Toys for Tats

I bought a lot of toys when my two boys were little. To their great disappointment, many of those toys went into the toy closet, unopened, and have stayed there for years. These were not-to-be-played with toys. These were, in fact, investment toys, meant to be sold later when they had increased in both rarity and value.

I've put a few on eBay over the years. Like all investments, some turned out to be a bust, like the Willow action figures that wouldn't even bring a dollar each. Others were absolute steals that paid off very well – a Star Wars Micro Playset bought for $5.99 brought $59.99. I don't do math well enough to know exactly what kind of payoff that was, but I liked it.

This fall I heard eBay was running a half-off-listing-fees sale, and I jumped on it. After I listed fifty-some toys, I sat back to watch the bidding action. I figured the Disney "Dinosaurs" talking Baby would be a sure thing because they'd been selling for big bucks. But no, the auction ended without one bid, and I still have my Baby. But every New Kids on the Block doll went fast. Those Jonathans and Jordans I bought in honor of my boys' names are still popular with ex-teenyboppers, I guess.

The last sale I made was a 1990s Batcopter. The buyer said he lived in Spokane, and could he come pick it up? Knowing how lost people get when they try to find our home in the country, I said I'd drop it off at his workplace in Spokane Valley. Turns out he works at a tattoo parlor, and so yesterday I made my very first visit to such an establishment. The young receptionist was very much like Abby on NCIS: black hair, cheerful, tattooed. She said my buyer wasn't in, but she'd give him the toy.

Later the buyer emailed me and asked if I had anything else to sell, because he and his brother collect 1980s and 1990s toys. Oh Joy! I can give him a list and maybe, just maybe, he'll take those Willow action figures off my hands. And maybe I can finally get that little butterfly on my...

Although if he's thinking of trading tattoos for toys, I guess he'll have to think again, and my butterfly will have to wait. It just wouldn't be appropriate. As my Scotty said, "No Toys for Tats, Dearest." ;)

Last of the Fab Fifties

Four friends and I turned fifty this year. We're all part of the close-knit staff of Spokane's Union Gospel Mission homeless shelter, and our birthday bashes stretched from January through December. But that's not everyone – my husband, Scotty, and our friends John and Ann also hit the mid-century mark in 2008. We're the tail end of the Great Baby Boom, and my December birthday made me the tail end of the 2008 Fifties Club.

I'd heard from my husband that turning fifty wouldn't be easy, and he was right. It was a shock when I filled out a form online yesterday and had to type in 50 instead of 49. More than any other birthday, this one portends the downhill slide toward old age. I'm noticing more of the gray I've been struggling to cover (see "Why I Decided to Go Gray"). I can feel a little stiffness in my knees, and my clothes seem to have shrunk.

On the other hand, I have countless blessings, including amazing kids & grandkids and a wonderful husband of two years. May the next fifty far surpass the first.

Bidding Goodbye - to Stuff

Stuff. Too much, far too much, the accumulation of 25 years of living in the same place. A place that has far, far too much space in which to store the stuff. I have a house with large closets, a full basement, a big and very accessible attic, a garage that fits two cars with plenty of room left over, and an enormous barn with three levels of empty just begging to be filled. And, regrettably, it almost is.

And it isn't just my stuff. There's also the stuff I've kept that belonged to my late husband - tools, mostly, and some glassware he liked to collect. Then there's the kids' toys, only the kids are now 23 and 25. The attic is half full of empty Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles boxes waiting to be reunited with the proper vintage of Donatello, Rafaelo, or Michaelangelo.

There's also a bit of Scotty's stuff, although he is the antithesis of a pack rat. He packed pretty light coming into our marriage.

Mostly, though, it's mine, and that "mostly" consists of books I've never read and never will, though they look interesting; books from my children's childhood days that they may remember and want for their own kids someday; toys, either from my own childhood or from the childhood I thought I wanted, where every toy-related wish is fulfilled; clothes of various sizes fitting the skinny me, the average me, and the upsized me; a pantry full of things like brownie mixes that are going on four years old; and around 450 video tapes full of old tv shows, movies, and home videos.

