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If you’re wondering what exciting things you can look forward to in the new year, you’ve come to the right place.

February 22, 2022 (2/22/22) will fall on a Tuesday, thereby making it 2’s day, or Two’s Day.

The husband sent a text to the entire family alerting them to this spectacular event, adding that he was so excited he could hardly contain himself.

The response was underwhelming.

Eventually his Two’s Day text was acknowledged with a thumbs up, then a heart, then late in the evening came an offer to make him a pie.

I think the pie was a comfort food offer to ease the pain of others not sharing his excitement. Naturally, one would hope the pie would have two crusts filled with two very large sliced apples, baked at 200 degrees times 2.

Or perhaps the one who offered pie was thinking of Pi Day (March 14 or 3.14), which he also celebrates, as do I for obvious reasons. (Pie.)

The man can’t help himself. He is a numbers guy, a detail guy, a record-keeping guy and a history guy. When that is who you are, life doesn’t get much better than 2/22/22.

Well, that is unless you were married on 5/6/78. Yep. That was pretty good, too. For some people, life changes on a dime; for us it changed on a 5678.

He says the only thing better would have been if we were pronounced husband and wife at 12:34. On 5/6/7/8.

Please don’t make me spell it out. Or count it out.

As it turns out, a smattering of groups have designated February 22  as “their day” and hopefully will tailor celebrations with a nod to Two’s Day: World Spay Day (sign pets up in 2’s), World Thinking Day (distribute “Two Heads are Better Than One” buttons), National Cook a Sweet Potato Day (two at a time, please) and National Margarita Day (make it a double?).

The only people more excited than my better half are those who were born on Feb. 2, 2000 and will celebrate their 22^nd birthday in 2022.

And you were thinking it was going to be a cold and dreary, long, gray winter.

I’m anticipating a lot of “Two for One” sales and “Two for One” meals. Taco Two’s Day has a nice ring.

On the flip side, there’s always the danger of the Dollar Store becoming the Two Dollar Store for the day.

Still, the possibilities for celebration are endless.

Fireworks at 2:22 a.m. and p.m. Say everything twice. Eat twice as much. Send every text twice and when you answer the phone say hello twice.

Have Tea for Two while reading a Tale of Two Cities.

Better yet, do what we do when we routinely leave home. Lock the house, get in the car then run back inside for your glasses. Lock up again, get in the car again, then run back inside a second time to make sure the gas burners on the stove are off.

For us, every day is Two’s Day.

 

I keep coming across stories promoting exercises for your face. They claim you can tone your face, firm your double chin, sculpt your cheeks and reduce wrinkles on your neck with a few simple exercises.

I’m here to say I quit. I know, I know. I haven’t even started, but I quit.

I come from people who wrinkle. Both sides of my family crease like cotton sheets left in the dryer too long.

Both my grandmothers wrinkled, my mother wrinkled and I’m in the process of wrinkling. It’s in the genes. “Genes” that are perma-wrinkle.

I’ve watched a few tutorials on cheek sculpting exercises and, frankly, some of them border on dangerous.

An exercise known as The Owl says to place an index finger above and parallel to each eyebrow and your thumbs below your eyes on your cheeks. Then make big eyes while the fingers create resistance to the stretching muscles. It looks like you’re pretending to wear imaginary glasses. Personally, I doubt the exercise reduces wrinkles, but it may make you look like you’re losing your mind.

The most practical facial exercise I’ve come across is the one where you turn your neck from side to side. Theoretically, this will lift your sagging double chin and tighten the folds in your neck. I’ve been jerking my neck from side to side for years, changing lanes and merge onto the interstate, but it hasn’t done a thing.

Another exercise advises placing your index fingers at the outermost edges of your eyebrows and trying to lift your brows against the pressure of your fingers. It looks like the onset of a migraine.

