Maj. Reader

Adventure of the Soul

2012-02-16T16:44:00.002-06:00

I've just started a big, fat autobiography of Gandhi. The introduction has me so interested in it already. Gandhi writes that, in his life he wants to achieve only Moksha - what others might call salvation - and that for him, God is Absolute Truth, although he has only had faint glimpses of this. He also says, "..for the essence of religion is morality." Thus, he decided to write of his "experiments" with truth in his choices and actions.

I have vague memories that Gandhi has been criticized for not treating his wife and children well, so I will be looking for the truth of this, too.

How to Learn Something

2012-02-05T14:38:00.003-06:00

Saw this post in a library professionals newsletter, and since I now have reached the era of "senior moments," I was really interested in it. I remember back in the bad old days that I never believed in studying regularly - I was always cramming at the last minute. In some ways that worked well for me, but this article shows how I could have done better - but not by starting earlier and being more consistent about it.

If the best way to learn something is to repeat the process of remembering it at a point (not too long after you first learned it) where you really have to dig around in your memory for it, here will be the acid test for me: remembering a new password. I usually use the same old one and never change it - a mortal sin on the Web, apparently. I'm going to change my Google password right now - and not write it down! Stay tuned.

Now I Can Heal

2012-02-01T20:18:00.012-06:00

Since Halloween, I've been treating the skin on my face with Fluorouracil 5, a cream based on chemotherapy concoctions that exposes and destroys precancerous skin lesions caused by sun damage. It's a long and demoralizing process - scares kids, too - but the payoff is that it can treat all active and latent skin lesions in one shot.

After I saw the Website posted by a guy who went through the same thing nearly 10 years ago, I was encouraged to stay with it until my dermatologist finally said I was done last Tuesday.

The first photo shows me in the beginning when I only applied the cream at night 3 times a week for a month. After that, it was every night for two months. Ok, I got one week off right after Christmas, but that was all. I could cover most of the red spots with Bobbi Brown concealer, but after awhile, even that couldn't hide them all. People at work were understanding, but I got a lot of horrified looks from library patrons.

The last photo shows me last Tuesday with bare skin - right after I got the good news to stop the treatment. I'm a mess, but the scabs are starting to flake off already with new pink baby skin underneath. The doc said I lasted longer with the cream than any other woman he's treated. Let's hope my results (no skin cancer) last longer, too! Moral: use sunscreen.

I'm on YouTube

2012-01-11T18:15:00.006-06:00

Here's a little film made with staff from the library where I work. Can you find me? Too bad none of the handful of men that work there were able to be in the film, but we do have a nicely diverse group there. I learn a lot about the world from the people I work with.

Favorite book becomes a movie!

2011-09-10T16:06:00.007-05:00

Can't remember if I've blogged about one of my favorite books, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery. So nice to see that its film version, The Hedgehog, opened this weekend. 3rd daughter encouraged me to read the book after she found it by accident at her library and loved it. Me, too!

The Adam's Apple Jump

2011-09-04T22:05:00.006-05:00

Check out The Nonverbal Dictionary. Scroll down the home page to get to the A-Z list.

Now I know why I feel so embarrassed when I gulp answering a question from the co-worker I fear. I'm embarrassed to show that I'm embarrassed! Look at Flashbulb Eyes and Zygomatic Smile. Read 'em and weep.

Darwin Would Love It!

2011-08-05T21:17:00.005-05:00

The Museum of Science in Boston has put up this great site to show an illustrated time line for Life's Evolution. Just drag the button across billions of years to see the various stages of living beings. Humans are an.... afterthought? transitory stage? culmination of evolutionary process? Stick around for another billion years to find out.

The Slap

2011-08-01T14:35:00.012-05:00

Among the many stories my mother-in-law told me about her life as the oldest daughter of Slovak immigrants homesteading in a sod house in North Dakota in the early 1900s, was the one about how she found blood on her underwear one day when she was about thirteen. Mary was terrified that she was deathly ill and spent some time in great anxiety before deciding to tell her mother. Instead of reassuring her daughter that this was entirely normal and was the start of her menstrual periods, her mother slapped her! Apparently this was some sort of custom for Slovak women with their daughters, who usually arrived at this major event with no idea of what was happening.

Her next younger sister found out ahead of time what to expect from Mary or school friends. When it was her turn, she didn't say anything to her mother. When her mother found a bucket of rags soaking in her bedroom one day and asked what it was for, the younger sister said, "You know what it is." Period (pun intended!).

Kids weren't told anything about where babies came from, either. Mary said that being around farm animals let farm kids see how things were done with them, but often didn't make the connection with their parents or other people. She was 11 years old when she realized that her mother was showing signs of pregnancy, but it was never spoken of. On the night the youngest sister was born that year, she heard her parents talking in their bedroom (the only bedroom) while their 3 daughters slept on mattresses on the floor of the main room. Her mother asked the father, "What is it?" and her father answered, "Another girl." Then they talked about the small tear in the kitchen screen door - that the tear should be made bigger so that the girls could be told that the stork brought the baby. Mary listened to all this and said nothing to her parents about it the next day when the baby was produced for all to see.

Now I'm reading Miriam's Kitchen which has recipes and stories of Jewish life in America and in Eastern Europe. Imagine my surprise when I came to this page (205):

Puberty

In my grandmother's house in Brooklyn, in the bedroom in which I slept, there was a painted dresser. One drawer of the dresser held pale blue sanitary napkins, year after year.

These came in handy one year. Visiting, I got my first period - far from my mother, who had remained in Detroit to study for college exams.

I confided in my grandmother. She smacked my face.

I looked to her for a reason. I saw an ironic, apologetic little smile, heard a caught breath that might have been a decimal place's worth of secret amusement or inner regret.

She said: "Now you'll always have rosy cheeks," then went looking for a contraption, elastic and clips.

I knew this slap came out of the past, and she was just doing her duty. I sensed that her investment was less than complete. The smack was not painful, yet burned on my cheek like guilt, like innocence - something she felt was fitting, and I knew was unjust.

Later I stumbled on written words parsing that shtetl gesture. Thus mother warned daughter, time out of mind, not to compete for the father's attentions; thus mother taught daughter the shame of Eve. I may have been the last in my line to be punished in advance for sexual sins, mine and those of every mortal woman.
-----------------------------------------------
Mary was not Jewish, but Poland and Lithuania, where Miriam's people came from, were not far from Slovakia. I doubt her mother gave it any more thought than that it was what you did for your daughter, as it had been done to you. And Mary was the last in her line to be slapped.

and now for something completely different......

2011-07-22T21:15:00.007-05:00

Came across this link to Savage Beauty, a surreal fashion/art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Here's the description:

This website from the Metropolitan Museum accompanies their retrospective exhibition of the work of couturier Alexander McQueen, who committed suicide at age 40 in 2010. McQueen was known for his lavishly staged runway shows, for example his spring 2003 collection, Irere, featured a recreation of a shipwreck complete with pirates and amazons, and models falling overboard.It's only a game in 2005, was a human chess game, with models dressed as chess pieces, such a knight in a horsehairs skirt. On the exhibition‚s website, visitors can view selected objects including McQueen's extremely low-slung trousers, "bumsters" or the Spine Corset, a silver exoskeleton, worn over a dress. Narration is provided by Andrew Bolton, the British curator of the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute, Michelle Olly, who wore one of the dresses, and McQueen himself. There is also a section of online videos available here, where visitors can watch a model in a chiffon dress drop into the ocean, and see the chess pieces move.

Click on the Video link to see a selection of short video clips of McQueen's shows. I really like the one called, "It's Only a Game," as described above. Wonder how this guy ever made any money? It's not like anyone can really wear these things. Can't think that he only sold to collectors and museums.

Crime and Punishment

2011-07-01T22:43:00.004-05:00

Starting a week ago, I was assigned to a jury for a case at 26th & Cal, that ominous address for the Criminal Courts building on the south side of town right next to Cook County Jail. A convicted felon, who looked fairly ordinary to me, was accused of owning two guns kept in the bedroom closet of the apartment of his former girlfriend and their two grade school age children. Illinois law says that convicted felons can not have guns. The girlfriend was the only defense witness. She said they were no longer a couple and he only visited occasionally to see his children. She had assorted men's clothing hanging prominently in her closet and said that they were donations from friends and family for a garage sale - even though they had been there for a year since she moved there. He did go into the bedroom and lock the door for an hour or more once in awhile, which she thought was "odd."

I thought the girlfriend presented herself very well - dressed nicely, spoke intelligently, etc. Another woman on the jury, a suburban nurse, also totally bought the girlfriend's story, but several black women on the jury said they almost laughed out loud when they heard about the "garage sale." They said no woman would give up "prime real estate" in her bedroom closet to garage sale clothes - for a year! That stuff goes in plastic bags in the garage or basement! The more I listened to them, the more I realized I had been taken in. The last straw was the information that the felon's current address was with the "former" girlfriend's parents - hunh. Things just didn't add up.

So, at the same time that I felt foolish for having believed the girlfriend's story at first, I felt sad at having to find the felon guilty of two more felonies (after two days of the trial, the jury voted unanimously for a guilty verdict in less than 2 hours). Three felonies puts a person in the "habitual offender'' class in many states, although I don't know if this case falls under that law. I keep thinking about that guy and what it must be like to realize you will be in prison for a very very long time. One guy said as we were leaving the jury room to go home at the end that maybe we saved a life. One of the guns in the closet was loaded - probably to be used at a moment's notice - and sitting in a hatbox on the closet shelf. How many kids live in places like that?

I won't be able to stop thinking about all of this.

