Husband and I got a new toaster the other day, trading in our British-made Dualit for an Italian SMEG. The Dualit worked great for about 20 years, but finally gave up.
One feature I really liked in the Dualit was the ability to raise up the finished toast over the top of the slots with the lowering lever after it was done. No need to stick your fingers in the hot slot to retrieve the toast. The SMEG doesn’t have that capability. The other day I was fishing some toast out of the SMEG with a fork when I heard a voice from the past, my mother’s, saying:
“Stop! You’re going to get electrocuted if you stick that fork in there!”
I think my mother said that to me every time she saw me making toast. I don’t know if anyone ever died by sticking a metal implement into a toaster after the toast was done, but she sure was going to make certain I didn’t.
I ignored the warning from the past and fished out the toast with the fork. I didn’t get electrocuted. The toast was good. Sorry, Mom. I am just going to live dangerously.
What safety admonitions did you get as a young person? How do you live dangerously? How do you like your toaster?
I was rather alarmed last Tuesday morning to get an email from my Regional Director insisting I attend a meeting that afternoon with her and four other quality control and administrative staff to discuss some problems with my “compliance” data for timely completion of psychological evaluations.
I have 20 working days from the time I first see a client for an evaluation until the report has to be entered into our electronic record system. I do about ten evaluations a month. My compliance rate is typically 90-95% of the evaluations completed within the 20 day time period. Compliance is a big deal for my agency, as our accreditation and licensure are dependent on everyone getting their paperwork done on time. 90-95% is an acceptable rate of completion.
We have electronic scheduling that helps determine paperwork compliance for most appointments. If your note is completed, a little “F” pops up on the appointment on the schedule. Due to reasons that are too tedious to relate, that doesn’t work for psychological evaluation completion. Someone has to keep a spreadsheet that lists the client’s name, date(s) of evaluation, and date of report completion. A quality control staff has to hand calculate the compliance rate. Most importantly, the appointment in the electronic calendar has to be deleted by the keeper of the spreadsheet.
At the meeting I was informed my compliance rate had dropped to 7%. Well, I knew that wasn’t accurate. I asked who was keeping the spreadsheet. None of the five other people knew what I was talking about. I then reminded them that unless the appointments were deleted from my electronic calendar, it would appear that they weren’t completed if they ran a compliance check with the electronic appointment system. I also told them that none of my evaluation appointments had been deleted from the calendar for more than a year, so it would erroneously seem that I hadn’t finished a report since January, 2023. It was at that point that the they suddenly remembered that my “noncompliance” coincided with the departure of a support staff who had apparently been responsible for the spreadsheet and the deletions, and hadn’t told her replacement or anyone else about it when she left. Everyone was quite apologetic about the mix-up.
Dealing with this nonsense took the better part of a day, what with my fuming and gnashing of teeth and doing my homework to figure out what had gone awry. It reminded me yet again of the danger of poorly run statistics.
Do you access your medical records on-line? What work deadlines have you had to contend with? When have you been wrongfully accused?
Husband and I have four rolling pins. Two are French-style ones I use for pie crusts, one is a knobby one for hardtack, and the biggest one with narrow grooves is for lefse. I use the French ones pretty regularly. The lefse rolling pin only comes out in November, that is, until now, thanks to my physical therapist.
My physical therapist really likes to attack knots in my sore muscles by vigorously rubbing them. This is not gentle massage. It hurts, but helps loosen the muscles. The other day at my PT appointment after the heating pad and dry needling there were very sore knots on the muscles on the outside of my right leg above my knee. My therapist got out a large and heavy styrofoam roller and rolled it up and down those muscle knots for about 10 minutes. After she was finished it felt wonderful. I told her I thought I could do the same thing at home with a rolling pin. She agreed, but cautioned that the narrower circumference of the rolling pin might hurt more than her roller did.
I spent a good amount of time Saturday doing my PT exercises and rolling the lefse rolling pin up and down the knots in my leg. I had the most pain-free day I have had in a couple of months.
What is your preferred rolling pin? What are some alternative uses you have found for objects? Any odd home remedies you have tried or heard of?
Last weekend, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, one of our employees came into our building and spread gold glitter all over-in the elevator, in all the hallways on both floors, in our offices, and on our desks along with green paper shamrocks and candy. Whoever it was had a master key to get into all the offices. Administration has been oddly silent, so I think it was one of them who did it..
