UPDATES...PIE, PIE IN THE SKY

           I’m absolutely positive, dear readers, that you want an update from my Labor Day post. I’m happy to report I did everything I said I was planning to do with the exception of cleaning the kitchen/dining room. I did that on Thursday as opposed to Monday.

          The blackberry pie almost didn’t come to fruition. Kuma and I went to ballyball hill after I went to the grocery store. I couldn’t believe how the blackberries had turned into small, dried lumps. I persevered, however, and managed to pick enough very small ones to fill my small cast iron skillet. Kuma had a fine time chasing the ball up and down the hill as I worked to fill my berry container. The first time I set it down, though, Kuma thought I’d picked the berries for him. I very quickly pushed his nose out of the bowl before he could gobble up the ones I’d managed to pick.

          Back home, I used one pie crust from the box I bought to make the pie. I really should have taken it out of the oven sooner…the recipe said forty minutes, but that was for the big skillet. Later that day, after the grilled flank steak and corn-on-the-cob, I had a dish of blackberry pie with vanilla ice cream…YUMMY!!!

          Thursday I had an appointment with the podiatrist. In the morning, I watered everything outside, did my office work, and then decided it was time to Swiffer up all the dog hair in the kitchen and dining room. Seriously, I don’t see how Kuma has any hair left. There was enough on the pad I had to use the hand vacuum to suck it off twice before tossing the pad. The rugs were washed as was the floor, so now everything looks very nice.

          Of course, it’s not going to stay that way for long. Almost every day I tidy up the house. This involves using the little vacuum to suck up the dog hair that’s drifted down the day before. The bathroom had quite a bit of hair which also included mine. There were also Kuma pawprints all over the floor because he’d gone out into the wet garden and neglected to wipe his paws on the way back in.

          The podiatrist was really a waste of time. I have one toe where the nail points downward and pushes into the footbed. If I keep it as short as possible, it’d not too big a problem. I was hoping for a better solution, but the doctor merely trimmed it more and said if that didn’t work, he could remove the nail. Whoa, I’m not going there, especially when he said it would just grow back.

          This appointment was far down on Broadway in Seattle. I don’t usually drive to or in those areas and today’s trip made me very sad. There’s so much garbage on the streets and sidewalks, people living up close to buildings beneath a big umbrella or even in a bus stop shelter. Broadway is also narrow with only two lanes, unless there’s a left turn lane which trucks and cars park in while making pickups or deliveries. There’s also rails in the road as well as electric wires overhead for the transit system. My memories of Broadway from eons ago do not match what I saw today at all.

          Finally, I read there were 60,000 children who traversed some pass below Mexico to escape their countries and try to come to mine. Altogether, there have been 250,000 people over that pass just this year. This brings me to my “pie in the sky” idea.

          A year or two ago, there was a chart online which showed how much money some members of the 1% had. It was set up in such a way that you flicked your screen to the left. Jeff Bezos was the richest of the 1% and I finally gave up flicking the screen because it seemed as though this illustration of his wealth would never end. What if Bezos decided to play God with all his millions and set out to rectify the world’s problems? Perhaps we could reach a goal where everyone had a home, food, health care, and violence was eliminated. Like I said, pie in the sky.

LABOR DAY

        

 It’s Labor Day. It’s raining. It’s cold. I’m wearing long pants for the first time in quite a while…it was 80+ on Saturday…my “I’m Sad” sweatshirt and socks. I guess summer is over, more or less.

          I’m feeling kinda sad for no particular reason other than it’s now September and before I know it, it will be time to decide if I’m going to buy another Christmas tree or give up that tradition. I’m not sure what the answer will be when the time arrives. Maybe my kinda sad is due to the change in atmospheric pressure because it rained and may still be raining for all I know.

          Anyway, since time is passing by so quickly, I really don’t have time to sit around being sad. I need to get my flank steak in the marinade so I can grill this evening…what’s a Labor Day without grilling? I also need to find my recipe for cast iron blackberry pie. I don’t know if I can cut it down enough to simply use my small cast iron skillet or if I’ll need to make the entire recipe. If I do use the big skillet, someone(s) going to get to share this pie.

