light the corners of my mind
Diana, Kris, Mark, and Aaron pose in the parking lot after the Dirtbombs show on 21 September 2002, at the Magic Stick in Detroit. We sat the camera — whose was it? — on the roof of the car, set the timer, and posed together behind the back bumper.
Diana and Aaron are both at maximum girth (and still engaged), Mark is younger and skinnier, and Kris… well, he’s just Kris. At least some things never change.
(Incidentally? I officially started blogging the day after this photo was taken.)
It’s become a New Year’s tradition for me to write a retrospective of what has happened over the course of the past year, and I’ve found that I really enjoy going back and reading past years’ reviews. They tend to encapsulate the important things, the high and low points, and some things that I would normally have forgotten by the end of the following year.
For quick reference, I have Years In Review from 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and now 2008.
Instead of going entirely chronologically this year, I’m going to group the major happenings by topics.
Hot topic #1 for 2008: Weight Loss. I started out the year with a weight-loss challenge against my friend and former co-worker, James. We both started out strong, but fell off the wagon after about a month and a half. In March, we spearheaded a new Spring Challenge, which lasted for another couple of months before we mutually decided to call it quits.
I didn’t call it quits entirely, though. Shortly before we decided to end our Challenge, I joined Weight Watchers — on my 32nd birthday, in fact. Since then, I’ve lost about 20 pounds in eight months. Aaron’s joined up, too, with the online program, and lost over 60 pounds in six months. We’re both looking and feeling much better, and a “normal” and healthy weight is just within reach.
Earlier this evening, I posted to Twitter:
Busting out my DVD of Christmas on Sesame Street and preparing to make the annual sausage cake. Yes, there’s really sausage in it.Aw, Mr. Hooper! This is making me cry already. Not good. BTW, Big Bird ice skates about as well as I do.
Now, sausage cake is a regular Christmas tradition (whether I’m dieting or not), but I hadn’t seen Christmas Eve on Sesame Street in years and years. So, when I decided to combine the two into a new yuletide tradition, I hadn’t counted on the fact that Sesame Street would make me bawl.
I’m not sure why this happens. Maybe my 32-year-old heart just can’t handle remembering what it felt like to be a wondering little four-year-old. When something hits me just right, though, like this DVD bringing back those memories of curling up with Mom and Memaw, watching my favorite Christmas specials by the flicker of pillar candles — I just lose it. I used to be such a rock, too.
Anyway, between wondering whether kids these days know that there really was a Mr. Hooper, and realizing that David really was pretty cute, and signing (and singing) along with Keep Christmas With You, I actually did manage to make some sausage cake.
I mentioned yesterday on Facebook that I’d be making sausage cake soon. Some of the responses:
Barb: sausage cake?
Me: it’s a family tradition! it’s like a spice cake, with raisins and cinnamon, but with sausage and chuck in the mix. supposed to be an old welsh recipe.
Manh: sausage cake?, i was thinkin’ the same thing
Barb: Hmmm, sounds interesting but I think I’ll pass…
Jess: I don’t know about sausage cake… is it greasy or do you brown and rinse the meat prior to adding to the cake?
As I’ve mentioned before, the sausage cake is a Cook family holiday tradition. Since I’m sworn to secrecy about the recipe, I can’t share with you all the gory details, but there are some parts of the baking that really hark back to my childhood, like mixing the ingredients with my hands (see above). It looks gross, but it’s the perfect job for little hands, and it brings back great, giggly memories.
There are other parts that my mom used to do that make me feel grown-up now, like making the brown sugar topping. It’s kind of a candymaking sort of affair, and it takes a strong arm to beat the syrup as it cools. It’s also a challenge to pour the topping on the cakes before it hardens. I remember watching Mom making this when I was a child, standing nearby and smelling the spices and listening to the sound of the brown sugar syrup as it crackled and cooled.
I wonder if any of my more distant cousins on Grandpa Cook’s side of the family make this recipe every year? I wonder if they have memories of it like I do? Wouldn’t it be neat if I met or wrote to my cousins someday, and we had this in common?
I wonder how far back this recipe goes…?
The coffee shop where we had our first date is now a Mexican restaurant. The local restaurant where we had a delicious lobster and prime rib dinner the night Aaron proposed is now a different, franchised restaurant.
I hope nothing happens to Prout Chapel, where we got married. Maybe we should start celebrating milestones in places we don’t have any intention of going again…
(Side note: I should probably scan and post some of our wedding photos from 2003 to my Flickr; it’s been long enough that I’m sure our photographer wouldn’t mind. Too much.)
From: Diana
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2008 4:13 PM
To: sheryls
Subject: RE: o man
Oh, it was fantastic playing Starcraft with the guys at RCC. We’d go to Kreischer-Compton lab after-hours during the summer, hack the imaged PCs so we could network the game, and play Starcraft in the dark using cloned discs. Jamie would always be the Zerg, and Jamie’s Phish-loving friend Josh would always be the Protoss. And I’d always be Human, and there were other people who’d rotate in and out, like Kirkum and Gerbil. But one of the humans would finally get nukes, and launch them at Jamie’s Zerg, and everyone’s computer would calmly say, “Nuclear launch detected.” And Jamie would ALWAYS half-stand up and say, “WHAT THE FUCK?!” And we’d all look for the tiny red dot that tells you where the nuke’s going to land.
Good times. 😀