2024, Family, Health, home, Mysteries, TV

Verily’s Pity Party

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The last time I said “I think I’m the only person left in America who hasn’t had covid” I should have knocked on wood.

Went to a party on a Saturday night 10 days ago and had a great time, met up with some current and former neighbors for a 70th birthday celebration for a friend.  Good food, drink, company.  Had a wonderful time.

On Tuesday morning as I was starting to get ready to go to the art museum, one of my Saturday night friends texted a group of us saying that she had covid and was pretty sick.  Even though I felt fine I thought it would be the responsible thing to do to test before I went on a tour at the museum.  And there it was… a big pink “T” line.  I’ve taken a lot of tests since the beginning of pandemic and I’ve never gotten the “T” line before.  Shocking.  The good news is that I am still asymptomatic so all those jabs did pay off.

The bad news is that I’m feeling sorry for myself – although I’m not sure why.  Except for cancelling my museum tour with my friend at the last minute, I haven’t really done anything differently the last week.  Thank goodness for the Target pick-up, the Aldis pick-up, the post office drive through and the library drop box.  I did send YA to the library to pick up a book for me on Friday so I wouldn’t have to go in.  YA is avoiding me like… dare I say “the plague” and seems fine so far.  I’ve done stuff around the house, read a lot, worked in my studio, labored on a 1000-piece jigsaw of a dragon in a “dragon forge cave” (it’s a doozy) and binge-watched the Colombo marathon on Sunday.  I’m not sure why I’m feeling weird about this… but it does feel like the first couple of weeks of pandemic when I remember feeling trapped in the house.

As of yesterday, still positive but the “T” line was very faint so I expect in the next 48 hours I’ll be clear and free to break out and roam the neighborhood again.  I’ll have to shut the pity party down.

Ridiculous, right?

2024, Family, History, Media, Uncategorized, Words

Cheater

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I love crossword puzzles. I subscribe to the New York Times online, and get their crossword puzzles all week as well as the one in the New Yorker each edition.

I hope none of you think of me as a cheater, but I feel it entirely within my rights to look up crossword clues on line. Given the number of sites I see for just this purpose, there must be many like me. I view these puzzles as research projects, not as measures of my intellectual acumen. It is so satisfying when they are completed and correct!

Today would be my mother’s 100th birthday. She didn’t mind bending the rules at all! She got secretly married at 19 against the 1942 rules of Mankato State that students couldn’t be married. Ha! She showed them!

What are your favorite puzzles to solve? When do you bend the rules?

2024, Farming Update, Media, pets, Uncategorized

Squish

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Today’s farming update comes from Ben

Mud.

That’s all I got to say about that.

I shouldn’t be dealing with mud like this at the end of January or early February. I have to admit I do kind of like the warmer temperatures, and I don’t mind not having to deal with blizzards, and our electric bill is certainly cheaper, and I haven’t used as much diesel fuel moving snow, and all that kind of stuff. And, I still think the weather has to turn and we will probably get some more snow, and it’s gotta get cold again and that means I have to do mud all this over again in March. I dislike the mud more than anything.

Luna and Humphrey have both gotten baths because they get so muddy outside during their runs and playing. Luna does OK with the bath. When Humphrey gets out of the tub halfway through, it’s a bigger adventure. And why don’t people put a hot water faucet outside their house? There have been multiple times when I have thought hot water outside would sure be useful. Maybe that’s a thing now, I don’t know, but I think someday I would like to have hot water available. All that to say Humphrey could have a bath out in the garage instead of in the bathroom.

There’s a meme going around lately that says we should say “I get to…” instead of “I need to….”.  “I GET TO walk through the mud and get everyone’s feet dirty and track it into the shop and the tractors and the house.”  Nope, still not working for me. 

I looked up the translation of mud. I found it interesting so many countries have “blato” “bláto” “boue” “bloto” “bahno”. Or “Mudder” “modder” “muda” “muta”. German is “dreck”.

Speaking of running the dogs…Luna is so young; she needs to run off energy and I’ve mentioned before about running her on the driveway and how she leaves a trail of dust in her wake. However lately, she doesn’t like to get too far from home. We’ll take all three dogs out for a walk / run, and she won’t go far before turning around and going back home. I end up with all three dogs in the gator and we go to the end of the road, and she races for home again. Do you suppose she really loves to run? Or is she running for home and safety? We need a dog psychic.

IS LUNA RUNNING TO OR FRO?

CRYO-ANYTHING ?

2024, Food, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Just Double The Garlic

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The garlic bulbs that we get in our local grocery stores typically have very small cloves. I have taken to automatically doubling the number of garlic cloves that recipes call for. I never know what size clove the recipe author means, but I always assume that the cloves we have are much smaller than the ones where the food authors live. We love garlic, so even if I add more than was intended, it turns out fine. I refuse to grow garlic, as it is an awful lot of work, and what do you do to keep dozens of garlic cloves good until you can use them.