          Of course, making that pie means Kuma and I need to go to our Ballyball hill so he can chase the ball and I can pick berries. Then, it’s off to the grocery store and the completion of some other errands. I was going to go to Costco today too, but that wonderful company has given its employees the day off. Why is it I like Costco so much and detest Amazon even though I use Amazon often because it usually has what I want/need and the prices are good. I think it’s because I see Amazon as an evil giant…kinda like the one in Jack and the Beanstalk…and Costco as more family friendly. I digress

          There’s also one more room to clean, i.e., dining room and kitchen. I need to Swiffer the floor, wash the rugs, wash the floor and put the rugs back. To pat my own self on the back, I did the rest of the house (except for the two bedrooms I don’t use) in the last few days. True, I could wash all the windows, but I’m not going to do that. Eliminating all the dog hair, detritus from the garden, dust from the various tables and tchotchkes is clean enough for me. Oh, I also did all the laundry, including stripping the bed and turning the mattress.

          Don’t you just love the internet and Google. I couldn’t find the proper spelling for tchotchke, so I typed in, “Jewish word for knick knacks,” and there was the correct spelling. I digress again.

          So, I’m not going to be sitting around here being sad. I’ve things to do, places to go, people to see. By the time I sit down with a glass of wine, I’m sure to be quite happy…or become so after the wine.

NATIONAL CINEMA DAY

 

          Sunday was National Cinema Day. Regal emailed me at the beginning of the week offering $4.00 tickets (actually $6.09 after taxes, etc.). Since I hadn’t been to the movies in a very long time, I decided to take advantage of this offer. And, since it was going to be a HOT Sunday, I figured there wouldn’t be a better place to spend the day than in an air-conditioned theater.

          I decided on two movies…Barbie because how can I not see this movie, the biggest grossing movie in all time; and Oppenheimer because who doesn’t want to know how the worst killing method was brought to fruition. I began with Barbie at 1:00 pm and transitioned to Oppenheimer at 4:00 pm. I didn’t even leave the theater between movies. I did have to wait about ten minutes before I could enter Oppenheimer, but I just played a game on my phone.

          It was rather surprising to see so many advertisements for stuff on the screen. The last time I went to the movies, there was a woman who entertained us with information and guests while we waited for the previews to begin. This time, it was ad after ad for one thing and another, and not many of them were for products you could buy at the concession stand. There was even an ad for a man who needs a living kidney. I could use my phone to take a photo of the QR code in order to become a kidney donor.

          There also were not very many previews, but that may be because of the writers’ and actors’ strike. They did preview Dune which is supposed to open in December, but I heard it’s been pushed back to 2024 because of the strike.

          I was a bit surprised by Barbie. I expected it to be rather frothy and perhaps it was, but the premise was a good one…too bad the premise isn’t the actual case in real life as opposed to Barbieland. Both Ken and Barbie were very attractive and did a good job of acting like dolls. A friend who raised three daughters loved the movie and said there were lots of things that I might not get not having had any Barbie experience. I suppose that’s true, but it did amuse me in several places.

          Oppenheimer seemed a bit slow and I sort of kept waiting for the end. It also moved forward and backward in time. I don’t usually have a problem with that sort of movie, but I did find myself wondering now and then where and when we were. The actor who played Oppenheimer was excellent and I did like the movie a lot. I didn’t know a lot about Oppenheimer or the Manhattan project, but I left the movie wanting to know more. I think I’ll be doing a bit of research in order to get my questions answered.

          I also didn’t know there were actually four different sites where research into making the bomb happened. Again, I have questions. They set off a couple of bombs at Los Alamos. Did it become radioactive? I don’t think I ever realized they set off small test bombs on US soil. I did know they made uranium isotopes (I think that’s what they were) in Oak Ridge Tennessee because my biological father worked there on that project. He and his entire crew died early from various cancers, probably the result of working at Oak Ridge. And, is any part of Oak Ridge still radioactive?

          See, lots of questions. I’d like to know more about Oppenheimer as well. He was a brilliant man with morals, at least that’s how he came across in the movie. At the same time, he was portrayed as a womanizer, but was he really? Did he or any of the people who worked at Los Alamos die of cancer?

          There’s one other thing that surprised me about spending six plus hours in a theater…my back was killing me Monday morning. I don’t know if it was the seats or simply the lack of activity. Still, I’d do it again.

          Anyway, I guess if I’m going to get the answers to any of my questions, I need to put my fingers to work on the internet as opposed to flying over the keyboard writing this blog.

MY CALENDAR

          My calendar for the next month, including this last week of August is getting quite full. I know I’ve complained about having too much to do in the past, but time is flying by and I still have so much I want to do. I’m just hoping I don’t exhaust myself in the process of meeting all the commitments I’m putting on the calendar.

