The Crier Club

Now, I know that there are some of you who never cry. Me? I am a self-identified member of the Crier Club. I cry for a whole host of reasons, the most popular of which is the angry cry, to which my husband, parents, friends, and co-workers can all attest. If ever I am unable to put into words my anger and frustration, I cry. Sometimes this is acceptable; whereas, other times, the angry cry has rightfully been deemed inappropriate.

The other frequent cry for me is the sad cry. There are numerous and varied situations that bring on the sad cry. There are times when I cry because there is a commercial that tugs at my heart strings, a trait I have inherited from my mother. Sometimes I cry because I read the newspaper and the world’s tribulations seem so insurmountable that I cannot help but shed a tear for our collective troubles. Then there are the more personal situations, like listening to one of my girlfriends going through a heart-wrenching break-up or another dear friend losing her long-time pet that can and will bring on the sad cry. And then there is the sympathetic sad cry, brought on when a twelve year old client hugs his parent good-bye after being committed to a Youth Detention Center until his twenty-first birthday. Of course, you can’t forget about the sad cry that accompanies the loss of a loved one – a cry with which I am lucky to have limited experience.

There are so many depressing, terrifying, and frustrating things in life to cry about, so I am thankful to say that in addition to the angry cry and the sad cry, there is also the happy cry. Though it is the only cry I’ve had today, it is actually the one that I deal with least frequently. Happy cries are generally reserved for the life changers:
1. Proposals
2. Weddings
3. Babies

I did not cry at my own proposal, though I did well-up (in addition to jump up and down and yell a little like a crazy person . . . on the corner of Liberty and Third Street in Downtown Winston-Salem . . . during lunch hour) when my friend, Stacey, called to say her boyfriend (now husband) proposed.

When friends asked whether I was going to cry at my own wedding, I scoffed at the thought. Who cries at a wedding? It is happy for goodness sakes! No tears necessary! Just to be safe, I decided not to walk down the isle to Canon in D, as just hearing that song normally triggers the tears. Instead, I went with a classical number picked by my Grandma Gondring. But then Dad and I get to the church and I can’t even help it. As the tears stream down my face, I silently thank Catherine for insisting I purchase waterproof mascara.

As the picture above suggests, my happy cry was about a baby. I received a text delivering the news that my very pregnant sister-in-law, Liz, is set to have labor induced tomorrow morning. This event is one for which she and her husband have anticipated for far longer than her forty weeks of pregnancy. Even though I’ve known that Parker will be here any day for over a week, getting this news brought both tears to my eyes and a smile to my lips, reminding me that there are many miraculous, thrilling, and joyful things to cry about, too.

Update: Parker Guerry Bragg was born at 9:43 a.m. on Friday, December 23, 2011. He weighed 8 lbs 13 oz. I think he has Liz's nose and Joshua's toes.

He is precious.

Almond Cake w/Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Cookies for Breakfast

Those of you who know me will probably not be surprised to hear that when I was again up at the crack of dawn this morning, I decided to use my extra time before work to bake cookies.


Baking, though, was not my first activity of the morning. Inspired by my artistic friend, Stacey, I thought I would give decorating my house for Christmas a try (check her out here). First, I tried to creatively place strings of white Christmas lights on our new server. When numerous tries failed in every way, I moved onto finding inventive ways to use these beautiful circular ornaments that my best friend, Erica, gave me years ago. Again, futility prevailed.

Becoming frustrated, I stared down the lights and thought, “Why not leave this to the experts?” Design and decoration – they just aren’t my thing. Happily resigning our home décor to our conventional Christmas tree and a giant poinsettia (courtesy of my Momma), I put in my favorite Christmas tunes, turned up the volume, and turned on the oven.

The recipe of choice was butter cookies from my Grandma Kelley's kitchen. These cookies, along with delicious toffee cups, were always available at her house during the Christmas season. Not only are these cookies delicious, but they don't require a million ingredients and are easy to make! (They do, however, require a cookie press.)

Almond Butter Cookies
Betty Kelley [Grandma]

Preheat oven to 350º

In an electric mixing bowl, add:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
Cream the butter and sugar until thoroughly mixed and smooth in consistency.

Mix in:
1 teaspoon almond extract

In a separate bowl, add:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
The real trick to these cookies is getting the butter-to-flour ratio right, which means that it is really important not to pack the flour into the measuring cup. There is nothing more frustrating than ending up with rock solid cookie dough! The easy remedy here is to use a spoon and scoop the flour into the measuring cup.
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture 3/4 cup at a time, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl down after each addition. If the dough looks too buttery, add up to 1/4 cup of flour.

