Inside my shoes goes inside my head

By Tammy Malgesini

Staff Writer

Published on January 11, 2017 10:31AM

Sometimes I think I think too much.

Simple things can get my head twisting and turning — like why aren’t birth control pills dispensed in childproof containers? Or what are the names of the two people in a “Pedestrian Crossing” sign?

But one thing that occupied a lot of space in my mind recently is the packaging of products.

Over the holidays, a box of Gudrun chocolates appeared in the newsroom’s kitchen. The thing that intrigued me was the intricate packaging.

It came in a lovely silver case (box is too simple for the elegant craftsmanship, which even featured a magnetic strip to hold the flap down). Inside were two glorious trays of candies.

A brochure included a three-paragraph description of the process of making chocolates — from choosing the right cocoa beans to the development of recipes. It ended with the simple word, “Enjoy!”

Back in the day, Candyce Lukens, a former boss, would push her fingernail into the bottom of a piece of candy to determine what was inside. Those techniques aren’t required with Gudrun.

The insert featured mouth-watering descriptions of each piece of candy — complete with a color photos.

Each morsel of deliciousness had its own name — including Twinkle (pistachio with hazelnut pieces) Seabreeze (a layered truffle with salted caramel) and Cocorico (milk chocolate with coconut ganache). I’m licking my lips as I type.

Speaking of coconut — I recall the time my good buddy Marko Briley mistakenly started to eat some “flakes” of paper. The error was understandable — he’s legally blind. But, the bigger contributing factor was the packaging.

This, also, was a box of chocolates. The pieces of candy were lying in a bed of what appeared to be gourmet coconut flakes. The paper actually looked like and had the consistency of coconut.

However, Marko said it didn’t taste like coconut. I took his word for it.

It certainly doesn’t make sense to package gourmet chocolates in a bed of paper.

Oh, and by the way, I named the people in the “Pedestrian Crossing” signs — Pedestri-ANN and Pedestri-ANDY. You’re welcome!

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Tammy Malgesini is the community editor. Her column, Inside my Shoes, includes general musings about life. Contact her at tmalgesini@eastoregonian.com or 541-564-4539.

The game of life features friends, connections

By Tammy Malgesini

Staff Writer

Published on September 13, 2016 10:17AM

It seems that I’m getting to that age where I meet up with old friends at formal gatherings. And, such was the case during a recent weekend when I attended a celebration of life service and a marriage ceremony.

Although I had only met mama Briley a few times, I went to the service out of respect for several of her children — including her youngest son, Mark.

My friendship with Marko began when we started working together. With an adventurous spirit and a sarcastic sense of humor that often came out in made-up songs, Marko and I hit it off right away. Acting as Mark’s seeing-eye person, we’ve skied some of the best powder in the Rocky Mountains and swam in the warmest waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

When we discovered we were born two days apart, we started telling people we were twins. While it’s a medical oddity, it is possible for twins to be born on different days. However, it’s generally not possible for twins to have different fathers and mothers.

Also, John and I, along with Marko and Teri, have taken many family vacations together. We’ve flown in a helicopter over the Grand Canyon, ended up in total darkness in Carlsbad Caverns when the electricity malfunctioned and egged Mark on to share a fabricated abduction story at the UFO Festival in Roswell, New Mexico. We’ve also gone to more baseball games than I can count. And, Mark’s love for the game, I learned, was passed down from his mother.

As far as the wedding, it was special to be there when Isaac Williams tied the knot with Tonieshia Rich. I met Isaac’s mother, Matilda Ritter, shortly after we moved to Hermiston.

When she found out she was pregnant, Matilda invited me to be present when she gave birth. Knowing that John and I weren’t going to have children, she wanted to share the wonder of childbirth.

I’m still not too sure how thrilled her then husband was about the whole thing, but Bruce did call me in the wee hours of the morning on July 6, 1987. I had fingernail indentations that lasted for hours from Matilda gripping my hand so hard while she was in labor.

Isaac Alvin Williams made his appearance at 5:15 a.m. A few days later, he wore his first Yankees jersey that I had gotten him.

Before he started kindergarten, John gave Isaac a cool haircut in our bathroom. And, even though John hadn’t stepped foot inside a church for some time, we both attended Isaac’s baptism a handful of years later.

Through life’s transitions, we grew apart for several years. However, I met up with Isaac again when he was a senior in high school. Catching up, I asked about his interests and activities. He shared about skateboarding, playing guitar and watching the Yankees play baseball. “I got that from you,” he said with a smile.

At the wedding reception, I overheard Isaac introducing his wife to John. He proudly told her that I was in the room when he was born.

That weekend reminded me that the connections we have with people is what really matters in life.

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Tammy Malgesini is the community editor. Her column, Inside my Shoes, includes general musings about life. Contact her at tmalgesini@eastoregonian.com or 541-564-4539

Nintendo Wii: love it, hate it

Mark Briley, formerly of Hermiston, gets ready
to tee off while playing Wii Sports Resort.

