I’ve guarded this recipe for years. Based on what? Ego? I didn’t create it. Greed? Hoarding deliciousness and good times? The need to be needed (as we all do), if only for booze once a year? Who knows, I’m an idiot.

Tis the season for “screw it” and for sharing the love.

First, pour yourself a drink. Red wine will do, my recent preference is a Bogle Cab. Next, turn on some holiday music to get you in the spirit, light some candles and do what I didn’t do – move the bar stools away from your prep area to ward off curious kitties.

Collect ingredients:
1 cup Half & Half
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon chocolate syrup
3 eggs (or substitute with Egg Beaters)
1 can Eagle Condensed Milk
8-10 oz Jameson’s Whiskey

Throw them all in a bowl and blend together until foamy – then sample. Add more booze to taste. Note: make sure it’s a bowl you can easily pour out of without a mess. I have (when making only one batch) used the blender, but prefer to use a mixer.

When it’s all happy and foamy, serve yourself a glass on the rocks and commence on-line holiday shopping. Later, serve to your guests the same way, or chilled from the freezer.

If you need the step by step, I photographed the process. I know, it’s complicated!

Some recipes I’ve seen call for instant coffee for that extra punch, I don’t use it. Some call for almond extract or the like for a little something different, I don’t do that either. I make it the way it says to above, and have been known to load it into decorative recycled bottles from Pier 1, throw an ornament around the neck of the bottle and deliver.

HT to my friend Tami, who unwittingly inspired this post (among other things).

Happy Holidays!

If you’d asked me Tuesday morning if I was going to get completely naked and lay on a white vinyl table in the middle of a room full of other naked women (of various shapes, sizes, and grooming habits) to be washed by an older Korean woman in her underpants, I’d have laughed with a mouth full of coffee and ruined your day.

But you didn’t, and I didn’t expect it, which makes it all that much more delightful.

I can’t being to explain why I went for it after my girls already had – especially when they described what would happen. By no means am I a prude (exhibit a: skinny dipping with some of my other girls at The Hostel in the Forest), I do have some body issues and don’t typically prance around in a swimsuit let alone nude in front of perfect strangers.

But there I was. As the day I was born – plus or minus my extra bits – in the middle of the whirlpool/steam area, trying to catch the eye of one of the older women working the scrub tables before I completely chickened out. “Maybe it’s a sign. I shouldn’t do it. You can’t walk out now, you’re already here. C’mon, pull it together.” That inner monologue is bossy and sassy!

Two Russian women beat me to the punch, and I clutched the hand towel that was theoretically supposed to cover my nether bits a little tighter. I eked out my request and was ushered with a nod into the steam room for “two minute” by a woman in a black bra and granny panties: my scrubber.

Okay.

If she’s okay, I’m okay.

I’m OKAY.

I did my time in the blazing hot steam and was collected by my scrubber, quickly ushered via hand gestures to a half-walled off area with eight identical tables and told to lay down. “Face down?” I ask, she nods and slaps the table.

Oh, God. Don’t hurt me. (Someday, after lots of therapy, I’ll write about the most abrupt, jerky, slappy, pokey massage I’ve ever had a half an hour before.)

I’m doused with a bucket of warm water, then another. I’m reminded of jumping off a cliff in Jamaica and being told to keep my legs tightly together. Too late.

For the next thirty minutes she scrubs me with mitts and soap, nudging me to turn onto my side, lifting my arms over my head, nudging me when I needed to turn again. Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing.

At some point after rolling onto my back I realize: I haven’t been cared for like this – physically – since I was a child. I haven’t had someone carefully cleansing me, washing me and renewing me. It occurs to me this would have been a perfect compliment to what Malinda did for me over the course of 5+ years, with once a week visits to her office. Boxes and boxes of Kleenex, and hugs, and painful recollections and purging.

This wasn’t some shi-shi spa salt scrub bullshit, this was the real deal. This was rough without being brutal, it allowed me to be vulnerable without being ashamed, and it allowed me to rejoice in someone else taking care of me in ways I (clearly) couldn’t take care of myself.