Then there’s the exercise where you tilt your head way back and place your fingers near your collarbones while pulling your chin up. It might tighten some muscles, but you can also look like you’re choking. Do that one only if you’re willing to risk someone charging up to you and performing the Heimlich maneuver.

The fact is, I’ve always looked a lot like my mother. As she aged, she used to try and scare me by cupping her wrinkled face in her hands and saying, “Behold, your future.”

I would scare her back by cupping my face in my hands and saying, “Behold, your future caretaker.”

She often screamed.

She claimed her doctor told her to never sleep on her stomach, as the pull of gravity encouraged wrinkles. She was glad for the warning, but said it came about 20 years too late.

Save yourself!

I’m a side sleeper, but I don’t think my right side is any more wrinkled than my left side. At least my wrinkles are symmetrical. There’s always something to be grateful for.

A friend has long said she dislikes movers and shakers because they constantly move and shake everybody else.

It does seem that way. Movers and shakers at the top determine what we pay in taxes, how fast we can drive on the interstate and choose our friends and enemies for us around the world.

Particularly aggressive movers and shakers even attempt to dictate which words we can use and the thoughts we can think.

We can take solace knowing that for every tier of movers and shakers today, there eventually will be another tier of movers and shakers above them and another above them ad infinitum.

Deep within those layers are the movers and shakers that were part of the first Christmas as it unfolded millennia ago. Powerful people thought they were calling the shots, but they were small players in a story of incomprehensible grandeur.

Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus issued an order for a census. And so it was that a young expectant couple made their way to Bethlehem. When King Herod learned a star had risen signaling a king was about to be born, he commanded the Magi to report back to him when they found this baby. The Magi gave him the slip.

Like every period in history, there were the powerful and the powerless at the time of Christ’s birth. The powerful, who were few, lived lavish lives while the vast majority scraped by under the shadows of coercion and brutality. Most people lived somewhere on a continuum between weariness and despair.

It wasn’t just a dark night when Christ was born; it was a dark time.

The young couple featured prominently in the narrative were downwardly mobile peasants. Neither were influencers like those today with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. Although, ironically, like many big stars of today, the mother of Jesus is instantly known by one name.

Mary.

Far from all things familiar, in a strange town and a very strange place for giving birth, Mary labored and delivered on a humble bed of straw. Who would have thought such an obscure beginning would forever mark history?

Shortly after the birth is when the real movin’ and shakin’ began. Celestial beings lit up the skies over fields where ragged shepherds tended their sheep. It was a heavenly announcement delivered first to commoners, those with no position, power or social capital.

Why start with the lowly? Because God often works from the bottom up. Because God Himself took on humility coming as a baby in a manger. Because the ways of God are not the ways of man. Man sees on the outside; God sees the heart.

The invitation to come to the manger truly was, and remains today, a come one and come all, wherever you are, in whatever condition you are. Christmas is for the joyful and the grieving, the broken and the whole, for those filled with hope and for those who anguish in the night.

More than 2,000 years later, around the world, the heart of Christmas remains unchanged. It is an invitation to one and all to draw near. “You will find him wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

Come and see. Behold the wonder.

Question: In the history of the world, has it ever been effective for one person to tell another person who is wound up to “calm down”?

Asking for a friend.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that I was wound up about something and a certain someone I have been married to for four decades tells me to “calm down.” Instead of having a calming effect, this has a polar-opposite effect. I am wound one notch tighter because I have been instructed to “calm down.”

It’s not that I mind being told to take it down a notch, it’s that the phrase “calm down” instinctively triggers adrenaline.

Perhaps other responses might be more helpful, things along the lines of “breathe” or “count to 10” or “put down the knife, now is not a good time to chop vegetables.”

I do chop fast when I’m wound tight. I’ve been known to prepare an entire veggie stir fry in under 60 seconds. In the interest of safety, I never watch the nightly news while doing meal prep.

