexy Librarians start than as Bookworms, right? :)  After that point, the recipe developed much more smoothly.

The Sexy Librarian

The Sexy Librarian
1 oz. apple juice
2 oz. pineapple juice
1.5 oz. vodka
splash of Benedictine
Mix ingredients together with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with a cherry on a cocktail sword.

And the symbolic meanings are:  apple juice represents acquisition of knowledge (an apple for the teacher),  pineapple juice is a symbol of hospitality because libraries welcome all sorts of people, vodka stands for all those long classic Russian novels (everybody knows the title of War and Peace even if they haven't read the book), Benedictine is for the monks of the middle ages who kept the written word alive with their illuminated manuscripts, the cherry is a nod to those steamy romances whose readership is huge, and the cocktail sword is the librarian's tool for cutting through red tape!

Cheers!

#21 & #84 - a party that combined mystery and a birthday

Over the last six weeks, I've been working to the point of obsession on planning a fabulous party.  Not only did I learn how to mix drinks (and thereby fulfill another of my DayZero goals), I also wrote a murder mystery script for over 40 people.  And, of course, I had to make all of the little arrangements that go along with planning any large party that will be held in a different location.

The bar recipes I learned using homemade flash cards as I walked in the mornings.

Here's photos of what was served at the bar that evening.  I also created two special drinks for the party ... the nonalcoholic Bookworm (look for the martini glass with a gummy worm in the photo cube) and the Sexy Librarian (in a martini glass with a cherry on a drink sword).  At Easter, I took home some drink ingredients and had family members taste test ... their comments led to a finished version of the Bookworm.  The Sexy Librarian took much longer because I wanted to have each ingredient have a symbolic meaning as well as a tasty finished product.  I had several evenings of experimentation before I arrived at a finished product.  There will be a separate post in a few days with the recipes for these two drinks.

I've done several "How to Host a Murder" type mystery parties before this.  I quickly found that writing one takes lots and lots of attention to detail.  My party was centered around the fictional 4D Record company ... headed by a Mr. E.  I started by making a list of all the types of people who might be associated with such a party and tried to come up with humorous pun names to go along with the characters - I got some help on this from my sisters and ended with a list of such characters as:

• Dee Nile - the first wife who won't admit that she and Mr. E. aren't really still together
• Del Lirious - the jazz pianist who talks in slang and is a closet anarchist
• Sadie Word - the rap star whose non-traditional songs feature themes like menopause and household tasks
• Goldie Digger - Mr. E.'s mistress (and all around party girl) who finances her life through her men
• Knott A. Clew - the misunderstood songwriter secretly in love with a girl who won't sing his songs
• Maude Lynn - the emo goth girl singer who is actually brimming with positivity and resorts to listening to conversations on the bus and in grocery stores to find bad situations to sing about
• Dot Matrix - a graphic artist with reams of critical acclaim who happens to be colorblind

With 50-60 of these mini-sketches in mind, I started assigning characters to guests as they RSVPed.  Then the hard part began ... many, many afternoons and evenings spent writing clues.  Early on, I had the ambitious thought that all characters would get at least 5-6 clues over four rounds.  The number of rounds was finally cut down to three and when I was down to the wire with less than a week to go before the party, I told myself that a minimum of three clues per round was acceptable ... I still ended up writing over 600 individual clues for the evening.

floorplan for 4D records

I wrote the ending stories of the seven big suspects early on.  I also wrote out a minute by minute account of almost 2 hours of time - starting from when the first characters would arrive at the fictional party until when the announcement was made that Mr. E. was dead - detailing where characters were and what the key ones were doing.  I also made a sketch of the 4D Record building that I later used as a basis for a floorplan that guests could refer to during the party.  These three items provided the backbone of the clues.

However, there were also many red herring subplots:  the heroin dealings, the anarchists, bickering among the women associated with Mr. E., a teen star who was adopted, embezzlement and IRS audits, and more.  They all served as distractions from the main plot where Mr. E. was announcing a new charity endeavor by the company - free 24/7 studio access to homeless teen musicians.

Guests at the party had been given their roles in advance ... and many embraced their inner thespian and went to town ...

Of course, I was only the humble bartender ... but I had just as much fun as everyone else.

Claire Voyant, Del Lirious, and Nell N. Void with bartender, Margie Rita - photo from Sara Skelton

There were some great moments of the evening that didn't get caught on film ... his current wife fainting when the announcement was made that Mr. E. was dead, the newly out-of-work bodyguard asking for a drink at the bar, the mistress being called a slut by the current and ex-wifes, the eyebrows going up on the murderer when he read that he was the one who did it!

I had a fabulous time fulfilling these two goals, and I hope that my friends who could attend did as well!

#91 - Just say no!

I'm sure for some people this goal would be laughably easy - to say no to 5 things that I really would rather not take part in.  However, I have, in the past, found myself doing many things as favors, going places I didn't really care about, or generally spending my time in a way that I didn't particularly enjoy simply to try to make someone else happy.  While I do still believe that a person should compromise for people that they are close to, I've realized in the last few years that's okay to occasionally say "I don't wanna ..."  Also, there's the consideration of who you compromise for ... friends, family, lovers all should be able to pick things and expect your participation.  Casual acquaintances and work associates, though, should not have the power to make you feel guilty about whatever it is they want to do and you don't.

I'm not going to list the 5 things I declined ... don't want anyone to feel bad as three were social invitations.  I did find that as I said no and thought about this goal, I became more okay with other people saying no to my invitations as well.  So, good lessons learned all around.