The glass is greener

Once I was talking with a nurse who was the wife of a Baptist minister. She had recently returned from a women's group trip to Russia. She told me that she had been raised in a church that forbid drinking alcohol but all her life she had the notion that if she ever tasted alcohol, she would love it.

She said that every place the group went on the tour, they were served alcoholic beverages. Out of curiosity, she finally decided to try it. So she sampled everything they were served and, she announced happily, "I hated all of it!"

Borrowed image

Personally, I don't like booze either. Back in my dating days, I tried beer and couldn't believe anyone actually liked it. I moved on to sweet "lady" drinks like a sloe gin fizz, Tom Collins or Bacardi cocktail. Nothing really struck my fancy. I much preferred soft drinks and they were cheaper. I also hated the feeling of being tipsy--the lack of control made me feel uneasy and vulnerable.

I came to realize that I didn't much like hanging out with drunk people either. At the risk of offending those who enjoy the light-hearted camaraderie of drinking with friends, it made me feel out-of-sorts. I hated having a conversation with a boozy-breathed, cloying, erstwhile "buddy" knowing that they probably didn't mean what they were saying and wouldn't even remember it the next day. Basically, I felt like I was being used and at the same time, I felt like an outsider.

After I was put on medications that restricted drinking alcohol, I had a valid excuse for declining whatever was being served. I figure that since I quit smoking in 1972 because of sore throats, I've probably saved a small fortune on booze and smokes. It may seem like those who like to drink and party have more fun, but I find going out to eat and a movie is more my speed.

I'm feeling kinda silly

Know your Turkey Parts--A primer on snoods.

I recently posted about four unknown tom turkeys showing up in the wooded lot. I was basing my identification on the fact that the toms all had long red snoods hanging beside their beaks as they paraded around in full display.

It turns out they were just the young "jakes" of the resident tribe. I didn't recognize them because the young males normally have just a short protrusion on top of their beak.

I have learned that when the male turkeys (also called gobblers) start displaying their tail feathers and dancing around, the protrusion becomes engorged and grows longer. According to a university study, females prefer males with a longer snood so it's an advantage for mating and indicates good health.

However, there are other kinds of snoods. I can remember my mom wearing one back in the 40's. They looked like this:

Now there are other varieties of headgear with the same name.

 

Modern snood

                                                
                  That concludes our snood lesson for today.     

The beauty of the "Surge"

There is a phenomenon among the dying called a "surge". Apparently, sometimes the brain will suddenly become active and the patient will revive for a brief period before they expire. 

Last week, my daughter's mother-in-law died. She was my three grandkid's other grandma. Her health had suddenly declined to the point of no return and she was taken to hospice care where she remained in a semi-responsive state.

All the family members and relatives came to see her and visit over the final days but she seemed only vaguely aware of them. On the last evening of her life, many of the family came to say their farewells. After the older folks had gone, only her five grandchildren remained--all of them in their early twenties.

Their grandma suddenly woke up, threw back the covers and wanted to get out of bed! The kids summoned a nurse who got her up and into a chair. For the next twenty minutes, she regaled them with jokes and wisecracks that had them all convulsed with laughter.

Afterward, she went back to bed and the five cousins left. Their grandma died at 3:00 in the morning.

But, what a marvelous gift she gave them! She left them with those wonderful memories of that final night they had all shared together. They weren't saddled with sad memories of the sick old woman who they had known in her later years. She was the lively, personable grandma they could hold in their hearts as someone who loved them.

Wouldn't it be great if we all had that option?

If Volvo made computers, just think!

A 72-year-old man from New York is in the home stretch to reach 3 million miles on his '66 Volvo P1800S. He paid $4,150 back in 1966 for the red two-door car. He plans to travel this summer and get the 34,000 additional miles racked up. 

Just think if all manufacturers made such enduring products!

                               (With a nod to Owl Wood!)                 

Try this on for size!

This was emailed to me with the explanation that the first four things that pop out at you describe your personality. It's fun to see what happens.

(My four words were: Serve, witty, charismatic and thoughtful--I'm not so sure they apply!)

Anybody want a turkey?

                             (Borrowed image)
This is a wild turkey. It is big and it is loud--especially when it is going "gobble-gobble" outside my bedroom window at 5:00 in the morning.

What's so weird is that wild turkeys were quite rare until recent years. Now they're running all over the place. You see them walking in city streets and around neighborhoods. Several years ago, there was a pair occupying the green space inside a cloverleaf near the Rosedale Mall. They were so distracting the police came and moved them away.

