Batting 1000

I'm figuratively batting 1000 going into 2014. This is my official 500th post and I recently did my 500th workout at Curves. I'm not sure I can claim that as a single accomplishment, but I take my victories where I can get them.

Here is my first, ever-so-optimistic post from 2008:

"Hallelujah, I'm a Blogger!
 
I chose the title Ms. Sparrow because I have a lot of affection for house sparrows, a much under-appreciated bird. They congregate in small trees or shrubs in the evening where they twitter away as though chatting about their day--sorta like a homey tavern where people gather after work. There is something about driving past a boisterous and busy sparrow tree that invariably makes me smile.

Sparrows were originally imported from England where they are now declining in numbers. More's the pity. They are industrious, resourceful and chirpy. They will settle in urban areas and for many inner-city children, they are the only representative of the bird family besides pigeons. That's a lot of responsibility for such a little bird.

Sparrows are common, drab and always around. This is a trait I am content to share."

                                      (Borrowed image)
This winter, instead of a flock of turkeys, I'm feeding a flock of sparrows plus an assortment of other birds and lively squirrels.

Bimbo wipes out Sara Lee

Today. we went out to the "used bread" store on Silver Lake Road to stock up on our favorite English Muffin Toasting Bread. The stuff is perfect for breakfast toast, French toast, grilled cheese sandwiches and BLT's. Since we use it almost exclusively, we like to keep plenty on hand. The price at the local grocery stores is close to $4.00--the price at the outlet store is half that much.

                                                                                                                                         

                     (They're small loaves so they don't last long.)
When we got to the Sara Lee Bakery Outlet, there was a handwritten sign on the door that the tiny store will be closing on December 14th. We picked up six loaves of the wonderful stuff and asked the lady at the cash register it they were just moving to a new location. She said that a Mexican Corporation called Bimbo Baking had bought out Sara Lee and they were closing all the outlet stores. (Bimbo also bought out Hostess when they went bankrupt and the famous Twinkies were off the market for a while.)

This is the store where we buy big bags of outdated bread to feed the wildlife in the wooded lot. But more than that, it's the store where charities buy bread to make sandwiches for homeless people. It's the store where many elderly and folks on food stamps go to extend their food budget. I can well imagine that there are customers of that store who have had to rely on it for a large part of their diet.

I don't know who will step in and make up for the loss of the last remaining bakery outlets in the Twin Cities. It will be a hardship on a lot of people--and even worse, this comes at the same time that Food Stamp benefits are being reduced. It seems like the poor just can't catch a break!

God Bless Cool Whip (Again)

I'm tied up working on a volunteer project so I went back in my archives and got this post from 2008. I only had a few followers at the time so it's new to most of you.

What can I say about the blessings of Cool Whip? There it sits in the fridge in it's pristine blue and white container--so easily accessible. You can dip a strawberry at a moment's notice; you can drop a dab on your chocolate pudding cup, peaches or Jello, then sit back and revel in the sensuality of it all.

Back in the "pre-Cool Whip" days, having a creamy, fluffy white topping on your dessert was a luxury reserved for special occasions like having company or Sunday dinner. It required planning ahead and precise timing.

First, you had to remember to buy the whipping cream. You had to keep it cold in the refrigerator and keep the family from sneaking it into their coffee. Then, when you made your special meal (probably mashed potatoes with chicken or roast beef) you had to remember to wash the mashed potatoes off the beaters right away. If you forgot, the dried-on potatoes would screw up the timing to the point of desperation. So, you had the beaters clean, the bowl and mixer at the ready, the cream on standby chilling in the fridge.

You could now sit down to eat dinner with your guests or family but, when the dinner started winding down, you had to jump up to make the whipped cream. (If you whipped the cream too far ahead of time, it would "weep"and collapse.) After you put the chilled cream into a deep bowl, you could start the process.

If you had an electric mixer it didn't take too long but it required concentration. The tricky part was to whip the cream to just the right consistency without doing it too little or too much. Too little, and you wind up with sloppy topping or, too much, you have extra stiff topping larded with bits of butter.

After you had achieved the optimum of beautiful fluffiness, you added the sugar and vanilla. If all went as planned, it was ready to serve at this point. The servings of dessert (say pumpkin pie) had to be lined up and the piece de resistance--a dollop of whipped cream would be lovingly placed on top and then trotted to the dinner table immediately.

