Tis the Season of Spooky

In five short days, it will be Halloween once again.  My favorite part of Halloween is the candy...not the spooky.  I don't like haunted houses. When I went through Disney's Haunted Mansion as a child, I kept a death grip on my Dad's hand all the way through.  I love a good road rally or scavenger hunt, but not ones that force me through haunted houses.  I don't watch Criminal Minds, CSI or any other similar show because I'll have nightmares for sure.  It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, is my speed.  

I will read a scary book, as long as it's not slasher scary.  My imagination is pretty vivid, but I can skip the scary parts and get back to the story.  I don't watch scary movies.  No horror.  No slasher flicks.  Nothing.  My idea of a great movie is one that has a great story line, good character development and can cause me to keep pondering on the movie after I leave.  Or just makes me laugh and forget about life.  This is why I watch more animated movies than most people my age without children.

Reflecting on why I have such a sour taste for the spooky, I've determined where this all started.  The Wizard of Oz.  Yes, that classic movie has forever turned me off the frightening.  When I watched this movie for the first time, I was probably 6 or 7.  I remember it vividly.   I was dressed in my PJs and curled up on the couch in our basement family room with my parents to experience my first viewing.  In preparation for the fun, I had a Twinkie and an Orange Crush.  All was wonderful and lighthearted until the Wicked Witch and her flying monkeys showed up.  Talk about spooky.  Her "I'll get you my pretty!...and your little dog too!!" scared my slippers off.  I enjoyed the movie again once she melted, but that was traumatic for a quiet, little child.  

That night when I went to bed I had my first memorable nightmare.  It involved the Wicked Witch, flying monkeys and whatever else that made me not sleep well.  I would suspect it had as much to do with the Twinkie and Orange Crush as it did the movie, but nonetheless, it has forever kept me from that which is spooky.

The moral of the story: Don't watch scary movies and eat Twinkies and drink Orange Crush.

The Gospel According to Find My iPhone

In today's news is a story of a woman who was stuck in a ravine at the foothills in San Jose, California, for 19 hours while rescuers tried to locate her.  She was driving a GM car fully equipped with OnStar and when she careened over the 500-foot ravine, it triggered a call to authorities.  The problem?  OnStar was way off.  When the police went to search for the car, they had no luck locating it at the indicated location.  Two hours later, the OnStar system sent a new alert indicating the car was in downtown San Jose.

Once the search came up null, a very smart detective asked her Mom if she had an iPad.  She did and he was able to crack the iPad code to get in.  Word on the street (or at least the Today Show) is authorities are equipped with ways to crack into mobile devices for emergency purposes.  Once he got into her iPad, he used the Find My iPhone app and was able to find her exact location.  Amazing.  Hate on Apple all you want folks, but this one saved a life.

I recently added an app to my phone, Life360, that puts me in the Blackwell family circle.  My friend, Beth, lives about 10 minutes from her house and if I become unresponsive to calls or texts, she can locate me.  Since I live alone, it's a good safety feature.  But, at times, it is inaccurate.  Not OnStar inaccurate, but not perfect.

When I heard this story this morning, I thought about how this woman depended on that great OnStar add-on to her vehicle for safety purposes, but if that was all she had, it would let her down.  Thankfully, the officers knew other mechanisms that were more precise that would help them find her and her car before it was too late.  Good thing, or this story would not have had a happy ending.

So many times when we are in the ravines of life, we are depending on a faulty backup plan to get us out.  We figure we can handle things in our own strength and have all the resources we need to get out of the pit.  But, that's not the case.  We need the One who always knows exactly where we are...whether we are on the mountaintop or upside down in a ravine.  Though Apple isn't infallible, our God is and we are the apple of His eye.  He can spot us wherever we may find ourselves, wherever we may run to hide.  He will always be our Rescuer. 

Cooking at the Cottage

Every year my company hosts an annual event called "Day Away."  When we were first acquired, this consisted of flying every employee in North America to San Francisco for a one-day event.  We were told that every other year the Day Away would be in Lake Tahoe.  Obviously our mouths were agape at the thought of such a swanky event.  After the first Day Away we participated in, the event changed drastically...and probably for the good of the company.  No more expensive jaunts, but a picnic hosted at headquarters for the office and a budget provided for remote offices to host their own event.

Last year we brought in barbeque and gelato for the day, which food always makes our office happy.  This year, our office VP wanted to do something more "off-site" that everyone would enjoy.  I suggested a cooking class at a local establishment - Cooking at the Cottage - and he began to investigate.  I'd never been to this place, though we had done a similar cooking team building experience at another location prior to our acquisition.  It's a fun time where you get to work with your peers and eat the results.  And, as I said earlier, we always love food.

On Friday, we all headed over for our "Day Away" which was really a "Half-Day Away."  One of our co-workers had organized the teams of two and we were ready to go.  The day began with all of us donning our aprons and it felt like we were stepping on the set of a cooking show to amaze the world with our talents.

Our first course was a Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup.  I love sweet potatoes and I love hot things, so I was excited about trying this recipe.  We mixed up all the goodness in a pot which included spices, brown sugar and the chipotle adobe sauce as our sweet potatoes got nice and mushy.  Then, we pulled the pot off the burner and used an amazing kitchen tool - an immersion blender.  I've seen them before, but never live and in action.  This tool is a must for creamy soups.  As my teammate, Lindsay, blended (because she has one and is a pro), I added the coconut milk.  The chef came over and called our soup beautiful and my day was complete.  A squirt of lime and cilantro on top and this course was in the books...and our stomachs.

The second course was a grilled salmon, pan-crusted with ginger and garlic with grilled veggies.  Salmon (or any fish for that matter) is tricky to cook...or more appropriately, not over cook.  Lindsay and I watched the salmon like a hawk and though it cooked up beautifully, our pan was done.  The recipe allowed for the remaining spices to be used in the same pan while grilling the veggies.  But, since our salmon was REALLY pan-crusted, we had to disband that option and start with a fresh pan.  As we proclaimed, "overachievers unite!"  Our veggies turned out just fine and the chefs provided some white rice to each of us to pair with our salmon and veggies.  It was yummy.

The final course was a poached pear wrapped in phyllo dough and drenched in chocolate sauce.  The chefs had already poached our pears to save time and then demonstrated how to wrap the phyllo dough for maximum performance.  It was the easiest of the courses and involved chocolate, so you can't go wrong there.  It was deliciously delectable and spawned other ideas on ways to poach other fruits and prep for the same kind of dessert. 

Everyone in attendance had a blast.  It was a huge success and I'm sure we'll do it again.  I rarely cook, though I do enjoy it and was not only delectable but educational.  Look out Martha Stewart, here I come!