West African Food and Stories (2.3.24)

The same night as Meg's shower, February 3, 2024, Dave and I hosted our good friends, the Emmers, Wildes, and Joneses, to a West African dinner.  The table was decorated with treasures from the markets of the eight countries we visited last fall--Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia, Guinea, and Guinea-Bisseau.  I love African textiles, the brighter the better.  Our table runners were made from fabric I bought in the market of Dakar, Senegal.

We began dinner with peanut soup.  Peanuts, or "ground nuts", as they are called in Africa, are a major West African ingredient and export.

The entree was chicken with jollof rice.  Jollof rice is braised in stock flavored with tomatoes, onions, and many spices.

For dessert, Deanne Wilde brought banana bread and a plate of fruit.  She said that West Africans love bananas.  Deanne also said that my chicken was much more tender than what she and Bob had eaten in Ghana, when Bob served in the LDS Area Presidency there.  "The chicken was so tough that we had to cook it in the crockpot all day to make it edible at all," Deanne said.

The LDS Church is growing rapidly in Africa.  Lee Curtis, an attorney with me at Jones Waldo many years ago, was the General Authority who presided over the West African Area when Deanne and Bob Wilde were there.

Lee asked Bob Wilde to serve as his Executive Secretary in Ghana.

Our friends and dinner guests, Spencer and Jane Jones, also served the Church in West Africa.  Spencer was the mission president in Nigeria.  The Wildes and Joneses shared many stories of growing Church congregations in Africa.  They loved the African people and were excited that the Church is helping them to improve their lives, both spiritually and temporally.  However, they despaired of living conditions in Nigeria and Ghana.  The mission home in Lagos, Nigeria, was surrounded by a high wall topped with barbed wire, with security guards posted outside, because of all the violence and crime while the Joneses were there.  Deanne and Bob Wilde were repeatedly stopped, as they drove around Accra, by policemen wanting bribes.  Deanne solved the problem by pretending not to understand what the policemen wanted, saying, "We're missionaries and we love you," and offering them copies of the Book of Mormon!  The policemen let the Wildes go without further demands.

Welcoming Junie (2.3.24)

"Junie" is the beloved daughter of my grandson, Grant Flindt, and his wife, Meg.  On February 3, 2024, Lisa and I hosted a shower at our house to welcome Junie, due later in the spring.  Meg and Grant flew to Salt Lake from their home in Dallas, Texas, where Grant is in medical school and Meg teaches preschool.  Most of Grant's and Meg's relatives live in Utah, so the shower was here.  Meg planned the decorations, program, and favors for the shower, and Lisa and I prepared the food.  Yellow was the happy color for the party decorations.  One of Meg's creative ideas was to fill quart canning jars with water and lemon slices, and then arrange daisies in the jars.

Lisa and I fixed a soup and salad lunch, including Lisa's specialty, tortellini salad with cherry tomatoes, artichoke hearts, olives, pepperoni, and pesto.  For dessert we baked a lemon cheesecake and a sponge cake filled with jam and decorated with fresh fruit.  Meg's grandmother exclaimed, "This is like eating at a four star restaurant!"

Grant helped all morning with the food and decorations.

We hosted a large and happy group of guests, from both sides of Grant's and Meg's families.

 

One of the games involved guessing the ages of Grant and Meg in their baby and childhood pictures.  We gained glimpses of what Junie might look like.  Camille and her daughters, including Annie, thoughtfully attended the shower, even though they had a busy morning at the Young Women conference in Camille's stake which Camille planned and at which both Camille and Annie spoke.

After lunch, games, and happy chatting, Meg opened her gifts.

Lily, Michael K and Rebekah Flindt's daughter, was thrilled to be part of the party.  Junie will be Lily's cousin.  Lily will also have her own new baby brother later in the summer.

The Burmese lacquer boxes on my coffee table are of perpetual fascination to my little grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Each of us left with one of Meg's artistically wrapped treats--seeds to plant in our spring gardens!

Things (2.1.2024)

I retired from full-time work on February 1, 2024, and Dave retired and was released as bishop the next week.  There was a profound change in the "things" that identified us and that we surrounded ourselves with.  I emptied out my shareholder's office with its 24th story, full-length windows several weeks earlier, but I returned to take photos of the "things" about the office that I had so taken for granted, for 23 years, that I had never photographed them.

There was the lobby sign with its Chinese characters that no one could interpret.  The characters stayed on the lobby wall even after Dentons severed its relationship with its Chinese office, after America-Chinese relationships became strained.

There was the long conference room table that I furtively referred to as a "phallic symbol".  