My better half means well, just like I mean well when I tell him to calm down. Loved ones often say a lot of well-meaning things to one another that can seem, well, not so loving. Meaning well and communicating well are not the same things.

Telling me to “calm down” is on a par with telling me to relax. That one makes me want to whip out a calendar and instruct the one telling me that to block out a few days.

A son-in-law sometimes tells his wife, “Keep your powder dry.” That might be more effective because it’s a visual. It essentially says, “Don’t fire yet because things could get a lot worse.”

I am of the belief that the happiest people are often optimistic pessimists. They are the ones quietly confident that a situation can always be worse, so they are never completely taken by surprise and thereby lapse into panic.

In preparation for World War II, the Brits printed “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters intended to raise morale, fortify those stiff upper lips and encourage self-discipline. The posters were rarely displayed in public and only became widely known after someone brought several original copies to Antiques Roadshow (a program that cannot only calm but put some fast asleep).

Many variations of “Keep Calm and Carry On” have been minted since then, some of which are extremely practical and helpful: Keep Calm and . . . Have Some Dip . . . Eat Chocolate . . . Pretend You’re at the Beach . . . Call Mom . . . Get New Glasses . . . Read A Book . . . Have Recess . . . Call Your Lawyer . . . Be A Unicorn . . .  Pray . . . Plant Trees . . . Wait for Santa.

“Keep Calm and Carry On” may have worked for the British, but unfortunately, I am not a Brit.

Fortunately, I do keep a small stash of dark chocolate.

There was a woman on the street where I grew up that put her Christmas tree away fully decorated every year. She would cover it with a sheet and scoot it into a cold, dreary utility room.

I used to think that was the saddest thing in the world. What had happened to her love of lights, ornaments and artificial pine cones?

I now know what happened— they were sucked into a vortex called Age.

We have just set a record for the time taken to set up the Christmas tree.

On Day One, I pressed the small button that opens the garage door. We can’t get our tree and decorations down from a shelf without opening the garage door. I pulled down four boxes of decorations, but the tree is too heavy for me. I’d done my part.

My better half took some recyclables to the garage later and saw boxes of decorations stacked by the door to the kitchen and the tree box still on the shelf. He closed the garage door.

Day Two: I opened the garage door again. We were now on the same wavelength as he moved the huge box with the tree from the shelf to the garage floor. Then he came inside to watch football.

Day Three:  I was out for the morning, came home and found the box holding the tree in the front room. Puzzling. We must have left the garage door open and the UPS delivery guy had hauled it inside.

I asked the husband if he wanted to set up the tree. He said sure and moved a big ladder into the front room. The ladder and the box sat untouched.

The day passed, the light faded and a beautiful sunset splashed across the evening sky. To get a better look, I hurdled over the tree box, tiptoed across the back of a love seat, dropped to the floor and squeezed between the ladder and a chair to get to the window. It was a challenge, but I needed the cardio and the sunset was worth it.

Day Four: I wrote “Set Me Free” in the dust accumulating on the tree box. I considered opening the box but remembered that I already did my part by opening the garage door.

Day Five: We have three granddaughters for the day. They love to decorate Christmas trees. The cavalry has arrived!

I leave for an appointment and they are giddy with excitement about setting up the tree while I am gone.

I return home a few hours later. Only the base of the tree is standing and nobody is decorating. The girls are doing a makeover on Grandpa, who is asleep on a love seat.  What hair he has left on top is wrapped around a red roller. His stylist yanks out the roller, fires up the blow dryer and blasts hairspray. Two others attempt to put his good shoes on him. Clearly, he’s not sound asleep because each time they try to wedge his foot with the thick athletic sock into a dress shoe, he grimaces.

The makeover complete, I am ordered into the kitchen so he can make an entrance and they can enjoy the big reveal.

He enters the kitchen holding a “love letter” printed on the computer in 100-point Balloon font. “Roses are red, violets are blue, no one in the world is a sweet as you.” They printed it; he signed it. I feign surprise at his poetry skills and kiss both his cheeks.