2/11/2011

BY TAMMY MALGESINI

East Oregonian

Inside my shoes

My Nintendo Wii irritates me. But, it’s a love-hate relationship.

See, I really, really like Wii Fit Plus, but it talks to me in ways that even my best friends don’t.

Wii knows I’m a night owl and chastises me for messing up my body’s natural cycle. 

“It also doesn’t make waking up in the morning any easier,” it tells me.

“Thanks, but you’re not my mom,” I say to the TV screen.

It tells me I’m overweight and I should exercise more and not eat late-night snacks.

And when I laid off the Wii after an injury this past summer, I thought it would be more encouraging when I returned.

“Well, if it isn’t Bwana. Nice to see you again. It’s been 133 days since I saw you last,” it said sarcastically.

Then it continues to rag on me about the need for regular exercise.

“I broke my flipping shoulder,” I said. “By the way, I have been doing physical therapy. That’s right, I don’t need you.”

Ah, but I do. I love my Wii. The relationship began last February when Mark and Teri Briley, my friends in Florida, introduced me to their Nintendo Wii.

After frolicking in the Florida sun and wading in Gulf waters during the day, we played Wii at night. Typically the three of us would play a few games after dinner and then Teri would call it a night.

“Now don’t stay up all night playing that, we have things to do tomorrow,” Teri would say as she retired to the bedroom.

Like a couple of kids, we shook our heads and said we wouldn’t.

Time ticked away while we were transported to a place where the sun always shines — Wii Sports Resort. Night turned to early morning and before we knew it, it had been hours since the mouse ran down the clock.

After a full week of this routine, I went through Wii withdrawal after returning to Hermiston.

To get a fix, I’d go to Walmart or Game Crazy and play at their demo stations. If a kid was playing, I’d stand there with my arms crossed until they moved along.

Finally, I bought my own and happily golfed on exotic courses, sword fought with enemies, slam-dunked over players smaller than me, went wakeboarding when it was raining outside and tossed a Frisbee for a stupid virtual dog that just looked at me and barked.

It was during a phone conversation that Teri told me about Wii Fit and how great it was as an exercise program. Evidently they had upgraded it to Wii Fit Plus. I think the “plus” means it gets personal and provoking.

All I gotta say is: Don’t push it, because I can unplug you.

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Tammy Malgesini is the EO community editor. Her column, Inside my shoes, includes general musings about life. You can reach her at tmalgesini@eastoregonian.com or 541-564-4539.

Florida sun, frozen fun? You choose

Florida sun, frozen fun? You choose

By TAMMY MALGESINI
East Oregonian

OK, hands on your buzzer. I have a question for you. Where would you rather celebrate your 50th birthday - go to a festival and gambling in the Colorado Rockies or a trip to Florida and a cruise to the Bahamas?

Before you answer, let me give you a little information about Frozen Dead Guy Days, a festival in Nederland, Colo. At the center of the multiple- day event is Bredo Morstoel, a dead Norwegian, packed in dry ice.

In 2005, Mark Briley and I took his wife, Teri, to celebrate her 50th birthday at the festival, which takes place in early March.

Upon his death in 1989, Grandpa, as he's affectionately called, was cryogenically frozen in Norway. Sometime later, the grand-popsicle was shipped to Los Angeles before taking up residence in a Tuff Shed high in the Rockies.

The permafrost dead guy was "discovered" by the small town of Nederland during a town hall meeting when a relative was denied a certificate of occupancy and would soon be deported back to Norway.

As the story goes, she turned to the person next to her and asked, "Who will take care of the bodies?"

Bodies? Yes there were two; however, since that time Grandpa's refrigerated roomie was cremated. Nothing like extremes - fire and ice.

Herbert Flack, a Belgian actor, knocked 'em dead while filming for a Belgium reality show, "TV De Wereld," during Grandpa's Blue Ball in 2005. Seizing the moment, Mark and I stuck close to Flack for a chance of fame.

People at the International Cryonics Institute and Center for Life Extension (or ICICLE) take the whole cryonics things pretty seriously. During a trip to Grandpa's Tuff Shed I made the faux pas of asking what they expected when they finally thawed the frozen guy. Bo Shaffer, aka the Iceman, corrected me.

"We call it re-animate."

In addition to the frozen ball, the event includes a polar plunge, coffin races, a frozen T-shirt contest, frozen turkey bowling, a grandpa look-alike contest and the crowning of the ice queen.

Yeah, Frozen Dead Guy Days was frigidly fun, but I'm gonna have to go with the cruise to the Bahamas.
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Tammy Malgesini is the EO community editor. Her column, Inside my shoes, appears twice a month. If you've gone to an odd festival, contact her at tmalgesini@eastoregonian. com or 541-564-4539.

Still looking for fresh powder

2/7/2009

Still looking for fresh powder
Tammy Malgesini
Inside My Shoes

Last month I headed up to Spout Springs Ski Area and hit the slopes for the first time in three seasons.

