My next-door neighbors’ son is getting married right after Christmas. He met his fiancée when he was stationed in Taiwan a few years ago (Marine). They moved here early last year after he retired; yes, that’s right, you get to retire from the Marines when you’re 30 if you join up right after high school. He’s attending the Carlson School of Business for his MBA and she’s working in financial planning.
Zander and Nina will be getting married in Taiwan, where her family still lives. Apparently there are quite a few “traditions” that weddings incorporate in Taiwan, even in this day and age. This is from their wedding website:
The wedding ceremony then will begin with a “bride pick-up” ceremony (迎娶), where the groom arrives at the bride’s home with music, groomsmen, and playful games. After the groom complete the “mission,” they travel together to the groom’s house. A tea ceremony follows, where the couple serves tea to elders in exchange for blessings and red envelopes. The evening ends with a lively banquet, sometimes held outdoors as a traditional 流水席 (Liúshuǐxí), filled with delicious dishes, toasts, and laughter. Of course, mostly seafood in Taiwan.
Another tradition that wasn’t listed on the website was the sending out of engagement cakes – see the photo above. YA and I are not invited – obviously it’s a small number of folks heading to Taiwan from the US the day after Christmas for this wedding. This doesn’t bother me – I would have been shocked to be included and we couldn’t have afforded it anyway. But it was nice that my neighbors brought us over an engagement cake (called “marry girl cake” in the past) which are sent out by the bride’s family to announce the upcoming nuptials. I looked up the label to find out it was a red bean variety but then YA translate-googled the Chinese ingredient list and found out it also has pork. So we got to admire it, but didn’t eat it.
Weddings are way down on my list of favorite things. Way down. Too much pomp, too much emphasis on the day and not the life afterwards, too much expense, too much “it’s the bride’s day”. My first wedding was pretty much run by my mother; I made a few key decisions but she took care of everything else. It was too big as far as I was concerned but at least it was very low key. My second wedding was at a table at Good Earth; the judge joined us but didn’t stay for lunch. Our witnesses were our waiter Philip and the waitress Sarah from the next section over. The restaurant gifted us with a little centerpiece and comped our dessert. Even though the marriage didn’t go the distance, I’m still happy with the memory of that wedding day.
YA will not expect a big flashy wedding from me… if she ever ties a knot. I’ve been sending her psychic messages for years…. just one word…. “elope”!
I swear I’m not doing yet another blog about hand pies, despite the header photo.
A discovery was made a couple of weeks ago that if I ask Alexa to play “You Butter My Bread” by the Divers, I will get a nice mix of songs that remind me of TLGMS. Some of the songs are actually TLGMS favorites.
Yesterday morning, while I was making something that I’ve promised I won’t mention, I made my request and one of the songs that Alexa coughed up was “Canned Goods” by Greg Brown. You all know I adore this song; this morning, looking out a the slight dusting of snow on the neighbor’s roof, I realized that it’s official that summer is over.
So going into fall/winter, this is what I’ve put up this year: strawberry jam, raspberry jam, pesto, applesauce, tomato sauce, basil/oil cubes, chive/oil cubes, mint/lime juice cubes, strawberries, raspberries and grapes. Somehow it doesn’t seem like I’m keeping up with Greg Brown’s grandmother!
Once, when YA was about five, she didn’t want to turn off the light in her bedroom – her reasoning being that she didn’t want her stuffed animals (a prodigious crowd) to be worried in the dark.
I couldn’t really give her grief about it. After all, she comes by this stuffy empathy honestly – she gets it from me. I was quite active in the naming of all her stuffed critters and gave in to her desire to anthropomorphize them big time. Heck I once carried my stuffed javelina Henrietta in my carry-on bag because it didn’t feel right to close into the suitcase!
It shouldn’t surprise you then to know that I am having a little trouble dumping my flowering baskets this fall. I usually plant the baskets on Mother’s Day – sometimes a few days before or after depending on the weather. Then when the blooms fall, I stack up the deceased baskets alongside the garage in the back of the yard.
