2023, books, Mysteries, Travel

Hurry Up and Wait

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My mother trained me well.  Get to the airport with PLENTY of time.  My travel career cemented this for me.  2 hours for a domestic flight, 3 hours for an international flight, 1½ hours for a connection – this is my general rule.  Too many variables, too many possibilities for things to go wrong (flights late, long lines for security, people behaving badly, etc.)   I will admit that I do make an exception for flying out of the Humphrey Terminal – usually just 1½ hours prior is OK for me. 

Last week as I was heading to Nashville it seemed as if every employee at Humphrey was in a hurry.  I stopped at a check-in kiosk to get a paper boarding pass (just in case) and when the attendant saw that I had my phone with an electronic pass, she tried to shoo me through (unsuccessfully).  At security, where you normally have to wait behind the line until it’s your turn, they were pushing folks up in line – like social distancing had never been a thing.  Then the TSA folks were practically putting your stuff into the plastic bins themselves.  They did still make everyone take their shoes off (except the man in front of me – not sure he could have stooped down to take them off anyway) but they were gung-ho in arranging your stuff and if it was too crowded, THEY were grabbing an extra bin to accommodate things.

Of course it meant we all got through check-in, security and TSA in record time.  In time to sit at the gate for 1½ hours!  Oh well, I had a good book. 

Tell me about your travel habits!

2023, Gatherings, holidays, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

Sitting Next to Eileen

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I have been a member of our church choir for about 20 years, most of them seated next to Eileen, a retired college librarian. She and I are both Altos, and are used to following one another through the music for pitch and rhythm.

For Christmas this year we are singing Morten Lauridsen’s Oh Magnum Mysterium, a beautiful piece that has parts for Soprano I and II, Alto I and II, Tenor I and II, as well as Baritone and Bass. Here is a recording of it>

Our choir is small right now, with only two tenors and two basses. We have four altos. The Tenor I part in the piece is quite high, so I and one other low Alto are singing Tenor I. Both Tenors will sing Tenor II, and the two basses will split the low men’s parts. Eileen will stay as a First Alto. Eileen and I decided after rehearsal of the piece last week that we just can’t sit next to each other while learning the Lauridsen piece because I was following her and she was following me and neither of us was getting our parts right. Neither of us realized how much we depended on one another. It will be better being in the row with the Tenors.

Who are your favorite choral composers? Who have you led astray?

2023, Family, home, Music

Over the Rainbow

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As always, I am continually amazed when I see signs that the apple of my eye hasn’t fallen far from the tree.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a new set of bag clips; as time has gone by we are using these for more items than we used to, so we needed to beef up our supply.  We get the magnetic ones and, as you can see from the photo, we stick them on the hood of the stove for easy access.

The surprise was when I walked into the kitchen last week and found that YA had arranged them in rainbow order.  I laughed out loud because when I took the clips out of the package and put them on the stove hood, I did briefly think to myself “I should put these in rainbow order”.  Then I got distracted and didn’t get to it. 

Any discussion of rainbows makes me think of this one:

Other good rainbow songs?

100 Words, animals, Food, pets

Pate

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YA picked up some free samples of kitty pate at Costco last week.  Nimue doesn’t like chunks in her wet food at al – she is a pate gal all the way.

I pulled one off the shelf this morning and was startled to see the flavor listed as “Mouse Pate with Chicken”.  Then I looked more closely.  “Mousse”.  Then I laughed out loud.  Not sure why I was put off by mouse pate – not like Nimue is unfamiliar with that delicacy!

Any unusual “delicacies” that you’ve tried?

2023, Business, Media, TV, Uncategorized

I Can See Clearly Now…

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I know that I’ve probably mentioned how much I distrust ads.  But every now and then I am surprised  — in a nice way.

Reading glasses.  I’ve struggled for a couple of years with nighttime reading.  As soon as it gets a little dark, it was hard to read – print just a little too small for comfort.  In July, after finally figuring out all the ins and outs of Medicare (OK, SOME of the ins and outs of Medicare… I’m pretty sure that Medicare is set up so that nobody truly ever figures it out…and if they do, then it changes), I decided to get my eyes checked and to get glasses.  My old glasses were granny glasses and bifocals and completely useless.  Even with bigger lenses, I didn’t want bifocals again.  My eye doctor seemed to think it was a fine idea to get two pairs of glasses – one for reading and one for driving at night. 

I’ve seen too many Warby Parker ads on tv and wasn’t interested until a friend of mine highly recommended them.  I did like the price point but didn’t want to do the “five pairs in the mail” thing so I actually went to a Warby Parker store.  It was amazing.  Staff greeted me, I had someone assisting me within a minute.  They didn’t push me toward the expensive stuff (even on Medicare, I was on a budget), and weren’t trying to rush me out the door.  They measured using a phone app, did up the paperwork and I was walking out the door literally twenty minutes later.  The reading glasses showed up at my house five days later and the driving glasses a few days after that.  I had to take the driving glasses in for an adjustment; this was also handled very quickly and very pleasantly.  Honestly it took me longer to find a parking spot at the Galleria than it did to get this done. 