I am liking more and more recipes that come with weights for ingredients as well as volume. A cup of flour may differ depending on the brand of measuring cup, the humidity, and the condition of the flour. Knowing how many grams or ounces as well as the volume is sure helpful. Our kitchen scale measures in both grams and ounces. We use it all the time. Both Husband and I are left brained cooks, needing to measure instead of going by instinct. I haven’t gone so far as to compare the relative volumes of the two sets of dry measuring cups that we have, but I have sometimes been tempted. They just don’t look the same size!

Are you a left or right brained cook? Use a kitchen scale very much? How do you feel about garlic?

2024, books, Family, home, Uncategorized

My Archivist

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I am not a really neat and organized person when it comes to putting away books, recipes, and media such as LP’s and CD’s. I will eventually get around to to when the volume of clutter starts to bother me. Husband, on the other hand has taken it upon himself to be the archivist, reveling in putting things way alphabetically and with similar content. It has got to the point that he doesn’t want me to search for recipes in the binders he has created, insisting that he get them and put them back. He has them organized just so, with the categories just the way he wants them.

It has been quite hard to have all our books in boxes in the furnace room while we wait for the mitigation company to send the guys to put the basement furniture back where it belongs. They said they would be at the house on Monday, but didn’t show up. I plan to send a pitiable text to the foreman pleading with him to speed things up. The bookshelves are behind a bunch of other heavy furniture so we couldn’t get to them and move them if we wanted. We are going to dust off every book before it goes back on she shelf. There are a lot of preliminaries before the archivist can get to work and arrange the books to his liking. I don’ t know what his plan is for organizing them on the shelves, but I am sure that whatever he comes up with will make sense to him, at least, but not necessarily to me.

What job would you want if you worked in a library? Tell about the best library you ever visited.

2024, Business, Family, Fantasy, Technology

Cyber Highway

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Yesterday YA had to leave her car at the dealership for a recall of some sort so I picked her up there and delivered her to the office.  When we pulled up, the front parking area was blocked off on both sides.  This, in and of itself, isn’t too extraordinary.  The building in which the travel division resides is also the “client building” and occasionally the front will be blocked off for a client arrival (which is usually accompanied by the cheering throngs).  But it soon became clear that something else was up as there were just a few parked cars on the side of the building and a couple of people were lounging about their parked vehicles. 

Turns out the company internet was down.  There were a handful of times that the internet was done in the past twenty years, the most notorious being when a squirrel committed suicide on a power line on top to Building 3.   A few times the power went with the internet which always led to flocks of folks at Caribou down the street, colloquially known as Building 7.  Most of the time though we just muddled on, working on documents, jumping into quick meetings or making phone calls until cyberspace was clear.

But these days it’s a different story.  EVERYTHING is tied to “the cloud”.  The phone is through the internet, document storage is on the cloud, the meeting platforms are online.  If the internet is down, there is no point in even going into the building.  So YA and I headed back home, with a quick stop at the Dunkin drive-through, and she quickly got her laptop fired up on the dining room table.  Luckily her using our home wifi for work doesn’t increase the cost.  And it was a shorter drive to take her to the dealership later in the day than to pick her up at the office.  Win-win!

If the internet were a real person, would they be a friend of yours?

2024, Fantasy, Food, holidays, Mysteries

Let Them Eat King Cake

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I saw a funny story online yesterday about a thief who stole seven King cakes from a bakery in New Orleans.  Cash and a case of vodka were also taken.  That’s a heck of a party someone is planning.

Growing up, while I had heard of Mardi Gras, I had never heard of a king cake.  Even working in bakeries for four years after I got married, I still never heard of it.  It was the travel industry that finally introduced this pastry to me – every year a king cake was delivered to the travel division from a supplier in New Orleans. 

The Bittersweet Confections king cake must be fabulous.  While the green, purple and yellow colors are bright and it’s fun to see who ends up with the plastic baby that is often baked into the cake, I’ve never thought king cake was the best use of butter, sugar and flour.  A little too sweet and sticky for my taste.  But a staple of the holiday it is and I suppose if I lived in New Orleans, or celebrated Mardi Gras, I would learn to make them.  Maybe I could make a version I like a little better??

Suppose you’re breaking into a bakery?  What would you take?

2024, Family, Gatherings, Mysteries

Family Fuel

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Back to the macaroni gathering.

I’m sure you’ve all heard me say “why spoil a perfectly good holiday by spending it with my family”.  Sounds harsh but when my whole family is together, it gets weird fast.  The last time we were all together before my father’s death we were asked not to return to an Embers.  An Embers!

I wasn’t looking forward to the macaroni gathering but it’s one thing to `dis your family for decades behind their backs and another thing entirely to `dis them to their faces.  So Nonny and I got the condo ready; Nonny made her salad and I heated up the macaroni. 

The group included both my middle sister and her husband, my little sister, my niece, my niece’s partner, two nephews, one nephew’s partner and two boys. Oh, and Nonny and me.  It started out a little strained.  Even the St. Louis group doesn’t gather all that often and I know that my two sisters don’t approve all that much of the other one’s choices. 