Here’s the problem; it’s been a full six months and five of the fifteen baskets still have flowers on them! I’ve been moving the baskets around, taking the empty shepherds pole away and storing them in the garage. With the temperature below zero more than a few nights now, I was worried about being able to wrench the poles out of frozen ground. But I just couldn’t bring myself to stack the baskets with flowers in the back.
So I set the baskets on the back steps (see the photo above). The last basket is on the front steps, which is where its shepherds pole stood all summer. Since it won’t be above freezing even during the day for a few days, I’m guessing the flowers are making their last hurrah but at least they will be making that hurrah on the back steps, being appreciated whenever I open the back door!
This week I was defeated by cheap electronics that think they’re smarter than me.
We have one of those little fake fires in the college show. The bowl with the fan, and the orange lights, and the silk. I have a 12 volt battery connected to a power inverter (which takes 12 volts and makes it 120 volts) and the fake fire is plugged into that. It is all tucked under a table and the fire sits on top and it worked fine until one of the actors accidentally bashed the table into a wall. And then the power inverter didn’t work anymore. Which is disappointing to me, it’s all solid state, there’s no fuse inside because I took it apart to look, but all it does is give me a red “fault” light and it doesn’t do anything else. I went to the local electronic store and picked up a really cheap inverter and a little bit better one. Apparently the old one didn’t care if I only had 11.5 volts, it would still power the fire. The new ones want 13 volts and if they don’t have it, they don’t output anything except a loud annoying beeping. I tried a couple batteries wired together in parallel, I tried different batteries, and I tried other various assemblies without success. Between the two shows on Thursday I went over to the auto department of the College. They always look at me funny when I walk in with my arms full of whatever it is I’m working on for a show. They probably think it’s kind of fun and I think they do enjoy helping, but they still look at me funny. They suggested a jump pack, like they use to jumpstart your car these days. They even let me borrow one for the afternoon and that worked great. I’ve got one at home, it just never even dawned on me to try that. I took that in for the last couple shows.
Cold weather coming for a few days. I think the snow they predicted is out of the forecast now. Still, I ran around Friday afternoon like there was a blizzard coming. I had to tell myself to just calm down. I drained all the hoses, put them away, took off the outside faucet I use for watering chickens. I parked all the tractors, the lawn mower, the gator, and the four wheeler in the shed. I finished power washing the deck and retaining wall. Both are in the shade and on the north side of the house so they get a lot of mildew and lichen on them. It sure looks nice when cleaned. One of those things you don’t realize how dirty it’s gotten. Once done, I drained that hose, and put the power washer in the heated shop.
My goodness! How did it get so grungy and we didn’t notice??
Driving into school in the mornings, the sun is at just the right spot now, it hits that gap in the visor.
Achoo!
Another week it will have changed enough it won’t be a problem again. It sure does get dark early now. I like standard time; it just fits my body’s circadian rhythm better. Daughter is very upset it gets dark so early.
I think all the deer in a 20 mile radius have moved to my corn fields. Just about all the other corn around here has been harvested and most fields are dug up for winter. I don’t want to push the guys; they’ll get here when they get here to harvest mine. I just hope the deer leave me some corn. If you come down the driveway an hour after sunset, there are deer ALL OVER. Most coming out of the cornfield with an ear of corn in their mouth. Stupid deer.
In one of the farm magazines, there was an article about an all-black chicken called an ‘Ayam Cemani’. They really are ALL black: Comb, skin, bones and even the meat is black. Their eggs are ivory colored.
(Photo courtesy ‘Chickenscratchpoultry.com’)
Research shows these chicks can cost anywhere from $37 to $70 each. And I thought $5 was an expensive chick. The article I read says the chicken is “small, aloof, and only lays one or two eggs / week.” I won’t be getting any. That would be the first one eaten by a coyote.
DOES SUNLIGHT MAKE YOU SNEEZE? ARE YOU A BIG SNEEZER OR A DAINTY SNEEZER?
I couldn’t find the cat yesterday afternoon, so I looked in our bedroom and found her snuggled in the down comforter we keep on our bed. She had been there for hours. You can see her in the header photo. She looks pretty comfortable, I think.