The charcoal sauna may have ridded my body of toxins and the massage may have loosened more up (note to self: drink a GALLON of water tonight with all that red wine) but the body scrub? Ridded me of so much more, for which I have no words.

Saturday

We lolled about after waking lateish and shuffled off for breakfast at a truck stop complete with Princess Phones (which, btw, was something I’ve always wanted to do) and plenty of coffee. Back to the hostel under threats of another MN hissy fit, we read and played mancala and cards until I think G & K’s heads were going to explode.

They went foraging for lunch while I poured a drink, opened the screen door to welcome the rain and launched bloom on my iPhone (which you should totally download RIGHT NOW. I’ll wait.)

It’s the most relaxed I’ve been in ages.

The sky booming and shaking, the splatter of the drops on the canopy of green, the quieting of the little buzzards trying to ruin my life, the air cooling and thrusting itself into my lungs, the green becoming so amplified it was electric…

I wanted to soak it all up and in and roll around in it so the stink on my skin would never leave and I’d have something more to remember it by.

I wanted to share it with you, but it slipped through my heart and evaporated. I don’t suppose it was meant to be shared, it was what the postcards are about…”wish you were here…” because my words and imagery will never do it justice.

The girls came back and fed me, and we resumed our reading/gabbing/joking.

Eventually, the dinner bell rang (what we can only assume was an hour before dinner) and we scurried down to the netted mess hall to play friendly with the other guests and the staff.

While our meal and the company were both delicious and delightful, it’s what came next that makes my heart melt. The sun fell, dusk settled, and the temperatures started to cool. It was our final night, and I wasn’t going to leave without swimming in the lake, and out to the hammock in the floating dock and floating at least a few minutes away under the stars…so I did.

There was a mist on the water from the temperature change that made it haunted and mystic and surreal. I wished for my camera and closed my eyes on the image. It’s still there, with the reeds around the banks of the lake and the bench swing where my clothes hung disappearing and reappearing in the light the nearly full moon provided.

Between the chatting and admiring the night there were long pauses of silence, where I could close my eyes and devour the stillness. I did it until I was full and as my weight shifted the cold air would hit my wet skin. It was time to crawl through the water back to the shoreline and tuck in, marking the last night and the end of another magical memorable trip to the treehouses at our hostel in the forest.

As my eyes finally closed an hour or more later, I promised myself again to come back. Maybe alone and definitely when it’s raining.

Friday

The following morning we found the weather was uncooperative at best, and after trucking it over to Jekyll Island for what we hoped to be a day with our books and our toes in the sand, but were foiled by big ugly red blotches on the radar that were circling us like The Jets. Or The Sharks. Whichever ones were the complete bungholes.

The lack of sunshine lead us to a dockside bar just outside the Jekyll Island Club, becuase really: cocktails make everything better on a girlie vacation. Something else that make everything better? Snapping shots, which my lovlies were patient enough to tolerate.

I can’t say enough about traveling with people who have a similar mindset about what a vacation is. There was no pressure to stay at our table and sip my naughty frothy adult beverage when I wanted to be down the dock shooting the end of a frayed rope. I sipped, I talked, I wandered, I shot, I sipped more, and then My Aunt arrived. That bitch.

Eventually we decided we weren’t going to let Mother Nature and her menopausal episodes (this reference is actually about the weather, I’m not always talking about my uterus) foil our plans. We got back in the Griswold family truckster and headed for St. Simons, we found a tide that dampened our towels and our bottoms but not our spirits. Gwen broke out the limes, Kel broke out the beer, I broke out my leatherman and we made our own perfection.

When the water finally crept up on our toes and chased us away, we traveled back to Jekyll and a place I’d been with The Mc. Correction: a place we’d gone, then left, because the hostess seated a table of children next to us while their parents sat further away and I had a melt down. We never did eat there, but I remembered it so there we were…at Sea Jay’s.

