The Things I See; A Library's Goodies

Last fall, I had the joy of inspecting a fairly new library in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago. What could be more exciting? An English major in a library BEFORE it opens. I had to wander the stacks too because I had to look at the ceiling where the stacks were. I have an observation which was eye-opening to me.

Libraries in multi-cultural neighborhoods need to have books in the languages of their neighbors.

I feel like such a dork for not realizing that. Of course, I don't know which Asian language or languages this is, but there was a whole row of such books. It also made me realize that, although I knew it, lending libraries are global. If you speak Spanish, but your library doesn't carry Spanish-language books, the reach of a lending library means you can get books in your language. This is a head-to-desk realization.

When I was growing up, inter-library loan was a thing. Mainly, it was in the loaning of large print or Braille books. I knew people who would go to the local library and ask for the list of large print books. They had to wait awhile because these came from the big libraries or, in some cases, the university libraries, but they would arrive to our little library in Monona. I remember the librarian let me see one. Whoa! 18, 24, 28 point type. A 150 page book could balloon in page size to double that. You could kill small animals with the size of the book. But the librarian emphasized that people with failing eyesight should be allowed to read, too.

Libraries have had to remake themselves as the world goes digital. The days are long gone where you could wander the stacks of a library, finding treasures in the back; books which hadn't been checked out in 10 years. I loved to look through those, even if I didn't check them out. My local library has removed some of their stacks, replaced by an increase in the display area of periodicals (I'm not against that.), more music and movie offerings; and more classes. I have a cross-stitch club I go to every fourth Tuesday of the month, assuming I'm not traveling. There are more computers available for those without reliable access. But the large number of stacks, which I remember wandering in the 1980's, are gone. It's just the nature of a library nowadays. If I want something, they can get it via inter-library loan, but I do miss wandering and finding something I didn't know existed.

This library in Albany Park, was sparse from a browsing point of view. They are heavily focused into community programs. Being part of the Chicago Library system, there is no need to have a vast amount of paper materials in the building. Instant access in requesting books is provided. You can do it yourself from one of the terminals around the library. They have an outdoor reading area where you bring your own things or books you have checked out. It was quite inviting.

I have great fondness for the library I grew up with. That is probably as much due to the librarian who was very invested in getting kids and their parents to read. It was just assumed you went there. That libraries address the reading needs of their diverse communities should not have come as a surprise to me. I'm kind of ashamed it never occurred to me before I had to inspect one.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Name Dropped

I had to inspect a Seminary on the south side of Chicago. The building was over 100 years old; typical Chicago brick construction. It had always been apartments with warehousing on the lower floors. Old Chicago apartments have a distinctive design. Maybe it's true of all apartment buildings from that era; tiny rooms with small hallways. The seminary has retained quite a bit of the flavor of the building while modernizing it for priests. There is a communal dining area and a chapel with custom glass designs.

The chapel area was, before the seminary bought the building, an artist's studio. But the large space with the 2.5 story ceiling, was too much to keep up so he sold to the building owner and moved north. The priest who took me around to do the inspection said they rent the space to Russian Orthodox and non-denominational congregations for worship. They are pleased it's being used.

During the course of the inspection, the seminarian walking around with me was excited to talk about the next phase of his studies. He was going to Chile in June, for 3 months, but the 2nd week of March, he was going to Greenville, Mississippi, to help the order down there. They have, he said, a strong presence in that area of the country and all the seminarians spend time working there. I looked at him. "Greenville? I know Greenville." He registered surprise as I don't have a Southern accent, couldn't even fake one if I tried. "How do you know Greenville?" Well, the head of the English department where I went to college was a Franciscan sister originally from Greenville. "Wow. Small world," he said.

The priest with us now turns to me and asks, "Who was this sister? That's kind of specific because we're the only order down there. There isn't a convent." "Her name was Sister Thea Bowman. She started at a Sacred Heart school and joined the convent there. When she went to Viterbo for college, she joined the Franciscans, who, as you know, founded Viterbo." The priest stared at me. "You studied under Thea?" I did. She recruited me for the English department and got, then, Viterbo College, to offer me enough scholarship money that 75% of my college experience was paid for. He looked at me.

