books, Stories, Words

Shelf Life

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As most of you know, my library account and I are in a special relationship. I try to keep the number of books I have checked out at any given time to under 20. I’m usually at my max allowed on my waiting list. I know my 16-digit library number by heart, my library card is on a cell phone app so I don’t need a separate card and of course I know all the hours that my local library is open.

I only buy about five books a year so that means I usually try every avenue to find a book when it comes to my attention. In addition to my regular account I also have an active interlibrary loan account. I even have the phone number of the gal who runs the ILL section of the Hennepin County system and have unbelievably talked her into extending the 3-week only loan allowance for an interlibrary selection.  Twice.

Obsessive is probably the word that is popping into most of your minds right now, but the library and I are very happy together.

Last week I picked up two ILL books that had come in and as I looked them over I realized that one had not been checked out since 1999 and the other hadn’t been checked out since 1988. For some reason this makes me very happy – I like to think I’m giving these books a little vacation from their regular shelf life.

What book would you like to go on vacation with?

Baboon Achievers, Family, Nature, News, Stories

My Life as a Baboon Whisperer

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Today’s post comes to us from Jacque.

Over the weekend I found a new website which I like, ozy.com. It has a variety of news and special interest stories.  I was browsing through it when I came upon this irresistible article, “My Life as a Baboon Whisperer.”    Apparently in South Africa alpha baboons have become a local menace, kind of like the bears in Northern Minnesota. The alpha males are raiding local garbage cans as a food source.

In 2009 a South African city decided to start exterminating the baboons doing the raiding. The article is written by the person who started Baboon Matters. Baboon Matters is an organization which tries behavioral alternatives to shooting the offending animals.   The organization discovered the following:  “so-called ‘raiding baboons’ are almost always alpha males, and killing them creates a vacuum in the troop hierarchy that results in chaos.”

When I read the quote, the first thought flitting through my mind was, “This sounds a lot like politics in the USA at present.” The second thought was, “It is so nice to know Baboons Matter!”

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.ozy.com/true-story/my-life-as-a-baboon-whisperer/79380

After reading this so many questions that might fit at the end of this post went through my head:

What kind of whisperer do I want to be? How does this situation serve as a metaphor for American politics right now?  Who will save us?

What question would you pose for others after reading this?

Family, Stories, The Future

Your Mortal Remains

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Today’s post comes from Reneeinnd

A friend of mine has the sad task this week of spreading the remaining half of her sister in law’s ashes in the ND Badlands. Her sister in law died of complications of West Nile Virus.  It is truly tragic, and my post, although it contains some levity, isn’t meant to diminish her life.  Sometimes humor is the only remedy for grief.

I say the remaining ashes, as half of the ashes have already been spread in a lake near where the woman grew up in eastern ND. I guess she loved both places. Given how windy it is here, it might have worked just as well to stand at the Montana border on a windy day and let them sail east with the prevailing gale. They would have reached the eastern part of the state eventually.

My friend is quite familiar with the odd and strange when it comes to funerals.   She works with developmentally disabled individuals and has coordinated the funerals of several of elderly clients lately, people with no family able or willing to help out.  Last month she stopped an interment in mid descent and insisted that the funeral director turn the casket around so that the client was facing east, which is how Catholic remains are supposed to face around here.  Her client may have out of step during life, but my friend wanted to make sure the individual was facing the right direction for the Second Coming.

When I look out of the kitchen window I see three urns that contain the remains of our dog and two cats. I have been thinking about downsizing when I retire and we eventually move, and I wonder if we will take the pet ashes with us or do something else with them. I really can’t see moving them with the rest of the household, so I suppose we will commemorate the furry ones in some fashion and empty the urns in some beautiful place. Then, I wonder, what do we do with the used urns? We could keep them for future pet ashes I suppose, although I think there is something kind of morbid about people who keep and recycle pet urns.