There we were, on the porch, looking out over the water and the slips with boats tied up and the underbelly of the bridge. There we were, sipping our drinks and contemplating our meals when a raccoon walked across the lawn. I’m not sure if all raccoons walk like this guy, but he moved a little like Forest Gump when he had the leg braces on. Didn’t stop the little fella from climbing up the tree closest to the diners and giving us all a sweet faced silent plea for scraps, though.

Dinner was devoured and it was on to the one and only appointment we had during our vacay: a turtle walk. After those crushing blows were delivered last month and my attempts to swim with turtles were thwarted by the H1N1, Gwen quietly slipped into uber considerate friend mode and made arrangements for us – and for me – to have a possible turtle sighting.

While our walk was not fruitful, we had an hour long stroll on the shoreline under the stars (I’d nearly forgotten what they looked like) and a moon that lit up the night so well there wasn’t a need for any man-made interference. The cooling sand, the salty air, the friends nearby but doing their own thing, and that moon and those stars…it was like a big sloppy kiss from the heavens.

If there’s anything that fresh air does, it’s wear you out. We drove back to the hostel mostly in silence, grabbed everything we’d need that night and scurried to our treehouse, hoping we’d outrun the skeeters.

We didn’t.

Thursday afternoon

Information I was exposed to after the fact that may or may not have been more helpful before the fact:
- Vitimin B1 taken a day before and every day will keep mosquitoes at bay.
- DEET is your friend.
- After several years of drought in a marsh like area, and when rain has been recently abundant, you are wise to just stay home, or indoors, or drunk.

We frolicked and giggled and caught up on the five hour drive from Atlanta to Brunswick, through the rain and over the most boring major roadway known to man: I-16 between Atlanta and Savannah. It’s boring not only because of a lack of stopping points, not only because of all the lush green (oh, the HUMANITY) and not only because of the straight roadway. It’s infinitely more boring because of the well known speed traps. One solution for this is cruise control, the other is tying a string between your steering wheel and your gear shift and taking a nap.

Obviously, that’s not an option, and our girl Gwen did a fine job returning us to the place of our bonding and our disco-tent (that’s for you, Kel), the place where we became The Hostile/Hostel Girls, the place where we may have shared too much, but felt safe enough to share as much or as little as we liked.

We arrived in once piece, just as a lecture on transcendentalism or something was wrapping up that most of the visitors were attending. We waited in the main dome with our offerings of rosemary and sage plants and a box of quinoa and and tea and organic/fair trade/rain forest certified java, and Dr. Bonners. There also may have been some men’s swimtrunks in there, though I’m still not sure how or why. Eventually – as expected – we were greeted by a lovely, smiley, adorable, barefoot young woman who gratefully took our $25/night pp lodging fare and showed us to what would be our home for the next three days.

Our loft in a tree held a few extra special isosceles triangle windows, a half circle window, a screen door and holes in the floor boards (just big enough to let in insects that could survive a nuclear war, ifyouknowwhatImean). There were words etched on walls and paintings on other walls left behind by previous visitors, there were shells lined up on a window sill and a notebook and pen, there was an incense holder and there were many dream catchers and from our perch 15feet above ground, there was good juju.

Looking back, we had no idea just how much time we’d spend within those walls.

Late Thursday evening after hauling a round of bags to the treehouse, we ventured into Brunswick for dinner. Traveling over the big bridge that The Mc loves so much, we fell onto her sleepy streets. Most spots were closed by the time we landed in a parking spot and ogled the stray cats that were being fed on her city streets by local shop owners.

Eventually we found an open locale with tapas and live music called Pranzo Portside, and a lovely waitress named Barbara who was unfazed by this pack of city dwellers who lumped themselves at one of her tables when she was probably already winding down for the night. Nary an attitude was had from this lovely creature, as she loaded us up with wine and noms.

Smelling sweet and ripe and upon arrival back at the castle, we were devoured. Nearly carried off by mosquitoes who had mated with roaches to be abundant in number and impossible to escape. During the two minute walk from the car to the tree house, we sustained what must have been 20 bites between the three of us, and that’s a conservative estimate.

We fell into our respective beds wearing coats of Calamine we’d hoped would get us through the night.

The last two years have been all about moving, moving and more moving – and not the kind I like.