That's not to mention the antique stove sitting in the basement that looks pretty, doesn't work, and isn't attracting any bids on eBay. What do you do with a "Monarch Malleable Range" that's too valuable to give away but nobody wants? (Want to look me up on eBay? I'm "gibbsj.")

Then there are all those antique vases that are probably worth something, but I don't know what. So I might list them for $20 on eBay only to find they're actually worth $400. Oops. I could sell the whole kit'n caboodle to an antiques dealer, but she'd know exactly what it was worth and I still wouldn't. That stuff doesn't always come labeled with a convenient tag, like, "This is a very rare, very desirable, very expensive lemonware glass shaped like a tulip with a solid sterling base and made in Holland around 1900, and you shouldn't take any less than your firstborn child for it."

Lamps. I got lamps. We closed down the lake house and brought a whole houseful of stuff back, and most of it is still stored in the barn, including all the lamps, which joined ranks with the overflow of lamps from the house. I must have 30 lamps. Extras, that is. My aunt offered me $75 for one of them, but it was so Art Deco ugly that I gave it to her just to get it out of my sight.

It's funny what people want. I advertised a faded red fire hydrant labeled "1949 San Francisco" on craigslist.com. Within an hour I had an offer, and later I had two more. I got a bit of welcome cash for it with only ten minutes' work to take a photo and list it.

But nobody wants the Arnold S. "Terminator" doll with glowing eyes. Come on, he even talks! But there's a few dozen of his clones on eBay, and none of them are selling either. So my "investment" just sits in the toy closet and gets dustier.

Not so with my talking Steve Urkel doll (remember Family Matters?). Someone snapped him up within a couple hours' of his appearance on eBay, and they paid a pretty penny for a doll I got for a few bucks on a clearance table.

There are other, non-eBay ways of clearing the clutter, and I don't mean the illegal burn barrel next to the barn. We have at least ten charity-related thrift stores in Spokane that will take most anything, as long as it isn't stained, ripped, or missing pieces. (They wouldn't have taken my vintage Star Wars C-3PO model kit, but some guy in Ireland did.) I have four big bags and a box full of stuff in the trunk, ready to go to my favorite, the Union Gospel Mission's Classy Rack in Spokane Valley. Great people work there, including some who are recovering addicts or formerly homeless. People who are working hard to restore their lives with God's help.

My goal is to dejunk, declutter, and clean out the freezer in the next two months. I sold 19 toys on eBay in the past week and a half, so there's hope the next 26 items will sell too. And after that, I only have 4,368 items to go. Pray for me.

Why I've Decided to Go Gray

Have you ever had a rash from poison oak or poison ivy? Red, raised, fiery, welted patches of pure agonizing itch that spread... if you've had it, you remember it well. It's called contact dermatitis, and it happens when sensitive skin is exposed to an allergen.

Common hair coloring dyes can have the same effect in some people. Unfortunately "some people" includes me. When I was young and didn't have any gray hair to cover, any old dye would do. I had some fun experimenting with exotic sounding colors like "Warm Golden Sable Brown," which looked a lot like brown, and "Honey Champagne Rosewood Sable," which also looked a lot like brown.

Now that I'm approaching 50 and really need the helpful coverage that little box of Clairol can render to my aging brunette locks, I can't use it. The slightest touch of any dye with p-Phenylenediamine (PPD) will send the nearest patch of skin into an itchy hell. And I don't use that word lightly. I had a reaction so bad once that I had to go to the emergency room and get a steroid shot to get me back to normal. It took a week.

I looked online for a hypoallergenic alternative and found Herbatint. Yes, it still has PPD, says the hype, but so little that "most allergic people don't react." I bought a box of "Honey Warm Sable Ash," or something like that, at the local health food store. Following the directions for once, I did what's called a patch test. I mixed some of the chemicals, smeared the mixture inside my left elbow, and didn't wash it off. "Leave for 48 hours," said the directions, "and if no reaction is seen, proceed with coloring hair."

Oh my, it didn't take 48 hours. It didn't take 24 hours. It took six hours for the inside of said elbow to become inflamed, well beyond the two-inch spot where I dabbed the dye. Because I have friends who read this blog who have an averse reaction to any mention of "swelling," I'll leave it at that.