"I know Thea. Everyone in Sacred Heart knows Thea. Thea is held up as a paragon for activism. You knew her. I am singularly impressed." I have a pencil sketch of her hanging in my living room. She was the most amazing person I think I have ever met. I will never, in my entire life, be half the person she was.

"Madame, I knew you were a very interesting person when we shook hands. I am convinced of it now. I never had the pleasure of meeting Thea. To know she taught you gives me more respect for you."

I didn't know quite how to react to this. I don't know people I could drop into a sentence. One of the guys from the construction company building the hotel for which I needed to do this inspection, was dropping names left and right. "Well, when I got married, I couldn't have some of the Chicago Bears come to my wedding because my wife said they would upstage her." You know some of the Chicago Bears? "Oh yeah, I'm good friends with...", and then he rattles off 5 names from the 1985 Super Bowl team. He knows this person and that person from Chicago politics or Chicago celebrity.

I am always suspect of such people. Do they really know them as in, could they call these people up and ask them to come meet for lunch? Or, is it a way of getting something because we believe in the power of "Six Degrees of Separation" and we want to be associated, however minimally, with someone "famous". There's no reason you couldn't drop any celebrities name into a sentence as being an acquaintance even if the best you know them is from the Access Hollywood TV show. I have no way to prove you don't know them.

Thea sang at my wedding. I have a cassette tape of it and I sometimes think it would be wonderful to extract that part to have. I wouldn't know where to go to get that digitized. I would never have thought to bring up her name in any of the Catholic places I have been. It was a toss-away remark, made by a young man, excited to further his faith which allowed me to say, with much pride, "I knew Thea. I was taught by Thea." I carry her lessons. When I read Shakespeare's comedies with their sexual innuendo, I can hear her voice say, "Well, we're going to jump over those lines because you're Viterbo students and you won't get the joke." Of course that made us read and reread the lines looking for what was funny.

I also feel the priest was impressed with my skills to begin with. Tara and I kind of have that effect. We have been openly dismissed by men who think we can't possibly know what we're doing and then we do it and, um, yeah, about that dismissal. Father John didn't dismiss me. He said what I did was one of the most interesting jobs he'd seen. But the knowledge of having known Thea added a layer of competency. She gave a lot to her students. She still gives. Wish I could call her and tell her.

Beverage: Scottish Breakfast Tea

Deb

Celestial

In case you missed it, there was a grand celestial event this past Friday night. First of all, there was a luminous full moon. Then, there was a lunar eclipse. Finally, a comet, which looked green, was to pass through the night sky. I've mentioned how my dad was enamored with the night sky. He bought a telescope when we were kids and we looked at the moon, a lot, particularly in the summer. That was mainly because we complained about the cold, even though winter skies are clearer than summer skies.

Because of his interest, evening skies and celestial events are still a great draw for me. This August, part of Illinois will get to experience a total solar eclipse. I thought about trying to drive south, but everyone and their brother will be down there. I'll be happy for the 90% we'll get up here. It makes very interesting shadows. The last time we experienced this, Carole was in 5th grade and her school had an eclipse party. We made pin hole cameras for all the classrooms. I do remember street lights coming on where the street was shady.

The computer sits facing the east so I get a good view of the moon as it rises. On Friday, I thought the eclipse was to 'start' at 6:48 pm my time. The night was clear, which was, itself, wonderful because we'd had 3 weeks of near constant clouds. The moon rose and, well, nothing. In all the time I watched, I never saw any indication of a lunar eclipse. I was busy so I couldn't check astronomy web sites. The umbra color of the moon during an eclipse is always fascinating. I never saw anything green in the night sky either. Just the red and white lights of incoming aircraft headed to O'Hare airport. It was something of a let down.

But, I was able to take photos, back in November of the Super Hunter's Moon. This is from November 12th.

