Pedal to the Metal

I live next door to a five-year old.  It’s fun to see her growing up; she has a different temperament than YA had as a child.  On Thursday, she was sporting a brand new pink helmet and then her dad took the training wheels off her bike.

They started in the backyard, on the grass – doesn’t every parent do this, hoping for a softer landing than on concrete?  On Saturday, they went up to the high school, where there is a lot more flat grass.  Then on Sunday afternoon, as she was working on it in the driveway, her dad let go of the seat and she was biking!  She practiced for about another 30 minutes; she still needs a little shove to get going but other than that, she’s got it!

It made me think about YA learning to ride a bike.  We didn’t even try in our yard, since it’s very bumpy, but we did practice at the high school.  YA was not a natural rider and for a couple of weeks she was incapable of seeing an obstacle and then being able to avoid it.  I remember thinking that learning to ride a bike is way more complicated than it appears on the surface.

I was five when I learned, starting in the grass like my little neighbor did and eventually graduating to the elementary school parking lot.  I still remember the thrill of realizing that my dad wasn’t holding me up any longer and I was flying along on my own.  According to Nonny, I fell and scraped my knee rather badly but I don’t remember that part at all, just the wind on my face and my legs pumping the pedals!

Do you remember learning to ride a bike?

 

 

It’s Ringing

This past Solstice, one of YA’s gifts to me was a Ring doorbell – you know, one of those doorbells that has a camera in it.  This gift falls into the category of a gift for herself rather than a gift for me.  YA does a lot of her shopping online, so she worries about packages left on our front porch.  Installing this thing required drilling holes into the stucco, so it was very easy to put off at first.  Then it ended up in a box in Nonny’s room and I was hoping a little bit that it would be forgotten.

But thanks to shelter-in-place, YA is stuck in the house and looking for projects.  I resisted a bit by not being helpful but YA was persistent.  She went to the basement and got the drill, looked up directions on YouTube, got out an extension cord.  Then she realized that we should really move the mailbox over a few inches, so she had to collect up the tools to get this done as well.  But eventually I couldn’t put it off any longer, so I drilled the holes for the Ring and then drilled new holes for the mailbox’s new location.  YA has done the rest, including putting the app on my phone.  I guess I still get to pick my own ring tone.

What technology have YOU succumbed to?

Fire!

Years ago YA announced that her life would be considerably happier if we had a fire pit.  Having bonfires was a big deal in her peer group when she was in high school; if we had a fire pit, she could have friends over and life would be good.

I wasn’t particularly in favor of this, but we looked around.  Luckily this search got mentioned at my BFF’s house one night and she (my BFF) got all excited.  THEY had a fire pit that they didn’t use and had been thinking of getting rid of.  Did we want it?  YA wasn’t enthusiastic (as it wasn’t brand-spanking new) but she realized quickly that there was no way I was going to go out and spend a bunch of cash when something free was sitting right there.  So we hauled it home and she cleaned it up – voila!

Of course, the number of times it got used for her friends coming over amounted to just once.  I was pretty clear about no alcohol at our house and this was enough of a dis-incentive to her friends.  YA has never been a drinker but the crowd she ran with in high school apparently imbibed frequently (at least this is what she told me).  Our house was never a big hang-out house because of this and the backyard was just a continuation of that.

But now that we’re stuck at home, she has made it her mission to burn all the little sticks and old straw and small logs that have cluttered up the back of our yard for a while.  We’ve had a succession of fires now, always in the afternoon after we’ve done yardwork.  She does all the work – paper, kindling.  lighter.  Then she does all the fire maintenance as well, adding more sticks, blowing on it, poking it.  All I have to do is sit and enjoy.  I figure it’s going to take quite a few more bonfires to get everything cleared up and I’m looking forward to every one!

Anything you’ve started doing again in quarantine?

April Blues

Today marks the anniversary of two important milestones in the history of the  Blues- the birth in 1896 of the Reverend Gary Davis, and the death in 1983 of Muddy Waters.  I never really listened to the Blues until I met Husband. One of our first dates was at a concert by James Cotton at the University  of Manitoba.

Here is the Reverend Davis:

And here is Muddy Waters.  (Husband’s suggestion)

Here, too, is Leadbelly,  just because it is a Blues number I have always liked.

The things he sings about going on in Washington, DC are still happening!

 

Here are the lyrics in case it is hard to understand.

Lord, in a bourgeois town
It’s a bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around
Home of the brave, land of the free
I don’t wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie
Lord, in a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around
Well, me and my wife we were standing upstairs
We heard the white man say “I don’t want no niggers up there”
Lord, in a bourgeois town
Uhm, bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around
Well, them white folks in Washington they know how
To call a colored man a nigger just to see him bow
Lord, it’s a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around
I tell all the colored folks to listen to me
Don’t try to find you no home in Washington, DC
‘Cause it’s a bourgeois town
Uhm, the bourgeois town
I got the bourgeois blues
Gonna spread the news all around

What are your favorite Blues numbers? Got any good Blues lyrics for Baboons this week?

False Alarm

We had rather a to do here on Monday when the city police issued a shelter in place order for the part of town north of the interstate.  Someone had found a cylindrical metal container, like a mortar shell, chained to a fence near the Department of Transportation lot where they park the snow plows and road graders.  After assessing things, the police determined it was not a bomb,  but a container for geocaching.  Someone attached it to the fence without getting permission from the DOT to do so.