Three days later, I am in a daily regimen of swathing my poor arm in burn gel - it's the only thing that helps - covered by sterile gauze and wrapped in that stretchy athletic wrap stuff. This was my last try at covering up my encroaching age. I give up. And so I will go gentle into that dark, er, gray night, and I'll go proudly.

Disaster Averted, Pumpkin Pie Triumphs

I failed the holiday acid test. Thanksgiving Day was PP-Day: it was high time for me make my first pumpkin pie, especially since it was on my husband's "it isn't Thanksgiving without it" list.

I already had an apple pie and a chocolate cream pie sitting on the counter - sure things I'd made many times. I pulled out the recipe for pumpkin pie and found it required two eggs. Oh no. I had just used my second-to-last egg in the pie crust recipe, so I was down to one egg in the carton.

There was no way I was going to drive 22 miles round-trip to the nearest little neighborhood market on the chance they'd 1) be open and 2) have eggs. No worries, I reassured myself. I'd just flip open my laptop and Google a one-egg pumpkin pie recipe.

Good idea, but no luck - every recipe started at two eggs and worked up to six, depending on the fat & calories one desired in their pie. So out the window went the pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. I was appalled by my lack of planning, but my gracious and understanding husband said it was fine, two pies of the non-pumpkin variety were plenty.

So Sunday (yesterday) rolled around, and I removed my homemade, waiting-for-pumpkin pie shell from the freezer. I had a full carton of eggs, my son and his special girl were coming over, and pie would be had. Pumpkin pie.

As the guests were arriving, I emptied out the can of pumpkin into a bowl and snipped off the recipe on the back. I couldn't read the micro-sized type, so after a failed attempt to blow it up on the copier (which just made it fuzzy), or decipher it with reading glasses (which weren't powerful enough), I peered through a magnifying glass and found, to my horror, that the Libby's recipe required a 12-oz can of evaporated milk.

I usually read through recipes first, but not this time. I had every ingredient mixed and waiting except the canned evaporated milk. I went to the basement, where I have a pantry that would feed the whole neighborhood during a six-month siege - but no evaporated milk.

I did have just over one cup of heavy cream. My son's special girl, who is in her second year of studying culinary arts, agreed that maybe I could substitute it for the evaporated milk. My thought process went like this: evaporated milk is like double-strength milk, and heavy cream is, well, rich and creamy. There was no way I was going to drive 22 miles round-trip to the nearest little neighborhood market for a can of evaporated milk. So why not try? All I had to lose was a homemade pie crust, some inexpensive ingredients, and my reputation as a pie-maker.

I baked the pie per instructions, which seemed kind of odd: a few minutes at 450, and quite a while at 350, then test the middle with a sharp knife. The pie took longer to set than it should have, and both my boy and his girl refused to try it (neither one is a pumpkin pie fan, so I can't blame them; I would've declined too).

My husband galantly stepped up and tasted a still-warm piece slathered in enough Cool Whip to drown out the flavor. The pie was lighter colored than the pies I remembered from family Thanksgivings, but Scotty pronounced it "very good!" And he wasn't just humoring me. He asked for another piece. I then tried my second piece of pumpkin pie ever (my first was a commercially baked "sugar free" pie), again with the Cool Whip. Dang tasty. I don't want another piece, and it'll never be something I make because I enjoy it, but I would've been proud to serve it.

Next year at Thanksgiving, I'll keep the heavy cream handy. Because everybody needs a secret ingredient.

Two Years of Laughing

I had never laughed as much or as hard as I have in the past two years. Actually two years, four months, seven days – since the day Scotty came into my life. November 11 marked our second wedding anniversary, and although there are many things I adore about this man, I think the laughter he's brought into my life is one of the most precious.

We have fun, and that's something that was in short supply during the previous 25 years. Life was pretty serious then. Now I have a life companion who knows how to be both silly and serious, goofy and gracious, knowledgeable and knee-slapping. I'm a lot of those things too, but they were hidden, and he's brought them out in me in a new way. I can really be me and he can really be him, and together we're just plain weird. We have to tone it down around normal people.

Now that's pretty sappy, isn't it. But it's the truth - we have fun in our mutual goofiness. Happy anniversary to us.

What Is the Value of Pie?