The actual Hunter's Moon was the 14th, but it was big and white on the 13th. Here it is, rising in the east.

It usually takes a bit of time to go from a light yellow to full white, but the November moon seemed to start out white and just get brighter as the evening wore on. I remember it was nice out, so standing on the front steps trying to get decent photos of it wasn't an exercise in frozen fingers.

You can see in the above photo that it's not quite 100%. Compare the above photo with one taken on the 14th at, roughly, the same time.

It's always an adventure to take moon photos when the moon clears the tree line. I often have to walk down the steps and get the moon in branches before backing up so there is only the white orb left. And, at times like this, I wish I had better equipment than a pocket digital camera or my phone, which is years old.

We've had a lot of celestial "It won't happen again in your lifetime" events in the last 20 years. This is another one. It's exciting.

Beverage:  Raspberry seltzer

Deb

Life With Kitten

The last time I had a kitten in the house was back in the late 1990's, when we adopted Betsy and her daughter, Rascal. Betsy had been someone's pet who was drummed out of the house. She took up residence in the wood pile of a former neighbor and had Rascal. We "met" her when she defended her territory from Shakespeare. She was a very loving cat.

Rascal, being born "in the wild", was feral when we came to know her. Through the summer, we worked with her to get her used to people and then to living in the house. We knew she had adopted us when I took Carole to school one day and then set out to do errands. Rascal got out and I wasn't about to chase her down. When I came back, at around noon, a neighbor said she heard a cat meowing at the back door to be let in. I opened the door and Rascal shot into the house, dashing under the bed. She stayed there until dinner, but, when she finished dinner, she went back under the bed. I didn't see her for two days outside of feedings. After that, she came inside when I called.

She had energy, but because a lot of her "kittenhood" was spent outside, we didn't see the bouncing off the wall that kittens do. So, it's come a something of a shock to me how much energy Hamlet has. This was driven home in October when there was an enormous crash in the living room.

Behold the remnants of a black cat candle holder. He was so scared of the noise and what my reaction would be, he went into the home office and huddled under the cedar chest for a couple hours. This really shattered so I wound up washing the floor, letting it dry and then going over it with packing tape to make sure all the shards had been picked up.

Since then, more things have fallen. I thought I had "kitten proofed" my house but now that he's bigger, he can jump higher. He knows "No" so I can point at him and sternly say it. I wasn't upset about losing this candle holder. I have quite a few. The onus really is on me for not looking around and thinking, "What would a kitten like to knock off because stuff falling is fascinating?"

Beverage:  Orange Juice

Deb

How Was Your Summer, Part 1

2016 was eventful on a couple of fronts. I had already planned to take a serious look at replacing the Jeep. Built in 1997, it was entering the end of its life. I said, back in 2002, when I bought it, I would probably drive it until it died. I'd saved and I had my budget ready. September is when cars are, historically, priced lowest because the new year's models are coming and dealers have inventory they want to move. I would start the process then.

I didn't spend much time looking at cars when I bought the Jeep. There wasn't much, in 2002, to find on the Internet. I had done some research, but all I knew is that I wouldn't be buying new. That new car smell makes me physically ill. I picked a street where I knew there were a huge number of car dealers and just drove along. The Jeep was parked by the street in a Volkswagon dealer's lot. My mechanic gave it a green light and it was right in my price range. The whole thing took 3 hours from start to finish.

Buying a car is just not fun. In spite of all the "helps" from various sites, like Carmax, it's still not a fun experience. But I knew I would have to do it. It was in the back of my mind every time I took the Jeep on an excursion. I headed west, to Bangor, Wisconsin, at the end of June. Things were going fine, until they weren't. The Jeep died as I was getting off Interstate 90 at the Bangor exit.

Now, you have to know this area of Wisconsin is a cell phone nightmare. There are so many hills that dead spots for cell phone service are everywhere. I couldn't raise my towing service but I remembered, from the day previous when I'd come this way, there was a car dealer, Wehr's Truck and Auto, a walk down the road. I headed that way.