          First, I have my fitness classes three times a week plus I said I was going to return to water exercise in the river in September. That may now become October because it means I’m committed every single morning for the entire week. I may need to go back to bed on Tuesday and Thursday mornings if I don’t have another commitment for that morning.         

          The first item on the calendar aside from fitness class, is another trek to Woodland Park Zoo with Xander. We only managed half the zoo a couple of weeks ago and he didn’t see the red panda. So, we’re going back. I’m sure it will also include another ride…or two…on the carousel and lunch someplace aside from Zeeks. I keep trying to interest him in foods that aren’t McDonalds or pizza, but so far have been unsuccessful. Maybe nine years old is still too young for him to adventure into Mexican or Thai cuisine.

I am going to return to my driftwood sculpture class the second week of September. For that class I need some new driftwood which necessitates a trip to the beach. The last day of August, I’m going to Double Bluff Beach on Whidby Island with a friend and both our dogs. I was told it has a tremendous amount of driftwood lying about and one of the beaches is off-leash. I’m hoping Kuma has a wonderful time and that I come back with some interesting driftwood.

          At the time of this writing, I’m also considering a trip to the Pacific Coast. Again, with my friend and her dog. It would take three days of a week and two nights in a hotel/motel/resort. Unfortunately, in looking at the weather forecast, it doesn’t appear as though it’s going to be terribly warm and sunny. That brings up the question of whether or not I want to go someplace that will be cold and windy when cold and miserable weather is just around the corner where I live all the time. I guess it will depend partly on how successful my Whidby island trek is when it comes to driftwood I can turn into amazing sculptures.

          Then, there are family commitments, all of which I definitely want to do. My aunt is 95 and recently fell and broke her pelvis. She’s back at the Foss now, but in the nursing section. I’m going to see her this coming week and believe I should attempt to see her fairly frequently. I’m hoping she comes back from this problem with a vengeance.

          There’s my favorite cousin. I promised in 2022 that I would drive down to her place for a visit. She almost always drives north for family events unless we all meet at Southcenter. Well, I failed to keep my promise in 2022, but it’s on the calendar for 2023. She’ll make me lunch. I’ll get to see her remodel. And we’ll have hours in which to chat about anything and everything.

          My favorite oldest son turns 53 in September as well. He’s gotten to the age where he insists there’s nothing he wants (that’s my line and I’m much older) as a gift. Before Covid and again last year, I made Swedish meatballs for him and the family for dinner. I don’t yet know if he wants to do that this year, but I’m game. When it comes to the meatballs, I’ve made them once, but he insists that the ones from Ikea are just fine which would necessitate a trip to Ikea and maybe a visit to my sister who lives nearby. I do have a recipe and it would be fun to host the entire family for the first time in 2023.

          There’s also a lunch on the calendar toward the end of September with a number of Woodland Park Zoo folks. I’m really looking forward to that although I don’t see how six of us can bring each other up to date in just a couple of hours…maybe I should suggest we each type out a short synopsis of our lives since leaving the zoo and bring handouts. No matter, it will be fun to see these folks again.

          At the end of September another best friend will have her birthday. In the past, I think she’s always gone with her husband to some enjoyable location to celebrate both their birthdays…his is a week later, I think. Anyway, she’s had a serious setback this year, so I think all her friends should rally round with cake, presents, cards, comradery on her special day. Maybe I should discuss this with her best friend.

          Amongst all the above, I’m sure there will be lunches and/or events that will take up some time…do have an additional two lunches on the calendar already. In addition, the garden needs a lot of work and preparation for the coming winter. Kuma also needs to get on the schedule and begin going on walks now that the weather is cooling off (at least I hope it is).  And, writing, I need to find time to write, whether it’s just these off the cuff blog posts or a more serious work.

          Finally, I hope you don’t see this as whining about being over-extended. I’m actually looking forward to everything I’ve put into this blog as well as the things that haven’t yet been scheduled. I do think I’m going to need to pace myself a bit better than I’ve done in the past. It may mean skipping a fitness class now and then and my body (and mind, what’s left of it) will let me know when it needs to rest up for the next adventure. I’m sure I’ll be reporting via this blog about my various events.

          And, then, before I/we know it, it will be October…absolutely scary how fast this year has flown by. 

PICKLE TIME

           Somehow another year has passed and I just put my last jar of Aunt Lola’s Dill Pickles in the fridge. That means it’s once again time to put up dill pickles. This is something I’ve been doing since my early twenties, so that makes about fifty years of making dill pickles.

