Pre-Ramble:  The other night we had to put down our much beloved dog, Daisy.

Loyal friend, companion and muse, … all these years I thought I was taking care of her, when actually, she was taking care of me.

The Take-Away:  As my daughters reflected so perfectly,

“Daisy, you were so loved – you will be so missed.”

Pre-Ramble:  In this grand moment of revelry and reflection, I’d like to take a second to thank you for checking in on the K. blog this past year.

I hope you have been informed, entertained, or even occasionally inspired by a word or two.

My goals for the blog this coming year are to:

1. promote positivity
2. encourage personal power
3. have fun

Promoting positivity means shining a light on issues from a decidedly positive perspective, … emphasizing the dynamic of moving toward things … being “for” stuff, rather than ”against” it. (Please note that this does not rule out satire or snarkiness.)

By personal power I mean owning your gifts and stepping up, … moving personal energy forward to make positive things happen in one’s life and in the world.

As for fun, you can’t take yourself too seriously, … We know fun when we see it (example shown right) and will take it whenever and wherever we can get it — !

The Take-Away:  Sooooo, in the spirit of all of that — Cheers to uncorking a whole bunch of positive energy in your new year!  

Happy 2012!!

Pre-Ramble: I’ve mentioned a few of my favorite holiday traditions here in the blog, … trimming the tree, … cookie baking day, … roasting chestnuts on an open fire (we never do that). Well, so, as we get down to the wire here, I need to mention one more.

Every year in the few days before Christmas, actor/comedian Jay Thomas makes an appearance on CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman” to try to knock a big meatball off the top of Dave’s Christmas tree with a perfectly thrown football (the two shown at right).  Special musical guest, the lovely Darlene Love is also a part of the tradition, but the annual rite of the meatball is what keeps me coming back.

The reason I’m such a fan is that I was actually in the Late Show audience one year to witness the ridiculous spectacle. My husband and I had lived in New Jersey early in our marriage and had taken a quick trip back to partake in the magic that is New York during the holidays. I had lined up a couple of tickets to the Letterman show and was beyond thrilled to be a part of the studio audience, not even realizing that we would be courtside for the hallowed meatball event.

In order to fully communicate its enchanting appeal, I’ve provided this recap from the CBS website:

“It all started one night back in 1998 when New York Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde was a guest. He and Letterman picked up footballs and began tossing them at the tree, aiming for the meatball. Watching their failures impatiently from the wings was Thomas, former quarterback at tiny Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C.

Thomas had discussed trying the target practice with Letterman before the show, but no one told that to stage manager Biff Henderson. He blocked Thomas from going out on stage.

“I fake to the right and Biff goes to catch me and I run around him like a scramble,” said Thomas, who picked up a football and threw with laser-like accuracy at the meatball, accomplishing in one throw what the NFL quarterback couldn’t in several.

Testaverde has been forgotten, but Thomas is invited back each year to see if he can repeat his feat.

Around the same time — Thomas isn’t sure exactly when — Letterman heard about a story Thomas told of his time as a radio DJ in the South when he and a friend had to give a ride to Clayton Moore, star of television’s “Lone Ranger.” We won’t be spoilers; Letterman has called it the “best story I’ve ever heard.”

The story, too, is repeated each year. Thomas said he and Letterman have never discussed why it has become a tradition. It just has.

Thomas practices before each appearance, taking a football into Central Park and aiming at a particular tree branch.

“It is the craziest thing I have ever been a part of,” he said.”

The Take-Away:  Set your TIVO and try to contain yourself — the meatball show (technically taped yesterday) airs tonight at 10:30 CST on CBS.

Pre-Ramble:  Yesterday was Cookie Day.  Every year for the past 10 years, three of my high school buddies and I have gotten together at one of our houses to chat, have some lunch, and bake an insane amount of Christmas cookies.

This year, as I was packing up the cookie sheets, I wondered if maybe this was the year that the Cookie Day ordeal might just be too overwhelming, too much of a hassle. One of us’ husband is battling a very serious illness, … another has just weathered a contentious divorce, … the third is a college professor in the middle of finals week.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only one wondering if we wouldn’t all be better off staying home and putting our time to better, “more productive” use.