Blackened Zucchini a la Calabrese

2011-06-13T20:01:00.006-05:00

Today I had 3 very nice organic zucchini in my fridge. I decided to make Blackened Zucchini the way my sister tells me her family likes them. Using Grandma's heirloom cast iron skillet, I let the zucchini and some chopped onion sizzle without disturbance while I made some spaghetti sauce out of my last two pints of canned tomatoes from last summer's garden (wiping knuckles on lapel of t-shirt and blowing on them). I figured this was blackened enough, but I'll have to hear from the source to know for sure. They were good! Not mushy like zucchini can get if cooked too long at low temp.

Conspiracy Theories at DePaul U.

2011-06-10T21:30:00.008-05:00

Last night I was my husband's guest at a kickoff event for the alums of his old college who are working on an all-class reunion to be held next fall. He is a co-chair of the event and gave a nice introductory speech for the DePaul administrative somebody who headlined the event. I ended up mostly by myself during the preparations for the speeches, the speeches, and the subsequent post-speech college chitchat BUT I was sitting at a table where a handful of assorted alums wandered up with their glasses of wine and plates of munchables and ended up having one of the most interesting conversations I've had in many a moon.

Things got started when one man mentioned that he worked for the National Opinion Research Center at the U of Chicago which surveys citizens on many topics and reports the results to the U.S. government. On the other side of the table was a DePaul student about to graduate with a degree in International Relations. She talked about how her teachers had asked students to choose a country outside the U.S. to study the relationship of its media to the country's government and politics. I mentioned that I had just learned (from TED, see previous post) that popular search engines were filtering news to individuals based on past search history.

The guy from NORC then said that the surveys they do for the U.S. govt often end up in the news with unrecognizable conclusions after the govt "massages" the survey results. The American student has family in Paris and has gone there often in recent years for visits. She began saying that when you get outside the U.S. and hear news from another viewpoint, it is quite amazing to notice the difference. The NORC guy claimed that if Americans knew only a fraction of what he's heard, we'd all freak out. One item he talked about was about the weakness of the American dollar - how other countries did not want to accept it anymore - wanted gold instead. But the U.S. doesn't have much gold. He predicted doom ahead for the U.S., so I asked him if he was buying up gold coins (like my dad). He said it wouldn't help since the govt would be confiscating such coins if we went to a gold standard (!). He also asked the student how many were like her in that she was questioning government pronouncements. He said he has two daughters who are also college students and, from what he could observe, students are no longer revolutionaries.

The student said we should look at France24 and the NORC guy said to try RT.com (see the disputed Wikipedia article, too) in order to see a non-American viewpoint. As other people began leaving, the conversation wound down to most people saying they didn't believe anything anymore: bin Laden wasn't dead, etc. Next we'll all be like the old guy I saw last weekend on Michigan Avenue with a megaphone and a sandwich board saying that the recent tsunamis were the result of underground detonation of nuclear bombs - with Japan the latest victim. Whew.

TED comes through again: MUST SEE!

2011-06-06T17:54:00.010-05:00

I really wish I had seen this last February when TED posted it. This is really frightening for the world. I wonder if BBC News is safe? NPR? PBS?

National Jukebox

2011-05-25T20:10:00.010-05:00

The Library of Congress website has a section called the National Jukebox which has a wonderful historical recordings collection. I could spend a lot of time going through their playlist, but here are some gems:

The Farmer and the Business Man, a speech by Teddy Roosevelt in 1912! He sounds kinda funny to me.

Bluin' the Blues, played by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1918.

See if you can find the ones with "objectionable content." I couldn't!

Become a Royal in Time for THE Wedding!

2011-04-27T21:37:00.006-05:00

Even if you're aren't getting up at 5 am to watch Kate and William jump over the broom, you can get yourself a royal title and a posh name to go with it at the Royal Name Generator. Have a go!

Book Affairs

2011-04-06T20:04:00.003-05:00

Every once in awhile, I fall in love with a book. I might not know this is going to happen at first, but a few pages in I realize I'm head over heels. Most of the time, my book crush has a sudden death somewhere in a middle chapter that just doesn't live up to the start. But when I find true book love, I'm in heaven!

That just happened with Eleanor Rigby, one of the books I'm reading right now. I can't wait to read more about Liz Dunn, a dumpy, lonely woman with a wicked sense of humor, and her long-lost son, whom she gave up for adoption after an ill-fated trip to Rome as as a high school junior. Jeremy, who is now 20, is a lovable goof with MS and a winning way of selling "sleep systems" from his wheelchair. My heart just yearns for these two.

This story is just crazy, funny, and sad. Coupland's fans may say that it's not one of his best, but since I haven't read any of the others, I don't have to agree. I just love this one!

Sidewalks Forever!

2011-03-26T15:35:00.005-05:00

Do you believe in sidewalks? 99% of my neighborhood has them, but after reading this news from another suburb in the area, I'm wondering whether kids in the future will have to do without them.

Sidewalks are part of so many of my childhood memories. Playing jacks required knowing who had the smoothest concrete that wouldn't tear up the side of your hand when you swooped up the jacks. Hopscotch was best out at the edge of town where trees were still sticks and sidewalks weren't buckled by big tree roots. Little kids had to ride their tricycles only on the sidewalk. Sidewalks were the boundaries for toddlers whose bored big sisters had to make sure they didn't get too near the street. Sidewalks were where you got down on your hands and knees to watch ant wars.

Town kids need sidewalks!

The Penny-Pinching Gene

2011-02-24T20:28:00.004-06:00

Today, the miser went shopping at Whole Foods. Some veggie frozen-food entrees were advertised as "2/$8 - Reg. price = $4.99. Save 99c each!" When I saw that the shelf label marked the stuff at $4.49 each, I realized my chance to make some money off their mistake. So, I dutifully went to the Customer Service desk, explained the situation, and asked if they were going to honor their sale sign and give me 2 of them for the real 99c savings for a total of $7. I was told to take the items to the checkout lane and I would be credited for the new savings amount. Nice.

After heading for the parking lot, I decided to check my receipt and saw that it looked like I had been charged $3.49 for one item, and $3.99 for the other. I went back to the CS desk to complain. That's when the tables were turned and the clerk showed me that I was only charged once for 1 item at $3.49 - the other was for a carton of eggs that I misread. Well then I had to offer to pay for the missing frozen item to be honest myself, but the clerk just waved me away. Even nicer!

Both my mother and my late mother-in-law pretty much knew to the penny how much they should pay for anything and where they could get the best prices for things. They would be proud!

I even toyed with the idea of becoming a "super-couponer" - the people that study store ads and websites, hoard coupons, and know how to make stores practically pay them to buy stuff. I watched the Jill Cataldo DVD on the topic, but decided to do without the thrill of warehousing cereal and toothpaste in my basement to get them for peanuts. Instead, I save my Sunday paper coupon booklets and give them to another woman at work who has succumbed to the frenzy.

1st Memorial Birthday

2011-02-20T14:46:00.003-06:00

My mother-in-law would have celebrated her 111th birthday last Thursday and she remains prominent in our family consciousness. Today we'll have a dinner to remember her, using her good dishes and silver, with turkey (she roasted dozens in her lifetime) and pie (her favorite dessert).

She often told me that back around 1910-1915, when she helped her mother and the other North Dakota homesteading women to serve 2 immense meals each day for the men harvesting the crops on all the farms in the area, pies were the favored end to each feast. There, they used apples, rhubarb, and chokecherries. Still love rhubarb pie myself, but today it will be cherry and pecan. Here's to you, Mom!

This Can't Be Origami!

2011-01-31T16:45:00.007-06:00

PBS has a fascinating program, Between the Folds, that highlights the work of the recently deceased French artist, Eric Joisel, among others. I've never seen anything like these "sculptures" made with just one piece of paper that is never cut or glued. Read the notes on the Joisel's Saxophonist - amazing! And he speaks English very well, so you can hear him talk about being a "folder." Somehow, "folder" doesn't seem to do justice to his art.

Microwave Epiphanies

2011-01-10T21:03:00.003-06:00

Not Your Mother's Microwave Cookbook has turned out to be a gem for me. Here are some of the ideas I hadn't heard before:

Toast nuts on a paper plate or doubled paper towels on HIGH for about 2 and a half minutes per 1/2 cup of nuts, stirring every 45 seconds.
Toast 1 cup of coconut, sweetened or not, on a paper plate or glass pie plate on HIGH for 2-3 minutes, stirring every minute.
Peel up to 6 fresh tomatoes in a ring on a double layer of paper towels by cooking on HIGH for 15 seconds, let stand for 10-15 minutes, then peel. Love this one!
Peel up to 4 fresh peaches with 1/2 cup hot water in a 2-quart microwaveable bowl, covered with a lid or plastic wrap with a few holes in it. Cook on HIGH for 60-90 seconds, let stand for 5-10 minutes, drain and peel.
Ripen an avocado or banana (for cooking only) by placing on a paper towel and pricking the skin once or twice. Cook on DEFROST for 2 minutes, turn over and cook on DEFROST for 30-60 seconds more.
Peel up to 4 green chiles or 2 bell peppers by rubbing all over lightly with oil, placing them on a microwave plate and piercing a few places on each side. Cover with wax paper and cook on HIGH: 3 minutes for chiles; 2 minutes for peppers. Turn over and cook on HIGH for 1-2 minutes more. Wrap in damp kitchen towel for 10 minutes and rub off the skins.

What else is there about microwaves that I don't know? Let's hear.

