My fervent plea: Talk to me

Contrary to any impression you may have of me because of this blog, I'm not a talker. Plop me in a room of family, friends or strangers and I'm usually one of the more quiet in the crowd.

My extended family is full of talkers, so I learned from an early age that my role in a successful conversation is that of listener. I just get out of the way and let the natural talkers do the talking. It usually works quite well.

But I'm often confronted with situations where initiating the conversation -- or guiding it -- is up to me. Not being a natural-born conversationalist, I'm always on the lookout for tricks for opening folks up. People generally like to talk about themselves, so I need only tap the keg of conversation, then pump it now and then with leading questions to keep things flowing.

As a writer, I've had to do hundreds and hundreds (maybe even thousands) of interviews. The keys to a successful interview, I've learned: Do not ask any questions that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no," and keep your mouth shut when the subject takes a while to come up with a response because sometimes the best quotes come when a person is trying to fill that awkward silence.

As a mother, getting the girls to talk hasn't been as easy. And it's more crucial. If I conduct a bad interview, I end up with a crappy article. But if I have bad -- or no -- conversations with my girls, I end up with a crappy relationship. Luckily I've had more time to tweak the conversation-starting technique with them than I have with interviewees.

Out of necessity, I've accumulated a pretty good bag of conversation-starting tricks, if I say so myself.

I recently wrote here about my use of puzzles and blank books to get conversations rolling with my daughters.

Another of my tools is something called Tabletalkers. They're nifty little coaster-size discs with thought-provoking questions such as (from my Thanksgiving version), "If you could change the location where you are spending Thanksgiving this year, where would it be and who would you spend it with?"

(Of course, there are also some subliminal-message Tabletalker questions that I love to throw out there, such as the one that reads "When you host a Thanksgiving dinner, at the end of the day do you prefer to have people help clean up or just go home?")

I have the Christmas version, too.

But my favorite holiday conversation starter is a book called, fittingly, The Christmas Conversation Piece. That's a picture of it, up there at the beginning of this post.

I came across this book after the smashing success I found with a similar book called "If ... (Questions for The Game of Life)". We loved the "If" book, spending many hours poring over the questions, killing time finding out about one another. (And that was just me and Jim!) The girls enjoyed it, too, especially Andrea. When she was in the beginning stages of "talking" with (ie, "going with" or something like that) a boy, this non-talker (she's so much like her mom, it's scary) needed something to talk about during long phone conversations that were short on conversation. She used the "If" book to get things rolling with her beau ... and often found they weren't worthy of her time, just by some of the answers she got from them.

Because we loved the "If" book, buying the Christmas version was a no-brainer. We all spent many hours volleying holiday-related questions and answers.

Now, I've decided, I'll share the fun with my readers. Beginning today and running through the holiday season, I'll pose a question from the book for all my readers, at the end of each post. Comment, if you want, or ponder in private, if you prefer. Either way, I think it's a pretty cool way of getting everyone in the Christmas spirit -- and maybe learning a bit more about one another along the way.

So here goes:

Today's question from "The Christmas Conversation Piece" is:

Which of the following, if it were completely and permanently removed from the holiday season, would be the most difficult for you to get along without -- Christmas lights, Christmas music, or Christmas parties? Why?

My answer: Parties! Because they involve a lot of talking.

(Not too surprising, I guess, for a kinda, sorta wallflower!)

Just added to the Recipe Box

The latest addition to the Recipe Box is my signature Thanksgiving dish. I didn't include it in the Recipe Box sooner because I needed a photo to include with the recipe -- and I make this only at Thanksgiving.

As we all know, yesterday was Thanksgiving, a.k.a. time to make the cheesy corn casserole! And I snapped a shot of the cheesy goodness before placing it on the table for my family to gobble up.

It's too late for you to include it with your Thanksgiving meal, but it works just as well for Christmas dinner ... or any other family gathering any time of the year.

Find the recipe here.

In case you wondered ...

If you read yesterday's post and wondered if I was done with Catmania ... well ... see for yourself. This is what it now looks like:

Yep! I finished! I did nothing but place pieces from 8:30 to 10:30 last night, and I did it ... by myself ... without Andie ... because she won't be home until after midnight tonight. Which stinks. But I bet that once she sees my handiwork, she'll be so darn proud of her mama that she'll sing me Mr. Rogers' "Proud of You" song!

Mission accomplished!

Now I'm off to make pies.