And there were the spectacular city views from my office window.  By the time I retired, I thought of that office a "cube" boxing me in.  However, when Camille looked out my office window, while helping remove furniture, she said, "The view is so beautiful that I'd want to work in this office all the time."  I now work at home and equally enjoy the view out the window at the flowers in my garden.

Dave also left an office he had enjoyed for many years at the LDS Hospital office building.  He received many goodbye gifts, including this door wreath made by a friend.  

Dave surrounded himself, in his office, with things he loved, including photographs of wild areas of Utah.

One "thing" that evoked many memories was this envelope with Dave's name, as bishop of the Hilltop Ward.  For five years, his volunteer job as bishop, on top of his fulltime job at work, had consumed his days.  Being bishop brought many opportunities and sweet experiences.

Tradition! (1.29.24)

Dave and I attended Hale Theater for the first time in many years on January 29, 2024.  Steve and Camille couldn't use their "Fiddler on the Roof" tickets and generously offered them to us.  
 

We were thrilled with the fine singing, dancing, and acting.  No matter how many times I watch Tevye asking God why he can't be a rich man, or listen to Golda answer Tevye's question, "Do you love me?", I ponder again the age-old questions of why we are assigned our own challenges by God and what love means in a marriage of many years.

A major theme of "Fiddler on the Roof" is how traditions hold families and communities together, and what happens when those traditions fray or are lost.  Tevye compares his life to a fiddler on a roof, trying to balance while playing a song.  Tradition stabilizes him in life's precarious positions.  I thought of the traditions that stabilize my own family and my LDS community, and how hard it is for me to see those traditions change.  Sunday dinners, family reunions, baby blessings and missionary letters, Christmas celebrations, Sunday School class discussions, Sacrament meetings, temple sessions, and ward parties are all traditions that help to stabilize me.  

By chance, Dave and I met my hairdresser, Nancy Yearsley, and her roommate, Janet, at Fiddler on the Roof.  Nancy has been fixing my hair for nearly 40 years, since I took Mike and Jonny with me to my appointments and Jonny crawled on the salon floor.  Nancy has provided frank and sage advice on all my challenges, even though she has never met the perpetrators.  "You need to get a new job," she told me one time. "Those men are not good to you or for you." She was absolutely right!  Visiting Nancy every month for a chat and a haircut is one of the traditions that stabilizes me.

Thomas and His Art (1.28.24)

Sunday dinners with family are a Spendlove tradition.  Guests include whoever is in town and hungry.  On January 28, 2024, my brother, Scott Calder, and Jenny, with her boys, were our only guests.  It was a special treat to have time to linger and talk together, as a small group.  It was also a special treat to have Thomas show off his original artwork.  He was very proud!

J Spendlove is just two, but he runs with the big boys.

 

Shrimp and Grits for Sophia (1.21.24)

Sophia left for her Spanish-speaking mission to Virginia in early February 2024.  On January 21, 2024, we hosted a going-away family dinner for her, with Southern specialties.  "Is shrimp and grits Southern enough for you?" I asked Sophia.  "Or is that a Florida thing?"  "I like shrimp and grits.  Let's have it," Sophia affirmed.  When Sophia arrives home from her mission, we may actually greet her back with enchiladas and mole.  Her mission will be focused on Latinos living in Virginia.  

It is always fun for me to gather my family around me, and especially when there is a special event we are celebrating, such as a missionary farewell.

Dave is my co-host and sous chef.  "I don't do recipes," he repeatedly insists, but he will cut and saute vegetables and meat, if I instruct him on each step:  "Slice these onions thin and then fry them in butter until they are limp."  With my daughters and adult grandchildren (young women and most of the men), I just hand them the recipe and let them run with it.  I appreciate any and all help, during the last chaos of getting the food on the table.

Jenny and her boys joined us, as did Shauna and Alan.

My brother Scott has been joining us more often, these days, as a beloved guest, and Dave's brother and sister-in-law, Alan and Shauna, are also esteemed regulars.

Camille's son, Jono, and his wife, Sarah, were also with us, and it was a treat to spend time with them.

Annie has been busy with projects in the BYU advertising program, so it was also a treat to have her break free of her studies.

Jonny's boys sometimes beeline for the TV in the basement, as soon as they arrive, since there is no restriction on "screens" at Grandma's house, as there is at home.  They reappear later to eat dessert and whatever's left of dinner!  That's perfectly fine with me--it gives Jenny a chance to catch her breath from the rigors of raising four darling, but energetic, boys.  At this dinner, Sam forewent the screens and joined his cousins for the shrimp and grits.  

Part of the fun of dinner is chatting in the kitchen as the sports-minded catch a bit of a football game.