Anne Lamott was right

2010-12-21T15:12:00.005-06:00

I must say that I don't look to evangelicals for spiritual wisdom, but I'm changing my mind after I just finished reading one of Philip Yancey's books, Reaching for the Invisible God. I think the biggest sin most evangelicals commit is having supreme confidence that they know everything about how God works in this world. At last I've found one that asks the same questions I do about how to live in a world where your faith in God is very hard to keep. This is a man who has been deeply hurt by "religion," but has kept his faith in God, which is an entirely different thing.

I was going to keep the book and read it again, but I'm going to look for more of what he has to say, hoping against hope that I won't be disappointed.

Dear me!

2010-12-12T14:29:00.004-06:00

I love Jane Austen, so I don't know what to think of this. According to a Wall Street Journal article, someone has posted a "trailer" for a supposed movie of the Jane Austen Fight Club. I heard of the bloody Fight Club movie from the Crown Prince, so I can only hope this one is a funny takeoff. I'll try to sneak a look at it at work since this old computer can't handle Flash upgrades (sigh).

What do you think? Satire or sacrilege?

I discover Skype

2010-11-26T13:16:00.006-06:00

Last week, after searching high and low, we found our computer's microphone hidden away in the back of a drawer somewhere in the basement - last used by the Crown Prince playing World of Warcraft, I'm guessing. It was the last piece of equipment I needed to start using my new Skype account, so I was thrilled to try it out with my niece in Hawaii. Since I'm 4 hours ahead, we had to set up an appointment via e-mail. It worked beautifully!

After I'm more comfortable with this, I'll get a webcam and go for video calls - woohoo! Am I the last person to find out how great this is?

NPR's Food Photo Fridays blog

2010-11-15T17:49:00.008-06:00

Can't remember how I happened upon this particular blog, but it's fun! Check out the posts for Nov. 12 called An Exhibition Called 'Yum,'

and for Nov. 5 called Carl Warner's Edible Landscapes.

Shameless Plug for Votes

2010-11-12T18:20:00.013-06:00

The library where I work has made it to the final round in a contest from Playaway, the company that makes those clever little all-in-one audiobooks. If we get the most votes for the best promotional project for Playaway, we win $10k, so check out a neat YouTube we put together and vote for the Morton Grove Public Library. (Click the little arrow at the end of our library name to open up the place to vote, if necessary.) You can vote once for each e-mail address you have (I have 6 assorted addresses!).

Personal endorsement: when Dan was stuck having to keep his head down after eye surgery recently, Playaways were just the thing. No tapes or disks to change.

TIA!

Tubeless Toilet Paper!

2010-11-04T20:43:00.003-05:00

I don't know how they're going to do this, but what a great green idea! It hasn't come to the Midwest yet, so I'll have to wait to try it. Read more on this press release from Kimberly-Clark.

Serial readers vs Poly-readers

2010-10-25T19:41:00.004-05:00

At last I've found a person who reads like me - many books at the same time. I really enjoy a reading "menu" of many courses. I do like chocolate cake, for instance, but I would quickly tire of only chocolate cake for every meal. See what Julia Keller, Chicago Trib critic, says on NPR.

I feel sick....

2010-10-24T18:03:00.005-05:00

After speed-reading Tony Blair's new biography, A Journey: My Political Life, I was all set to chalk him off as well-meaning. I remember noting his mention of war protesters camping out near sites where he was supposed to appear in his last months of office, his seemingly sincere expressions of pain and regret when thinking of the British soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his view that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed at all costs to prevent current and future threats to the "West" (even though no MWD were found).

Then I finally got around to watching Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 911, this afternoon. All about money and oil. Somehow, I had never gotten that message so clearly before. I've seen several of Moore's films, and I'm never sure about his over the top-ness. Telling the truth? Getting laughs while showing his own brand of power? Corruption and greed in government seem so pervasive. Good guys seem so powerless and ineffective. Tony Blair was duped by Bush? Tony Blair duped us? Tony Blair just wanted to be next to American?

Metal Music

2010-10-04T20:41:00.005-05:00

In our latest venture for the Saints, the volunteer theatre usher organization in this city, we signed up for a nightclub-like venue in Rogers Park for a Sunday morning live broadcast on the classical music radio station. The artist in recital was Rachel Barton Pine, a wonderful classical violinist. You might have heard of her due to a terrible accident at the beginning of her professional career.

Her program that Sunday was a varied mix of 9 pieces all written over the years just for her, including one by Albeniz that she arranged for herself. Surprising to me was that the ones I liked best were heavy metal compositions, Thrash by Philip Pan and Theme and Variations by Edgar Gabriel. This last used all kinds of metal music for the variations: glam metal, death metal, etc. All new to me, but I'm learning!

Petrified Homemade Treats

2010-09-19T17:15:00.004-05:00

Yesterday an old cereal box liner bag filled with what looked to be Frosted Mini-Wheats was discovered in the antique bread box up in my recently deceased mother-in-law's kitchen. It turned out that it was a secret stash of Gold Rush Brownies baked and brought by one of my Minnesota sisters - last Thanksgiving! One of us hid them up there (maybe me) to save them for future scarf sessions, then forgot about them, which is pretty incredible, knowing the family addiction to these goodies.

So my husband tried one and pronounced them "crunchy" but still good. I ate three.

Mary McGowan, 1900-2010

2010-09-15T07:53:00.018-05:00

My mother-in-law, Mary McGowan, died on Sept. 2 at age 110. I only knew her for her last 40 years and missed some important parts of her life. When we sat down to look through her albums to show photos at her wake, we found some marvelous ones. The picture below shows Mary on her North Dakota homestead farm with her next younger sister, Anna - sometime around 1918?

This is Mary in 1921 before she bobbed her very long hair.

Mary as a flapper.

Our young North Dakota cousin, Greta, tells us that people have been taking pictures at the Bismarck State Capitol building like the one below for decades - she says she did it, too.

It was wonderful to see these pictures of a fun-loving young woman, full of life. Mary, rest in love and peace.

Cheapskates vs. Conservationists

2010-08-20T21:41:00.004-05:00

The Cheapskate books I'm reading by Jeff Yeager (see sidebar) bring up the question, are cheapskates people who are simply misers who take no joy in life? Yeager says no, cheapskates are really people who are thoughtful users of only what they need to live a life freed of rampant consumerism. I'm trying to decide where I fit on the spectrum. Does using a teabag twice count?

His chapter on the costs of healthy living was really interesting. He says that most people who hire other people to clean their homes, mow their lawns, make repairs around the house, etc., then have to pay additional money to health clubs, personal trainers, and the like to help them keep in shape because they don't use their bodies to do any physical work. A vicious circle. I admit I've been tempted to hire a cleaning service when I think I can't handle a full-time job and keeping up with an old two-story house. So far, I'm subscribing to cheaphood, but I feel myself weakening.

TED and Spirituality

2010-08-15T20:44:00.006-05:00

I like TED a lot. And last week someone sent me a notice that a well-known writer (and former British nun) won one of their major prizes (like $100K) in 2008.

Karen Armstrong took part of her prize money and started the Charter for Compassion, "a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life." I love her idea - and I like how she describes herself as a "freelance monotheist." If I weren't committed to healing my own religion, I would be one, too.

Not So Fast!

2010-07-23T21:33:00.005-05:00

So, here are those lovely ripe San Marzano tomatoes I raved about last post. Almost every one has a rotten spot at the blossom end! I think I've heard of this type of blight, but have no idea what to do about it so far. I don't want to contaminate my compost heap with diseased plants and I'm not sure if it's ok to leave them in the garden. I'll see if Google has any ideas.

Well, lookee here!

2010-07-17T18:59:00.004-05:00

It's only July 17 and the first San Marzano plum tomatoes are getting ripe! This is the first year I've tried growing these and they're doing great. Should be good for canning, so hope I'm up for it - it will be soon!

Travel Treasures

2010-07-15T19:36:00.008-05:00

Last weekend we drove through Wisconsin to Minnesota to visit relatives. Even though we had stopped near Janesville only last year to buy a year's supply of honey, we were already down to one gallon. Orlovsky Apiaries, a mom-and-pop business of sorts, said they could let us have (buy!) three gallons. Here they are all nicely packed in a cardboard carton in the trunk.

Next, we went to Osseo near Eau Claire to the famed Norske Nook for two grandiose pies to add to the roster of desserts at a family barbecue.

Everyone (but me) loves their banana cream pie, but since this was summer, it had to be regular fruit pies: blueberry and peach praline. Their pies are THE BEST, next to homemade (mine). We've almost got the requisite 7 pie tins to get us a free pie on another trip!

Fibber McGee's Suitcase

2010-06-17T19:55:00.013-05:00

It's pretty amazing how much stuff can be packed in a regular carry-on bag. I almost don't believe this demo of super-packed luggage, but I will have a chance to try it myself in the fall. It would be great if we could get through a 15-day trip with just one suitcase each. See the slide show here.

Great YouTube on...... Plagiarism! (PG-13)

2010-06-16T20:21:00.005-05:00

I'm past the time when I have to worry about school papers, but this really takes me back. Sort of like dreaming you are late for the final, can't remember where the exam is being given, haven't read most of the textbook, etc. Those Scandihoovians can be funny!

Victory after Almost 4 Years!

2010-06-07T20:11:00.004-05:00

Middle Daughter came over for dinner last night. She wanted to play Scrabble afterward with me and her dad, but I was set to watch Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, so I was going to skip the game. When I realized the DVD was only 87 minutes long, I announced that I would play until 8:30 when the highest scorer would be the winner. I always lose anyway, so I figured that a 45-minute game would keep things moving along.