          My Great Aunt Lola was the canning queen in my life. She canned everything from pickles to sauerkraut and actual mincemeat. Her house was on Beacon Hill and her basement was full of jars that contained everything you could possibly can. She had green beans, peaches, pears, cherries, blueberries, huckleberries…if you could can it, she did.

          The mincemeat with which most of us are familiar is the stuff that comes in a jar around the holidays. It’s mostly raisons and chopped apples. Auntie Lola made the real thing that contained actual meat. It was usually some form of venison, elk or moose because all the men back then hunted and brought home da meat. If memory serves, she made pies with her mincemeat and they were tasty.

          I loved her dill pickles as did John. Rather than just give me some…well, maybe one jar…she offered to teach me how to put up my own. The last sentence in her recipe was, “When someone compliments you on your pickles, don’t give them a jar. Offer to help them make some, otherwise you’ll run out in no time.”

          The first time I made dill pickles, I did it at her house. It was 1968 and Aunt Lola supervised each and every step through the process.  I’m still grateful for that because I’ve followed her recipe and instructions ever since. When Uncle Ike put the box of pickles in my car after we finished, she cautioned me about driving home because the jars were still warm and could potentially break. I’m proud to say I got them all home without any breakage.

          One of the things Aunt Lola liked to know, being a very frugal woman, was the cost of her canning projects. In 1968, it was thirty-three cents per quart for 18-20 quarts. In 1996, I figured out the cost and it came to ninety-nine cents per jar. This year I made twelve quarts and the cost was $4.63 per quart. That includes the cost of rings and lids plus a gallon of apple cider vinegar. I already had enough salt left over from last year and didn’t have to purchase any jars, or it would have been closer to six or seven dollars a jar.

          There was a time I put up somewhere between thirty and forty jars every August. That was because I gave them away to family, friends and coworkers at the holidays. For the most part, I believe everyone who received a jar was pleased to be a recipient because they really are the best dill pickles ever. Once I retired, I stopped making so many and cut back to twenty or less. I still gifted some friends, but also offered to teach them how to do their own the way I was taught.

          It’s been a few years, pre-covid I think, when I had three friends over. I had told them to let the cucumbers stand overnight in cold water and to scrub them clean before coming to my house. I did my cucumbers first and then supervised each woman as they did their own cucumbers. To my knowledge, only one of those friends still does her own. I gift one of the other women a jar each Christmas.

          Last year I taught Arayli and Amber how to make dill pickles. Arayli went home with five jars of her own. I texted with Amber and she is going one better…she is going to a U-Pick place and picking her own cucumbers…yay Amber. No one else in the family is interested in learning to make these fabulous treats. Perhaps once I’m gone and they discover the original recipe, someone will be eager to pick up the cucumber, so to speak. Besides teaching people how to make their own, I’ve also given the recipe away to countless folks. I don’t know how many went on to make their own pickles.

         

          A couple of things have changed over the decades I’ve been doing this. I used to peel a bulb of garlic for each and every jar. My hands would smell wonderful for days. Sometimes the skin would even peel as if I had been burned. I no longer peel garlic…my hands and wrists rebelled some years ago. Instead, I purchase the big pre-peeled bag from Costco. Since there’s so much to a bag and I don’t put up that many jars any longer, I usually try to share a bag with another pickle maker. Any that’s left over I chop, put into ice cube trays, freeze and use in recipes during the winter. 

          The other thing that has changed I actually did in the beginning. I let the cucumbers soak overnight in cold water and then scrubbed them one-by-one with a vegetable brush. When I complained about this to Aunt Lola, she asked me why I wasn’t putting them in the washing machine. Whoa, I can do that? So, for years, at least until my top-loading, not so electronic, washing machine gave up its life. I put the cucumbers in the washer, filled it with cold water, let it sit overnight and then spun the water and detritus out the following morning. The result was squeaky clean, bright green cucumbers. Now that washers are so “smart,” it’s not possible to do this, so it’s back to scrubbing with a vegetable brush…not so fun.

Great Aunt Lola’s dill pickles have once again been put up. They’ll be ready to eat in about a month and will be delicious over the coming months. At a time like this, it makes me feel very good to think Auntie Lola, wherever her spirit may reside these days, is pleased to know just how far her recipe and instructions have gone…and to know that I’m still pickling away all these years later.

PEEVISH QUESTIONS!!!

 

          How many of you have noticed the landscaping that’s being done alongside the new light rail adjacent I-5? I have and am amazed at the waste of funds. I’ve watched them grade, add topsoil and/or compost and then install nice plants. In one case between Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood, they had to do it twice because it rained so hard gullies formed on the steep hillside.    It even appears as though there may be a sprinkler system unless those white pipes perform some other function.