I explained my problem. They arranged for the Jeep to be towed to a mechanic with whom they worked because they had no room in their repair shop to even look at it. I could hang out in their show room until he'd had a chance to look at the car. They overheard me talking to the homeowner whose house I was to inspect. They knew him and loaned me a car so I could get his inspection and an adjacent one done. I had an inspection for later in the day and they were fine with me just hanging out.

So, I got the inspections done and came back to the show room. There was still no word on the Jeep and it was now 11:15. The dealer called the mechanic and was told there were "issues" but they would have an answer in an hour. They called an hour later and said the best they could diagnose was the fuel pump. I should come talk to them about the problem.

The dealer said a fuel pump is an $800-$1,000 repair. "In a Jeep of your age, they have to pull off the gas tank to get to the pump. In later models, the pump is off to the side to make it easier to repair. Then, they would need to test it to make sure it's the pump. He's tested your electrical system and the battery, but they cannot get the Jeep to start." I was crestfallen. "I don't know what to do," I said. "If it were me, I'd say put that money toward a new car. Of course, that's going to sound like I'm itching for a sale, but I'm being honest. You don't have to buy from me. You can go back to Chicago, but, really, get a new car. We'll take the Jeep, as is, for $150 toward a car off the lot. Go talk to Jason and have him walk you through the process."

I took their rental and went to the shop. Jason was nice and he showed me what they had done and what they had and had not been able to determine. "It's an $800 job, assuming the fuel pump is what's wrong. Also, I can't get to it for a week." He gestured around his shop which was full with three cars sitting outside. I thanked him and went to get lunch, to think.

On a napkin, I wrote out my budget. I had leeway, but I was secretly hoping to get the Jeep through to September, so I'd have more money for a down payment, to cut the amount I'd need to borrow. I could afford car payments of a certain amount. My credit is still not very good, thank you Fifth Third Bank, but I would be able to get a loan through my bank. I called them and waited. I was approved for a loan. I just needed to tell them how much and give them the VIN of the car I would buy.

I went back to the dealer. "I've done the budget and let's see what you have." There were several used cars from which to choose. He suggested a 2011 Jeep Compass. I took it out for a test drive and loved it. Room. The SUV part would be great for the few times I am on construction jobs or have to go into a quarry. I didn't drive anything else. "Sold."

There was an issue with paperwork. My bank does not have a branch close to Bangor, Wisconsin. The dealer handed me the keys and my copies of the paperwork. "Take this to your bank tomorrow. Get your loan and have them send everything back to us. Include the title of the Jeep. I don't think you're going to welch out on us. I'm sorry you're in this predicament in the first place, but this will be a very good car for you. We'll probably wind up scrapping the Jeep and you'll not have to worry about it anymore."

So, I drove back to the mechanic to clean it out.

So many things were wrong with it. I was on borrowed time. There was body rust. The windshield had cracked due to rusting of the frame around it. In order to fix the windshield, I'd have to replace that frame. The U joints holding the chassis to the frame were rusting. Sometimes, there was a small shudder if I had to stop suddenly. I'd had the U joints replaced once before. If they rust through. The chassis will stop but the frame won't. It will be a Flinstones car.

The heater fan didn't work except on medium and then only about 65% of the time. When I got heat, it was a lot but this fan issue meant the defrosters took a long time to clear the window. The front seats were all cracked and I'd covered them with duct tape for the third time. The rubber cap around the stick shift was so old, it froze when the temps got below 15 so I had simply popped it out. You could look down the shift well and see the ground.

The back bumper was loose on the right side although my mechanic had bolted that to the frame. The top was still good, although the windows were getting cloudy as plastic windows do. I only took off the windows now because it was just too hard for me to remove the top only to have to put it back on in 24 hours. You can see the seal below the driver's door had come loose. You can put it back into the track using a spoon. I knew there were better things to do with my time. I would need new tires if I kept the Jeep beyond September, if I couldn't find a new car.