[I added about a teaspoon of finely grated orange zest to these cookies for extra flavor. I've never altered this recipe, but it worked nicely.]
Grease cookie sheets.

Choose your design - I went with Christmas tree and poinsettia - and fill your cookie press with cookie dough. You can place these cookies close together, as they will not expand much when baking.


If you would like to decorate your cookies, you can lightly sprinkle colored sugar on the uncooked cookie. To make your own, add a drop or two of food coloring to a tablespoon of sugar. The back of a spoon works wonders in combining the two.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cookies are golden brown. After removing from the oven, let sit on cookie sheets for 2-3 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

Eat up!

Jetlagged Reflections

It’s funny how people change. Because change rarely occurs overnight, it’s tough to know when it actually happened. But happen it does, and this morning at 5:30 a.m., I finally noticed it.

Nope, that’s not a typo. It was actually 4:12 this morning when I first opened my eyes, knowing it was too early to be wide awake. I tossed and turned for half an hour before resigning myself to the fact that it was going to be a very early start to Monday. Yay jetlag!

After fixing myself a nice American breakfast of oatmeal, grapefruit, and a latte, turning on the Christmas tree lights, and lighting our new Christmas holiday candle, I sat down to sort through our photos from India. Thirty minutes and fifty deleted photos later, Jason and Sydney are also up. Sydney couldn’t be happier that we’re up; she brings me her smelly, mangled bunny, looking at me with those big brown eyes that say “throw it!”

Jason is less excited about being awake. He comes over to the chaise lounge and stands over my shoulder to see what I’m doing. Seeing our photos, he says things like “that’s the best one,” “use that one,” and “why’d you delete that one?” And for the third time, in less than forty-eight hours after our return to the States, came the question, “Have you posted the pictures on Facebook yet?”

Which brings me back to my original statement: “It’s funny how people change.” I vividly remember going out West with Jason when we were in juniors in college. We’d planned a trip to visit the National Parks in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Utah. I’d just finished taking one of my first photography classes, so I was all about capturing every moment on film. By day three, Jason had had enough and kindly told me that I should just take pictures in my mind. Now here we are, six years later with at least a dozen travel adventures under our belts, and he is excited to see all of our photos!

Though I know he can still grow tired of me falling behind to capture some memory, I am thankful that he now appreciates how photos help us keep the pictures in our minds fresh and crisp for years to come.

Jason in front of the Taj Mahal

Agra Fort (exterior wall)

Agra Fort (interior palace)

Itmad-Ud-Daulah's Tomb

India's Tiger Tales

Female tiger paw print

Our Indian tiger safari proved to be one terrifically unforgettable experience. There were times I felt like I was participating in a police stakeout, bored but alert, sitting on the edge of my seat looking around in all directions for the tiger that would almost certainly not appear.

There were other times I imagined we had been transported into the scene in Jurassic Park where they've managed to find the T.Rex only to be unable to outrun the giant beast. As we rode around Bandhavgarh National Park in our small, lightweight Gypsy with its less than powerful engine, I became utterly convinced that if that sneaky tiger did show up, she would jump out of of the grass, into the Jeep, and before I'd realized what had happened, I would be screaming for the return of my mangled arm. While our quiet tiger-tracking engine was perfect for the job of finding a tiger, it certainly was not perfect for outrunning a tiger.

And then there were the best times, when the dirt roads through the park were transformed into a rally racing course, complete with hairpin turns and billows of dust, with our trusty guide and driver, Papu, slamming his way over rocks and make-shift bridges. It was during these enthralling moments that I felt that I had missed my calling as a National Geographic explorer. To sit in a courtroom waiting for my umpteenth case to be called when I could be spotting one of nature's most beautiful animals...what was I thinking?

Finding a tiger requires patience I am not really known for possessing. We spent about seventeen hours over the course of three days driving around the park to see two different female tigers. Our guides relied on finding tiger paw prints (punjab) and listening to the warning calls of monkeys, deer, and even peacocks. Once they heard the warning calls, we would speed off in their direction. Papu knew when and where to stop, turn off his engine, and wait for the next warning call or for tiger stripes to emerge. More often than not, the tiger would never appear and we would be left feeling just a little empty. As if the first five numbers of your lottery ticket matched the winning series, only to have the sixth number called out be different. It was so close you could taste it, but victory was quickly snatched from your fingertips.

Our first tiger sighting was all rear!