I believe the Catholic Church has decreed that cremation is fine, but you have to keep your ashes in one place and not spread them around.  I’m not Catholic, but I want to be cremated and kept in one container and buried somewhere yet to be determined.  I want tangible proof that I existed. Husband hasn’t decided what he wants. I remember the very funny tale of a Baboon dealing with her parents’ ashes by mixing them up in a paper bag so they could spend eternity together. I think that would be a little much for our children to handle, so Husband and I need to come up with a unified plan. I suppose we could just use the vacant pet urns and save a bundle at the funeral home.

What are your plans for your mortal remains?

Family, Kids, Nature, Stories

The Allotment

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Me: Come over and put your head in here so I can take a picture.
YA: No.
Me: Come on.  Please.
YA: No.
Me: Why not?
YA: You’ve used up your allotment of silly pictures.
Me: But I only took one at the zoo.
YA: That was your allotment.

So what’s my take-away from this? That my child used the word “allotment” correctly!

What was your last surprise?

Baboon Achievers, Food, gardening, Nature

Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries

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Today’s post comes to us from Jacque.

 I love cherries.  A bowl of cherries just sends me over the edge of contentment into pure joy.    However, seldom in life have I found life to be consistently as good as the dear old axiomatic bowl of cherries.  It is especially not as good as the cherry pie made from cherries ala Door County, Wisconsin (sour pie cherries).

Now I am the pleased owner of a sour pie cherry tree.  For many years on holidays like Mother’s Day or birthdays, I have been getting trees and plants for the garden or yard.  There are not many physical belongings I want or need.  So I ask for trees and plants.  They contribute oxygen to the atmosphere and produce for my table.  And every time we plant one of those it is less grass to mow and tend.

The cherry tree was a Mother’s Day gift two years ago.   This year it produced a bowl of cherries, after producing nary a cherry last summer.  And then I produced a cherry pie. It is delicious.  There are two pieces left as of the writing of this post.  By the time you read this, it will be gone.

Recently, when I passed a major professional certification process, my colleague brought me a red Wiegala bush as a congratulations gesture.    The “therapy certification bush” now stands proudly in the front lawn, reminding me that I did this thing.  It makes me smile.

What do you like to get as a gift?

gardening, Nature, Weather

Waiting for Rain

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We are in a severe drought here. All fireworks are banned, no one can grill using charcoal, and all open fires are prohibited. The city fire works display has been cancelled.  Our town usually resounds with the sound of  fireworks the week before and just after July 4. It is always illegal to shoot off fireworks in town, but the police rarely enforce it.  This year we were told the local constabulary would be “heavy handed” in enforcing the fireworks ban.  No one wants their house or neighborhood to go up in flames, and people are being very careful.

Ranchers are selling their cattle, CPR land has been opened up for emergency grazing, and farmers are pretty depressed. It is really too late for anything but the pastures to recover if we would get some rain.  It isn’t promising.  The high temperatures are predicted to be around 100 this week.  We have sufficient water to keep the gardens going, thanks to an upgraded city water system and the Missouri River.  I scowl, though, when I see people watering lawns, especially when they are watering in high winds and more water goes in the air than on the lawn.

The governor has declared our county and several others to be disaster areas.  This is a slow, painful disaster that will take a long time to see a recovery.  We need a good long stretch of several days of rain, and that never happens out here.

How have you coped with disasters?

Art, Fifty Words, Media, Science, Technology

Sucker for Stamps

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As always, the folks at the post office always see me coming. There were Star Trek stamps this week and when I got a little too excited about it, the clerk said “oh wait, we just got a new stamp today that you’ll like.” Eclipse stamps! How could I resist?

What would YOU like on a postage stamp?

Business, Food, Nature, Science, The Future, Uncategorized

Shrimp Harbor

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I don’t like shrimp. They are bottom feeders. Harvesting them in the wild is destructive for the ocean floor. I don’t like their taste or texture.

Now I find that 150,000,000 shrimp will be raised annually in my home town in southwest Minnesota, in an ecofriendly “shrimp harbor”.  They will fatten on local corn and soybeans in a covered, 9 acre factory that will use less water than the old meat packing plant did in its heyday. The harbor won’t smell. It won’t pollute. The shrimp will be free of disease and antibiotics.  I hope all the promises made by the company are true.  I wonder  if we can call such shrimp “sea food” or if we will need to find a different descriptive phrase for it.