The reading glasses are amazing to me.  I suppose I could have just gotten cheap readers from the drugstore but I’m happy with my Warby Parker experience and love the new glasses! 

Recommendations, ads, influencers?  How do you choose new products?

2023, animals, Farming Update, Food, Kids, Nature, pets

Knock Knock

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I used to have dad stories, and I am disappointed in myself that I don’t remember as many of them as there really are.

These days I have mom stories. Mom is 97 1/2 years old and in pretty good health, and while not diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she’s 97 1/2 years old, and she forgets things, and she’s blind, and she gets anxious. I cut her some slack when she calls me for the sixth time to ask if she should get out of bed yet. Might be 9 AM, might be 10 PM, might be 2 AM.  I’m also very lucky there’s five kids; four of which live around here (one of whom was a geriatric nurse practitioner) and we all share daily texts on how mom is doing. Mom’s Alexa has been a lifesaver; it’s what allows her to make those phone calls. But mom mumbles and Alexa hears all sorts of random things. And she turns the music up and down, up and down, up and down, and then it’s so quiet she can’t hear it when she calls us. Mom started using it a few years ago when she was still in her apartment, so it kind of got ingrained. Social workers and nursing staff have complimented us on how helpful Alexa is to her. And my mom, true to form, has become a bit of a trendsetter because other residents in her senior place have gotten Alexa’s of their own. Attaway Mom! Makes me think of one of my favorite jokes. “Mom says, ‘If everybody else was jumping off a bridge, would you jump too?’ ‘Mom, you taught me to be a leader, not a follower.’ ” 

Typically I do a rough draft of the blog on Thursday, then proof-read (which clearly doesn’t always work) and clean it up on Friday. My computer ate Thursday’s draft, but the second draft is always better anyway. As I was writing Thursday night, daughter was making a couple of fried eggs. Time management is not her strong suit. She will set the burner to low medium heat, put a couple eggs in, and then go back to her room. I was writing, I got distracted, at some point 20+ minutes later, I said, “have you checked your eggs“. (She says she likes them crunchy)  And I hear her door, and hear her in the kitchen, from where she will yell, “I got it, Dad“ Yep, she’s always got it.

I haven’t talked about the chickens lately. They are just hanging in there. Egg production is down a bit, which is to be expected this time of year. These layer hens were born in April 2022, so they are past peak production. This year’s chicks, which I got in June 2023, may start laying about January or so, and will hit peak production along about March or April. 

Crops are still standing, ten-day forecast looks good, so I’m trying not to stress about that either. I did get the outside of the shop windows trimmed and sealed. Then I walked into the shed and saw the box with the foam sealer strips that I bought specifically for that project.

Sigh.

I did some more work on the inside getting two by fours on the wall so I can finish the interior steel.

Took the carburetor off my old 630 tractor, I’ve watched a few videos of how to rebuild it and I’ve ordered the overhaul kit. (Got a hat for $0.99!) Fixing that carburetor has been on my list all summer, so I look forward to getting that checked off.

I’ve dragged up some scrap iron. I need to get some of that cut up so it fits on the trailer, and while it isn’t the end of the scrap, (because do we ever really get an end?), it is the last of the piles right around the shed that I wanted to get done. I will be able to cross that off my list shortly. 

Luna the dog really has settled in. She and Humphrey have a good time wrestling and playing tug-of-war.

Friday afternoon, we took all the dogs out for a run/walk/ride,

way out in the East pasture where we don’t often go. So many new smells for Luna! And that’s when we lost her. Thankfully she had gone home, but we drove a long way looking for her, calling her, and met some neighbors, and saw a lot of pasture (header photo by Kelly) looking for her. And Kelly and I were both stressing. I don’t know if we got out of her sight, or earshot, or what. But thank Goodness she knew enough to go home.

Sigh.

ANY DEVICES LISTENING TO YOU AT YOUR HOUSE?

2023, animals, Family, holidays, home, Mysteries

Pumpkin Eaters!

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Today’s post is inspired by Anna’s “I went for a walk in my neighborhood” posts.

I normally wait until right before Halloween to buy pumpkins for our front steps, with the hope that they’ll last until Thanksgiving.  This is a fool’s errand, as it usually only takes my neighborhood squirrels about a week to figure out there are good eats on the front steps.  I almost always get the pumpkins from Mt. Olivet near my house.  The prices are in line with other pumpkin vendors and the money always goes to one of the youth groups. 

This year YA went with me to choose the three pumpkins that would grace our front steps – normally she leaves this to me.  While I always choose standard orange pumpkins, usually all about the same size, YA wanted a big pink variety this year.  After she had decided on the big pink one, she let me choose the other two.  I stuck with my orange tradition.