As it turned out, I blocked 2 triple word scores and got 3 more for myself and won the game before the deadline! The picture at the right is the inside of our deluxe Scrabble game box where we inscribe for posterity the dates of each game, the winner, and any Bingoes. The sad fact is that I haven't won a game since September 4, 2006! In our family, I still claim the largest vocabulary and I'm the best speller, but I'm not good at anagrams and I'm losing ground at strategy. Thus the mighty fall.

Italian Food

2010-05-28T20:31:00.010-05:00

I am deep into preparatory research on the countries, cities, and towns that we will visit this year. Planning a trip is at least half the fun! I've been reading memoirs by Americans who love and live in Paris, but now I'm learning about Lucca, the ancient city in Tuscany where we will spend a few days.

The other day I came across Why Italians Love to Talk about Food by Elena Kostiukovich in the library's new book section. This is a very readable treatise on Italian history and culture through the medium of its food by a Russian translator who has lived in Italy for 2o years.

Each section of the country gets its own chapter, and I'm lapping up the ones on Veneto and Tuscany where we will visit. I especially like the nice list of famous foods and food products for each section at the end of its chapter. Here's hoping I can avoid looking totally clueless in Venetian and Luccan trattorias.

Dirt Cheap (or Free) Phone Calls

2010-05-17T18:28:00.003-05:00

Somehow this article from PC Magazine got passed along to me, so I'm sending it to you! See slides on 10 ways to make phone calls - from Bing to Skype to Google to..........

The 2010 Census Won't Tell Much About Us

2010-05-07T18:31:00.008-05:00

Did anyone else wonder why there were so few questions to answer on the 2010 census form? Having unearthed lots of really interesting information from past census records about the early days of my family in this country, I'm thinking that my great-great-grandchildren (if any) won't be able to find out much about me in 2010.

Past records had great stuff like where your father was born, your occupation, etc. This time, it looks like all the government wants to know is whether you own your own house, what race you think you belong to, and who else lives with you.

Apparently, most people get the 10 question short form, but some people get the big 69-question form. Here's something from the Better Business Bureau explaining how people getting the 69-er are thinking it's a scam! Genealogists in their families will be lucky. The rest of us fall into oblivion.

Lots of Tomatoes!

2010-05-03T20:09:00.005-05:00

This year one of my daughters suggested we can tomatoes since she heard that the white coating on the inside of commercially canned tomatoes leaches bad stuff into the food. So, instead of putting in 4 tomato plants, I set out 10. I grew these from seed starting in March. There are 5 little San Marzanos and 5 Big Boys. This may be a big, and I do mean big, mistake. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I discovered that my cute little strawberry plants are really covered in blossoms. Last year there were only a few. This is now their second spring, so maybe they have decided to stay. The rhubarb plant is doing nicely as well. It will get to grow undisturbed for probably another 2 years. I have excellent will power so far, but I do love a rhubarb pie.

p. 629, Oranges Glacees

2010-04-25T19:49:00.015-05:00

At last I have finished Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking! After considering a simple recipe to try myself, I caved and went for this one. At least it doesn't have the ton of cream and/or butter like all of Julia's other recipes.

Here are the photos to show how I slaved over it this afternoon:

Six large, colorful oranges ready to go!

Making candied orange peel.

This was the killer part - took so long!

Macerating the cooked orange peel in orange liqueur.

Making the sugar syrup.

Glazing the oranges with the hot syrup.

Ta-da!

It did look great, but it wasn't so delicious that I would go through all that again. The book goes back to the library, and I can sleep well tonight.

How Do You Pronounce, "Nicolas Sarkozy?"

2010-04-19T18:22:00.006-05:00

Here's a good link from the Resource Shelf, one of my favorite Web sources. The Voice of America (VOA) Pronunciation Guide is a nifty way to hear the real way to say the names of international persons and places in the news.

I tried Nicolas Sarkozy, just to check my high school French. Boy was I off! OK, I'm using the American tv news announcer pronunciation, but still.... I left the "s" on Nicolas - WRONG - and put the accent on the ''koz" in Sarkozy - DOUBLE WRONG.

Try it yourself. Check the Short List link at the bottom of the screen for recent names in the news. Make yourself sound brilliant!

Card Catalog Project

2010-04-11T13:53:00.006-05:00

Some time ago, I became aware that library card catalogs were disappearing. When you did find one, you had to pay a pretty price, since people had begun to find interesting uses for them. Take a look at a blog post from PH: Poetic Home for some of the ideas.

So, in my library work, I came across a small one with no legs. I bought it and promptly relegated it to my basement laundry room where it languishes under forgotten sewing projects and stuff to wash/iron someday.

I could use a new coffee table, but what to do for legs? All of a sudden it occurred to me that I could use.......books. I'll just need to find some that look good and can be stacked to the same height, then cemented in place. Anyone have any ideas?

Fooling Around with Wolfram Alpha

2010-04-09T20:05:00.007-05:00

Today I ran across Wolfram Alpha, the computational knowledge website. I listened to Mr. Wolfram himself describe the site and what you can do with it. One of the simplest is to type in a first name. You get graphs of how many people in the U.S. were given that name over the last 100 years or so, and another graph of the present age of most of the people with that name. Here's the graph of when people were given my name - a big bump after WWII, then downhill all the way.

I'm going to go back to this again and again for all kinds of other stuff. Try it and see what you think!

Vegetarian Recipe Database

2010-04-05T18:04:00.005-05:00

OK, how many vegetarians/vegans do we have in the extended family? There are two here, plus a little vegetarian in first grade. Other than the Man of the House in Scotland, I haven't heard of any others.

Anyway, for everyone who wants to find particular vegetarian recipes, Vegetarian Times has put out a free database of 10.000+ recipes that can be tweaked to find those that have a particular ingredient you want to use.

Use the categories below to limit your keyword search, or just leave out the keywords altogether and just search by checking a category.

Advanced Search Options

+ Category (Egg-Free, Dairy-Free, etc.)
+ Type (Appetizers, Entree, Soups, etc.) Member Rating Appliances
+ Required (Microwave, Slow Cooker, Grill, etc.) Season Holiday/Special
+ Occasion Cuisine (Indian, French, Moroccan, Greek, etc.) Departments
+ (30 Minutes, Veg Lite, Vegan Gourmet, 5 Ingredients, etc.) Course/Meal
+ (Breakfast/Brunch, Side Dish, Stir-Fry, etc.

Political Efforts in Illinois

2010-03-28T14:32:00.004-05:00

Illinois is in such pathetic financial condition, we're almost as bad as California. So I've been working on a small effort to change one thing here, the Illinois Fair Map amendment, which will ask voters to change the way we set redistricting after each census reveals population shifts.

Iowa, to name one eminently fair state, uses a computer to redraw district lines after each census. How sensible!

Illinois allows the ruling party leaders to propose new district lines. If the other side doesn't like the proposal, they can come up with their own version. Each side tries to draw lines that reward incumbents and punish the other party. Some districts look like weird jigsaw puzzle pieces with long peninsulas and strange shapes. If no one can agree - they actually flip a coin. And this has been done. How ridiculous!

So, I'm out trying to find people who are registered voters in Illinois and convince them to sign a petition to put the Fair Map amendment on the ballot in November, but it ain't easy. Getting people to listen to your appeal on the Metra platform is discouraging.

I hate rejection. I can't imagine how people can decide to run for office - getting rejected right and left most of the time. Office-seekers must have to have an elephant's hide. Either these people are heroes or their egos are so huge that they can weather anything. Onward.

The Lost Boys in Fargo

2010-03-21T12:13:00.002-05:00

There's a new play at the Victory Gardens/Biograph Theatre (where John Dillinger was killed in the alley after seeing Manhattan Melodrama) called The Lost Boys of Sudan. As soon as I read that the play follows the war refugees to their new home in Fargo, N.D., where I was born, I knew we had to see it. We immediately signed up to be volunteer ushers for last night's performance.

There was plenty to think about as actors showed the horrific effects of the wars in Sudan on the civilians and on the child soldiers. But we also were looking to see what happened to them in Fargo - and were sadly disappointed. The refugees could have been in Anytown, USA. The actors were really good at African accents, but where was the Fargo accent, or any reference to Fargo "culture?"

Since I grew up in Moorhead - just across the river from Fargo - I can assume that I, too, have an authentic Fargo accent. Or, at least I did. I've been gone from Moorhead since 1964, and from Minnesota since 1969, but when I get on the phone with one of my sisters in the Twin Cities area, my family still says I start to "sound funny." I'm not sure I could even imitate someone from Fargo if I tried. What's an example of a word that Fargoans (Fargo-ites?) say that is unique to them? Readers, over to you...

Victoria and Albert

2010-03-19T20:25:00.003-05:00

Last night we saw probably the last showing in town of The Young Victoria, a splendid costume drama about Queen Victoria and how she came to fall in love with her German cousin while declaring her independence from her mother.

We loved the dresses worn by the actresses, but I know they would be horribly uncomfortable to wear. Corsets and wig pieces, horsehair and tight laces - oh my!

I always thought of Victoria as a sour old woman wearing a lace headdress, but it was fun to see a movie with her portrayed as lively and "winsome" in the beginning. Albert seemed sincere, but lackluster. It's hard to understand what she found so compelling about him.

Now I know how much I count on a full house in a theater for the full movie experience. When there are only a handful of people in the seats, the collective gasps, sighs, and laughter are just too weak to count. I'm paying for audience reaction in sound surround - and I missed it!

Dickens, Saint and Sinner

2010-03-07T13:00:00.004-06:00

After reading Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold about Charles Dickens' wife, I decided to read a Dickens biography to learn whether he truly was as merciless as he was portrayed in the novel. He was, but..