We really were the lucky ones, though! There were many visitors who left without ever seeing a tiger. Our first view was at the end of our first drive. We were sitting in an open field, rather bored and wondering if Papu was any good at all. Luckily, he heard something that we didn't and with amazing speed, he did a three point turn and headed towards the monkey's call. Though we didn't know it at the time, as he was hauling ass up the trail, he spotted fresh tiger punjab and increased his speed. As the Gypsy rounded the corner, we saw her! She was walking away from us when she heard our rapid approach. She calmly turned her head to learn the source of the ruckus, found us to be quite uninteresting, and headed into the jungle. Our total sighting lasted maybe thirty seconds.

Our second and last tiger sighting was the following evening. We entered the park a little after two in the afternoon and after many views of beautiful birds, spotted deer, and Langur monkeys, we finally heard the warning calls we had learned to covet. Papu was clearly more experienced than many of the other guys, evidenced by the fact that the others often looked to him for help. One such youngster was having a hard time figuring out from where the tigress would emerge, so Papu said "well, where is the monkey looking?!"

These Langur monkeys were just sitting on the side of the road and hanging out, not being in any way helpful in our tiger search.

Jason spotted this adorable family while we were waiting for a male tiger, whose prints we'd found, to emerge. Though he never did, I was content to photograph these cuties.

Spotted Deer have an amazing relationship with the Langur Monkey. The monkeys will sit in the trees and throw down fruit for the deer. In turn, the deer use their superior hearing to let the monkeys know there are no predators, allowing the monkeys to come down from the trees.

Peacocks are surprisingly loud when they are warning you about an approaching tiger.

When she did make her way out of the brush, I think that my heart may actually have skipped a beat. Jason says that my camera sounded like machine gun fire, but luckily, like the previous feline, this tiger didn't seem too concerned about our presence.

After she made her way back into the trees, the real tracking began. Because these guys know the individual tigers, they made educated guesses as to where we could next see the tigress. So off we went again, this time standing, holding onto the roll bar, letting the wind and adrenaline rush through our bodies. Two times we were able to do this, allowing us to view her for at least twenty minutes. Experiencing this with a camera in hand, hoping that at least one good photo would result from my efforts allowed me to really appreciate the difficulty of capturing fleeting moments. From the first warning call to the final view of the tigress's tail disappearing into the tall grass, those forty minutes will probably be our favorite moments of the entire trip.

The first stripes emerge!

 

She heads back into the jungle. At this point, I thought that was the last we'd see of her. Luckily, I was completely wrong.

And there she is again.

 

Quite the photogenic one, isn't she?

Amazing.

India's Wonder of the World

You know how there are times that you look forward to something -- a trip, a graduation, a birthday -- and when it actually comes around you feel rather underwhelmed? I clearly remember looking forward to my twenty-fourth birthday and being rather depressed at the non-event that it was. The same can definitely be said of high school, undergrad, and law school graduations. You would think that by the third one, I would have learned that aside from the super-fabulous graduation robe, you don't turn into a different person because another day passes, even if it is a big one.

Perhaps the way to make sure this doesn't happen is to manage your expectations. But who wants to go through life always planning for the worst - guarding yourself against the underwhelming? Sometimes I just can't help but to romanticize certain events because they are just too big not to be exciting and memorable!
So as Jason and I entered the east gate (or the VIP gate, as our guide called it), I couldn't help but feel a tingly excitement creep in as I semi-listened to our guide talk about Taj history. My inner monologue went something like this:

"Stop talking, friend! Don't you know that I am here to see one of the Seven Wonders of the World!?! You can talk when we're inside." In hindsight, I think he did that on purpose. Screw managing expectations; he was building anticipation.

So let me just say, the Taj Mahal exceeds all expectations. In my opinion, it is one of those things to which neither words nor photos will do justice. It must be experienced. Put this visit on your Bucket List.

Agra, the nearest city to the Taj Mahal, on the other hand, is a complete and utter hell hole (in my humble opinion). We've spent a day and a half here, which is probably three-quarters of a day too long. We should have listened to my favorite yoga teacher's advice: Get in. See the Taj. Leave. Don't look back. The reason for the terribleness has a lot to do with the garbage that is strewn everywhere. I don't want to be culturally insensitive, but I just don't understand and cannot justify the piles of garbage that litter the city. Our guide in Del says that if we were to go inside the homes (grounds included) of the Indian people, we would find very clean homes, but that this cleanliness is just not valued outside their own home. I personally find this to be mind-boggling given that India is far less individualistic than we Americans. What's ironic is that I have not seen one person throw a piece of trash on the ground; whereas, I see loads of women with their witch-like brooms sweeping the roads. I don't get it.

This evening we will take our first and only train ride in India. It will also be our first time on a sleeper car. We arrive in Bandhavgarh tomorrow morning, which as far as I can tell is pretty much THE reason Jason planned a trip to India. Tigers, here we come!