I like the concept of people  getting outside and wandering around searching for hidden objects with their GPS. How fun!  It is too bad the north part of town had to be so alarmed about being blown up.  My friend the General Mills security guard says they get several reports a year of such unsanctioned containers on the borders of General Mills property.

What are your favorite  outdoor activities?  Any good scavenger hunt stories?

 

By the Dozen

YA and I both like eggs, although it still takes us a couple of weeks to go through a dozen (unless I’m baking).  After Easter we had a LOT of eggs – all the hardboiled eggs that I felt the need to dye and then bonus eggs from Farmer Ben.  In discussing this bounty, YA said “why don’t you make that frittata”.  I’ve made a veggie frittata a couple of times recently for book club, but didn’t realize she was paying attention.  I wanted to make a richer variety, so dug out a recipe I found in a magazine last year and “fixed it up” a little.  So here is my version of a Potato Cheese Frittata:

4-5 potatoes (I used Yukons)
1 large onion
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp butter
12 Farmer Ben eggs
1 cup whipping cream
12 oz manchego cheese
(unless you’re really cheap like I am and can’t bring yourself to                spend $16  on a wedge of cheese… then you can use half                            manchego and half cheddar that you already have in the fridge)
1 jar of roasted red peppers (I used a 15 oz jar) – or you could roast            the peppers yourself if desired
Salt & pepper to taste

  1. Peel and thinly slice the potatoes then boil for 3-4 minutes until soft.
  2. Thinly slice onions and sauté in oil and butter until brown. Use an oven-capable pan (I used my cast-iron skillet)
  3. Add potatoes to onions and sauté another 2-3 minutes
  4. Whisk together eggs, half the cheese, cream, peppers, salt and pepper
  5. Slowly pour egg mixture into the potatoes and stir as the eggs begin to scramble
  6. Stop to swear like a sailor and run your thumb under cold water when you touch the burner. This step is optional.
  7. Bake 15-20 minutes in 350° F oven until not jiggly.
  8. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese and broil for 2-3 minutes until bubbly and golden.
  9. Cool a bit before you eat unless you want to burn your tongue (not saying why I thought I should mention this!)
  10. Explain to your kid why the dish is so yellow because she’s never had farm fresh eggs in her life.

What’s your go-to recipe for a plentitude of eggs?

Nobody Loses All The Time

I thought last month when the water pipe burst in the wall of my best friend’s apartment, soaking much of the  the flooring, that she was one of the most unlucky persons I knew. The burst pipe was one in a long string of unfortunate events in her life.  Her issues pale in comparison with another friend of mine who, since Easter,  was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, had surgery that permanently damaged her vocal cords,  and then got the terrible news that her only son, who she had placed for adoption forty years ago and reconnected with last year, had died of the Covid-19 virus.  She writes that her life has turned out like a country western song full of bad luck and disaster.  She has supportive family and friends, but how on earth do you get beyond these sorts of tragedies?

I don’t know why but  I couldn’t help thinking about e e cummings poem, nobody loses all the time after hearing about my friends’ terrible luck.

It isn’t exactly a comforting poem, and I suppose it cold be construed as pretty irreverent, but I think it sums up a need to find hope in the darkest of times.

What gives you hope?  Share some hopeful poetry. 

 

Brave Volunteers

I was happy and proud to read the other day that Minnesota has the second highest rate of volunteerism in the country, bested only by Utah.

North Dakota ranks 15th.  Husband decided that he has sufficient free time to volunteer at our local food pantry, and his first shift is next Thursday.  He will stock shelves. Our church donates the produce from our garden to the food pantry.  Suzy Kapelovitz, a nice Norwegian girl from Reeder, (a really small town in southwest ND), who married this Jewish guy who ran some sort of business in our town in ND, and who has spent her life here helping others, is the head of the food pantry.  She is in her 70’s. She confirmed his shift.  He is to stock shelves. I foresee volunteerism in our future,

Why do you think Minnesota has so many volunteers? What have you volunteered for?

Conflicts in the Workplace

I have been blessed for the past five years with having a relatively conflict free workplace. Prior to that I endured  fifteen years of torture with a very narcissistic colleague who was mercifully escorted out of the agency and told not to return.

There have been extreme changes in my agency in the past year, in terms of who we serve and the service model we now embrace.  I can deal with those things.  There is a consultant from another state agency, however, who has been charged with helping us through these changes. We meet primarily through video conferencing. That is a good thing, because if we were meeting in person I would probably start throwing things at them and shouting.  A person who just started working for our department probably shouldn’t be acting as though they are in charge of every aspect of policy for every single agency they consult to.  This person is young and tactless.  They don’t have an understanding of how things in our department work statewide, and don’t understand that the needs of Fargo (where they work) are different than the needs of the western and more rural parts of the State. I am being thoughtful and strategic in dealing with this. It isn’t easy.

Workplace conflict is tricky. You have to find solutions without causing a ruckus, hurting feelings, or getting fired. I have a temper that I have to rein in a lot these days. I find humor helps. I can do this.

How have you dealt with workplace conflict?