The next Grilled Grandma

It's the Thanksgiving edition of Grilled Grandmas, featuring a fellow blogging grandma whom I'm so thankful to have met in this massive blogosphere: Nina.

She plays Rock Band and is wise in all things tech, which makes Nina one of the coolest grandmas I know.

Now I'd like you to get to know her. Meet Nina, our next Grilled Grandma, here.

If you know of a grandma you'd like to share with the rest of us, contact me here with her first name and e-mail address, and I'll set her up for a grilling.

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Thanksgiving puzzle

Preparing for Thanksgiving often feels like piecing together a puzzle: making the location fit with the friends and family, the menu fit with tastes and traditions, the green bean casserole fit in the oven with the turkey.

For me, Thanksgiving not only feels like the piecing together of a puzzle, it includes a puzzle.

Let me give you a little background.

When my girls were teens, it was hell -- as the mother of any teen girl will tell you -- to get them to verbalize why they were so frustrated, angry, stressed and hateful so much of the time. Being a girl myself, I know that the teen years just plain suck and the hormones and boys and friends and enemies do a number on an otherwise normal kid's psyche. But I wanted them to talk to me about it.

So I did things to try to encourage conversation. I continued the practice I'd started with them when they were elementary-school age of sharing a private blank book with each one, for filling with thoughts and concerns -- good and bad -- and placing under each other's pillow for reading and responding. Sometimes it's easier to write about things than to say them out loud. For both sides. (I still have -- and cherish -- those books.)

I also came up with the idea of having a puzzle set up on a card table and in the works, in hopes the girls would piece it together with me and spill tiny portions of their guts while we were engrossed in the task, heads down and not looking one another in the eye. I'd read that side-by-side activities (such as riding in the car) provide opportunities for honest conversation more so than flat out "We need to talk" interrogations. Plus, I remembered puzzle-work being the setting for many honest conversations -- and a saving grace regarding the working out of some intense teen feelings of my own -- while living with a friend's family during the second semester of my junior year of high school.

No earth-shattering revelations ever came from the girls during the times one or another would take a seat by me to find a piece or two in the puzzle. But I enjoyed the camaraderie of working on a common goal together at a time when they really didn't like their mom too much (which, as I now understand, is pretty typical of teen girls but was heartbreaking then).

The last puzzle I'd set up in hopes of clearing the air with one of my daughters was one called Catmania. Andrea loved cats and I thought it would be the perfect way to draw out my baby girl. As was the tradition, we each signed and dated the inside of the lid upon starting the puzzle. But it quickly proved to be too hard. We lost interest and I, in my perfect-mother tone, said "Screw it!" I rolled up the crazy cat puzzle (on one of those nifty green felt puzzle keeper thingees) and I bought a Christmas puzzle to do instead.

From that point on, it became a low-level tradition (truly not one of our "must-haves") to begin a holiday puzzle around Thanksgiving with the goal of completing it by Christmas. It was the only time we had a puzzle table set up, and everyone in the family took turns now and then, as schedules allowed, to fit in a piece here and there.

We did that for several years. Except in 2007, the year we moved into our new house, because we closed on the house the week before Thanksgiving and puzzle work was not even considered. And I didn't set up a puzzle in 2008. I was in the throes of being outsourced from my job and I didn't feel like working on a puzzle when I was having a heck of a time keeping the pieces of my life in place.

But this year, I decided we need to have a puzzle to work on. But I told myself I absolutely could not start a holiday puzzle until completing the Catmania one Andrea and I had left unfinished. So I unrolled the green puzzle keeper thingee and opened the box of remaining pieces. Sheesh! The lid was marked with my signature and Andie's and dated November 2002! How could I have left a puzzle sitting for SEVEN YEARS!?

So I've been working on it for a couple weeks now. Brianna's helped a bit here and there, and we're down to just DAYS before Thanksgiving. I gotta get it done so I can begin my Christmas puzzle! Here's what it looks like this morning:

Luckily Andie will be home for the holiday beginning tomorrow night ... and she'll be helping me put the last few pieces in place -- which is fitting, considering she and I started the darn thing together.

So despite the two million and sixteen things I need to be doing right now, I'm determined to get the Catmania creation done and out of here. I've had the holiday puzzle bought for a couple weeks now, and I'm pretty excited to get it started. Here's a glimpse of this year's puzzle venture:

(Those of you who have been to my house might agree that it bears a weird resemblance to my living room -- minus all the cozy, cloying charm in the picture-perfect puzzle setting, of course).

I can't wait to crack open the box. Wish me luck in getting rid of those #@%! cats!