I’m reading a memoir right now (Thirty Rooms to Hide In by Luke Sullivan). In the early pages, the author paints a picture of his life growing up with his five brothers in Rochester in the fifties. Here is an interesting passage on bedtime:
“Bedtime was indeed death. Even the rituals were the same: the preparing of the body (the solemn washing of teeth, the funereal donning of pajamas), the readings, the occasional prayer, and finally the inevitable darkness. All that was missing were Hallmark sympathy cards arriving in the mail.”
I never really thought about bedtime in terms of rituals but in my world, it’s probably the most consistent rituals that I have. Teeth, pajamas, highlighting items done from my to-do list, making a list for the next day, med/vitamins, daily entry in my “good things” journal. Once I’m actually settling in, there is the arranging of Nimue’s blanket on my side of the bed; her ritual is to settle in for about ten minutes, knead a few biscuits, purr while getting some scritches and then heading to her favorite bed on top of the radiator.
Almost forgot the “bang” treat for Guinevere and the yummies for Nimue… this usually happens between teeth and jammies.
On Sunday, Kelly and I did our usual gator farm tour. This week we went down in the pasture and down to the creek, which was still frozen over, walked around down there for a bit.
The next day I took the truck to Plainview, which meant I have the dogs with me, and after we picked up daughter, they all walked home.
Dealing with mud again, which is never my favorite. And it’s gonna get cold, and it’s gonna snow, and then it’s gonna get muddy again, so we’ll have to do this cycle a few times. Just something else to get through.
I took the anhydrous applicator up to an auction in Plainview. It’s an implement I use in the spring to apply nitrogen to the corn ground. Nitrogen in the form of anhydrous ammonia. I pull those white tanks behind it. The last year that I used it was 2021, and since 2022 I’ve had the co-op applying nitrogen in the form of urea, which is a granular product.
When I was working with my dad, the story was he had gotten a heavy whiff of the ammonia quite a few years ago and he never liked it and couldn’t stand being around it anymore. So I’ve been applying the anhydrous probably since I was 18 years old. We used to rent a smaller machine to do it, and then as the tractor‘s got bigger I could rent a little bit bigger applicator bar. And when the co-op stopped renting that equipment and they sold them off, I bought this one. I don’t remember the price anymore, it was probably 10 or 15 years ago.
This is also the machine that I had a little incident with back in 2018.
Anhydrous can be really nasty stuff; it can kill you, it can burn you, it’s gotta be treated with respect and handled carefully. And I have always been careful, making sure I’m parking into the wind, working up wind, wearing heavy gloves, and a face shield.
So this one day the hose was dragging on the ground between the wagon and the applicator.
I stopped, I closed the valves, I started to disconnect the hose, and the valve did not seal properly. I remember that it was very difficult to open, it had been really cranked shut. So it made sense that it was leaking a bit now. There was very little breeze that day, next to nothing, so I couldn’t get up wind of it. I debated what to do. I debated just holding my breath and rushing in there to crank it shut. And finally thought, I just need somebody with a respirator, it’s not an emergency, I just need somebody that can get this closed. So I called the nonemergency number for the fire department and explained the situation. Well, when the first of three firetrucks showed up, and I was still sitting in the tractor waiting for them, they parked a half mile up the road and suited up and a guy in full gear walked down to me. I’m sure they were all bent out of shape that I was still hanging out down there. All they were told was that there was an anhydrous leak.
It turned into a whole big thing. Ambulance, incident command vehicle, and a sheriff deputy, all out on the highway, and the three firetrucks were on our road.
I had to call a chemical spill hotline who thought I had lost the entire tank of 5000 gallons. No, it’s just a few drips and a very minor vapor leak. But, it was good training for the fire department: they went down with a wet towel, sampled the air, wrapped a towel around the valve and was able to get it turned off tight using a pipe wrench so that I could then disconnect the hose. Always glad to help them out, I said. They even gave me a bottle of Gatorade.
I had to attend a safety workshop, and I had to replace the hoses that are only good for 10 years and of course mine were out of date by a few years because it’s expensive and nobody pays any attention to the replacement date. I think it cost me $1500 for new hoses and a valve.
And now it’s 2025, stamped on the hose it says ‘replace before 2025’, and I took it to the auction and it’s not my problem anymore. When I pulled it out of storage, one of the tires was low. Not flat, just low so I pumped it back up. Pulled it the 20 miles to Plainview, and as I walked into the office I could hear a hiss and air leaking from this tire. Well, not my circus, not my monkey anymore.
The dogs all got pup cups at the Dairy Queen and I had a blizzard.
WHATS YOUR FAVORITE CLEANING PRODUCT? ANY MONKEY STORIES?
