Happy Monday!

Yes, I know that for many, Monday and Happy do not and should never appear in the same sentence. But I’ve always liked Mondays; the clean slate and fresh beginning to the week. For this particular Monday, you can’t get cleaner than rain washing everything or fresher than the gale winds purifying the air!

Okay, I exaggerate the weather a little It’s not raining right now, there’s even some sun coming through the clouds and it’s windy, but the windows aren’t trembling, but I do need to make my own sunshine today and with my allergies acting up, I need the exaggeration!

We celebrated Orthodox Easter this year. That is we did Easter Dinner with Pop and Aunt Judy the week after Easter Sunday, which happened to be Orthodox Easter Sunday. I “helped” by making the cream cheese stuffed celery. I’m the only one that eats it. That celery really never had a chance to make it to the table. The stuffed celery has been a holiday favorite of mine as long as I can remember. It’s going to be my mincemeat pie. Every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas Mom bought mincemeat pies. Mums was the only one who liked them, but Mom always made sure there was a mincemeat pie so she could have some. When I’m 80 years old, there will be a plate of cream cheese stuffed celery for me that no one else eats. Except that if I start being in the same place as Rina for Thanksgiving again at some time in the future, she eats the stuffed celery.

What I don’t do is Deviled Eggs. I’ll eat cake with him, but Lucifer needs to share his eggs with someone else! Ah, but yesterday, Pop tried a new recipe instead of the traditional deviled eggs. The recipe included spinach dip with the yolks and it was a savory filling rather than the usual sweeter filling that I don’t care for. Wow! It was good! We also had tasty ham that wasn’t Honey Baked and vinaigrette-based potato salad. Totally tasty unorthodox Easter fare on Orthodox Easter!

Continued as the Mug Shot begins…

Monday Mug Shot

 

The Jell-O Gallery

LeRoy New York

We sat at the table over and after Easter dessert and talked, reminisced a bit. The topic of discussion was the upcoming summer vacation plans and the things we all enjoy on vacation. Pop talked about the stop we made in Sutton, West Virginia some 10 years or so ago. Sutton is a small town, but it’s no accident that we were there, it was a planned visit. My great-grandfather’s last name was Sutton and out family roots trace back to the Original Suttons who founded the Braxton County Seat!

That was a fun trip. That trip was also part of Pop’s big reason that he really didn’t have any desire to see more of Europe. Occasionally visiting family in San Marino, about once a decade, is fine for him because he prefers staying in his “home country.” “There is so much of America I have to see.” He loves the small towns and little tributes and museums to the local heroes. As much as he griped about a dry county, he enjoyed seeing the first Kentucky Fried Chicken in Corbin and the Harlan Sanders museum. Travel by car and stop often is his idea of an ideal vacation. I’m very much the same way. Although David prefers to rush after trains by day, on the less favorable for photos days, he enjoys most of my choices for the kitschy small town attractions.

On our end of summer vacation last year, the one where the weather was insane and Hurricane Irene dictated how much time we spent in Western New York and Canada instead of further east, we visited a few small towns, wineries and the Skylon Tower in Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. The Skylon is a pretty major attraction. I totally loved our stop at the Jell-O Gallery in LeRoy, New York. LeRoy is the birthplace of Jell-O! The gallery is not large in size but it’s huge in information and things to see.

We learned about the first Jell-O dessert idea and how it failed in the American market, even in the local market. The product idea and company changed hands several times and Jell-O’s success finally started when it became popular as a dessert at formal dinners. Can you imagine being served a bowl of Jell-O after a formal dinner today? Of course there was a time that sorbet was only something they served between courses of a fine dinner too, but Jell-O, that stuff we had as kids and was in cafeterias and hospitals got its real marketable start as an upper class food! The tour of the gallery is guided with just tons of facts I never knew.

And the visuals! We saw antique packaging and advertising (don’t think I wasn’t in HEAVEN!) and a roster of flavors that did or didn’t work. Coffee Jell-O did work for while in limited markets. But honestly, I like Jell-O, love my coffee, but I don’t find the idea of mixing the two so appealing in 2012. Even so, I admit a certain mild intrigue with the modern recipes for it.

At the end of our tour, which begins and ends in the gift shop, I was so tempted to buy some of the antique Jell-O molds! But for my souvenirs, I got a t-shirt, Lime Jell-O earrings and my mug.



And now for Monday Meme time! After some thought about what time I have available, I decided I really can’t do both the old and new Monday question memes. Having given some serious consideration, I’ve decided to stick with the Monday meme at Acting Balanced, the new and improved Monday questions, my words, not Heather’s.

1. Finish this sentence - I dream of....

An empty beach and one of these:

Beach Wheelchair

Isn’t that cool? If I’d have been a generation older and diagnosed with MS, I’d be living in a nursing home with David visiting me once a week. Now I can dream about beaches!



2. If you could choose your last meal, what would it be?

Chocolate, a huge plate of cake-cookie-ice-cream with hot fudge and chocolate chunks with Godiva Raspberry cordials for dessert.

Why do I know this is my last meal? (If I’m on Death Row, I probably don’t deserve chocolate!)



3. What was your favorite toy as a child?

I loved my Drowsy Doll! I took her everywhere with me!

I think this is where the love of polka dots started for me!



4. What color looks best on you?

Golly, I hope it’s green. I would say that’s the prevailing color in my non-baseball wardrobe. It does make my green eyes glowy!



And don't forget to add a 5th Question on your own blog so we can answer as we hop around!


On the subject of my polka dot roots, I have lots of dots, my Kindle cover is polka dots, I have many notebooks with polka dot covers, I have to make sure I don’t overdo the dots on my scrapbook pages, I have a scrapbook supplies file called “dots!”

Maybe you have a favorite pattern too. Lots of stripes in your wardrobe? Are all of your throw-pillows floral? Can you not resist Christmas plaid giftwrap? Maybe you like dots, like me… What’s your favorite pattern?