As other years, it took several days before I noticed the first teeth marks on the pink pumpkin.  By Halloween, it had a good hole so I just turned that side to the back.  As the days have gone by, more and more of the pumpkin has been eaten up – as of yesterday, it looks like a shallow bowl filled with seeds.  I’m happy that critters get good meals out of the decorations – I hate to think of them just going into landfill somewhere.

What I don’t understand is why they are only eating the pink one?  Is this a squirrel mania, like eating one course of your meal at a time?  Will the pink one have to be completely gone before they start in on the orange ones?

Are you feeding any wild critters these days? t

2023, books, Movies, Mysteries

Tomatoes of Wrath

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Remember last May when I watched all those killer tomato movies?   I watched some of them online and so found a lot of assorted information, including several sites that said the initial movie was based on “the best-selling novel The Tomatoes of Wrath” by Paul Watkins.  I couldn’t let that pass by, now could I? 

Couldn’t find the title either in my library system or the inter-library loan, but I did find it online.  Please don’t ask me why I thought this was a good use of $12 – I don’t remember what mania overtook me that day.  It showed up promptly and then sat on my nightstand for several months.

I’m here to say that whoever says the movies were inspired by this book is a lunatic.  The book is subtitled “Adventures of a Tentative Traveler” and there isn’t a killer tomato in sight.  The chapter titled Tomatoes of Wrath is ostensibly the account of Watkins when he picked tomatoes for a day in California however most of the story is a reminiscence of the three days he spent sightseeing in San Francisco.  And not a very well-constructed nor interesting reminiscence.  (And I have to admit that after reading this chapter, I didn’t read the rest so I haven’t the vaguest idea WHY was traveling around with no money, hence needing to go out to pick tomatoes.)

When he finally gets back to the tomato picking, it is more of an expose (although a very short expose) on farmers vs. pickers and the injustices meted out by the tomato industry onto workers.  On the next to the last page there was a mention of Grapes of Wrath, comparing the Joads’ struggle to survive picking fruit in California and how unfairly and unjustly they were treated.  Hence the title of the chapter and the book.

All of this is to say, I didn’t like what I read of the book and to think that the Killer Tomato movies were inspired by it is ludicrous.  After this critical review anybody still wants to borrow it, just let me know!

Do you read the book before you see the movie?

2023, books, Family, Fantasy, home, Kids, pets, Uncategorized

Sit Behind The Stove

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A favorite book when our children were growing up was “Louhi, Witch of North Farm” by Toni de Gerez with illustrations by Barbara Cooney. It is a story taken from the Kalevala about Louhi stealing the sun and the moon and hiding them. The hero, Vainamoinen, eventually gets them back with the help of Seppo the smith.

A minor character in the book is Sit Behind the Stove, a character from Russian mythology, who lives in Louhi’s cottage. Husband sketched pictures of Sit Behind the Stove, which our children loved. I imagine Louhi’s kitchen looking like this:

I hadn’t thought about this until recently when Kyrill our Cesky Terrier found a small red ball in the yard and brought it in the house. It is an official Minnesota Twins T-Ball that he loves to chase. At times the ball seems to have a mind of its own, as it is ultrasensitive to even the smallest imperfections and dips in our laminate flooring in the dining room and living room. It gains momentum for movement with every dip in the floor and then rolls. Kyrill has learned that if he tosses it under the furniture it will eventually roll back to him. He watches intently to see where it might emerge, and then pounces on it.

The other day the ball rolled under the buffet in the dining room. When that happens, we usually have to retrieve it for him. After a minute or so, though, it magically rolled back out! It was rather unsettling, I admit, and I imagined that Sit Behind the Stove or perhaps a tomten must have tossed it back out.

Who or what are your favorite mythological characters?

2023, books, Mysteries

Long and Short of It

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Several weeks back Linda (I believe it was Linda anyway) recommended The English Understand Wool. I don’t even remember what we were talking about but I thought the title sounded quirky so I looked it up on the library website.  It had a good-size waiting list and I noticed that the author was Helen DeWitt.  I almost didn’t request it because I remember how long DeWitt’s first book was… The Last Samurai… almost 600 pages and DENSE. 

The Last Samurai was enjoyable, although a little sad in some places.  I try not to let long tomes scare me off so I went ahead and clicked on the “Place Hold” button for Wool.   Imagine my surprise when I went to pick it up on Saturday… just 69 pages!  I read the whole thing in about an hour – so I read it again. 

I’m reading another fairly short book this week – The Pluto Files by Neil deGrasse Tyson.  I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I requested it (yes, I know I could look up page numbers on the library site if I wanted to….) but I would have guessed that it wouldn’t be too terribly long.  Neil’s books aren’t usually really long; I assume he works hard not to overwhelm his readers with all he knows. 

Not sure how long my upcoming requests will be but I feel like a massive tome would be OK since I’ve had a few short books in a row now.

Do you know the longest book you’ve ever read?