Lucy Worsley is a favorite historian of mine. A couple of months ago I watched something about the history of murder mysteries in Britain. It was interesting and, of course, it sent me down a rabbit hole.
In addition to referencing quite a few early murder mysteries, she also mentioned the first few books in which women were featured as detectives. I immediately went online to the library. The very first woman detective was introduced by Andrew Forrester in 1864 in the very unoriginally titled The Female Detective. I have that on hold but I was particularly drawn to Susan Hopely: The Adventures of a Maid-Servant by Catherine Crowe. This was the first female “detective” authored by a woman. The Hennepin County system didn’t have it but I did find it listed on the InterLibrary Loan page. I immediately requested it.
This began a two-month run around, having to do with the ILL system mis-referencing it and involving several emails between me and two different folks in the ILL department. I had actually forgotten about it when with no notice, it showed up at my local library. Later that night, when I opened it up (hoping to remember why I had asked for it in the first place), I discovered that the pages were REALLY old, despite a fairly new cover. I spent some time looking at things on line and was fairly certain that these were pages from one of the original print run from 1842.
It seemed too incredible that I had a 183-year old book in my hands, so I turned to the one person I know who knows about this kind of thing…. Our Bill! He graciously allowed me to bring the book over and upon inspection he agreed that those pages were mostly likely from the first print run in 1842. He then walked me through some of his book collection, showing me quite a few other books which were as old. This made me feel a little bit better about carrying this book around and I didn’t drag it around with me to the gym or appointments. When reading it at home, I was very very careful and when I returned it to the library after I’d finished it, instead of sending it down the automatic chute, I carried it inside and handed it delicately to a librarian to scan!
Sitcoms have never been my favorite form of entertainment. A few exceptions over the years, but for the most part they seem silly and overblown to me. Truly, what person on the planet would actually do this:
Then every now and then…
I was meeting a friend at Whole Foods for lunch (they have a great salad bar and hot bar along with tables and chairs, so it’s a great place for two folks with food restrictions to have a fun meal together). My friend texted me that she was running about five minutes late so I decided to hang out in the produce section near the front door while I waited.
And then it happened. A woman took a corner a little too tightly with her cart and rammed into the lovingly stacked display of avocados. They didn’t all come tumbling down (like they would have on tv) but it was still a waterfall of green as them fell. She was mortified and sank to her knees, trying to corral the wayward fruits. Three Whole Foods employees appeared out of nowhere and they had the avocados re-stacked in less than a minute. It was very impressive. The photo above is after everything was back in order.
Although I never video tape anything, I did have a small wish that I could have gotten the fall and the re-assembly on film.
Maybe I should give sit-coms more leeway!
If we were casting for sitcom roles today, who would you like to be cast as?
Most Wednesdays I leave the house very early to hit my favorite donut place. When I left yesterday, YA said she was going to the gym before work and would probably be gone before I got back.
I was thinking about that when I pulled into my driveway and saw that she was starting to back out of the garage. She didn’t notice me right away (I was on the hill part of the driveway so my lights were pointing higher than her car) so she didn’t wait for me to pull into the garage next to her so I just sat and waited.
What you need to know is that YA and I have different strategies for dealing with our long driveway. I almost always just back all the way down to the street. YA does several little turns at the top of our driveway so that she is driving out headfirst. Both techniques have their pluses and minuses. But it meant that by the time she had turned herself around at the top, there would be room for me to get by and into the garage.
Went exactly as I had expected but while I was waiting it did make me think about “playing chicken”. I’m not a big playing chicken kind of gal but it does feature in a movie I’ve watched too many times:
Have you ever been in a submarine? Do you have a favorite submarine movie?
I drove down to the Eden Prairie library yesterday to pick up a copy of Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler for the next Blevins. I’ve seen the Robert Montgomery movie but haven’t actually read the novel yet.
The library app showed it checked so I headed to the Mystery section. There were a few Chandlers there but not Lady. Next checked in Fiction; same deal. Finally decided I should look back at the app to make sure I hadn’t mis-read it. On the app it showed this particular tome in Non-Fiction. WT…. Headed back to Non-Fiction, and found it using the Library of Congress classification. The sign on the shelf said “World Fiction”.
I didn’t look any farther to see if maybe he’s shelved anywhere else. I know there are lots of subgenres of all kinds of lit these days but I’m perplexed about why some Chandler is in Mystery, some if in Fiction and some is in World Fiction!
Do you have an author you think should be included on the World Fiction shelves?