I cleaned everything out. 14 years. It's been my friend. I've gone everywhere with it. I remembered driving through a corn field in September, mowing down the stalks. Driving out of my drive when there was 6 inches of snow? Pffft. Engaging 4-wheel drive and making it through icy roads and running topless in the summer. I ran my hand over the side. I knew I was doing the right thing.

This is the last photo I have of the Jeep.

We tried to get the license plates off it. The back one was rusted to the bumper. The front one, which would come off, was longer than the bumper so it had been bent backwards from all the years of driving over and through things. "I'll just get brand new plates," I said.

I felt sad as I was emptying everything from the Jeep. It wasn't until I was on my way home that I realized I'd forgotten the Hawkeye car mats. But they had seen better days, too, so I put them on my birthday/Christmas list. The sadness didn't stay long. 14 years is a long time, but I think I had made my peace with getting rid of the Jeep. I drove away in a Jeep Compass with a huge amount of space. I could afford this. It was a good car. Things were going to be okay.

Except, they weren't.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Games We Play

When computers were just taking off, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC), created one game which, above all others from that era, gets looked back on with incredible fondness. It was called "Oregon Trail". It was based on the Oregon Trail, the route settlers took from Independence, Missouri, to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. You could join the westward migration from many different points but Missouri to Oregon was the most popular and, given the privations of that time, there was safety and security in numbers.

If you had a computer in the 1990's, you probably had Oregon Trail. The premise was to get your wagon and family to the valley. Along the way, you had to ford rivers, deal with cholera, measles, dysentery, food shortages. You would restock at towns and forts along the way. In real life, if you left too early, your wagon and oxen were bogged down by spring rains. If you left too late, you'd have to cross the Rocky Mountains in snow storms. The infamous Donner party headed along the trail but turned, as some did, to head southwest toward California.

I know we had Oregon Trail on our first computer. The graphics were pixels, square boxes which depicted everything. There was a mini-game where, if you had bullets, and you could run out of those, you could go hunting when you would stop. It was such a fun game and the insidious "learning" that came with it made the game even more special. I know the computer lab at Carole's grade and middle schools had Oregon Trail for kids to play who did not own computers. I spent hours playing it, trying different times of the year to leave, and how long can I go without hunting before someone starves.

Last year, Pressman Toy Company released a card game version of Oregon Trail. It is hilarious.

The graphics on the card are pixelated and are fairly close to what you remember from the game. The challenge is the same; stay alive and get your party from Independence to Oregon. Along the way, you encounter the same challenges as the computer game gave you. The difference here is that you are working together to get at least one member of the party to Oregon. You lose if everyone dies.

Everyone gets "Supply" cards. These are the various things, like food, clothing, medicine, you'd need to ameliorate the "Calamity" from those red cards. The trail is the green snaky line and look. There are rivers to ford. You do that with a roll of the dice. When someone has to draw a calamity, the group pitches in to, you hope, stave off death for another few rounds.

Ah yes, death. Some things, like measles or cholera, can be fought with supply cards; medicine and clean water. But there are something things you have no hope to survive.

I have died of dysentery. The other instant death is snake bite. My friend, Lance, almost didn't want to play a third game because the first two games, he died, early on, of snake bite. He lasted a fair amount of time in game 3 but died of dysentery. I followed two rounds later.

Some of the instructions are a bit hazy. The game lends itself to "house rules" and can be played by any age from 10 up. It's for 6 people and does not work very well with 3 or less. The best hands were with 5 and 6 people.

It's also not very expensive. Target was, for a time, the only retail outlet carrying it. When released, last September, there was a rush to get it and, for a month, you couldn't find it anywhere. By Christmas, it was in ample supply. I think Target is still the cheapest place for purchase. I gave it to Carole for her birthday and to April and Perry for Christmas. I don't have a copy. I should get one.

If your kids don't know about the Oregon Trail, this would be a good way to start the conversation. Ruts from the wagons are still to be seen in Kansas and Nebraska. We have no concept of what it took to move a family of 4 across a country people knew nothing about. It's a fun game and, just like the old computer game, educational. *Gasp

Beverage:  Water

Deb

The Things I Save

In the ongoing slow process of decluttering, I found these.

