Guess What?? I survived Christmas

Yes folks,it´s the Miracle on 34 Street...I,Lisa, survived Christmas in Brazil. But not without the help of my Argentinian and Chilean friends, namely Malbec and Concho y Toro....My head is pounding today with the memories of my handy buddies (that miraculously show up when there are family gatherings such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, yet leave silently and leave you with fond memories of the occasion.... or no memory whatsoever)

Thank God for the Best of Bridge Cookbooks

I have given in to the Christmas spirit..Amazing what happens when PMS subsides.

So, this said, I am running around like a headless chicken trying to get cookie and cake recipes together so I can pass the spirit of a Canadian Christmas on to my kids. I started yesterday with gingerbread cookies.They lasted one day...the kids inhaled them and the comment from my boys was this."Mom, they were great but they would be better without ginger...." Sorry Martha, your recipe was a bust down here...

To the rescue, none other than the famous series of cookbooks called The Best of Bridge. Any girl who was born and raised within a 100 mile radius of Calgary since the early 80's knows the colored recipe books that have saved marriages, dinner parties,brunches and most of all, bridge parties.

My mother had her bridge club. She actually belonged to two bridge clubs - The North Hill Bridge Club and the Southwest Bridge Club, named as such because of where her fellow players lived within the four quadrants of Calgary. They started while they were still in University and played religiously for over 30 years together. I always knew that the bridge club was coming because my mother would start making all of this fancy finger foods and cakes and cookies and especially her lemonade punch. We were banished to the rumpus room and were warned to not interrupt the game for fear of getting our heads hit with the Goren Bridge Book....

Gossip and giggling quickly ensued when the bridge club came over. My father would just roll his eyes and stay clear(obs. 52 years of marriage, he must be doing something right...) Once a year there was the Grey Cup party, which was always a hit as well as occasional New Years Eve's Party.... all with the `Bridge Club`.Being a kid of the `Bridge Club`, we had to be sure that we didn`t rat out any of the other `Bridge Club`kids by accident. You think mothers have radars...NASA has nothing on the Bridge Club....

I recieved my set of Best of Bridge Cookbooks and in moments of despair, its just a quick call to mom for her to tell me that the recipe for lemon squares is in the Aces Cookbook (the 'blue' one).

Those books have been a lifesaver for me in the past and I know will continue to serve many women even beyond the 100 mile radius of Calgary....

The Annual Dilemma of Christmas in a Tropical Country

When I was 19 years old, my whole family left the cold white Canadian winter behind and spent Christmas in Maui. Descending the plane on our first stop in Honolulu,we were suddenly blown away in 35C heat. Awaiting our corresponding Aloha Airlines island hop to Maui, the sounds of Chrsitmas carols filled the air terminal. There was something very surreal about it all.

We had our traditional Christmas in the hot weather, but we all agreed that there was something missing......the white Christmas that we were used to ever since childhood.

I live in Brazil these days and every year the Christmas season arrives, I feel completely dislocated. Bless their hearts the Brazilian people,they embrace Chrsitmas as a massive food and family fest that goes into the wee hours. Food is definitely an important factor here at this time of year. Turkey,roast pig, codfish, plums,apricots,Brazil nuts(duh!!!) chestnuts. The best linens are put out, the food is prepared over the preceding week. It could be a typical Christmas in Canada except THERE IS NO SNOW!

I just cant get into it folks.....

I guess the hardest thing for me is to see so much feasting and food and less than a mile away from these festivities are people that don't have two pennies to rub together.

Christmas has become a retailers invention to close out the year in the black......

Unless someone can convince me otherwise, just call me Scrooge...

Looks Good On Paper

Have you ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend that if you were to write a personal ad to describe this person, you wouldn't believe it yourself. Well there is one thing that I have learned in my short and fulfilling life. Don't advertise what is yours to anyone, unless you are able to handle the stabs of jealousy that will inadvertantly com flying your way at warp speed. Its unreal but it is a fact.

When we are in love, we want to yell to the highest mountains with joy. We want to share this feeling with anyone within earshot.We become inspired. We have a bounce in our step.Suddenly the world is not such a bad place after all.

Pondering the Idea of Polygamy

Before anyone goes into orbit, let me explain myself.
Since living in Brazil has kept me relatively distant from what is going on in the USA ( or as my mom calls it the `Excited States`),my knowledge of current affairs comes from my online subscription to the New York Times, the Calgary Herald,CNN and HBO.
On Sunday nights on HBO Brazil, the mini series `Big Love`is shown. The story line is of a man and his three wives trying to handle all of the pressures of being a polygamist, entrepreneur, father, husband and reluctant leader of his fellow religious peers. It is produced my Tom Hanks and stars Bill Paxton and Chloe Sevigny.
After watching a few episodes, I was intrigued. How could these women handle the fact that they share their husbands with other women? What about jealousy? Envy? Power struggles? Hiarchy?
Strangely enough, the winds of Zeitgeist blew through my window. The news announced the arrest of the leader of the FLDS, the Mormon splinter group that practices polygamy on the border of Utah and Arizona. Who were these people???
Growing up in Calgary, Canada, I had some knowledge of the Mormon religion. I knew they had their version of the Bible called the Book of Mormon. They had a temple in Cardston Alberta. The Mormon kids that I went to school with were killer basketball players that didn`t curse,drink booze or coffee.I heard stories that they gave 10% of their income to the church,and stocked up on food provisions. Many of them became missionaries after they finished school or went to Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City.
Polygamy was banned from the Church in the late 1800's to be able to allow Utah to become part of the USA.
Being a girl growing up in the 70`s, I too had the proverbial crush on Donny Osmond(Puppy Love), only to have my heart broken when I found out that he was Mormon and that Mormons didn`t inter marry.
Fast forward to 2007.
Zeitgeist
Marie Osmond appears on Dancing with the Stars
There is a Mormon presidential candidate running for the Republican Party
Polygamy continues to exist and is practiced by anywhere up to 30 000 people in the USA. Stories of abuse abound. Boys are abandoned on roadsides outside of their compounds to fend for themselves,their only 'sin' is that of being young and virile,like any teenage boy will be.Young girls snapped up in puberty to be married off to men two or three times their age against their own will.
Sounds like a nightmare to me.
Nothing like the way polygamy is portrayed on HBO....On TV it looks so peaceful and warm and fuzzy.
I can hear the feminists and the fundamentalist moralists now..."She is crazy!!!!". I assk you though, we are trained to believe that we marry one man for the rest of our lives, correct? I was, at least.
How many men cheat on their wives?
How many men have mistresses?
What about the growing trend of bi-curious people and the increased popularity of the `swing` lifestyle?

I don' t think that polygamy should be illegal. What I disagree with, is the fact that they trap these girls so young. If these women were of legal age and willingly consenting adults, I see no problem.

As the late Pierre Trudeau was known to say " The government has no business in the bedroom of the people"

Welcome all

Well now that I have finally decided to break down and have a blog, it is the chic thing to do nowadays they tell me. So without furthur ado, here is my new blog.