But, I bundled myself up, hauled the bulky bags of random ingredients and utensils out to the car, and drove to the other side of town — I’m a loyal friend, and it’s tradition, right?  I don’t want this to be the year that we don’t do Cookie Day.

As I get closer to the house, I feel an up-tick of anticipation and energy (could have been that latte kicking in …).  We haven’t seen each other since the summer and there are all kinds of kid/life things we need to catch up on.

I schlep my stuff up to the door and as I cross the threshold, a blast of toasty sweet smells wafts over me. I throw my coat over the banister and close the door on the outside world to join in with the bustling of blenders and buzzers already in full swing.

The Take-Away:  This was our best Cookie Day ever!  Only one batch of peanut brittle got burned and the no-bake recipe turned out just like the picture in the magazine rather than the yard droppings we have experienced in previous years.

But beyond any confectionary or picturesque outcomes, I realized that the real measure of Cookie Day is that mixed in with all the stirring, boiling, scraping, scooping, skimming, rolling, chopping, crushing and sprinkling is the talking, listening, laughing, pondering, speculating, more talking, more listening, way more laughing, and just generally huge amounts of love shared across time and familiarity.  This is a rare and precious thing.

Pre-Ramble:  Hitch up the Clydesdales … it’s that time of year … it’s time to get the Christmas tree.

At our house, dragging a live tree indoors defines the boundary between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and marks the official start of the holiday season.

While we appreciate the notion of driving up North to some remote, snow-covered tree farm, … or as is tradition at the White House, having a perfect specimen delivered via horse-drawn carriage (shown above … I can hear the jingle bells on those bridles) … we cling to our time-worn tradition of selecting a tree from the pop-up lot at the old A&W a few miles from the house.

The trees at the A&W are always abundant and fresh, random holiday tunes blare in the background, the “tie-it-to-the-top-of-your-car” guys are friendly, and the gal in the warm-up hut always has a bucket of tiny candy canes next to the register.

Every year we amble from tree to tree, lobbying and dickering for our favorites, passing on the “too-short,” “too-tall,” and “just-not-quite-right” until we find one that passes muster with each persnickety member of the judging panel. (It’s a given that we’re going to end up cutting off the top and a couple rows of low-hanging branches no matter which tree we pick.)

The Take-Away:  Like a slowly turning snowball that gets bigger as it rolls down hill, my favorite holiday traditions are the ones that are accumulated gradually, formed and reinforced over the years by our own collection of experiences.

We have never come home from the A&W without a fabulous tree, and every year we somehow find “our best tree ever.”

Pre-Ramble:   As is tradition, Daisy (our culinarily inclined canine) is making the pies while we watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade; pumpkin spice with nutmeg-walnut crust is her specialty (not it at right).

The Take-Away:  As is also tradition, we want to wish you and yours a very warm and happy Thanksgiving!

Post-Note:  “Warm” is right — could hit 60 degrees here in Minnesota today!

Pre-Ramble:  Well, it’s all over social media, and regular media too. Yesterday’s death of Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, has brought out a powerful reaction all over the world.

My artist friend from college (Hi Jules!) lives in Palo Alto.  Today she placed a bouquet of homegrown roses alongside the notes and candles … and apples (with one bite out of them like the Apple logo) that continue to be laid outside the fence around the perimeter of the Jobs’ house.  I’m guessing this news has an even bigger impact in the Pacific Northwest … he’s one of their own.

Actually, Steve Jobs has had an impact on all of our lives in one way or another.  If you’ve ever downloaded a song or app from iTunes or chuckled at a scene from Toy Story, you have been touched by his magic.

Let’s face it – the guy had vision, tenacity, and a knack for figuring stuff out. (I swear, you could put me out in the garage with every single solitary chip and wire that belong in a computer … for a few decades …, and I would still NEVER be able to invent one.)

The Take-Away:  The only thing more amazing about Jobs than the breadth of his gifts, is the depth of his thinking.  In what has come to be known as the “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” speech, Jobs told the Stanford University graduating class of 2005,

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.  Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.  And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Pre-Ramble:  Where were you when the terrorist attack on 9/11 happened?