          Now, don’t get me wrong, I love nice landscaping, but what makes me want to bang my head…or someone’s head…against the wall is the fact that adjacent these new plantings are areas, some of them large, full of weeds that have been growing there forever. How long before those weeds transplant themselves to the new planting areas, especially if there is a sprinkler system.

          How hard would it have been to plow up the entire area and eliminate those weeds? I’m sure that wasn’t in the scope of work which is why it didn’t get done. I’d also like to know how the sprinkler system, if there is one, is going to operate. From where will the system get the water? Who’s going to be responsible for turning it off and on and/or setting the timers so it happens. Finally, who is going to weed these huge areas of new plantings? 

          This also brings up another sort of peeve. Along Highway 99 in Snohomish County, they have installed planter barriers between the north and south lanes. These contain some lovely plants and are beautiful. Again, it looks as though there may be a sprinkler system for them, but it raises the same questions raised in the previous paragraph.

          There are other street plantings throughout King County and Seattle that were lovely when originally created. Unfortunately, they weren’t watered or weeded so now they are just unsightly concrete planters full of weeds. This makes me wonder if any of the planners for the light rail or Highway 99 looked around and saw what was created in the past. I seriously doubt they did so.

          At a time when funds are so badly needed for education and a wide variety of other necessities that would improve our society, city, county, state, country, world, it seems a huge waste of funding to build planters, install plantings in new areas only to leave them to deteriorate over time. And, yes, I know the plantings beside the light rail are undoubtedly there to help stabilize the hillside. Maybe the highway planters are to keep drivers from crossing and crashing.

          I don’t have any answers to my questions. I just know it bothers me enough to write this blog about the projects and my questions. Maybe, as I continue to age, I’m just getting more peevish about stuff or maybe it’s my wisdom kicking in.

HOUSEKEEPING

 

          A very long time ago, when my mother was younger than I am now, I would wonder why she didn’t completely clean her house. It wasn’t that it needed vacuuming or dusting all over, it was more the minor little things that she overlooked. For instance, her bathroom was always clean, but the dust on the shelves was thick. Didn’t she see all that dust? Didn’t she care?

          Well, I’m older now than she was then and I’ve become a horrible housekeeper. I look back and remember what a terrific job I used to do in my youth. A visitor could arrive any old time and find a clean house empty of dog hair, dust, and miscellaneous crap. Back then I even washed my own windows, inside and out, in a single day several times a year. Now, I pay someone to wash them inside and out once a year.

          I think perhaps the pandemic had a bit to do with my housekeeping downfall. For two years or more, no one came to visit. Why vacuum or dust or deep clean when it’s just for me, myself and I. None of us mind a bit of dog hair, dust, paw prints, etc. Now, it’s pretty much become a habit.

          It’s probably not a habit I’m going to change any time soon. True, I do clean the bathroom every week (usually). True, I do take the little vacuum around the house and slurp up dog hair dust bunnies. True, I do the dishes and keep the kitchen clean, but there are days when the everything goes into the sink until there’s no more room. It’s also true I do laundry and change my bed on a regular basis. But the weekly vacuuming and dusting I performed back in the day no longer gets done. It gets done basically when I cannot stand it any longer…and my threshold for these chores has become amazingly high.

          Whenever I know I’m going to have company, as in more than one person, I do get off my bottom and pull out all the stops. Then, I vacuum, scrub, dust, clean and carry on until everything sparkles. That’s the way my house used to look even back when I worked full-time…I cleaned on the weekends. So far this year, I’ve held one event where more than one person came to visit. As you can probably figure out, that’s the only time I worked my ass off to make my house look terrific.

          In writing this blog post, I was reminded of Erma Bombeck, an American humorist very popular for her newspaper column which described suburban home life. It was syndicated from 1965 to 1996. Erma also published 15 books, and most became best sellers.

          Anyway, Erma Bombeck wrote a column entitled, “If I had my Life to Live Over.” I think she knew she was dying when she wrote it. In any case, I’ve always remembered, not necessarily lines, but thoughts/ideas from that column. It dealt with things like having people over regardless of how messy the house was so she could cherish that time with friends and family.

          I like to think of Erma when I don’t feel like cleaning. If company should arrive, well, I’ll just value the time we get to spend together regardless of the dust, dog hair, messiness. Time with friends or even just with me, myself and I, doing stuff we enjoy is far more important…am reminding me, myself and I of that daily, sometimes more than once.