Dickens was a driven man - he literally worked himself to death by insisting on grueling trips around England at the end of his life to give personal readings of excerpts of his books - even to America - despite very serious health problems. He could be very generous to people who reminded him of himself at a young age - trapped by circumstances into a life of destitution and/or drudgery. A few lucky breaks and a tremendous will to advance himself got him out of the blacking factory, back in school, and on the road to acting and writing. The thought of his father's careless behavior that put the family in misery, and the fear that he, too, might end up a financial failure, dogged him all his life.

Once he was established as a successful author, he found that the pretty, sweet wife he had married when they were young was now the dull mother of 10 who suffered from lengthy post-partum depression and spoiled his dinner parties. His only solution was to insist that Catherine move out of the family home, leaving her children, including a four-year-old son, in the process. She was given a small house and a modest personal allowance, and was excluded from family weddings, holiday and birthday celebrations. This I cannot understand - why didn't he move out?

Aren't we all a strange mix of good and evil, talents and foibles? I still love Dickens the writer, but have no more illusions that he could write a wonderful book like David Copperfield because he was such a compassionate person who understood human nature. What a mystery!

Grandma is a Supercentenarian!

2010-02-26T08:42:00.004-06:00

Now that my mother-in-law, Mary McGowan, has reached her 110th birthday on February 17, 2010, she is qualified to join the list of living supercentenarians. The Gerontology Research Group keeps track of these people around the world who have documented proof of their birth more than 110 years ago. Their list is updated every day. You can also see a similar list on Wikipedia.

Mary has no birth certificate since she was born at home, but she does have a baptismal certificate. In those days, babies usually were baptized within a week of their birth due to high infant mortality rates. I expect to see her added to the supercentenarian lists very soon!

Golosa

2010-02-22T20:23:00.006-06:00

The crown prince works with a guy whose wife is the director of a Russian folk choir somehow connected to the University of Chicago down on the south side of the city (we live on the northern border). So now he is singing with the choir, Golosa, in Russian!

Whenever I heard him singing around the house, he always made his voice as low as possible, so I had to laugh when I heard that he was assigned to the tenor section.

NPR's Worldview program last Wednesday had a section on Golosa and we got to hear them sing. What a shock! They don't sound at all the way I'm used to hearing Russian choral music on the radio. Golusa's cultural background is from a group that was exiled to Siberia and there is a wailing, shouting element to their music. The director said that they have opened for rock bands at venues in Chicago and rock fans really like them! Download the program and see what you think. We'll be able to see and hear them in person in April when Golosa is part of an ethnomusical conference at DePaul. Can't wait to see their costumes!

Ushering at Symphony Center

2010-02-20T16:34:00.008-06:00

Last night we had our first chance to usher at Symphony Center. The concert was not part of the CSO's regular series, but it was for some jazz performers I had never heard of (the better to practice on). The first group was Eliane Elias, a bossa nova jazz singer/pianist and her backup guys - all from Brazil. She did a version of "Tangerine," a song my mother taught me to sing way back when, that I really liked. There was a nice crowd of all types and ages of people that came to hear them.

At intermission, we resumed our posts as statues at the bottom of one set of stairs to the balconies. When we realized we would never make the 10:35 train back home, we decided to leave right after intermission to make the 9:45, but we had to really walk FAST. We made it with one minute to spare and were home by 10:30. A good first assignment. Now we can feel ok about doing a real CSO concert!

Sic Transit Gloria

2010-02-12T19:15:00.008-06:00

The poor economy has lately claimed two businesses that I will really miss. Piatto was a restaurant within walking distance of our house - and it was really nice! Our family had many little celebrations there in the last few years. The delicious olive spread and bread basket are gone forever - sigh.

And I used to stock up every winter on a 10-lb. box of steel-cut oats at The Home Economist in a nearby suburb. They sold lots of baking ingredients in bins, long before stores like Whole Foods took over the idea. You could buy as little or as much as you wanted, including grinding your own peanut butter. It was a great way to buy a little bit of a spice that you knew you wouldn't use very often.

So, to all of you out there: patronize your local businesses! They might not make it otherwise.

Google Maps Store View?

2010-02-05T18:27:00.004-06:00

I hope this is a bona fide news item, but I just read about Google photographing the inside of stores so we can go in and browse online. Nice! Read all about it.

Cleaning Closets and Nostalgia

2010-01-18T20:47:00.002-06:00

I vow to clean my bedroom closets once a year. So I started this weekend and was surprised once again to find the leftovers of my life left moldering on back shelves. Old letters (real hand-written letters!), forgotten receipts, neglected to-do lists. Then, to cap off the day, I watched American Graffiti. "Where were you in 1962?" What a trip back in time that is for me! The clothes, hairstyles, music, dancing, etc., were right out of my memories of high school.

The movie ends with a postscript - graduation photos of the 4 guys who were the main characters in the story of that one long night in a California town - with little where-are-they-now notes. The gallant drag racer was killed by a drunk driver; the guy that gave up his "east coast" college scholarship at the last minute was a small-town insurance agent; the loony-but-sweet nerd was MIA in Vietnam; the last-minute college-bound guy was a writer living in Canada. That's what I remember from college - guys debating whether to wait around to get drafted for Vietnam or head for Canada. One guy I knew joined the Peace Corps - hope he did some good there while staying alive.

BBC Period Drama Fans, Rejoice!

2010-01-09T15:19:00.008-06:00

I'm looking at our local PBS station program schedule for January and see that there will be a 2-part update to "Cranford" starting tomorrow night! Judi Dench will be back as one of the Cranford ladies. I really enjoyed watching Cranford a year and a half ago (see my post about that), and will be glad to see Judi Dench back as one of the Cranford ladies.

And to make Sunday evenings in January even better, a new BBC production of Jane Austen's Emma will take up the last 2 Sunday nights on Masterpiece Classic. I don't recognize any of the actors' names in this new version, but that's good since I won't have any expectations for them. I was surprised to see that the actor who will play Mr. Knightley is named Jonny Lee Miller. Sounds like a good ol' boy, instead of a Brit with an uppercrust accent. Don't disappoint me, Jonny Lee!

Chickity-Doo-Doo Laid to Rest

2009-12-13T00:10:00.007-06:00

Snow has fallen on our neighborhood, and though it will probably melt tomorrow, I'm pretty sure we've gotten away with the Chickity-Doo-Doo on our lawn. This is unadulterated, organic, chicken manure fertilizer - and it smells AWFUL. We waited until late in November to spread it on the grass, but when I left for work the next morning, I noticed the smell all the way over to our next-door neighbor's yard. If we were lucky, no one saw us putting it on the lawn and no one will be able to figure out what the stench is from. When the snow fell this week, we rejoiced that the stuff would sink into the ground and disappear from the air. Will have to wait until next spring to see how it works!

J.A. Jance in Person

2009-12-05T17:41:00.009-06:00

Today I went to the library to hear J.A. Jance, the popular mystery series author, talk about her writing. After seeing her publicity photo on her website, I thought she would be nice and grandmotherly.

Wrong. For instance, she is very tall and is quite imposing standing behind a lectern on a stage. What was most surprising is that she sings at her appearances. She told how her parents and their 7 kids would drive from Arizona back to South Dakota for regular visits with the friends and family they had left behind when the father was advised to move for his health. Their mother liked to sing, so they entertained themselves on those long car trips by harmonizing on a considerable repertoire of songs. She demonstrated a hilariously gruesome country song about heartache, death, and coffins. Then after describing how terrible it was to be a smart 7th grade girl who happened to be 6 feet tall, she told how she eventually became unlikely friends with Janis Ian, who wrote At Seventeen. She closed by singing the entire song, unaccompanied. Brava!

Thanksgiving Days!

2009-11-28T15:13:00.014-06:00

Thanksgiving brought in relatives from out of town again this year. That always means lots of Scrabble and a movie at a theater before they leave. Our family hostess arranged for 2 Scrabble games to accommodate 8 players after the turkey. I felt that my overloaded stomach was draining all the energy from my brain, so I had to walk around the block in order to clear my head for the game - which would require all my skill to look respectable against the 5 most ruthless players.

Each game was interesting, and each ended within minutes of the other, thank goodness. A certain college junior had almost back-to-back bingos in his game, yet barely won it in the face of fierce competition.

In my game, I sacrificed 2 turns to unsuccessful word challenges. The competition had unfairly memorized weird 2-letter words that I just couldn't believe would stand up. I was wrong both times. The brother of the 2-bingo winner went out with a bingo of his own and collected enough points from the other players to win our game and had enough points to be crowned grand champeen. The out-of-town relatives now have supreme bragging rights. Rats!

The Music Box Theatre was having a Sing-Along Sound of Music the next night, and all the ladies voted for it. (The guys said it was too "wimminy" for them, so they went to bars.) The high school senior allowed as how she had never seen SOM before - incredible! And she loved it.

As we filed in, someone was playing the old theater's big pipe organ as a prelude to the show. I noticed a big and lively crowd of all ages and degrees of hipness. The MC began by having everyone go through their individual props bag to learn how to use the stuff: cards with question marks, pictures of Maria, the word "flibbertygibbet," a ghost (will-o'-the-wisp); a small square of fabric, a very small fake edelweiss flower, an invitation to a ball, a "popper" (as in New Year's Eve accessory).

Anyone who had come in costume as one of the characters in the movie then was asked to come up on the stage so the audience could vote with their applause for the top 3. A "Maria," a "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," and a "Baroness" were the winners, but I really wanted a guy who was wearing a red and black lumberjack shirt to win. He said that he came as the lumberjack who got cut from the final version of the movie, which I thought was a good enough reason to win - ha ha!