We have twelve very nice goose down pillows for the three queen size beds in our home, plus down comforters for each bed. Our friend who will live with us is allergic to feathers, so we bought two non-down pillows for her when she visits. The dog sleeps with us and also expects to have a pillow for his head at night. We are a spoiled bunch.
Husband’s allergies are so much better here. He is very allergic to cats and dust. There is very little dust compared to western North Dakota, and it seems the cat is shedding less now, probably because the humidity is higher. Our friend’s four cats will stay in the basement after she moves in, but I think we will get an air cleaner or two to mitigate any upward cat dander migration. I just had a Shark vacuum delivered that is especially good for pet hair, so I think we are covered. The dog doesn’t shed.
What kind of pillows do you prefer? Do you let pets sleep with you? If you have allergies, how do you manage them?
On Tuesday we talked about trick-or-treaters and Bill mentioned that he and Robin also ask kids about their costumes. I assume that most all adults do this. It’s a low-level way to make a short connection.
One of my last little groups consisted of a girl in a pink princess dress and a boy in some kind of princely attire. Knowing that I would never see these kids again and knowing that they won’t care a whit about whether I’m crazy or not, I started a conversation:
Me: What a great costume. Are you the Count of Monte Cristo? (knowing full well this kids wouldn’t know what I was talking about.)
Count: No, I’m Prince Philip
Me: Oh, from Sleeping Beauty.
Count: No from Maleficent.
Me: Silence for a bit.
Me: (turning to the girl) Are you a princess?
Count: She’s Sleeping Beauty
Me: more silence
Me: Here we go (handing out the candy)
While I was perfectly willing to be silly about the Count of Monte Cristo, I didn’t think I needed to get into an argument on my front steps with kids about Prince Philip trick-or-treating with Sleeping Beauty but not knowing they were in the same story.
Tell me about a costume you wore as a child (Halloween, school play, whatever…)
I saw the sad news that Diane Ladd passed away yesterday – she was 89.
She began acting at the age of 18 and just retired 3 years ago; her last roles were in Gigi & Nate and Isle of Hope. When she first came to my attention was the year I graduated high school, when she appeared in Chinatown and then Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Both great performances and she was nominated for a Golden Globe, Academy Award and a BAFTA – winning the BAFTA.
One of my favorite of her performances was as Etta, the sister-in-law of Theresa Turner in Black Widow. It wasn’t a huge part but she really made her cool but nasty character sizzle on the screen. The header photo is the best one I can find of her in that role.
I also really liked Rambling Rose in which she plays a southern woman who battles to keep a younger teenager from going under the knife unnecessarily. Here’s a good clip from that:
I also remember a really nice part she played in a Columbo episode. She’s a wheelchair bound woman whose husband kills her mother. She wears pretty, diaphanous dresses and appears fragile, but turns out to be a strong and kind woman. It’s one of my favorite Columbo episodes.
Her part in Alice didn’t do much for me. Of course, the I didn’t care the the show BEFORE she stepped in, but trying to shoehorn her into the role that Flo had vacated didn’t seem to work all that well. But she was popular and did win a Golden Globe for her work.
Most of the news stories today have “mother of Laura Dern” in their titles. It’s a shame because I don’t think that’s her big claim to fame. She had a long, diverse and entertaining career; that’s what the headlines should be!
Have you seen Diane Ladd in anything? Do you have a favorite?
This time of year I do actually work at not having too much leftover Halloween candy in the house. Luckily the number of kids that stop at the house has been remarkably consistent the last few years — even during Covid when I packed candy into little bags three weeks before and wore a mask while welcoming kids. This year, based on the number of pieces per bag, I figured I had enough to give each kid two pieces.
I always do relatively high-value candy – this year little Snickers and Reeses PB Cups. I heard a few ads on the radio the week before talking about non-candy ideas that you could implement and I just laughed. It might make adults feel virtuous but what kid ever wants some plastic bauble or deck of cards instead of candy. And while Smartees and Jolly Ranchers are infinitely cheaper, they aren’t as valued when kids are sorting out their bags of goodies at the end of the night.