YA and I celebrate the lunar new year, although not as robustly as we used to. When she was younger, we did a big house cleaning running up to the new year, put up a lot of decorations and had folks over for a nice dinner of Chinese. I used to cook all that food on my own but over the years, we moved to getting takeaway from our favorite Chinese restaurant. Since the pandemic, we’ve scaled way back on some of this.
It turns out that this coming year is not just Year of the Snake but Year of the Wood Snake. Apparently every 60 years or so, the Year of the Snake aligns with a Yisi year – which corresponds to heavenly stems and branches. Hence Wood Snake.
Folks born during a snake year (1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001,2013 and 2025) are associated with intelligence and resilience. Additional characteristics for a Wood Snake (1905, 1965 and 2025) are wisdom, intuition and renewal. I’ve seen a couple of headlines this week saying that a snake year for shedding negative energy. A good image for a snake, especially as the wood snake is linked with renewal.
According to a feng shui master who has been giving interviews, “The Snake — with a strong fire element, along with some metal and earth elements — is a zodiac sign that can cause significant clashes and conflicts. We need to be mindful of accidents as we approach the Snake Year. The overall atmosphere in the world will become slightly more chaotic.” Personally I don’t think you need a lunar new year prediction to come up with that….
Do you know your Chinese zodiac sign? Any favorite Chinese food this week?
YA doesn’t like a big fuss made about her birthday. This year she did request a birthday breakfast at one of her favorite places – The Lowbrow – but that was it.
This is hard for me as I love making a fuss. In my old job, everybody was in charge of someone else’s birthday. Card and treat. For the last several years of my employment, I had Norma’s birthday. Norma loved having a fuss made over her almost as much as I loved making a fuss; we were a match made in heaven. I miss those days.
Anyway, YA doesn’t ever want a gathering, a cake, a fuss. About five years ago I made a banner that I hung up in the dining room and then I added balloons for her age. She allowed this so that’s my go-to these days…. I hang up the banner and put up the balloons.
I figured out that year that I could extend the festivities a bit by celebrating the dog. YA is 20 years older than Guinevere so all I had to do was take down the “2” balloon, leaving the “5” balloon up for the dog. It’s the only fuss that Guinevere gets; she doesn’t even like the balloon. If you take it down to show it to her, she runs out of the room.
This year, with Guinevere turning 10, I did have to get a “1” balloon to make her age correct. Seemed a little silly to buy a balloon for the dog, but I did it anyway. Since I’m not making a big deal about Norma anymore, I guess the dog gets the attention!
Watching out the bus window on my way downtown, I saw a young man sitting on the roof of a porch, facing the sun, wearing a pair of shorts. Nothing else. It was 12°. I thought maybe it was some strange life-size blow up doll but then he moved.
The bus kept going but I haven’t been able to get him out of my head and I haven’t been able to come up with even one far-fetched reason he would have been sitting up there, basically naked, on such a cold day.
My guess is that I’ve thought more about jury duty than most folks. With my dad being a trail lawyer and our shared love of Perry Mason, I’ve known about juries from childhood.
About 35 years ago I got a summons for jury duty but despite sitting patiently in the basement of the Government Center every day for a week, I didn’t get impaneled. On Friday afternoon they released me and said I didn’t need to return.
Right before Christmas I got the Summons in the mail. Things have changed somewhat in 35 years (doh!). The biggest change is that you don’t have to show up on Monday morning and sit all week. You get assigned a group number and twice a day you check online (or call in) to see if your group needs to go in. One thing that hasn’t changed much is the stipend. It’s not enough to pay for parking downtown (which is just outrageous) so if you are on a fixed income, if you drive and park, it’s like you’re paying to get on a jury. I took the bus.
My group didn’t get called in until mid-day on Thursday (12:15 notice that you have to be at the Government Center at 1:30). The waiting area is now on the 24th floor and is referred to as “The Jar”. Hmmmm. There were 33 of us in the room; orientation took 15 minutes and at 2 p.m. they pulled the first group of 22. That left 11 of us, not enough for a jury. I assumed at some point 10 folks would come back and then there would be enough of us if they needed to call a new group. Nope, at 2:15, the 11 of us left in the room were sent home and told we didn’t need to come back in the morning or the following week. Our service is complete – we won’t be eligible again for 4 years. (This puts me above the required age limit so I can decline with no reason if I get called again.)
45 minutes of jury duty. I spent more time on the bus than doing my civic duty. And if you add all the time I spent researching how it works these days, rates at downtown parking ramps, bus routes and senior discounts not to mention the weather….. way more prep time than jury time.
I’m not begrudging the time – I do actually think of it as my civic duty. I know I wouldn’t want to be on trial and have it go wrong because you couldn’t find enough folks for a jury. Although I do think it would have been more fun to actually get impaneled and see a real trial!
Trail Baboon 