Queen of the Foamers!

Some of you may be wondering what a Foamer is and why they need a queen. Well, I learned all about foamers when I first met Greg. On August 7, 1988, after our 10-year KU reunion picnic, he invited me to his apartment to look at his slides. Being the very worldly urbanite that I was, I figured this was just a new take on "come see my etchings." Turns out he really did just want to show me slides, which was really geeky since the only other person I knew with slides was my Grandma Mary. We looked at slides of train locomotives...lots and lots of them. Sometime during this ordeal he told me that guys who are train enthusiasts call themselves "foamers"--that is to say, they foam at the mouth whenever they see a train. Even as I write this, I still can't believe that I found this to be cute and endearing and that a year later we were married. Astonishing!

Anyway, back to the queen part. When Greg moved to Portland when we got married, he met some other foamers and started going out on Friday nights with them. When they changed bars (to one where the ladies room actually had a roof) I decided to join them. I soon discovered that while they were basically nice guys, they are all a little odd in one way or another and ergo there is a reason they were all single. Nonetheless, in either 1991 or 1992, I decided to throw a party on Superbowl Sunday. In spite of the hideous olive balls, it was a lot of fun and I've been throwing one ever since. Somewhere along the line I also started making birthday cakes for most of the guys and eventually I crowned myself Queen of the Foamers. They are really like a bunch of puppies--if you leave out food for them they'll follow you anywhere!

Over the years I've refined the menu (no more olive balls) and so I basically do the same thing every year--except last year and there was hell to pay. I'm going to slide in a smoked salmon ball and some asparagus spear rollups, but aside from that I'm sticking to the traditional baked roast beef and turkey sandwiches that have made me famous. Yes, the recipe comes from my sister, but they don't know her so I take all the credit for it. Hmmm....maybe the shrimp ceviche would work...

I'm hoping that Suzanne is in good form. The last time we saw the guys at the train depot was the weekend of the gurgling squirters--rotovirus. These are guys who aren't married and don't have children, so they are pretty scared of Suzanne. Not because she has Down Syndrome, but because she is a 3 year old girl. I don't really blame them--she smelled so bad and pooped all over the inside of the Explorer, which wasn't really the impression I wanted to leave with anyone. Maybe this weekend we'll get really cute and adorable Suzanne. Although if she lets out one of her man-burps, they'll probably get a kick out of it.

Kirk is thrilled. He is going to be in a play on Friday, his basketball game and a hockey game on Saturday, and the Superbowl on Sunday. He informed me this morning that this was going to be his best weekend ever. Kirk is a boy who knows how to enjoy his life.

Oh well, the Queen had better get off her throne and start a shopping list!

What a whirlwind. Like the east winds that come blasting down the Columbia River Gorge, the last month has absolutely flown by. January is supposed to be a boring month, but for me...not so much.

Christmas was fun. We had a great party on 12/22 and I was thrilled with the turnout. I made a signature party drink called a Cranberry Smash and I couldn't mix them fast enough. We had very few leftovers (Susan, as usual, planned my menu for me...) and no one wanted to leave. I think it was a success and I was quite thrilled by it all.

Suzanne really got into the opening of presents this year. She didn't quite know what to do with the boxes once she got them open, but she enjoyed the chaos of it all. Kirk was more than helpful with the unwrapping and opening of her boxes. He doesn't really care who the boxes are for--he just likes to unwrap things. He got a Wii and fortunately for me, it was easy to set up. It is quite a clever game with an interactive remote. And it is harder than it looks. I pulled a muscle in my fanny playing the bowling game and I still barely made it over 100!

Mom and Dad came up for New Year's this time and we took them to the New Year's Eve hockey game. I think mom enjoyed it even though we lost. This is a "transitional" year for the WinterHawks, which is to say that our team really stinks. Oh well, it was fun anyway. One of the highlights was my hike with Hilary out to the parking garage to change her flat tire. Yes, Hilary had a tire that was low and instead of taking care of it beforehand (head-in-the-sand-Hilary) she drove downtown anyway. I was a bit perturbed when I discovered that Hilary did not have a lug wrench, but fortunately the nice young men who were smoking in the garage were happy to help. Turns out they were waiting for their wives and kids to get to the car--nothing sinister about that.

After we took care of Hilary's problem, she went off to a party where she got into some kind of tiff with her not-boyfriend, Jesse. Long story there...

Since we wore out mom and dad, home we went where everyone collapsed into bed well before midnight and Greg and I went to a party at the neighbors. This seems to be a recurring theme when mom and dad come up--run their legs off until they drop and then send them home to recuperate.

An interesting thing happened at the airport--when Suzanne figured out that Grandma and Grandpa were not getting back into the car she started to cry. In fact, she blubbered all the way back to the freeway and then started hiccuping. Glad mom didn't see that--it would have done her in!

Since then, things have been rather chaotic. The weather has been dismal, which means that we've had a couple of snow days--kids at home being bored, so fun! Then we had a rather nasty run-in with the rotovirus, which took Suzanne and me out for an entire week. Blech! Suzanne is a trouper, though. She would blast a cloud of the most foul-smelling gas imaginable and giggle at the sound she made. As horrible as it was, she had a much better attitude than me.

2008 is not starting very auspiciously, but we have no where else to go but up!