All I could think was how awful for the cleaning staff to try to vacuum up all the handfuls of glitter that were strewn all over. The glitter has spread everywhere. One of my colleagues took her work laptop to a meeting at a local elementary school, and when she opened it up, glitter spilled out onto the table they were all meeting at. We are even carrying it into the community! After a couple of days for the cleaners to vacuum you can still see it in the carpet. Husband had some on his face at lunch yesterday.
For some reason Leonard Bernstein ‘s Candide came to mind when I saw all the glitter
What are some of your favorite Bernstein works? What is the biggest mess you ever made?
We have a new assistant pastor at our Lutheran Church who is working out rather nicely. She is good with youth, preaches good sermons, and is fitting in well with the congregation. There is only one problem, and that is her lack of musicality.
Our pastors sing much of the of the liturgy, and to do that the they have to know to listen to the note the organist gives them to start on the chant. Our new pastor can’t carry a tune in a bucket. No matter how emphatic the organist is in giving the note, the new pastor invariably starts on a pitch three notes below where she should start, and can’t seem to read the intervals between the notes to sing the chant correctly. The liturgy is such that the pastor sings, then the congregation comes in on a pitch based on where the pastor leaves off. We now have to listen for a prompt from the organist to know what our pitch is.
It would be fine with me if our new pastor read the liturgy instead of singing it, but I guess in Lent things need to be sung. We are all suffering through these forty days together!
How are you at singing a capella? What are your favorite metaphors and idioms?
A member of our extended family has developed gluten and lactose intolerance due to an autoimmune disorder. I am helping with diet ideas and foods to help her find some yummy new things to eat. I ordered a bunch of gluten free baking products for her from King Arthur Baking Company, as well as 9 pounds of lentils and quinoa from other sources. . She likes Asian and Indian food, so that helps a lot.
I would have a really hard time giving up wheat and dairy products. I suppose there is a grieving process when something like this happens. I was surprised, though, at how many of the foods we like to eat are actually gluten free. Beans, corn, lentils, rice, quinoa, all gluten free. Ice cream, half and half in my coffee, those would be hard to go without. I love dairy products. It is comforting that butter is relatively lactose free. It is a good thing our relative doesn’t drink beer, which is full of gluten. I am hopeful she will feel better with her new diet.
What foods would be hard for you to give up? Any tips or recipes for someone venturing into a gluten and lactose free life?
Husband has decided that it is very important that the next time we travel overseas, we should go to Emden, in northwest Germany to see where my father’s people come from, and then go to Debden, UK to see the village where my dad was stationed during the Second World War. He also wants to go to Edinburgh and other parts of the Scottish lowlands to see where his mother’s people come from. He has no dates chosen for when we will do this, just some time after we move back to Minnesota when I retire.
When we visited my maternal grandfather’s village south of Bremen several years ago I felt a real connection because I still have family who live there. My father’s people left Ostfriesland in the 1850’s, and any connections there are long lost. Still, I think it will be pretty interesting, although it is my understanding that the people who live in Ostfriesland are frequently the butt of jokes in Germany and are stereotyped as backward and somewhat hapless. It will be fun to see for myself. All I know about the place is that it is low, flat, there is water everywhere, and the inhabitants drink more tea per capita than in any other country.
Where do your people come from? Where would you like to travel next, time, money, and health permitting?
This weekend Husband and I are going to have a shred fest, disposing of lots of unneeded documents that we sorted through and discarded last Saturday. For some reason probably having to do with all the renovation in the basement, our housekeeping has really gone south over the past 18 months.
What with Covid and our busy schedules we have had very few guests over to the house in the past couple of years. Last Sunday that changed when Husband gave a cello lesson to one of our church choir members. The aspiring cellist brought his wife along, also a choir member, and we had to do a lot of house cleaning before they came. The dust was awful, and there were countless dog nose prints on the bay window that needed to be cleaned. We even cleaned out closets and brought lots of stuff to the thrift store. We also gave the basement a good cleaning now that the renovations are completely done. We were exhausted by the time we were finished.