I'm not afraid to bake a pie. I've heard rumors there are women who are afraid to try because they're intimidated by the intricate process of crust making, or they've failed to make a perfect crust in the past. Being afraid is far different from being satisfied with the fake, store-bought pies from the bakery. Fear I can understand; I'm scared of souffles and any kind of dough that has to be kneaded (doesn't everyone want to be kneaded?). But take heart if you're among the piecrust-fearful; it's worth it to keep trying.

I wouldn't eat pie when I was a kid. The mixture of flavors and textures wasn't appealing, so I just ate the plain apples or the cherries on their own. Chocolate pie was the exception, because I can't resist chocolate in most any form and because Mom made it from scratch, producing a dessert with a perfectly flaky crust, richly flavorful chocolate pudding filling, and real vanilla-flavored whipped cream on top. Nobody could resist Mom's chocolate pie.

I don't remember the first time I actually made an apple pie, but I think it was the day my mother-in-law asked me to bring a pumpkin pie to a family gathering - Thanksgiving, probably. I disliked pumpkin pie even more than apple pie, and I couldn't stand the thought of contributing something I so detested.

After I convinced her that apple pie was a better choice, I decided to bake instead of buy, for two reasons: thrift and tradition. In my family, one never, simply never, bought a pie of any kind. The closest bakery was at least 12 miles away, and besides, pie making was an art practiced and perfected among my maternal ancestors. If I couldn't make my own pie, I wasn't my mother's daughter or my Grammie's granddaughter. No pressure from them of course; this was all my own delusion. Back then I was still adventuresome in the kitchen and didn't realize so many things can go wrong with a pie: dough that tore apart when rolled, a tough crust, tasteless filling, burnt edges, chewy fruit instead of tender.

I called my mother for her recipe. She lived too far away to come and help me, although kind as she is, she probably would have made the 300-mile drive. She let me in on a secret: her renowned piecrust had two special ingredients - vinegar and egg. This combo made the dough practically fool-proof, which was perfect for a young and foolish wannabe baker like me. I rolled up my sleeves, put on one of those fru-fru aprons, and baked my first apple pie.

If you're expecting a disaster story, forget it; although I hated the floury, sticky mess that was left to clean up, my pie was good enough to please not only my former m-i-l but also her whole family. They were easy to please, not having a lot of experience with homemade pie. Their bakery was only three blocks away, and they weren't much into baking. And so I became the family's designated pie baker, which was fine with me because my only other choice was "designated potato salad maker," and I detested potato salad. I've still never made one and I'm pushing 50.

But I did eventually taste my own pie, because I figured "just once" wouldn't kill me, and I fell in like. When you spend at least an hour creating a dessert, it's practically sinful to let other people eat all of it. Apple pie still isn't my favorite dessert (that title is permanently reserved for something with chocolate in it), but I always enjoy at least one piece, warm from the oven with vanilla ice cream melting down the sides. What I value even more is the look on Scott's face and his "Ahhh..." after the first bite. You'll never get that satiated look or that satisfied sound by serving a store-bought pie.

Over the almost 30 years since unveiling my first pie, I've worked to perfect my own recipe. Experimenting with a combo of apple varieties, a dash of other spices along with cinnamon, chilled dough, and a few other tricks are making it a little better each time. It's one of my favorite things to do on a fall afternoon, especially when I've picked too many apples to fit in the fridge. They have to go somewhere, and there's no better place than in a homemade piecrust. The bounty of this year's crop of Jonathans, Romes, and Golden Delicious is sitting on our side porch in plastic bags, waiting to be peeled, wedged, cored, and sliced.

A fresh, homemade apple pie is such a treasure to certain friends that they'll take them in exchange for doing things like looking after our cat and gathering our mail while we're out of town. They'd do these things anyway, but the pies are a sight more welcome than a thank-you note. We have a friend who shoveled our long, steep driveway after a heavy snow; we offered to pay him for his three hours of bone-chilling work that left him looking like Jack Frost. All he wanted was an apple pie.

I do have a pie-related goal, or perhaps it's a pie-fear to overcome: making a pumpkin pie once in my life that will make Scott go "Ahh..." I won't eat it - that's too big a goal. Well, maybe I'll try it. Just once won't kill me.