The memory of it leaves me breathless!

Now, with our ever-ready tub of Cool Whip, we can enjoy the extravagance of beautiful white fluffy stuff without all that stress. (OK, so Cool Whip will never replace the epicurean delight of real whipped cream, believe me, I can deal with it!) 

Of Twinkies and hungry turkeys

Recently the Hostess Baking Company went bankrupt and closed. It made the national news mostly because they made the iconic Twinkies. I never bought any Hostess products except for an occasional Snowball so I didn't really give a care until today. But today, it suddenly hit home.

We make a trip over to Minneapolis every couple of weeks to shop at the Master Bakery "used bread" store. They sell bread that is near the "sell-by" date at half the price. We always stock up on English Muffin Toasting Bread. It's the very best for breakfast toast and also grilled cheese sandwiches, BLT's or French toast. It's basically the only bread we eat.

Ever since I began feeding the flock of turkeys this summer, we had been buying expired bread that they sell for animal feed. We could literally  buy a car trunk full of bread and buns for five dollars. The turkeys happily gobbled it up, along with the squirrels, birds and assorted other animals. It was a feast by the wooded lot twice a day. Little did I know that when they stopped making Twinkies and other Hostess products, it would trickle down to create a problem for my menagerie.

Today, when we asked to buy a cart of stale bread, the gal said they didn't have any. She told us that when Hostess Bakeries closed down, people who had been getting bread at the local Hostess thrift store started coming over to the Master Bread thrift store. She said a man came in one morning who was with an organization that provided food for homeless people. He bought 50 loaves of bread. She said they are clearing out their shelves every day now so there's no leftovers to sell for animals.

It brings home the interconnectedness of everything that happens--and I will miss those yummy Snowballs.

Hostess marshmallow-covered, cream-filled Snowball. They come in lavender for Easter, green for St Patrick's day and orange for Halloween plus white for every-day.

I love grocery stores

I have known people who hate shopping for groceries but I love grocery stores. I have been in dozens of local markets of various ethnicity, size and specialty. It is always interesting.

We have a large Hmong population here in St Paul. They helped the US forces during the Vietnam War and were brought here after being displaced to Laotian refugee camps after the war. In a visit to one of the many Hmong food stores, I found frozen giant bullfrogs. There was an amazing variety of strange and exotic foods that I could only speculate on edibility or use of. 

Whenever I travel, I make a point of going into a local store to check out the different kinds of foods they offer. In 2005, my sister, Karen and I went to Iceland on vacation. We went into a grocery store in Reykjavik. I was looking for Icelandic candy to bring back for co-workers and friends. I was surprised to find most candies contained either cereal or cookie bits, but none with nuts. There was very little chocolate and nuts were non-existent--I suppose because they're expensive to import.

When I was in England some years ago, the grocery store I went into carried a large variety of fish. It was far more than a Minnesota market would carry. The amount of beef was very small and it was incredibly expensive, but that may have been soon after the Mad Cow crisis (1997).

I loved the variety of Cadbury chocolate bars especially the chocolate-covered shortbread cookies. I also discovered that what we call a Snicker candy bar was called a Mars bar. Our version of the Mars bar is different. I went on Google to research it and discovered that the Mars bar actually originated in England. There are now English and American versions of it and also Canadian and Australian!

My daughter Brenda went to a "Eurospring Quarter" at Oxford back in 1980. She fell in love with Lion candy bars and said she ate one every day. They are very hard to find in the US but I discovered that Brit's Pub over in Minneapolis sells them for $2 each. We can also order them online. 

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!)                 

It always makes me laugh

There are those rare things in life that are so funny that every time you remember them, you can't help but burst out laughing.

One of mine happened years ago when my daughter, Brenda was about thirteen. The Avon Lady came to our house selling cosmetics and fragrances. She opened up her case of products and showed us some sample vials of various colognes. Bren asked to smell the jasmine. She took the stopper off the tiny vial and held it up to her nose. It was such a light fragrance that she couldn't get a good whiff. Before I knew it, she inserted the vial into one nostril, closed the other nostril with her finger and snorted it!