Everyone returns to the front room and sets up the tree.

Five days, one grandpa makeover and a short love letter was all it took to set up the tree—a personal best.

I just learned a new way to tell if you are “officially old.”

This tidbit comes courtesy of an 11-year-old granddaughter. She has no research to back this up, not a single poll or shred of scientific evidence. That said, she is keenly observant.

With exuberance and confidence, she shared her observation around a crowded dinner table: “Old people carry cash!”

There you have it. If you carry cash, you are old. Sorry to be the one to break it to you.

“Especially men!” she adds. “Have you looked in their wallets?”

Not lately. Asking anyone to look in their wallet is generally frowned upon.

The girl is immediately challenged with others asking how she knows older men carry cash and where she has seen all this cash.

On the receiving end of doubt, she immediately counters with, “I saw an older man with hundreds in his wallet!”

She didn’t mean hundreds of bills but $100 bills.

It was getting good now.

“Am I related to this man?” I asked.

The answer was no. The answer is always no.

Still trying to figure out where she is seeing all this cash in wallets, someone noted that she had been to a number of ballgames and school sporting events.

“She’s right,” I say. Like the girl, I have no hard evidence, but when I do speaking events followed by book sales, it always amazes me how many older people carry cash. The older the audience, the more cash payments and the fewer the credit card swipes.

In part, I am amazed by this phenomenon because I rarely carry cash. I currently have one $10 bill in my wallet. It is the same $10 that has been in my wallet for the past three months. It’s only there now because my husband put it there. The fact that I don’t carry cash does not mean that I am not old; it means I’m more like the exception to the rule.

My late father-in-law always carried cash. At the end of any family gathering, all the grandkids knew that Grandpa would get out his wallet and give each of them a $1 bill as he said his goodbyes. After he died, my sister-in-law found an envelope in a drawer filled with $1 bills. It was a sweet tradition.

Someone else adds to the conversation that fewer people of all ages have been carrying cash over the last few years. Even fewer since the pandemic.

Another grand, age 9, has been sitting quietly taking in all the talk about paper money. There is a momentary pause and she quietly says, “Grover Cleveland is on the thousand-dollar bill.”

Say what?

I fact checked her. That’s right, I fact checked the grandkids. She’s right. Cleveland is on the thousand-dollar bill, which was last printed in 1945.

We don’t know how they know what they know, but we’re glad they know. They keep us young, even though we’re old.

What’s in your wallet?

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If you’d like a peek at the Outdoor Thanksgiving, click here https://loriborgman.com/2021/11/28/thanksgiving-in-the-woods/

Book signing Thursday, Dec. 2nd at Spencer Farm Winery, 7015 E. 161st, Noblesville, Indiana, 7-9 p.m.  I’ll be there with books along with Amy K. Sorrells and Vince Flecker.

 

We celebrated Thanksgiving outside on Saturday at our son’s place. The sun darted in and out behind clouds, the temperature held at a comfortable 48 F with no wind. You could easily go without a jacket. We could not have asked for a more pleasant day.

Tables were set up on a small clearing, plastic folding tables covered with canvas paint tarps. Our son had constructed benches made from wood recently milled on their property.

The First Thanksgiving was 400 years ago. It is highly unlikely they had a charcuterie board with olive oil infused mozzarella balls, bread sticks, fresh broccoli, carrot sticks, cheese, grapes, cashews, dark chocolate, crackers and a pecan covered cheeseball.

It was demolished within minutes.

We live lives of ease and luxury compared to the many generations who have gone before.

Food stayed hot in our pie tins on the walk from the house to the table. Eating itself didn’t last long, as kids peeled off to play, poke sticks in the fire ring and explore the woods. The day’s total for interesting finds was: one tufted titmouse, one downy woodpecker, two buzzards, one bald eagle, two chicken eggs in the brush, one very old brown glass bottle and an empty turtle shell.