I am amazed at the technology behind this, and glad for the positive economic impact it will bring to the town.  I still won’t eat shrimp, though.  I can’t get past the texture.

How do you like your sea food?

Nature, Science, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

Lyme’s

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Today’s post is from Barbara in Rivertown

I found out early this morning that I have Lyme’s Disease. It is a relief that there is a reason for the red blotches, headaches, fevers, and lethargy I have been experiencing for the past few weeks. I will start a series of antibiotics this evening with dinner.

You’ve probably heard plenty about Lyme borreliosis and the ticks that carry it, often the tiny deer ticks. But just in case you don’t know much detail of what to look for, here are 11 of the common symptoms, according to a site called Daily Health Lifestyles:

  1. Rash
  2. Fever
  3. Headache
  4. Pain in extremities
  5. Lethargy
  6. Pink eye
  7. Memory issues
  8. Arthritis
  9. Droopy face
  10. Insomnia
  11. Heart problems

Wikipedia has this to add:

“Lyme disease is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected ticks of the Ixodes genus.[6] Usually, the tick must be attached for 36 to 48 hours before the bacteria can spread.[7] … The disease does not appear to be transmissible between people, by other animals, or through food.[7] Diagnosis is based upon a combination of symptoms, history of tick exposure, and possibly testing for specific antibodies in the blood.[3][9] Blood tests are often negative in the early stages of the disease.[2] Testing of individual ticks is not typically useful.[10] ”

I am glad there is an antibiotic to help me deal with this disease.

Do you have a tick/insect story to tell?

Family, Food, The Future, Uncategorized

Party Down

32 Comments

Today’s post comes from tim

my daughter had a graduation party this weekend when she described what she wanted it sounded strange as it turns out it was very nice she wanted to have a waffle bar and a barista serving espresso oh what about scones and muffins no she said maybe donut holes and how about some French roast coffee and the amaretto hazelnut flavoring maybe if you said but I think chai tea is a better choice the barista asked me to show him how the espresso machine worked and that was that…he was busy non stop and chai tea was a hit along with espresso cappuccino and latte grandpa from Chicago handled the waffle bar and took great pride in knowing exactly how much of the batter should go into each waffle maker strawberries raspberries blueberries chocolate chip jams marmalades and whipped cream rounded out the entire offering  there was a little table with a wooden decorated imitation steamer trunk to put cards to the graduate in and a memory book to jot down heartfelt messages to last through the ages there was an area to take pictures in front of a back ground sheet holding up a Mardi Gras mask or a 2017 identifier on a stick The rain held off until 245 for a party that was supposed to end at three and everyone who was remaining scurried to their cars and left in short order in by 305 we were picking up the yard The table folded down nicely the table cloths got washed or throwing out depending on the weather they were cloth or paper the table got moved to locations that made sense when there weren’t clusters of people spaced sporadically about the yard and everything was wonderful except…

by the guest login book and the waffle buffet my wife had purchased gala table centerpieces with stars and iridescent streamers and must have also received Little pieces of  confetti in the shape of a graduate hat these little pieces of confetti were the size of the stars they used to get on your homework paper back in the old days they were very similar if not identical to the stars used to get on your homework paper back in the old days it occurred to me that those confetti stars are made in such a way that they will sit in the landfill without degradation for a lifetime they are put on the table as kind of a cutesy afterthought and thrown away without a concern or a thought about how they came to be placed in the landfill and how long they would remain I walked by the garbage can in front of my garage door and saw one of those little graduation hats sitting on the concrete and knew that if I left it there it would be there two years from now when I am celebrating my last daughters graduation party I feel bad when I take a perfect moment and find a little detail to bitch about but it seems to me that that’s what’s wrong with the world is that nobody thinks about the little details of making a meaningless piece of confetti out of everlasting material instead of biodegradable material

The oil companies Third World countries and developing nations all find a reason to worry about it later I hope my daughter and the people who are graduating today learn from the mindless guidelines that have been left by our generation for them to tweak

how do you keep from letting a little disturbances screw up your day