She started coughing and sputtering, her eyes watering, as the Avon Lady and I looked on in astonishment. When we realized what happened, we both laughed so hard we were practically rolling on the floor.

Poor Brenda was exhaling perfume for hours afterward.The only after-effect she has suffered is the indignity when we retell the story and laugh all over again. (In fact, I laughed the whole time I was writing this!)

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.)

I was a 50's Teenager

Today, being a girl is waaay more fun than it was when I was a teen! My granddaughters can experiment with different hair colors, decorated nails, an endless variety of cosmetics--and even tatoos!

My experiences were much tamer. Of course, I wasn't inspired to use much makeup since my mother never used anything but lipstick to "dress up".  Dyed hair and rouge were for hussies. When I turned 13, I began to use Tangee orange lipstick. It would turn a soft pink on your lips.

As I grew more adventurous, I would buy envelopes of hair tint to change the color of my hair. The result was so subtle that nobody noticed. The only way to curl your hair was if your mom gave you a Toni Home Permanent and then set it with Bobbi Pins.

When I got a little older, I became more daring and started using Maybelline mascara. The little box had the brush on one side and a strip of brown paint on the other. You had to moisten the paint and work it around to get it on the brush ( as I remember, I just used spit to get it going. I know--ewwww!) Note the use of the head scarf to hold the Bobbi pins in place, otherwise they were dropping all over the place.

For those awful teenage skin breakouts, I had a jar of Noxzema skin cream in the medicine cabinet. To this day, the smell of Noxzema brings me back to those years. For "personal daintiness",  the only deodorant I had was Mum Deodorant that came in a jar and had to be applied with the fingers. Thank goodness, the marketers eventually came up with the roll-on idea!    

I certainly did not have a lot of confusing decisions on what to spend my meager allowance on during those years. I probably would have chosen to spend it on movie magazines anyway!

It's Girl Scout cookie season!

Tongue in cheek

"Did you hear?  The Girl Scouts have announced that the entire proceeds of this year's cookie sale will be donated to the wealthy to create jobs."                    (Courtesy of Robert Brault Reader)

Who ever heard of a 200-lb sparrow?

Because of my shoulder impingement, my orthopedist has me going to physical therapy twice a week. When the PT gal took me into the big room where all the equipment is, I found it had an entire floor to ceiling mirrored wall. I was shocked and disgusted at what I looked like! I badly need to lose weight and Curves hasn't helped at all.

I have a terrible problem with my appetite after supper. I spend the entire evening prowling around in hunter mode..."Now, what can I eat?"  It's downright obsessive--if I watch a TV show, I keep mulling over what I'm going to eat during the next commercial break.

I decided that maybe it would help to eliminate carbohydrates from supper since they seem to trigger the eating binges. So last night, I only had a piece of salmon for supper (the No-Name brand marinated frozen portions). It tasted great and I didn't get hungry all evening! I had a bowl of cereal before bed but that was it--no ice cream, no popcorn or munchies, no crackers and cheese, nothing!

I think I might be onto something. I know this smacks of the Dr Atkins diet but I'm only doing this in the evening. I will eat my carbs during the day because I love carbs a lot.

My goal for now is to get the numbers on the scale under 200. Sometimes I wonder if the scale even goes under 200 as it has bounced around between 200 and 210 for years.

You can be sure that if this works for me, I'll be letting you know in the big red letters!

Hershey's Better Basket Blog Hop

I posted recently about the wonderful chocolate-covered Peeps chicks I got at Candyland. I decided they couldn't too hard to make so I bought a bunch of Peeps and three large Hershey bars. I melted the chocolate in a double boiler and cut apart the rows of the Peeps. That's when I discovered that they are not all created equal. Some were skinny, some were lopsided and some were just plain funny-looking. Nevertheless, I proceeded and used a pair of tongs to dip each little pink Peep-type thing in chocolate up to the neck. I quickly plopped them onto waxed paper on a chilled cookie sheet.

The first ones looked pretty good but as I got farther down in the chocolate, it got more difficult to handle the tongs so they got sloppier and messier. Some wound up with chocolate splattered on their heads and some are swimming in puddles of chocolate. But darn, do they taste good!

I got the "Hershey's Easter Basket Blog Hop" from Cheryl K . This is to raise $7,000 for the Children's Miracle Network.