Cayuga ducks raced through the pond to feast on mealworms thrown in the water.

Soon the ducks returned to nipping at the chickens, chickens scratched through piles of leaves hunting for insects, and many of the chickens boldly approached the table, several hopping up on a bench for a closer look.

When the kids reappeared, a crockpot filled with hot chocolate disappeared as fast as it could be ladled into cups.

Dusk fell and we were the last car to load up and pull away, perhaps reluctant to see a wonderful and memorable day draw to a close. I hope you had a wonderful celebration, too, and hold onto thankfulness all the year through.

Everyone has a dream, right? Some dreams are so big, you dare not think them out loud. But I did. I thought my dream out loud and now it is about to come true.

We are having our Thanksgiving celebration outdoors. In the woods. Branches overhead and leaves underfoot.

The forecast says partly cloudy with a high of 38, but you know how quickly the weather can change. It could be snow and a high of 20.

Who cares. We will celebrate outdoors like the first Thanksgiving.

Our son’s family is hosting. Their house is surrounded by woods and their kids live outside. Sometimes without shirts. They’ll be the ones who tough it out and make it all the way to the pumpkin pie.

There will be a wooden table made of long planks. It won’t be as sturdy as a Pilgrim table—it will be supported by sawhorses. The smart ones will aim for a seat in the middle. Our son asked if we wanted to sit on benches or stumps.

I told him to surprise us.

We are forgoing elaborate table settings with chargers, dinner plates, salad plates, dessert plates and stemware in favor of metal pie tins and mason jars. We’re taking rustic to a new high. Or a new low.

If this works out, I may have everyone write their name with a Sharpie on the bottom of their pie tin and use them for every get-together.

The table setting won’t be entirely void of frills. I’m bringing cloth napkins in a variety of fall colors. It is a myth that the Pilgrims were without vibrant colors. William Bradford’s journal describes “estates” which included clothing passed down to others. Colors of red, deep red and green are mentioned. I’m bringing napkins in those colors as well as mustard yellow and pumpkin orange. It will still be very first Thanksgivingish, although my napkins all have annoying polyester tags.

How our cooks bring their hot dishes is up to them but, in a concession to creature comforts, there will be power outlets in a carport for crockpots. Not to gloat, but I have a good collection of cast iron. Cast iron will save the day. Some of the food should still be slightly warm by the time we get it to our mouths.

I’m also bringing Jiffy Pop. That was at the first Thanksgiving; they just hadn’t branded it yet.

Our youngest sent a text with a factoid saying corn on the cob at the first Thanksgiving was tiny, about the size of a thumb. She wants to know if I’ll be bringing some. There was also fresh kill at the first Thanksgiving. I won’t be bringing that either.

There will probably be some grumbling about the cold, but I’m prepared to meet it head on – with a basket full of hand warmers.

Did I mention that I am sometimes alone in my ideas of what constitutes fun?

I may be eating alone, too.

Even if I am, I will be happy. And thankful.

I have personally prepared, or helped prepare, more than 40 Thanksgiving turkeys over the years, several of which were entirely edible.

Drawing on my vast experience, and occasional use of fire extinguishers, I wish to address frequently asked questions concerning how to prepare the perfect Thanksgiving feast.

My thinking behind this offering is simple: Don’t Make Thanksgiving Cooking Mistakes—Let Me Make Them For You!

The most obvious concerns are about the proper length of time for cooking a turkey.

“Exactly how long does it take to roast a turkey?”

Traditionally, for an oven-roasted bird, you multiply the number of pounds the turkey weighs by 15 (15 minutes per pound). Being leery of undercooked poultry, I suggest taking the product of the turkey weight times 15, then multiplying that number by the sum of all the numbers in your cell phone number (including area code). Not once has anyone complained that my turkey was undercooked. My turkeys may taste like the bottom of your shoe, but they are never undercooked.