At one point my middle sister starting telling a story about baby possums that had gotten into their house and how they had to catch to them release them outside.  My youngest nephew is all about animal rescue, trap/neuter/release and knows quite a bit about wild animal relocation.  He was horrified by my sister’s story, jumping in to express indignation and to educate us all about how most people handle relocation incorrectly.  My brother-in-law (let’s call him David) is a very nice man but in the dictionary, out in the margin next to the phrase “pours gas on the fire” is David’s picture.  As soon as he realized he had a captive audience, he was off and running.  There was an outrageous story about trapping possums under a trash can followed by his exhortation that you can’t keep possums in the house because when they grow up, then there is “possum mating”.  This was accompanied by him stamping his feet and slapping his hands together to illustrate how this mating would keep you up at night.  It was the funniest thing ever; it was a good thing I was sitting on the floor at the time because I would have fallen off my chair laughing. 

Unfortunately the one person in the room who did not get the joke and wasn’t laughing was my nephew.  He looked horrified.  I had to ask him if he understood the phrase “yanking your chain”.  Even once I explained it, you could tell he wasn’t too thrilled to join in the hilarity.  But the gas on the fire did the trick and loosened some of the tension.  Not perfect, but we did manage to spend another hour together without any incidents!

My middle sister is already asking when I think I’ll be visiting next year so we can do it again!  Oops.

Do you have any “gas on the fire” friends or relatives?  Or “gas on the fire” stories?

2024, animals, Farming Update, home, Nature, Seasons

The Rabbits

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

The weather is warming, the chickens are back out in the grassy areas, I can work in the shop comfortably again, and I turned off the well house heater and unplugged the tractor block heater. Whew. It felt like January in Minnesota. For a week. And now it’s not dark yet at 5:00 PM, and we just need some sunshine. I don’t want to get too anxious or excited about all this, we still got February and March to get through, but there is hope on the horizon.  

When it’s so cold the chickens don’t come to eat the corn we put out down by the barn, there are deer, pheasants, and rabbits that still come around to clean it up. Plus, a variety of birds. I really hate the deer eating that corn, I feed them enough out in the fields, they don’t need to eat this corn, too. At least we haven’t had so many wild turkeys around the last few years.  

I’ve never been very good at identifying animal footprints. Yet again, an example of missing our Steve. We could use his help on this. It’s not hard to know the deer tracks, but Steve would know male from female tracks, and how old they were. He’d know what a pheasant track looked like, and probably know the difference between the tracks of a crow, robin, and mourning dove, as well as how many, what they had for breakfast, and where they were headed next. I can identify rabbit tracks, they’re not hard. No details mind you, just, you know, ‘wabbit twacks’*. And of course, if there’s rabbits, there’s rabbit pellets.  

When I was a kid, I had several different sling shots. Homemade ones that never lasted, simple wooden ones, and I think I had a couple different versions of the ‘Wrist Rocket’ sling shot. Those little rabbit pellets made good ammunition. They were all over the backyard. And they were perfect little balls for shooting! I didn’t know they were rabbit poop. Until my big brother told me. (Older siblings, they spoil everything.) When I see all those pellets down by the barn, I remember that. I googled ‘wrist rocket’ to see if they were still around. They are! My gosh, slingshot technology has advanced! Names like the “Laserhawk”, the “Daisy B52”, the “P51” (The B52 and P51 are well known airplanes). They have molded finger grips and can have multiple ‘launching’ bands! And magnets to hold steel pellets in the pouch! And mounted flashlights!! You can buy targets, or you can buy clay-based shot called “Clod Poppers”.  

The most expensive slingshot I could find was $99.99, the “Scout LT PRO”. According to their advertising, it comes with “additional thumb screws because they look awesome”. Well, there ya go. It looks awesome.  

There are Slingshot tournaments.   There’s a Slingshot Association International. 

Say it like Elmer Fudd

EVER HAD A SLING SHOT?  WHAT TOURNAMENT DO WE NEED?  

2024, Gatherings, Health, Uncategorized, work

Ah, Youth!

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Last week I went out with six coworkers for a farewell luncheon for one of them. These are all young women under the age of 35, all mental health professionals. The lunch was delightful, but the conversation sure made me feel old.

Much of their discussion was about their newest discoveries for facial moisturizers and makeup, their latest experiences getting their nails done, their favorite coffee shops they visit daily, their favorite restaurants, their recent appointments at the chiropractor, and the new tattoos they were planning. Since I don’t wear makeup, have rather nice skin for someone who is almost 66, and would never, ever, get a tattoo, I hadn’t much to say. I have never had a manicure. I have never been to a chiropractor or had a massage. I refuse to spend money at coffee shops when I have perfectly good French press coffee brewed for me every morning by my husband. They were all astounded, however, when I mentioned that I have never had a pedicure. They all agreed that they are going to take me out for a pedicure before I retire. We shall see. I don’t know if I want someone messing around with my feet.

My coworkers view these activities as self care. I could never justify spending all the money that they do on these things. My self care is listening to music, gardening, and cooking. I suppose I spend more money on cooking ingredients than they do, but I am healthier than most of my coworkers and eat way better then they do.

What do you do for self care? What activities did you engage in that your elders shook their heads over when you were young?