After we were instructed to boo for the Nazis, hiss for the Baroness, bark for Rolf (the love-interest of "Sixteen Going on Seventeen"), and aawwww for Gretel, the movie began. Everyone cheered loudly when Maria appeared on the Alpine plain and whenever she made another big entrance. Lots of boos and hisses for the bad guys and gals. It made me think that this is what it must have been like to go to the theater in the old days in England when the audience made no secret of their reactions to a play. Lots more fun!

The words to all the songs (including the Latin verses for the nuns' choir in the beginning) appeared on the screen so everyone could sing with the actors. It was funny to hear kids down in front singing loudly and a little off-key! The biggest songs, as far as audience volume level, were "Climb Every Mountain," where everyone screeched the last high note at the top of their lungs, and the Yodeling Song (whatever the real name of it is) where you can sing, "oh-de-lay-hee," many times!

When the Baroness requests a ball at the Captain's home, everyone waves their invitation in time to the first waltz. One couple got up and quickly danced up and down the aisle. And even though we were all told not to pop our poppers until Maria and the Captain have their first kiss, disobedient kids were continuously pre-popping any time it looked like it might happen. But finally, at long last, they did it, and the room was filled with pops, streamers, cheers and laughing - yayyy!!

Roasted Beets - Perfect!

2009-11-22T11:22:00.002-06:00

Last night we had a pre-Thanksgiving family dinner. For this I sacrificed the last of my home-grown beets, and they were beautifully rosy and delicious at room temp with splashes of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and with rosemary and thyme strewn around.

I learned how to roast beets something like baked potatoes to avoid diluting their flavor in water and to concentrate the sugars. At first I would trim the beet greens to 2 inches, scrub the beets, dry them, and encase them individually in sealed foil packets. This worked very well. After the beets cooled, I could put on a pair of rubber gloves and just slip the beet skins off to reveal shiny smooth beets to use as dinner vegetables, slice into salads, etc. Later I felt guilty wasting so much foil, so I decided instead to rub them liberally with cooking oil, and put them in a covered casserole to bake. Even better - and greener, so to speak! Wish I had a picture, but you'll just have to imagine it.

2009-11-09T08:47:00.005-06:00

Last night I watched Dances with Wolves again. I forgot how long it is - over 3 hours - but it was so interesting that I didn't notice the time at all. I'm working my way through the American Film Institute's 100 Greatest Films. This is #75 on the first version of the list.

I remember when it first came out in 1990 (20 years ago - good heavens!). It must have been around Thanksgiving when the sister who is almost exactly 6 years younger came to town, as she has, off and on (mostly on) for T-Day all these years. A good movie has been part of our tradition, and that year we picked Dances with Wolves. I have a mental picture of her in the movie theater parking lot as we walked in the dark back to our car. We had run out of superlatives for what we had just seen and were continuing in silence when my sister let out a genuine blood-curdling war whoop! It was the perfect "review."

She's coming to town again this Thanksgiving and I'll be adding this memory to my list of things to be grateful for.

H1N1 Inches Closer

2009-11-06T17:36:00.003-06:00

Last week I finally got a seasonal flu shot, but I've decided to forgo the H1N1 shot since I'm not in a high-risk category. But I found out on Tuesday that the young husband of one of my co-workers came home with H1N1. His wife has moved in with her parents and stops off at home once a day to leave food and check on him. She says he started with a "terrific" headache and then a high fever. Today he is cleaning things with Lysol and talking about going back to work.

I used to think that we public librarians were almost immune to communicable diseases - like teachers and young moms who get exposed to everything. But in library newsletters this week, there was the ominous news that a "healthy" manager of an Omaha public library died of this flu. There's nothing like taking a library card from a person who is hacking and sniffling at the reference desk. We now keep hand sanitizers and sanitizing wipes right on the desk, but I doubt they do any good against airborne viruses. I may decide to wear a mask!

Author Treats from the New York Public Library

2009-11-01T11:44:00.012-06:00

I've heard that New York City has a wonderful library, so I guess their online version can't help but be good, too. I just found their link to Live from the NYPL with audio and/or video versions of important "conversations" - including one with Margaret Atwood, the author of a book I just started and am relishing! She spoke with another well-known author and historian, Thomas Cahill, there in December 2006.

Upcoming this week is a conversation with Barbara Kingsolver, another of my favorites. And past programs include ones with Queen Noor, Spike Lee, Salman Rushdie, Jeffrey Eugenides, and on and on!

Wisconsin Travelers' Delights

2009-10-24T17:20:00.013-05:00

Last weekend we drove through Wisconsin to get to Minneapolis. We were out of honey and made plans to stop near Janesville to pick up a new supply at Orlovsky Apiaries. When we called ahead to place our order, we were told that the bees had not had a good year, so we were going to be limited to 3 gallons. Rats.

I did some research on the Wisconsin Honey Producers Assn. site to see who was close to the Interstate AND had an e-mail address. The first one to get back to me was a guy in Tomah, home of the Warrens Cranberry Fest each September, who has hives in the cranberry bogs around there, so - cranberry honey! It's very thick and a little darker than other honeys. He told us it's as sweet as any other honey, but has a slight "tang" (I can't tell, so far). A third of our new supply is gone now, as we gave away some to relatives. My mother wants some, too, but she'll have to be content with a 2 oz sample that will pass airline security.

In Tomah, we got an additional 20 lbs. of the cranberry honey, 2 cheap bags of fresh cranberries, and a big pumpkin for Halloween carving. Lastly, we stopped at our all-time favorite Wisconsin eatery, Norske Nook, where the pies are huge and the crusts taste like homemade. We have been stopping there for years, and this time we got a banana cream (no refrigeration needed in October!) and a peach praline to go with a stuffed shells dinner with family in Coon Rapids that night. Excellent!

We always buy the pies in the metal pie pans which require a $7 deposit. With an accumulation of a stamp on their business card for each pie you buy, you get a freebie with 7 stamps. Two pie pans to return, plus the 7 stamps, means we got 2 more pies for practically nothing - yay!

How to Peel a Banana

2009-10-11T20:00:00.003-05:00

I have always peeled bananas by pulling off the "handle" at the stem end. Imagine my surprise when I found out there's a better way! I was idly browsing through Xtreme English when I came across the odd link, Hilarious, on her 10/20/09 post. I don't know what Xtreme English found that was hilarious there, but I did find a YouTube of the correct way to peel a banana (monkey style). When I checked back there today, I couldn't find it again, but it's easy to find stuff on YouTube, luckily.

I happened to have some bananas at home and found out that this actually works very well - IF the bananas are not too soft. After that, the end doesn't squish so readily. I did a quick survey of the people at work the next day and found out that hardly anyone knows how to do it this way. Who knew? Thanks, Xtreme English and Belgian Waffle!

I Am Introduced to J.A. Jance

2009-10-03T23:19:00.004-05:00

J.A. Jance, prolific mystery writer, is coming to my library in December. She's been writing mysteries for more than 20 years, but I haven't read any of them yet. Starting with a series about J.P. Beaumont, a recovering alcoholic and retired Seattle detective, she then went on to write another series about Joanna Brady, single mother and rural Arizona sheriff. My office partner is one of her fans and was excited to find out that Jance has combined these two series by putting Brady and Beaumont in the same book. And she has started a third series about Ali Reynolds, an over-the-hill tv newscaster with a marriage on the rocks who goes back to her small Arizona hometown to figure out what to do next, blogging all the way.

I've set myself a project to read at least the first book in each series before that author shows up here. Only the first book for the Ali Reynolds' series was available at the time, so I'm starting with that one. Now that I've spent a little time in urban Arizona, it will be fun to read about the rural part.

Julia Child on Film, in Books, at the Stove

2009-09-27T18:57:00.007-05:00

I was a fan of the old Julia Child TV cooking series, so I couldn't wait to see the film, Julie & Julia, with Meryl Streep reincarnating Julia. I loved the movie, but agreed with the critics that too much time was given to Julie the blogger, and not enough to Julia.

I got my hands on Julia's account of her introduction to France and French cooking, My Life in France. which fills in the holes in the story: how Julia fell in love with French people (contrary to most Americans' view of the French as unfriendly snobs), how she became friends with the young maid who came with her first Parisian apartment - after seeing the maid burst into tears when Julia tried to sit her down to talk to her in mangled French about how to do things "right" (i.e., Julia's way), how she began to amass a huge collection of French cooking tools, etc.

As soon as I finish that book, my next project is to simplify Julie's project. I'm going to find the simplest and easiest recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which has never gone out of print and went back on the NY Times bestseller list! After I find the recipe, I will cook it. I'm betting it will have something to do with eggs. Stay tuned.

One Alpine Strawberry - At Last!

2009-09-17T20:25:00.003-05:00

The tiny dot of ruby red at the bottom of this strawberry plant is the first of what I hope will be lots of Alpine strawberries. Unfortunately, it is September 17 today, so the odds are against it. At any rate, I am so happy to see that the plants, which were a gift from my dear aunt, are doing what they're supposed to. On to next season when I will stop ripping out all the runners they send out almost daily.

Charles Dickens: Love the Writer, not the Man

2009-09-05T15:16:00.002-05:00

Just finished a very interesting new novel, Girl in a Blue Dress, based on the marriage of Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth. Afterwards, I had to go look up the "facts" about it. Here's an example.

I am one of the legion of fans of Dickens, the author, but after hearing about how he treated his wife, I find it hard to understand how he could be so empathetic to so many unfortunates in his novels and in real life - except in his own family. There seems to be a streak of hardness in his character that has forever changed the way I think of him. Sigh.