“Does a splash of white wine in the gravy help?”

It has been my experience that wine doesn’t do all that much for the gravy, but it can have a calming influence on the cook.

 “What do you consider an essential kitchen tool for preparing a turkey?”

Experts say that a waterproof digital thermometer is essential. The best ones are available at high-end home goods stores and are very expensive. The essential kitchen tool I cannot do without is a small DeWalt drill (comes in an adorable yellow carrying case) with a masonry bit able to penetrate concrete. You may use a thermometer once or twice cooking a large bird, but you will use a drill multiple times trying to determine what is going on deep inside the still frozen beast.

“How do you remove the bag of internal organs, bits of intestines and waddle buried deep inside the bird?”

For many years, I wore plastic gloves and wrestled the bag out with a wrench. Eventually, I discovered that I am mentally healthier, and more able to enjoy the holiday, by leaving the disgusting little bag inside and letting it explode. Make sure you have a self-cleaning oven. Oh, and work on looking surprised.

The best turkeys ever were the ones my grandma made—golden brown on the outside and pure deliciousness on the inside. Unfortunately, I have no idea how she made them because I was a kid, one of 23 first cousins on my mother’s side, all of whom were routinely told to “Get outside and stay outside!”

“What is the best turkey you have ever served?”

Hands down, the best turkey I ever served was a tender turkey breast, smoked, thinly sliced, and purchased at Honey Baked Ham.

Everybody and their mother are knitting. They’re making fabulous, textured scarves, adorable baby hats and ultra-durable dishcloths. They all claim it is a marvelous way to unwind and relax.

When I announce that I am thinking of taking up knitting to unwind and relax, family members look at me like I said I am going skydiving.

The color drains out of our oldest daughter’s face. “Are you sure knitting is for you, Mom?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I ask.

“A lot of people who knit are, well, maybe a little more laid-back than you are.”

“Are you saying I can’t be laid back? Watch me,” I say. “I’m going to be laid back right now. Go ahead, get a stopwatch. Time me!”

“It’s just that most people sit when they knit, and you’re not really known for sitting.”

“Then I can knit standing up,” I snap.

Someone else says, “Doesn’t knitting involve long needles? Who in this room thinks that Mom should have long needles when she’s relaxing?”

The entire mob yells, “Never!”

So maybe I’ve had a few bad experiences when it comes to relaxing.

The last time I tried relaxing involved making jewelry. The creative expression was supposed to help me unwind, relax and find satisfaction in creating something with my hands.

Every time I was finally about to get a small charm threaded on a small chain, someone would barge in and ask if my new hobby was relaxing.

“How would this be relaxing?” I responded through clenched teeth. “I’m working with teeny, tiny tweezers, trying to hook a teeny, tiny charm on a teeny, tiny chain. What I have here is a great big teeny, tiny mess.”

I lost sleep, had eye strain and a dull headache. I gathered up all my tools of relaxation and sent them to my sister-in-law, who actually knows what she’s doing and enjoys it.

I’ve tried baking for relaxation, but it comes with a cost. About five pounds.

I even attempted yoga. The instructor recommended pants that were incredibly expensive. I just don’t have it in me to buy expensive pants then roll around on the floor in them. I was tense before my first downward dog.

Friends of ours bought a big RV to travel around the country in for the ultimate in relaxation. Their first trip out, the husband forgot to do all the pre-trip inspection and adjustments on the vehicle, and they wound up waiting by the side of the road for a mechanic from 2 until 4 a.m.

They drove 120 miles not speaking to one another.

Maybe the quiet was relaxing.

I briefly toyed with a Cricut, a machine that die cuts stencils you can use on big slabs of wood to create lovely signs.

One of the kids spotted a Cricut advertisement on the kitchen counter and said, “Walk away, Mom, just walk away.”

Some people simply weren’t made for relaxing.