In past years, I have taken any excess candy to the office – it never lasted long. The force was with me this year; I gave out the last four pieces of candy at 9 p.m. when I was getting ready to turn out the lights and bring in the luminaries. I congratulated myself on giving out all the candies.
YA has foiled my plans. She brought candy HOME – some she had found on sale and some that she picked up at the office. It is good candy – Ghiradelli caramel pumkins and Halloween-colored M&Ms. And she also bought Reeses pumpkins for herself awhile back. Turns out she bought more than one bag, so that is sitting out as well. I’m trying not to walk through the dining room too often. Out of sight, somewhat out of mind.
I’m pretty sure that not too many people see grocery-shopping as an exciting activity. Well, count YA and I as the outliers. For some reason over the years, we have cultivated grocery-shopping as an activity we like to do together.
Our favorite is Trader Joes. We especially like to go every couple of months when the new round of items hits the stores. We go through the Fearless Flyer that TJs sends out and highlight stuff that looks good. Sometimes, if I just want a couple of things, I don’t tell YA that I’m going to Trader Joes; if she comes along, it will triple the bill at the register.
The spot where Rainbow Foods used to be in the Hub Shopping Center near our house has been empty for seven years. A couple of times there were signs for temporary spots, like a Halloween store, but they never materialized. When construction started to happen almost a year ago, we were both excited to see what was happening there and then doubly excited when we found out it was going to be a Mexican market, bakery and taqueria. Unfortunately, it took WAY too long to open, so I had put my excitement on the back burner. Finally, about a month ago, it was clear from the trucks in the parking lot that progress was finally happening.
The grand opening was this past Saturday. Prizes, giveaway, samples, a bouncy house, mariachis and native dancers made it a big party. And it was CROWDED. The opening was at noon and we arrived at 1. Thank goodness for my bad knees and temporary handicap parking placard; we would have had to have parked in Iowa otherwise. And forget getting a shopping cart. Luckily YA and I didn’t have any big shopping plans so we just used a big bag that we had in the car.
Lots of nice-looking produce, a massive dairy/cheese aisle and two bakery sections, one with cakes, pies and then the self-serve bakery aisle …. I don’t even have the words
There were plenty of mainstream items alongside the Latino foodstuffs you would expect to find. A big endcap of Mary statuettes and a long row of Mary and other religious paintings above the front windows. They even have a Currency Exchange office. The taqueria was doing a bang-up business, as well as the deli. The tortillaria, where they will make fresh corn and flour tortillas is still in the works and should be open in a couple of weeks. You could see that area and the machines waiting to get set up. Since I’ve quit making my own tortillas, I can’t wait.
Anyway, YA and I had a fun time. We picked up a few items that I needed for a soup I wanted to make but didn’t partake of any on-site food – just too crowded, even for us. But my guess is that in the next few weeks, as the hoopla dies down, this will be another grocery shopping venue that YA and I will add to our events catalog!
If a tomato is a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie? Any good grocery shopping stories?
Did you ever watch a dog chasing a ball or a stick and watch them running and grabbing at it off the ground and think, doesn’t that hurt your lips scraping them across the gravel like that?
We pondered that playing with Luna the other day. It doesn’t seem to bother Luna.
Daughter came up with this Halloween costume all on her own:
Last week driving to Plainview there was a lot of corn still standing. This week a lot of corn has been harvested. Not mine, but all the corn around us. Several guys have finished. And now they’re hard into fall fertilizer and tillage. If any of you retired people want a job, I’m sure you could go to any of the larger farms in the area and get a job driving a tractor or truck for about 3 months. Depending on weather, it’s long days, lack of sleep, field meals, and, if you’re like my brother, “it’s just round and round- it’s boring!” But it’s big equipment and it can be fun. It wouldn’t work for me right now. I can’t get there until mid morning by the time I take daughter in. And I may have to leave mid-afternoon to pick her up. And I have a show this evening… Nope, I’m not the ideal candidate. YOU might be!
And the equipment sure is fun to see.