This particular one has staked out my neighborhood as his territory. I don't know if he gobbles to attract a mate or if he is just "strutting his stuff", but he seems fearless. He rests on the neighbor's patios and patrols the tree lines as though he owned the place--and I suppose in his mind, he does!

Of raccoons, squirrels and churches

I recently saw a TV documentary about raccoons. It mentioned a big problem in Japan with the imported animals nesting in ancient wooden temples. The raccoons were sold as pets after a children's cartoon show about a baby raccoon became popular. The animals were turned loose as adults, and being as resourceful as they are, they multiplied and took up residence in the attics of the temples. Their scratches and urine are causing great damage to irreplaceable buildings.

(Now, here is a joke that was emailed to me recently about squirrels in churches.)

A small town had four churches--Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic and Baptist.

All four had a serious problem with squirrels in the church. Each church in its own fashion had a meeting to deal with the problem.

The Presbyterians decided that it was predestined that squirrels be in the church and that they would just have to live with them.

The Methodists decided they should deal with the squirrels lovingly in the style of Charles Wesley. They humanely trapped them and released them in a park at the edge of town. Within 3 days, they were all back in the church.

The Catholics also humanely trapped them and attempted to teach them the "rhythm" method to prevent them from breeding which of course did not work.

The Baptists had the best solution. They voted the squirrels in as members. Now they only see them at Christmas and Easter.

My biggest hit of all time!

I discovered that I can go back through all my old postings and see which ones got the most views. I found this post from October 17, 2009 got a whopping 423 views! What's especially odd is that it got only four comments. Probably someone referred to the posting elsewhere and directed crafters to it.
      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I got this picture off the Birds and Blooms website. These darling ladybugs are just old painted bowling balls. The directions are shown on their webpage online.

It seems like these lawn decorations would last for many years, unlike the plastic stuff you find almost everywhere. (Of course, if you've been tortured by the nasty, biting Asian Beetles that look like ladybugs, you probably wouldn't regard them very fondly.)

Thirsty Thursday

Water is my favorite beverage of all!

Now that I've got it, what do I do with it?

It seems like everybody is getting on Pinterest lately, so I did too. I'm not entirely sure where this will lead. I managed to post something on Facebook via Pinterest, but then, I already knew how to do that.

I guess you could call me a "joiner". I only got on Facebook because everyone else in my writer's group did.

I think I will be "pinning" some recipes and cute pictures that I run across. It looks like there are a lot of categories to check out. If I find any really interesting stuff, I'll let you know.

My souvenir wall with stuff from the American Southwest, England and Iceland. (Why do some pictures absolutely refuse to hang straight?)

Rubbery bananas

I just love the fact that I can go on Google and look up anything! I never get over how awesome that is!

Several years ago, a friend gave me a lovely pottery banana bowl he had made. It has been regularly stocked with bananas ever since. Before that, I always just set my bananas on the counter next to the toaster.

A week ago, I got a bunch of six bananas and set them in the bowl to ripen. I ate three of them on successive mornings with peanut butter toast for breakfast. On the fourth day, while waiting for the toast to pop up, I grabbed a banana and peeled it. When I tried to break it in half, it bent like a rubber hose. "Huh," I said and grabbed another banana. Same thing, and again with the third one. I was not inclined to eat them and threw them out--although I must admit I momentarily considered making banana bread with them.

In all my life, I've never before found a rubbery banana so I was curious. I googled "rubbery banana" and learned that there are several scientific studies into what causes it, but nobody knows for sure. What I find most puzzling is that the first three bananas in the bunch were fine but the last three were not. Go figure!

Has anybody else had this happen?

What's up, Pussycat?

Last night, the temperature fell below freezing for the first time in my neighborhood. I could tell that right away when I got up because I haven't turned the heat on yet this fall. (I'm cheaping out.) I fed the cats--always the first priority of the day--and put on the coffee pot and went to get dressed.

After I finished my mug of coffee and the newspaper, I got up to let out the cats who were quietly waiting at the patio door. I was shocked to see a pretty Siamese cat sitting outside the door looking in. It moved on after a while and the cats went out to do a little exploring in the wooded lot next door.

Later in the morning, after the cats had come back in, a big gray cat showed up outside the patio door. This is highly unusual. What do they want? Why are they coming just when the temperature drops? What is the word on the street about our particular patio?