We really don’t have a schedule for cleaning. We just do what needs to be done when we see it. I think that when we are both fully retired it will be easier to be more intentional housekeepers. Cleaning closets is pretty low on the list, but it sure feels good when I open the closets and see the organization and fewer things. I have the same approach to cleaning and organizing my desk at work. I have a far too grand, u-shaped desk at work that allows me to have stacks of papers that get bigger and bigger and still leave me room to do my work. You can see how ridiculously big this desk is.
I also have some odd figures that I have acquired over the years that hold pride of place in one corner of the desk. You can see them in the header photo. When the paper piles start encroaching on Moishe and Sigmund, then I know it is time to file things and straighten things up.
What did or does your desk look like at work? What is your decorative style?
I subscribe to my hometown paper The Rock County Star Herald, and was tickled to see the recent news that English students at the Luverne High School recently were named State Champions in the Minnesota Fall 2023 Vocabulary Bowl.
This competition was new to me. It is done on-line. Every two months, students are given access to 15,000 vocabulary words from various subjects, and study the words and take tests through definition, context, spelling, etc., also learning the words in specific pieces of literature they read in their English classes. After a certain number of correct answers, they are considered to have mastered the words. 100 Junior and Senior students at Luverne mastered 11,000 words from Oct. 1 through Nov. 30. They are on their way to another championship for Feb.1 through March 31.
I would have loved such a challenge. I was in every musical competition and speech tournament there was, but this would have been extremely fun! I would love to know if this expands their working vocabulary and if they use the words they are learning in their everyday conversations!
What extracurricular activities were you involved in during high school? What new or interesting words have you heard lately?Got any favorite words?
This week has been about theater. It’s one of those periods where I have to get a show ready, plus class, plus the real job, plus the everyday household stuff and chickens and kids and dogs and, you know… “Any Idiot can handle a crisis, it’s the day to day living that wears you out”.
I’m lighting Hamlet this week. “A Reimagined Classic” is the marketing tagline. I don’t know my Shakespeare, so I don’t know which parts have been “reimagined”. I know the script jumps over scenes, and it ends with Act 7 and it’s still 2.5 hours long. I recognize many well-known lines. And there’s some funny stuff in the first half. It’s probably not a spoiler to say everyone dies at the end. Being reimagined, I can use some non-traditional lighting and some color washes on the backwall, as well as color on the actors. Here’s a picture from my tech table, just to give you an idea, with work lights still on.
Scenic design by Erica Zaffarano, directed by Merritt Olson.
Paper tech will be on Saturday evening, meaning the director and tech people go through the script and coordinate sound and lighting cues so the Stage Manager, who runs it all, has everything they need. Sunday evening will be a full run through with costumes, sound, and lights. Generally, Monday will be make up, wigs, plus all the other stuff. It’s really interesting, the show can be really humming along, and then you throw all the tech stuff in, and the show takes about 4 steps back. As an actor, it’s just a lot of stuff your brain is dealing with besides lines and blocking (movement).
We had our first meeting at our new Haverhill Township townhall on Wednesday. Bathrooms! Running water! HEAT! And AC!
Our old townhall was basically a one room school. A wonderful place with a lot of character, but it was 100 years old. With no running water, and an outhouse… The only State Insured Outhouse in Minnesota!
I went to 4H there, I did one act plays on that stage, and my mom and dad met as infants when their bassinettes were put behind the furnace by their respective moms during Mothers and Daughters Club. A lot of history in this building.
At the college, I’m working on the set model for The Curious Savage, by John Patrick, our spring play. I also got the genie lift out and tie a rope up at the ceiling for the physics demonstration show Saturday and, since I had the genie out, I changed some burned out fluorescent lamps. I keep a log of when I change lamps so I can change several at the same time if they’re all on the same timeline. Some of these 8’ fluorescents have been going since March 2, 2015! It isn’t unusual to get 6 or 7 years out of them. I’ve got one set in the shop that’s been going since January 25th of 2012!!
When I walk back from class on the other end of the campus on the first floor, I walk up 5 floors, to a roof access door, just to get steps in, then back to my office on the 2nd floor. Written on the wall by the roof access is some pretty wise graffiti: “you bleed just to know you’re alive” and next to it, “Don’t forget you can live without bleeding “ And these: “The quality of life is determined by the questions you ask” – WB 2017 “If you don’t ask the questions, you’re never going to know the answers” – SF 2018
WHERE OR HOW DID YOUR PARENTS MEET? OR YOU AND YOUR SPOUSE? ❤️
Trail Baboon 