I was in my family room, picking up a basket of laundry when my friend called me to tell me to turn on my television.  Like millions of Americans, I watched in shock as the second tower was hit.

In tribute, I’d like to share something that I discovered about that day that I had never heard about before –

“Frank Shane, a professional dog therapist and CEO of the K-9 Disaster Relief Foundation, had to improvise when he brought his golden retriever, Nikie, down to Ground Zero. There was no protocol for anything—from the kind of footwear Nikie should wear to how Frank should deal with the unfathomable grief of 9/11. Yet from the moment Frank and his dog stepped onto the site, they both knew they had a job to do. As it turned out, a pair of soft ears and a wagging tail offered one of the best ways to connect to the people on the ground.”

The Take-Away:  The powerful presence of Nikie, a trained service dog (shown above with his trainer Frank Shane), at Ground Zero (WSJ, p. C3) speaks to the “unspoken bond” that animals can make with people.  I experience this connection with my dog Daisy every day and am thankful that Frank Shane was compelled to take Nikie to Ground Zero to do his special work 10 years ago today.

Pre-Ramble:  A very powerful project/book titled “Where Children Sleep” by documentary photographer, James Mollison recently came to my attention, and I would like to share it with you here.

The following description, in Mollison’s own words, is taken directly from his website.

“Where Children Sleep- stories of diverse children around the world, told through portraits and pictures of their bedrooms. (Chris Boot publisher, November 2010)

When Fabrica asked me to come up with an idea for engaging with children’s rights, I found myself thinking about my bedroom: how significant it was during my childhood, and how it reflected what I had and who I was. It occurred to me that a way to address some of the complex situations and social issues affecting children would be to look at the bedrooms of children in all kinds of different circumstances. From the start, I didn’t want it just to be about ‘needy children’ in the developing world, but rather something more inclusive, about children from all types of situations.

It seemed to make sense to photograph the children themselves, too, but separately from their bedrooms, using a neutral background. My thinking was that the bedroom pictures would be inscribed with the children’s material and cultural circumstances ‘ the details that inevitably mark people apart from each other ‘ while the children themselves would appear in the set of portraits as individuals, as equals ‘ just as children.

The book is written and presented for an audience of 9-13 year olds ‘ intended to interest and engage children in the details of the lives of other children around the world, and the social issues affecting them, while also being a serious photographic essay for an adult audience.”

A sampling of the 56 diptychs presented in the book are featured on the artists’ website;  the selection shown above is Juan David, age 10, from Medellin, Colombia.

The Take-Away:  Awareness, understanding and compassion are great gifts you can give to the children in your life.  This book would be a great gift too.

Pre-Ramble: Probably should have saved the “bald eagle” post for today … wrapped it up in the whole patriotism angle … a nice furling flag photo … Bam. Done.

Well, so, next best option — while you’re flipping burgers, catching fly balls, floating on a raft, or taking a second scoop of potato salad, take a minute to think not only about the very precious freedoms we enjoy as Americans, but also about the very precious freedoms you can exercise as an individual …

• Freedom to make choices about your life.
• Freedom to think about things in your own way.
• Freedom to see things in a positive light.
• Freedom to take the high road.
• Freedom to do things differently.
• Freedom to take risks.
• Freedom to set goals and make a plan.
• Freedom to ditch the plan.
• Freedom to go against party lines.
• Freedom to go with party lines.
• Freedom to take time to do the things you really want to do … while you are still capable of doing them.
• Freedom to be happy.
• Freedom to set your marshmallow on fire and eat the charred remains, cuz that’s the way you like them, dammit.

The Take-Away: Eagles and flags are nice, but I actually think fireworks are the perfect expression of all of the dimensions of freedom.  Bold, … explosive, … expansive, … soaring, … sparkling … beautiful, …  Fireworks encapsulate all of that and give us an opportunity to reflect on our good lot.

They also give us an excuse to eat red-white-and-blue jello.  Happy 4th!!