Up until three years ago, we had made a habit of feeding birds, squirrels, possums and sundry night-noshers that we never even saw.  Our patio was beehive of activity. This is how we came to acquire the lovely puffball, Gracie whom we so adore. (Seen in the window above.)

We paid a heavy fine to the condo association for these sins and haven't fed animals on our patio ever since. (We still put out lots of water.) However, the wooded lot is a different story. It's about 15 feet from the side of our unit and below a 3-foot retaining wall. It's wild (a doe had her fawn there this spring) and full of birds and squirrels. The cats can sit in my bedroom window in their heated bed and watch them during the winter.

Which brings me back to the visiting cats, what brings them to our patio? Do we give off some kind of vibe that lures them to us?

I certainly hope so.

Getting busy

I had a miserable cough and cold for the past three weeks. I finally have my energy back and I've begun going through boxes of old folders on a "search and destroy mission". My desk is surrounded by a half-circle of brown paper grocery bags for purposes of recycling, shredding or tossing. I'm really enjoying it--not only because I feel productive, but because of the reminiscing and occasional insights into the person I used to be.

I've kept a folder for every creative writing class I ever took. They each contain the notes I took as well as the writing exercises.

*  From a class I took on novel writing from Judith Guest and Rebecca Hill, "You want to start and finish a novel while you're the same person". 

Wow, that is such great advice! Too bad I didn't keep it in mind. I began a post-apocalyptic novel back in 1996 about a St Paul woman trying to survive after a plague has nearly wiped out civilization. Over the years, as times have changed, and I have changed, the novel has become so different from my original concept that I feel like I've betrayed both my protagonist and myself.

Worst of all is the recent spate of books and movies that mirror my vision. Every time I read one of them and find one of my oh-so-creative ideas used, it's a kick in the stomach and another bruise to my confidence. I couldn't even finish Carla Buckley's The Things that Keep us Here. Next week, the movie Contagion (about a bird flu epidemic) will open in theaters. Well, at least it won't be as dark as The Road or Book of Eli.

Sigh...

Coexistance

Tuesday evening I went to a meeting. When I was driving home on I-94 afterwards, I was nearly sideswiped by a car in the next lane. It had a bumper sticker:

l

My Household Ants are back

At the risk of coming across as some kind of weirdo, I'm going to explain the agreement that I have with my household ants.

First of all I must tell you, they're the nice kind of ants. They aren't the nasty big black ones that crawl all over the walls and into the waste basket. And, they're not the icky little grease ants that get up on the cupboards and into the dishwasher. These are the regular brown ants that forage for food and stick to business.

After I moved into my ground level condo, the ants showed up one day and took over one dish of canned cat food. But, only one. I thought this was very polite of them. So in a Zen moment, I struck an agreement with them. Whenever they showed up hungry, I would feed them if they kept to their little area.

Their "ant hill" is under the concrete floor of my kitchen. The ants come up by way of a small crack under the carpet in the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen floor. They create a little highway as they cross in a line past the metal strip that holds the carpet down. At the other side, I leave them to the designated dish of cat food so they can finish it off. This takes several days depending on the degree of interest they have generated back at the Hill. Sometimes they get hordes of helpers, this time, not so much. Ants leave a scent trail for others to follow. Apparently, the degree of scent tells the others how much help is needed.

The cats will not touch food the ants have been eating because of the odor of formica. So, I can safely put down bits of food for the ants in that corner. That way the ants can replenish their food stores quickly and go away. This arrangement has been working splendidly for many years now.

I don't really believe there's anything special about my household ants. I doubt that they hold me in high regard, but nevertheless, I take pleasure in coexisting amicably with them.

Minnetonka Arts on 7 is hiding from us

My son plays the string bass with a community orchestra. Last night they had a concert out at a school in Minnetonka and I really wanted to go see it.

Now, I live on the opposite side of the Twin Cities--I don't do Minnetonka. I went on Mapquest to find out how to get there. Unfortunately, Mapquest didn't quite know how to get me there either.

After about an hour of finagling around, I had some really weird directions. I tried a variety of methods to get them clarified and finally figured I was OK.

So I took off an hour early and drove and drove until I got on Hwy 7. Then I drove and drove west until I got to the intersection where I was supposed to do a U-turn. I zoomed east again per instructions, but couldn't find an entrance to the school from the highway. I turned south at the next intersection, then west and north and finally got on a frontage heading west again. At last, I arrived a a huge high school and arts complex with multiple entrances and parking lots. I tried several before locating the correct one. I arrived with barely five minutes to spare.