The night before I was scheduled to do a story on a couple of local Special Olympics athletes training for the 2009 World Winter Games, I was like a giddy school girl waiting for her first date to show up.

For anyone who's a skier, the time between seasons seems like an eternity - so after missing three winters on the white stuff, I was philosophically opposed to missing another.

As I trudged up the hill to get my lift ticket I watched a small group of people huddling with a ski instructor. I laughed to myself as I thought about my first experience on skis.

I was employed as the residential manager of group homes for adults with developmental disabilities. Several of the clients had expressed interest in participating is Special Olympics skiing. The only problem was one of the clients required 24-hour supervision and we were short staffed.

Suzy Tosten, one of the group home managers, and I decided we'd go to Spout for the coaches' training the week before training started for the athletes. I arrogantly figured if I took a lesson and spent a day on the slopes, I'd be one step up on my clients and would be just fine.

As I tried to remain upright with these two long boards strapped beneath me, I wanted to watch my feet. Buzz Fulton, our ski instructor, kept a watchful eye on me.

"Look up, a picture's worth a thousand words," he kept saying to me.

Then he told us to fall down, so we could learn how to get up on our own. At the time I thought it was ridiculous that I should purposely splay myself all over the mountain - something I was desperately trying to avoid.

After we ventured up on the chair lift for the first time and began to slide down a real slope, I suddenly realized I needed more instruction in stopping. As I was headed straight for a tree, Buzz and my classmates were all directing me to wedge my skis. However, above the dull roar of instructions, I heard Suzy say, "Fall down."

Suzy wasn't only a co-worker, she was a trusted friend. I didn't know at the time Buzz was a long-time ski instructor - I just figured he did his duties at instructing as a way to get a free ski pass. I listened to Suzy and gracefully shifted my weight and toppled in a heap.

As I laid there in the snow, I suddenly realized Buzz probably knew what he was doing when he had us purposely falling earlier in the lesson so we could learn to get up. I still have the ski pole, which bears a distinct bend from being used to pull myself up more than once during my bunny slope days.

After my close friends Mark and Teri Briley moved to Denver, I finally experienced ski nirvana during my yearly birthday trips to Winter Park. The ski resort actually sent me a T-shirt and other goodies the first season I missed after having my left knee replaced.

Last year I was set to return to the slopes, but then I did something to my right knee. Although some people might give up, not me. I'm addicted to snow. Although my joints are creaking, I've always said, "Age is a state of mind. Someone just forgot to tell my body that."
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Tammy Malgesini is the community editor for the East Oregonian. Contact her at tmalgesini@eastoregonian.com

On this trip, I'll be doing the driving

8/5/2008

On this trip, I'll be doing the driving
inside my shoes
By TAMMY MALGESINI
The Hermiston Herald

I don't want to die in Moab. That's what I told my husband, John, last year as he continued to drive on a treacherous road while exploring some of the back country outside the southeastern Utah town.

Now I must admit I may have contributed to John's hell-bent determination to forge on.

Shortly after we got off the main road he was driving very conservatively.

"You don't have to drive like a grandma, we have four-wheel drive," I said.

These words would come back to haunt me as the road conditions worsened and he was determined to find the Anasazi petroglyphs and hidden arch we were searching for.

We stumbled upon the town in the midst of red rock and desert 11 years ago. Our good friends, Mark and Teri Briley, had moved to Denver and we planned to visit them.

I routed our trip through Moab because I had matured enough to appreciate the beauty of our national parks. Arches and Canyonlands national parks are each within a stone's throw of the town situated in the midst of red rock country and desert.

As I was growing up, my family didn't have much money, so our family vacations consisted of piling into the car and camping - many times near one of the national parks in California.

After serving with the military police, my dad, Robert Stockman, was told he was too short to join the California Highway Patrol. After a stint as a truck driver, he went back to college to become a social studies teacher. At the time it felt like vacations were Stockman's Summer School.

As I was planning this summer's vacation, I pondered where we should go. John and I trade off as to who decides the destination and this year it was my turn.

After our second trip to the area, I recognized the negotiating power of the promise of a trip to Moab.

"This is a place I would be perfectly fine dying in," John proclaimed.

In order to save my precious vacation time, John is more than agreeable to packing up the truck with our luggage and equipment and driving - picking me up at a nearby airport.

I must admit, Moab and the surrounding area have grown on me. It's a virtual nirvana for outdoor enthusiasts with bicycling, off-highway vehicle exploration, white-water rafting, hiking, golfing, rock-climbing and rappelling.

Adding an ATV to our cache of toys, we set out to find the petroglyphs. Although they remained elusive, we did find a hidden arch and I didn't drive like a grandma getting there.
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Tammy Malgesini is a reporter for The Hermiston Herald. Readers may e-mail her at mailto:tmalgesini@hermistonherald.com