Ours has been boxes and packing tape and negotiating what we could and couldn’t live without. I’ve been from my condo to the big house to the apartment and now the loft and nary an airplane trip has been had.

We’ve had some trips to the beach and I’ve taken a wee independent woman sabbatical in North Georgia, but that’s a far cry from the solo trips to London, Ireland, California and the like that made my heart swell and sing and dance.

Well my little beetches, that’s gonna change.

(This isn’t the part where I explain in painful detail that The Mc doesn’t fly, I’ll save that for another post when I feel I can write about it without excessive swearing and name calling)

The Mc got himself one of them there fancy passport thingies and we’re goin’ on a cruise! Now I’ll admit I’m going into this a teency bit skeptical: what with them being the floating version of Panama City and people flying overboard never to be seen again or getting some heinous stomach bug and having to share a phone booth sized bathroom while their insides explode…yeah yeah. Skeptical. That said, it’s also a means to crossing one more thing off my life to-do list: I’M GOING TO SWIM WITH TURTLES! zomghellzyesyoudirtywhores!

That’s next month. Also next month: a return visit to The Hostel in the Forest with Gwen and Kells. Holy crap can’t wait for that either. What’s not to love about showering in the middle of the forest and sleeping in a treehouse? Crap that’s the goods right there.

In late July if the stars align, I’ll hook up with some of my dad’s family in Omaha for a mini-reunion, to be followed (very appropriately) a few months later by a trip to Ireland with my friend John. Hells yes!

If airfares cooperate hopefully I’ll make a summer voyage back to AK as well, but I’m not totally optimistic about that.

Man, I feel alive just thinking about what this year has in store with travel…realizing of course how incredibly shallow this post sounded.

Ugh.

Let’s just change the focus, then. What makes you so happy you can’t stand it and fills you up?

My family had what I can only assume was a standard tree decorating day somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My folks and the four of us kids would gather around and we’d pull our ironicly fake tree out of the box and color match the branches to the holes. We’d help dad unravel the lights and run them down the hall from the living room to the end where my parents bedroom was, one by one trying to find the broken lamps to replace. We each had our favorite ornaments mom would hand us to hang, and the last step was my brother Brian’s little electric train – complete with engine, coal car, freight car, passenger car and caboose – that would round the bottom of the tree.

On Christmas eve, we were allowed to pick one present from under the tree to open, and I’m sure my parents hoped; to silence us enough to sleep.

Christmas morning the first act of the day was to “find” baby Jesus (he stayed in one of moms decorative woven Indian baskets until then) and carry him to his manger while we sung happy birthday. The nativity set is brown and ceramic, with my parents initials etched with the date in the bottom of Mary, Joseph, and the manger. They made the set when they were first married, before children, before relocation to Alaska and before the electric train.

The tradition ended as my family dissolved somewhere older than five and younger than thirteen. The gap solidifies that I will never be asked to recount our family history at a reunion.

I still have some of the ornaments, but I’ve long since stopped putting up a tree, this year I got more festive than I have in years past and bought a rope of garland with lights built in. I wrapped it around my banana plant/tree and piled gifts around.

It’s the first year in many that the nativity isn’t out – it’s somewhere in the back of one of our storage units – and that I won’t be carriying baby Jesus to his manger…but I will sing and I will close my eyes tight to remember those years of innocence and to reflect on what the holiday was intended for.

I’m thankful for what’s left of my family and for the new family I’ve formed with The Mc and my friends. I’m thankful for my health, my home, and most of all I’m thankful for Gods grace.

Tomorrow we’ll go to a movie, maybe have a beverage at Limerick Junction (as we did last year and the year before with friends), dinner at Atkins Park or a trek for Chinese. There may be lime sherbert and Creme de Minthe to sip out of fancy glasses in the afternoon, like my dad used to make (looking to my siblings to tell me if we got the Creme de Minthe too…?) and a lot of lounging about in pajamas. Tonight I’m going to roll around in the darkness and take snaps of Christmas lights.

What are the traditions you’ve hung on to? What are the new ones you’ve created?