TeamReedBlog.2020

I'm reading this book: "Who Cooked the Last Supper?  The Women’s History of the World, " by Rosalind Miles. I can't say that I love it.  I may be a lone voice in the wilderness here. Goodreads give the book 4/5 stars and Libby recommended it to me.  I have great respect for Miles' research and for putting forth a position I've long held: that you can't fully trust tradition and history because our notion of history is limited to what the survivors said it was. It's like eye-witness accounts in criminal prosecutions: eye witnesses rarely get all the facts straight. You don't have to have to be a historian to know that most of the historical documents that survived were things recorded by men. Men who were either rich or had rich patrons. What of the stories of the women, the poor, the schmucks who lived hand-to-mouth but probably had some amazing stories? Ever notice how so many pieces of fiction rely on the protagonist falling into money somehow? ...

  Jeff and I are celebrating our 27th wedding anniversary today about 1,000 miles apart.  He gets 75-degree-Orlando. I get 23 degrees in Indy. We’re not fighting or separated on purpose. For the first time in the nearly six years she’s been a college student (4 at Purdue and 1.5/5 at UCF) she called asking if one of us could come down because she was “feeling like death.” It came at a good time for Jeff. He’d been helping her with her project to add an ACLU chapter to the university and he currently doesn’t have a consulting contract. I have a busy work month with a client event that should be my swan song. So, it was he who caught a flight down. Instead of death (thank goodness) Alison has mono and the ‘flu. She is medicated and recovering. Day One, her father ordered her to bed, started in on her mountain of laundry and made her Ramen soup. Day Two, she got into the doctor and got sent back to bed while he got her meds. Then, he got (undiagnosed) flu. Day Three, he was ...

Our nearly annual New Year's Eve gathering was another fun time with great friends and even some family this year. Highlight include NOT killing Kate, welcoming new people and a celebration of some new recipes that will definitely be on the menu next year. Lowlights include ALMOST killing Kate, sickness and travel kept some great people from our midst and a soup that took a lot of time (and accidentally ended up on at least two people)  that wasn't really worth the trouble. (Shoulda had the pasta instead...) "Don't kill Kate" is the first rule of my Book Club, which celebrated its 19th year this year without killing our dear friend Kate, who has a severe peanut allergy. For NYE, we thought we'd spread the word well that peanuts and anything made in a facility that includes peanuts in its manufacturing was verboten. One guest missed the memo, and we totally missed the dish when it was placed on the table.  Happily, Kate had enjoyed a bit of time prior to this i...

When a death trap of a rental car and a lap full of dog vomit doesn't derail your vacation, you know you've had a good one. Team Reed will count 2024 as yet another epic trip to Vacationland. It started with a couple days in the Old Port where the Captain and I braved the single digits to shop, sample and sip before meeting the rest of the elder Reed clan at DiMillo's and then the Portland Symphony Orchestra. We picked Ali up on Sunday and traveled north to Jen and Peter's temporary digs on Oak Pond. We'd rented a Jeep Gladiator because we'd recently ended up with a truck as our rental car and Jeff liked driving it. We learned the hard way that this pickup-like vehicle is not meant for cold weather.  We were on the interstate, about a third of the way into the trip when we experienced the " Jeep Death Wobble " which feels like you're driving down a rutted, gravel road at top speed. The jarring will shake your teeth loose, and when it comes out of ...

We knew our time with Alison's full-time attention was going to end on Thanksgiving Day when we were to meet her boyfriend, Beau, and his family. It's one of those things that you look forward to and dread at the same time.  What if we didn't gel? What if they hate us? What if they serve alligator instead of turkey? What if we say something that sends the whole thing off-kilter? I shouldn't have fretted. Beau and his family were terrific. The meal was great, and the only gator we saw was in a ditch along the way. (I've been very disappointed in my trips to Florida, which have been markedly un-gator infested.) We liked them so much we decided to spend the next day with them, too. Jeff had offhandedly mentioned that he'd like to go to the Kennedy Space Center one day, and Ali and Beau quickly secured tickets for all of us, including his parents, Deb and Tim, and brother, Gavin. We set out in time to get gas and coffee, planning to meet them there. What we didn...

 We're off to a great Thanksgiving holiday start and what may be a great tradition: vacation BEFORE the big meal. Part 1 of the #ThanksgivinginFExtravaganza began with a flight to Orlando and a 2.5 hour drive straight to Tampa on Friday. We had just enough time to pop in for a delightful and informative time at the Dali museum where I, for one, learned a lot more about the mustachioed artist than I had known before. Perhaps the most fun fact was that he was such a gifted artist in school - and there was plenty of evidence to show he could draw/paint startlingly realistic imagery - that he declared there was nothing his teachers could teach him. He was promptly expelled. The fantastical stuff he's known for responds to his rejection of the realities of war and authority figures. Super cool stop. We had dinner at a great place with our friend/advisor Joe Hudson. Read more about that in the food section below. Downtown Tampa was hopping Saturday evening, in part because of a pro h...