No wonder Mapquest couldn't give good directions! Who designs crazy entrances to public buildings like that? Well, anyway, it was a wonderful concert.

Thanks to Kittie Howard for the "Over the Top" Blogger Award. Check out her wonderful stories

at http://kittiehoward.blogspot.com/.

Happiness is Hot Water!

Yesterday my son came over and did a repair job on my ailing hot water heater. Who knew the things were so darn complicated? It turned out that one of the two elements had burned out and the old dip tube had disintegrated. We replaced the dip tube but bits of the old one were floating around inside. It took a lot of man-handling for him to get it cleaned out and to replace the elements. But, we now have oodles of lovely hot water.

This all cost around $100. Not bad when you consider a new one would have cost around $500. We also installed some energy-saving features. Heat traps--the pipes going into the top of the water heater can waste heat by conducting heat away from it. The traps will prevent that. Energy Blanket--this cost $35 but is supposed to cut down on energy consumption by keeping the water hot longer so it doesn't run as much. I'm hoping this will cut down on our electric bills!

Well, enough of flaunting my newly acquired knowledge!

They announced the name chosen for Lily's cub--they are calling it Hope. I'm a little disappointed because there seems to be something rather fatalistic in that choice. Frankly, I liked your suggestions a lot better!

Failing Geography

I recently got a terrific offer from National Geographic Magazine and subscribed for a year. Along with my first issue, I got a new edition of the world map. I have been content to live with my preconceived notions about geography for most of my life. As a result, this new map showed that I'm really out of it!

There are an amazing number of things that I didn't know, had forgotten or was incredibly confused about:

The largest city in the world is now Tokyo, followed by Mexico City. NYC is only 3rd.

Bombay is now Mombai (4th) and Calcutta is now Kolkata (11th).

Burma is now Myanmar (Myanmar-Shave just doesn't have the same ring, does it?)

St Paul Mn is north of Toronto, Ontario.

Peru is north of Chile.

There are a whole bunch of "Stans" where part of the USSR used to be, but Russia is still a huge country.

I don't want to bore you with my ignorance, but keeping up with the global changes can be mind-bloggling. I don't know how many erroneous preconceptions I still hold in my head, so thank goodness for the map makers.

From the small to the tall

My three great-granddaughters are staying with me this week. We went to my grandson's basketball game and this was a totally new experience for the girls. Afterward, we took some pictures of the cool girls and the wet and shiny BB player.

Yesterday we went over to a nearby school that has an excellent sliding hill. The girls had a grand time sledding. When we got done, we headed back home to find that the power had gone out in the whole area. Since my place is totally electric, that means no heat, no lights and no cooking. We got out the candles and lit up the place but it was really nerve-wracking having all those fire sources around!

By suppertime, it was getting cold in the house and the girls were hungry. So, much as I loathe MacDonalds, I took them over there for an evening at the PlayPlace. We stayed until 9:00! This was not a good evening for me. I ate a lukewarm, soggy fish sandwich and listened to screaming kids for over two hours.

Adding to the general frustration was a man who was there with two women, a pair of toddlers and a baby. While all the other parents sat back and let the kids have fun, this guy was jumping up every 15 minutes and yelling very loudly at the two toddlers up in the "habitrail" for no reason. He was shabbily dressed and held up his droopy pants by the crotch to keep them from falling off. The two women ignored the kids. At one point, the guy decided he had to find the one of the kids and proceeded to climb up inside the trail where all the little kids were!

I was upset about this wildly inappropriate behavior but none of the other adults seemed to object. A few moments later, he emerged at the other end with the child. He took the little boy back to the table, set him down and the kid ran right back and went up in the trail again! This erratic behavior occurred a number of times over the evening.

Moral of the story: NEVER AGAIN will I take kids to that place!

Anyway, when we got home the lights and heat were back on. The girls were tired and went right to sleep when I put them to bed.

The Hot Item this Christmas

I admit I stole this off another blog. I have a weakness for dogs in people poses. And who wouldn't want a Snuggie for Christmas, whether man or beast?

It seems like every store is selling them this season. You find them in big box stores, clothing stores, grocery stores, online and on TV. In fact, I bought one at a Snyder's Drug Store recently in the UM Gopher's colors and logo. (But don't tell anyone because it's a Chrismas present!)

I still have to chuckle at the name because my kids used to inflict a kind of underwear torture on each other that they called a snuggie.