Squirrels Love to Waste Tomatoes

2009-08-25T20:43:00.003-05:00

Here is the lineup of tomatoes I'm saving from the squirrels. As you can see, a few have been molested, but I'm trying to save them. The one under the plastic bowl is in intensive care, due to fruit flies attacking the bite marks. The one just beyond that also has bite marks, but they've closed over. These will be ok for cooking, if they can get ripe before they get rotten!

It so maddening to find a good tomato on the ground in my garden with just one bite taken! The squirrels have been terrible about that this year. For every two good tomatoes, the squirrels have had their way with one. I'm feeling murderous.

The Gift of Reading

2009-08-22T17:37:00.003-05:00

The other day at the library, I had just checked out two books that were begging me to take them home when it struck me (again) how happy I was to enjoy reading so much. It has been a continuing joy to be able to hear people's stories - from their experience and from their imagination.

The two books (which haven't made it on to my sidebar yet) are both novels about California, and they couldn't be more different! One is Donald Duk by Frank Chin - about a 12-yr.-old in a California Chinatown somewhere who hates his name and being Chinese. The other is The Nowhere City by Alison Lurie - about a young couple who move to LA because of the husband's job transfer. He loves the unpretentiousness and freshness of California, while she hates the lax standards for behavior there. It will be interesting to see if the ideas about California from a book written in 1966 still hold true now.

I hope I never stop feeling excited about getting a new book. Set me on an ice floe if I do.

Miscellaneous Interesting New Websites

2009-08-03T18:05:00.003-05:00

Spreety.com lists all the sites for watching FREE online TV! This includes PBS and lots of other commercial stuff. Haven't tried it yet, but it *sounds* good. Librarians love good organizers like this. Somebody let me know what you think!

Wordle.net is pretty useful - and fun! Take the characteristics of someone you know and love, then create a poster/birthday card/?? using all the words arranged in a word cloud with artsy colors, etc. You have to go to the Website to see what I mean. Again, I didn't try it myself yet, but I saw one that my cubicle partner did - really nice!

Another Great Read

2009-07-25T17:03:00.004-05:00

Just finished All Other Nights by Dara Horn (her 3rd book so far). What a wonderful story! I've told at least 4 people about it already because I want them to read it asap. As I said in my sidebar, this is about a young Jewish man living in New York at the time of the Civil War. He escapes an arranged marriage with a simpleton girl by joining the Union army. When it becomes known that he is related to a New Orleans man who is plotting against Pres. Lincoln, he is smuggled behind the lines to kill his uncle on Passover night.

That part was thrilling enough, but it was only the beginning. His next assignment is to marry one of four sisters in a Jewish family from Virginia to find out which of them is a Rebel spy ringleader.

It turns out that the author did research on the history of American Jews during the Civil War and came up with material for some utterly fantastic plot twists. A tragic thriller that's a very satisfying read.

Peas - Too Much Work

2009-07-08T00:58:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I finally got the last plump pea pods from my garden. Time to rip out the plants.

I had been saving the pods until I got all of them or had enough to make a decent side dish for dinner - whichever came first.

Here are the measly results: about a cup and a half of various sizes of peas. That means you have to cook them in stages. The biggest ones cook first, then you add the mediums, then the teeny ones.

Next, the pods go into the food processor for compost material.

I like this picture with the steam rising from the just cooked peas! They're very good when you eat them, but IMHO it's very hard to tell them from frozen peas from the supermarket. This may be my last year for them. I could grow more plants next year, but they would use up too much garden space and only give me one crop. Off with their heads.

Addicted to this Map Quiz!

2009-07-05T20:28:00.006-05:00

As I get ready to teach a class on Websites for maps and directions, I came across The Traveler IQ Challenge from TravelPod. I started trying it out myself (on North America, of course), and I was doing so well that I kept going on and on to the next level to see if I could keep it up. It was so much fun that I forgot about the time. Nothing like getting paid to enjoy yourself!

If you want to try it yourself, know that there are 13 different areas for the quiz and each one has several levels of difficulty. Be prepared to get sucked in!

Google Squared - I like it!

2009-07-01T03:18:00.001-05:00

Have you seen the latest from Google? I just tried out Google Squared to get a handy list of vegetarian restaurants in Chicago - easy to read and compare addresses, features, etc. There's a handy Help Screen to explain it all. This might be useful for lots of stuff. Let's see.......

TED does it again

2009-06-28T15:06:00.007-05:00

TED brings us Clay Shirky talking about the history of communication - and why we bloggers are part of the latest major change. It takes about 18 minutes, but well worth your time. This is really fascinating.

Foiled by the Converter Box

2009-06-13T14:18:00.004-05:00

Last winter, we dutifully sent in for 2 coupons for converter boxes. We got the coupons in time to buy 2 boxes and installed one on our main tv in the basement family room. Everything seemed to work perfectly, and we were all ready for the first changeover date in February 09. Now that the analog signals were finally cut off on Friday, I went to the basement to see what our tv reception is like this morning between loads of laundry. Imagine my surprise to find out that the only stations that come in are channels 32 and above. The regular network channels and the PBS channel are all snow! Back to the drawing board...................

Really Interesting Book

2009-06-11T20:40:00.004-05:00

Outliers: The Story of Success is one of the most interesting books that I've read in a long time. Here are some of the questions Gladwell asks:

Why are people born in the first 3 months of the year generally more successful in life than the rest of us? ("Successful" meaning able to accomplish more in a field of endeavor.)
Why are men from southern states less able to tolerate aggressive behavior from others than northern men?
Why was it really dangerous to fly on any Asian airline flight until only a few years ago?

His curious answers to these questions kept me glued to the book. It's too late to change some of the decisions I made for my children when they were little, but I definitely would have done some things differently had I read this then.

Polio and Our Family

2009-06-07T15:36:00.004-05:00

As if WWII wasn't making life terrible enough, Americans also had to live through many scary years of polio epidemics. One of my uncles, who was in the early years of high school at the time, caught the disease. He suffered some serious effects, but with surgery and rehabilitation, he was able to recover well enough to finish high school. He graduated from college, married and had children, and had a good career in sales. Sadly, in later years, he has experienced disability due to post-polio syndrome.

Knowing all this, I was really interested in finding The Polio Crusade from PBS, which aired a program on the topic last February. I didn't see it then, but you can watch it with a link on the site. By 1950, the Salk vaccine was discovered and I got it as a vaccination shot, unlike the current form of liquid dose. (I'm one of the remaining few who also sport a scar on my upper arm from a smallpox vaccination.) Anyway, just seeing the photos from the PBS promotion is a sobering experience.

Here's to my uncle, who remains cheerful and upbeat despite all. Polio didn't get those good humor muscles!

Rescued Relic of the 60s

2009-05-30T20:06:00.008-05:00

Toward the end of my last year of college in 1969, I happened to be in the biggest department store in town, Dayton's (long before it was swallowed by Hudson's, then disappeared forever, a la Marshall Field's, et al). In my impoverished state, my radar only picked up sale signs in the store as I browsed the floors. In the handbag department that day, I found one of my all-time best purchases, a black leather clutch, that, even on sale, cost more than I could really afford. Nevertheless, I became convinced that I had to have it. It is truly the only item in my wardrobe that has not only held up through the years, but that I still enjoy using on occasion.

Not long ago, I pulled it out of the back of my clothes closet and discovered that the curved leather strap that held the industrial-strength snap closure had cracked. The two halves were hanging by a thread. I almost thought I would have to throw it away. A last-ditch search of the Internet led me to Irv's Luggage in a nearby suburb. Their ad said that they specialized in luggage repair of all materials, including leather. I had to wait for a day off from work before I could drive out there to see what they could do. To my surprise, I was told that their "senior repair specialist" would be able to fix the break for $35. Three weeks later, I picked up my purse in fully-repaired condition! I don't know how he did it, but the man must be a genius. I can't see any break and I don't think he made a replacement strap because he would have had to destroy the purse lining to attach it. Whatever, I'm so happy to have it back!

In the second photo, I placed in the clutch the 3-inch high paper doll with extra blue dress that my 6-yr-old granddaughter created for me for my birthday. Two treasures. Now if I could figure out how to replace the stained mirror, the purse would be practically as good as new.

WWII Heroics and Milky Way Candy Bars

2009-05-21T22:07:00.003-05:00

After nearly 40 years of marriage, I thought I'd heard all my husband's stories, but it turns out he's been holding out on me! I heard this one after I came home from the grocery store with some Milky Way candy bars that I scored on a buy-one-get-one-free coupon.

Back during the war years when he was 11 or 12 years old, he faithfully listened to the kids adventure serial radio programs that came on every afternoon after school. One program announced a contest for listeners: dream up an escape method for an American Air Force pilot shot down and captured by Nazis near a famous French shipping port (clues given in the program), and name the port.

He said he knew the port was Marseilles, and came up with this idea, which he can never tell without laughing:

The pilot manages to scrounge up enough gunpowder to fill his mouth. Then he asks the Nazi guard for a light. The sadistic Nazi whips out a blowtorch, igniting the gunpowder, and shooting the pilot into the air and out of the prison camp!

After mailing in this entry, he heard nothing for weeks or months. Then a letter came, telling him that his creativity had won him a prize - a case of Milky Way candy bars. He actually felt a little disappointed, since Milky Ways were not his favorites. However, after eating all 30 candy bars over a period of time ("you mean you didn't give any to your friends?!"), he grew to like them so well that they have remained his favorite candy bar to this very day.