HERSHEY’S BETTER BASKET BLOG HOP RULES:

•Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.
•Create a blog post giving a virtual Easter Basket to another blogger – you can give as many Virtual Baskets as you want.
•Link back to person who gave you an Easter Basket
•Let each person you are giving a Virtual Easter Basket know you have given them a Basket.
•Leave your link at BetterBasket.info/BlogHop comment section.
You can also find the official rules of this betterbasket blog hop, and more information about Better Basket with Hershey’s there.

I'm giving a Better Basket to Gayle at Gramme's Blog and Buttercup in New York.

Have a nice Easter, everyone!

I'm doomed as doomed can be!

This is Snuffy the cat. He likes to perch on my desk while I'm on my computer. Also on my desk is a green banker's lamp with a CFL bulb in it. Snuffy, alpha male that he is, rubbed his face on the lamp and knocked it to the floor. The green glass shade is intact but the CFL bulb broke scattering mercury on the carpet.

This is no small matter! I would rather the lamp had broken. I had heard that broken CFL's required special cleanup so I closed the door and went on my housemate's computer in her room. The instructions were: wear a face mask so you don't inhale the mercury, take a glass jar with a metal lid to hold all the fragments, do not sweep or vacuum because that raises the mercury dust into the air, pick up as much dust as you can with duct tape, use damp paper towels for other cleanup, turn off heat or AC to the room and open a window, close off room for 8 hours... Other sites offered harsher restrictions.

As I sit here at my computer today, I feel like everything I touch is contaminated. I followed all the instructions but when I googled the effects of mercury on the human body, it was really scary. Most sites are vague about the what the harmful effects would be from exposure to a single broken light bulb stating it depends on amount you inhaled or absorbed through skin, your age (old is good), other health problems, etc.

Here is a partial list of possible symptoms: tremors, nervousness, moodiness, irritability, headaches, muscle atrophy, insomnia and the list goes on to mention kidney failure, respiratory failure and death.

It makes you doubly concerned for children who might accidentally break a bulb and fearfully clean it up without any awareness of the danger. Even unbroken CFL's must be disposed of as hazardous waste! So now, after all the years spent cleaning up lead in paints and asbestos in schools, we introduce this frightening new hazard?

Paraphrasing Ed Grimley (Martin Short's alter ego) "We are doomed as doomed can be, I must say!"

Sharing my favorites

I give calendars to everybody at Christmas. I simply love calendar art and have a great time picking out special ones for all those on my list. They're also easy to wrap. Since I've been doing this for 15 to 20 years, all my family and friends have come to expect a calendar.

Some of my personal favorites are the Lang Graphics line which includes the Herrero cat calendars. They also have folk art and nostalgia calendars that seem to resonate with my daughters (and me). I have stacks of old ones on the closet shelf.

Sorry if I sound like a commercial today, but I really do love calendars!

Welcome to Culver's

Yesterday we ventured up Rice Street to go shopping at the Dollar Tree Store. (There's always something we need at Dollar Tree.)

When we got to the corner where we turn into the strip mall, there was a brand new Culver's restaurant fully erected in just the last several weeks. I let out a whoop for joy! I just love Culver's and always had to go a ways to find one. Now there's one just a mile or so away.

This is a mixed blessing, of course. Culver's was special because it was an occasional thing. Now that it's close to home, maybe it will become no more special than a McDonald's (the bottom of the heap when it comes to eating out). Since I rarely go out to eat, I guess there's little danger that I'll get jaded.

I am pleased and thankful to have one nearby. The food is good and inexpensive and it's a great place to take grandkids. What more can one ask for?

Long live the Star Tribune!

I have been reading the Minneapolis Tribune since I was a kid--that's probably 60 years. Admittedly, it was only the Sunday funnies at first but I progressed to the news and editorials over time.

The Star and the Tribune consolidated many years ago and became one newspaper that's delivered statewide and even into Wisconsin. Like most other papers, it has fallen on hard times and struggles to keep publishing. However, they recently emerged from bankruptcy and seem to be doing OK.

I would really suffer the loss if they ceased publication. The morning paper is such an important part of my day. The news that I get from TV and online could not begin to fill the void.

So, again I say, may the Star Tribune live long and prosper!