This week was all about getting the college show finished. We have our first show at 2:00 PM Saturday, the 1st. It will be ready, and ‘good enough’, but if I had more time, I’d tweak a little more.
It’s a good thing this set isn’t any bigger. I don’t know what happens to me that everything turns into a rush at the end, whether trying to get book work done to meet my accountant, or finish a set, or get the machine shed enclosed before cold weather comes, apparently I think I like the thrill of the rush of adrenaline and the whooshing sound the deadlines make as they go past.
Music lately has been some boogie woogie piano, my usual ‘All That Jazz’ movie soundtrack, and then playing a video of “The Gospel at Colonus”, from 1985. The full show is available on YouTube. I’ve had the CD for years, and we saw it at the Ordway maybe 10 years ago. This production has Morgan Freeman, Jevetta Steele, The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and SO MUCH good gospel music. I was painting alone and singing and shouting along. HALLELUJAH! AMEN!
So. The lack of concrete. I mentioned on the blog one day that I didn’t feel good over the weekend and postponed the concrete.
Last Friday afternoon I rented a little machine called a plate compactor. It’s about the size of a small snowblower, I believe the plate measured 17“ x 20“ and its got a little Honda gas engine on it, and a long handle and when you rev it up it vibrates really fast and compacts whatever it is you’re trying to compact. In this case, about 8 inches of gravel as a sub-base for the concrete. It goes really good in one direction; pretty much drives itself. And it’s not too hard to go in circles, but if you drive it into a corner, you’re kind of stuck. The only instructions they gave me when I picked it up was how to start it. Later on I was on YouTube trying to find some instructions on running this thing, or if there was a certain amount of time you needed to compact material and the only videos I could find were how to start it. What somebody needs to make is a video that’s gonna tell you right up front, this thing’s gonna kick your ass. For the first half an hour. Because when you drive it into the corner the only way to get it back out is to use brute force and pull it back against the machine’s compaction motion. And eventually you’ll figure out you can flip the handle over and sort of steer it, almost one handed, but that doesn’t really help if you’re in a corner with a couple of walls. Anyway I learned a lot that first hour. And when I woke up Saturday morning, muscles I didn’t know I had hurt. And then my stomach started to hurt, then I got the chills, and I just didn’t feel that great. But, I had a lot of work to do.
WFriday evening I had finished compacting the sub base inside the shed, that 20′ x 20‘ area. Saturday morning I started putting gravel in. Kelly came and helped. That woman really is too good for me. She has an attention to detail that I don’t. She’ll spend hours working on something that I said was “good enough” long before. I was still feeling terrible and I finally had to go in the house and take a nap. Three hours later she was still adding a little gravel here, taking off a little there. She used those YouTube videos to learn how to start the machine and she was compacting gravel. We use one of those laser levels that sits on a tripod and puts out a green laser beam line. Then I have a stick with three marks on it: the height of the existing concrete, then a mark for the sub-base, and a mark for the Gravel.
Kelly is not afraid of hard work and she said she was enjoying it. I just wanted to move on because I’m always moving onto the next project.
Saturday night I came in the house and took a shower and then I soaked in the tub for half an hour and I went to bed.
Sunday morning we were back at it. All we had to do on Sunday was a little area 13‘ x 6‘ to be a walkway at the front door of the shop. I didn’t have much energy and if I had to get on the ground to do something, I tended to stay there for a while. Outside the shed, I cut a hole in the wall and shoved a piece of PVC pipe in for the drain, and then I laid in the dirt for a while. There was a thistle under my left shoulder. It hurt. Eventually I got up.
And by Monday, I knew I had to postpone the concrete. I needed to take that off my plate. A friend told me I don’t need a plate, I need a turkey platter. Yeah. That’s about right.
Almost ready!
Speaking of pondering, I read these two phrases in a new display at the college art gallery. :
Ouch. That seems kinda harsh.
This one reminds me of that quote: “In order to discover new lands, you must consent to lose site of the shore.”
The display is photographs by Ethan Aaro Jones, and is called “Unsearchable Distance”.
Trail Baboon