Farm Rescue and our Family Farm

2009-05-19T21:41:00.003-05:00

My husband is a part owner of North Dakota farmland that was passed down to him from his grandparents who were homesteaders beginning in 1905. He gets a subscription to the Glen Ullin Times, the local newspaper out there, to keep track of what's happening. We were suprised to read in the latest weekly issue that the farmer who rents the land had been sidelined recently by emergency heart surgery, but that Farm Rescue had stepped in to plant his spring wheat. Here's an excerpt from their online log:

Week of May 4: Our volunteers are now in the fields, dodging rain showers, in one of the wettest springs on record!

But the crop is in the ground at Hebron, where Gene, Warren, Bill K., Lowell and Charles spent four days planting spring wheat. They put the last 100 acres in the ground on Tuesday afternoon. After a good home-cooked meal from the family they assisted (the husband had open heart surgery), the crew headed to Flasher.

This is a marvelous organization that has saved many a family farm. Read the stories of some of the farmers - you'll feel good!

Strawberries and Rhubarb - Oh, My!

2009-05-17T17:04:00.006-05:00

A lovely sunny, but cool, spring day here - just perfect for planting my newly-arrived strawberry and rhubarb plants. Our yard has about a 3 inch layer of top soil here over a thick tough layer of old lakebed clay. Not what strawberry and rhubarb plants love. So my dear husband has dug holes into the clay to layer peat, cow manure, and topsoil for the new plants. Here they are lolling around in their new digs - get it?

The plants are part of a wonderful gift from someone who knows I love to garden. We are also both North Dakotans, originally, so we both know and love homegrown rhubarb sauce.

I was going to put some of the Chickity-doo that I bought at the local garden center on the new plants, but I figured it might be too much for them. In case you haven't heard of it before, Chickity-doo is an all organic animal manure fertilizer from - yes, chickens. It does smell terrible, however. Much worse than treated cow manure. I was told that we will NOT keep the bag in the garage - it has to go to the back storage shed. Wait until I try it for lawn care - ha ha! We might get voted off the neighborhood.

Honey Mustard Salmon, Part 2

2009-05-10T19:19:00.002-05:00

Although I thought the recipe sounded simple enough, it turned out to be another case of not having all the basic ingredients. After I realized I didn't have any coarse mustard, I just couldn't bring myself to use the yellow hotdog stuff. A frantic call to my husband to see if he was on his way home and near a grocery store (I lucked out) saved the day.

We have a handy dandy George Foreman electric grill. It's the big daddy of the line and I really have come to love it. I pulled it out of the garage to the driveway, plugged it in and let it heat for 10 minutes. The salmon fillets, bathed in honey mustard sauce, cooked in just a few minutes - and were darn good! Wish I had had some fresh dill, but the dried version was ok. Next time, the works!

Another Recipe Find

2009-04-26T12:25:00.014-05:00

Ok, this one from Pure Simple Cooking (see sidebar) has 4 ingredients and probably takes 15 minutes, but it qualifies in my book of quick and easy. Now to see if it's good, as well! (If anyone tries this before me, be sure to let me know the results.)

Honey Mustard Salmon

6 oz. salmon fillet
1/2 T coarse mustard
1/2 T honey
1/2 t fresh chopped dill

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. For each fillet, mix together the appropriate amount of mustard, honey, and dill. Place the fillets skin side down on an oiled rimmed baking sheet. Spoon the mix over the fillets and bake for 12 min. Ta-da!

Clothesline Time is Coming

2009-04-23T18:34:00.006-05:00

Even though it will be great clothes drying weather - warm and windy - on Saturday, my laundry day, I have to work! So I will wait for the next opportunity to get out my clothesline and turn off my dryer. In this neck of the woods, I'm the only one who is hanging out my clothes in the back yard, but today I found this Website, Laundry List, for reinforcement. It's hard to believe that it's against the law in some neighborhoods to hang your laundry outside!

FaceBook for me?

2009-04-19T12:37:00.007-05:00

People in my family are divided as to the merits of FaceBook. I've been leery, but I don't really know a lot about it. Then I saw this article online. I'm one of those who thinks that joining FaceBook might open a can of worms that I won't be able to close. Let me know what you think about it!

Fargo Flood Page

2009-04-03T07:31:00.004-05:00

Here's all the latest on the flooding in Fargo/Moorhead from NDSU. Read it and weep. Still haven't found out if any of the 3 homes our family had in Moorhead is affected.

Classic Westerns

2009-03-29T15:38:00.013-05:00

I'm reading The Sacketts by Louis L'Amour, who was born in North Dakota and lived there as a young man - much during the same time as my mother-in-law. It turns out that L'Amour's real name was LaMoure. From what I know of pioneer North Dakotans, it surprises me that he would change his name to such a Frenchified version. Did a publisher or editor talk him into it? Doubtless it has lent him a certain cachet, but still...

It's kind of fun to read a classic Western where the men are strong, good and evil are in black and white, and it's all fairly predictable. I feel transported back to being 11 years old and finding my aunts' stash of girls books from the 20s and 30s. There's nothing like discovering Nancy Drew as a kid and whiling away whole summer days with her.

Another one of my favorites from those books was Nell Grayson's Ranching Days by May Hollis Barton, who was one of many pseudonyms for Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. Harriet wrote many Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins books, and more! (Must look into this.) Nell is down in my basement bookshelf growing moldly along with the others, but I can't bear to part with her yet. Nell was a city girl from the East (dudette) who met her match in a strong young cowboy who took a liking to her. Nell had adventures with rattlesnakes, storms and "bad guys," but always was a match for them. Lovely simpler times.

Scary Book Yields a Promising Cleaning Tip

2009-03-22T18:04:00.004-05:00

The first chapter of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Cleaning (see side bar) is not for the squeamish. The exhaustive and exhausting list of toxic chemicals in our cosmetics, cleaning products, carpets, furniture, paints, etc. is truly frightening. Nevertheless, I came across a very simple, but possibly valuable tip for cleaning oven spills - like when you thought you could get away with filling a casserole dish up to the top, or not putting anything under a loaded fruit pie. The secret is to pour a lot of salt - yeah, salt - on the spill when it is still hot. You are supposed to be able to just wipe the spill away later when the oven cools with no problem. I'm now awaiting an opportunity to try this out, but have had no energy to cook anything recently that needs more than a stovetop or microwave. Tune in later.....

The Saints

2009-03-15T12:38:00.006-05:00

Speaking of theater, one of the top items on my someday to-do list is to join the Saints. I was reminded of them when I noticed that the two ushers at the play mentioned in my last post were wearing Saints name badges.

This is just such an excellent idea - my hat is off to the person that made it happen! For fifty bucks a year, you can sign up and get a training session to become a volunteer at performing arts events around Chicago. You look online to see what events, dates, and locations suit you, then sign up to do whatever they need - mainly ushering. Then you take a seat and enjoy the play, circus, concert, ballet, etc. you get back many times the amount you invested in your year's worth of volunteering!

The Saints say they may be the "first and only" organization serving the performing arts in a major city. Is this true? Hard to believe that no other city has any people wanting to find an easy way to enjoy the arts without having to pay much for it. Living in Chicago, one of the great theater cities of the world, means I have to take advantage of it!

Living Green

2009-03-08T12:28:00.005-05:00

Last weekend, a group of us from around the city who have been meeting and talking about race relations went to see the last (and sold out) performance of "Living Green" by Gloria Bond Clunie.

The play was at the refurbished Biograph Theater on Lincoln Avenue, now the home of the Victory Gardens Theater. The Biograph is known to everyone in my family as the place where John Dillinger was killed in a police shootout in the alley. Over the years, my husband saw many movies there as it was a neighborhood theater. By the time I came along, it was reduced to sticky floors and regular midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Now, it's really beautiful and a great venue for plays. Good seats everywhere!

I've read and seen many versions of the play, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, so seeing the "sequel" was really interesting. Our house is in a very safe neighborhood, but I've often wondered if I was doing the right thing by choosing to live there. This play asks the question: where should you live to do the most good for yourself and everyone else? No easy answers.

Using Blueberries from 1993

2009-03-01T20:34:00.004-06:00

Last week we had major snow melting and rain. This means the cracks in our basement foundation reveal themselves. A particularly big one was discovered in the closet under the stairs where my aged mother-in-law and I have stored canning equipment for years. As we cleared out the jars and shelves, we found an undated jar of carrots and a jar of blueberries from 1993! The carrots were dumped, but we decided to see what we could do with the blueberries. The picture shows the resulting Blueberry Upsidedown Cake.

I wouldn't say it was terrifically good, but it was certainly edible - especially with the last of the Tom & Jerry's on it. The fruit filling was not very thick, so I decided not to turn it upside down, but it worked like a cobbler just as well.

Tomorrow, we will take some to my mother-in-law to give her a taste of berries she canned 16 years ago - amazing!

Lackluster Veteran??

2009-02-20T21:18:00.007-06:00

Today I took a survey on my use of new Internet technology and found out I'm classified as a "Lackluster Veteran" - part of the group of older faithful Internet users who find themselves overwhelmed with new forms of communication and not so willing to try them all out. What a creepy label!

Try it yourself at the Pew Internet Project's Internet Typology Test and tell me what they call you!

Mary is 109 today!

2009-02-17T11:22:00.005-06:00

Today is a great day - Mary is 109 years old and she knows it! I congratulated her this morning on reaching 109 and told her that she will have visitors today. On anyone's birthday, she has always asked the person how they feel about being that old, so today I asked her. She said she doesn't know how she feels about being 109, then she thanked me for coming to see her.

Her spirit is still strong on her good days, and today is one of them. It is a blessing to know her.