Extreme Ironing

When I got married in 1958, among my wedding gifts was an iron and an ironing board. It was a useful gift because "back in those days", nearly everything had to be ironed. When my girls started school, all their little dresses had to be ironed. I had a full-time job so I had a perpetually full laundry basket of clothes needing to be ironed.

Then came the life-altering invention of permanent press clothes and tumble-dry clothes dryers and we have never looked back. I don't use the iron more than a couple times a year. And, when I do, it's most likely to shorten some pants with Stitch Witchery (great stuff!).

How then, did it come to pass that grown men--seemingly sane and healthy--took up ironing as a sport?! Take a look at these (ahem) athletic fellows.

Retro desserts

Speaking of foods no longer on the market, remember Jello's wonderful Whip and Chill? I used to make that for the family back in the 70's. It was like a mousse and it looked really fancy with a dollop of Dream Whip on top. There was another product called "1-2-3" that was Jello that separated into three layers as it set. It was really pretty in a tall glass.

There have been different flavors of Jello that have come and gone over the years. (There are flavors in stores right now that will probably disappear one day as well.) I remember Spiced Tomato flavored Jello was available at one time--probably for aspic. Not a big hit. I looked online for some of the other failed flavors, and there were quite a few:

1. Mixed vegetable
2. Celery
3. Blackberry
4. Mango
5. Sparkling berry (you added 7up)
6. Mixed fruit
7. Apple
8. Apricot
9. Sparkling white grape
10. Concord grape

I'm sure you can remember others that came and went. Much as I love Jello, I never tried most of the discontinued flavors. It might be that some of them were just being test-marketed.

A Rainbow Foods store near me is selling three "dessert toppers" called Orange Crush Orange and Vanilla Cream, Dr. Pepper Cherry and A&W Rootbeer Float. I bought a bottle of the orange stuff. (Ingredients: Corn syrup, High fructose corn syrup, Water, artificial flavors, etc) It is dreadful! Gross! Horrible! I have not seen it any other grocery stores so I'm thinking that this is a failed product in the making. Nobody would buy it a second time.

I looked it up online and found it's manufactured by Vita Food Products. I sent them a customer message giving them my opinion, but I doubt that I'll hear back from them... The product they have listed right below the three dessert toppers is Scorned Woman Hot Sauce!

This takes the cake.

I picked up this 50's picture online somewhere and had mixed feelings about it. It's so quaint and idealized. All the "ladies" are prim in their rigid, permed hair styles, shirtwaist dresses and aprons. They have smug grins on their faces as they happily fulfill their destiny making a three-layer cake for someone else. (A three-layer cake was for a special occasion, not just the family. A cake made for the family would be baked in a 9 x 13 pan.)

Cake mixes were the new thing back then and it was considered a cop-out to use a mix. Real housewives baked from scratch. In fact, any labor saving foods or devices were suspect.

I remember watching the Ed Sullivan Show and stand up comedians would mock the lazy housewives who used the new frozen food items. TV dinners were the latest thing and frozen foods were becoming more commonplace.

But, you can't stop progress by making jokes about it. I can just run over to the Dairy Queen now and buy a superb frozen layer cake. The grocery store sells frozen Pepperidge Farm cakes plus a big assortment of bakery cakes (not to mention, a wide assortment of cake and frosting mixes).

Viva la easy life!

GM still striving to make the perfect Impala

I just got a recall notice on my 2000 Chevy Impala--for the fifth time. This time it's for a problem that can cause the engine to start on fire! I'm getting a little upset with GM and since (as of Monday) I am now part owner of the company, I have decided to raise the roof!

DARN IT, GM! I was willing to overlook the door-post-thing and the seat-belt-anchor-thing, but you built this car ten years ago! You only now discovered it can catch on fire?

Worst of all, you have put out a new editions of the Impala every year since 2000. So you were making more and more cars when you hadn't even perfected the 2000 version! Wouldn't it make sense to design a car and after all the recalls were done,

continue to market that car to the world?

Of course, when you decided to stop development of an electric car and instead promote the Hummer and Cadillac Escalade, you really blew it. The dandies who buy those vehicles aren't the people who made GM the powerful company it was for 100 years. It's the folks like me who want safe, reliable and economical cars.

So, please get out there now and make a really good e-car, and perfect it so that I can buy it without worrying about what kinks GM forgot to work out.