These are "bunny suits" or, as they are more properly known, "Clean Room Suits". The blue one I had to wear then I went into the surgical area of a hospital where we had a seismograph, to download said machine way back before we had reliable remotes. The white one I wore when I had to download a machine in an animal testing facility. According to the Internet, the moniker "bunny suit" was applied because, once you have all the accouterments on, you resemble a rabbit.

When I pulled the machines from these locations, I was allowed to keep the suit. The hat, gloves, mask and booties which went with these in order to access the clean room area, had to be chucked but I could keep these since people knew I wasn't coming back. They sat on a shelf in my old office for years; mementos of a couple of very interesting jobs, but jobs I don't want to have to do again. We haven't had a need for instrumentation to be in clean room areas since, thank goodness.

I kept these because I always thought I'd use them for Halloween costumes. In reality, they simply took up space. I brought them home last year, when we moved and stuck them on a shelf. When I cleaned that shelf, looking for something else, naturally, there they were. I added them to a give away bag. There wasn't much angst in parting with these. I knew I wasn't ever going to use them. Sometimes the cleaning kind of does itself.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

For Science

It's become something of a meme, the tagline, "For Science!" I believe you can credit the former "Mythbusters"; Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage; for making science popular. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, was just a name and Mythbusters made the scientific method center stage in crazy and enlightening ways. 

It's wonderful, really. I was blessed to have science teachers in high school who felt we were better people by applying scientific analysis to life. And I feel growing up during the active space race, made science extend into all areas of life. "What happens if..." was the way we lived. We never yelled, "For Science!" when we tossed something crazy into the burn barrel, but we loved the pretty colors when we burned the Sunday comics. We now know the resulting colors were not so good but it was cool. Kids who chose chemistry or biology were just as revered as kids who were athletic. It seems like a different time and place. 

I find myself curious about the world around me and during the frigid temperatures of two weeks ago, decided to conduct an experiment. I wanted to see if I could make Dr Pepper slush. Now, let's set aside the slush mugs you can buy on the Internet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Turns any beverage into slush. I wanted to see, with the below zero temperatures at night, if I could freeze Dr Pepper cold enough that it slushed, not frozen completely. 

There are also several YouTube instruction videos for making soda in a plastic bottle instant slush. I've tried the instructions, several times, and have failed every time. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but if I really want slush, I'm going to have to get a mug. Here is the record of my experiment. 

First of all, all I had was Dr Pepper in cans. If you have ever, ever, frozen soda in cans or attempted to freeze soda in cans, you know this is not the proper container for that experiment. I believe I have cleaned up only 3 explosions in the freezer. I know better and always set a timer. I wasn't sure I would achieve slushiness so I emptied the soda into this plastic cup. 

There is more than enough room for the soda to expand. If you don't know, liquid will expand when frozen and in a closed can, it will explode the can because the energy of expansion exceeds the walls of containment. (Science, you see. ) 

Ample room in this cup for expansion. I thought about a glass glass, but I had grave concerns about temperature differentials. If I am able to partially freeze the Dr Pepper and then bring the glass into the house, will the sudden warmth of the kitchen, even putting this in the well of the sink, crack the glass? I looked in the cupboard. I have a few glasses I'm not that attached to, but cleaning up a broken glass was not something I wanted to do. Therefore, I decided to go with a plastic cup which would be able to withstand the temperature differential better. That cup is decorated with my World of Warcraft guild's emblem. It's a great cup.

I realized, as I poured this out, that the Dr Pepper was going to lose its fizz, if left uncovered. That's the whole reason it's vacuum sealed. I covered it immediately with plastic wrap, sealed as tight at possible around the edges.

Ideally, I wanted to sit the cup on the deck railing but I can't get the back door open. It was, at that point, frozen to the threshold. I had a rug shoved up against the bottom and that had frozen to the bottom of the door. On the outside, you could see the ice. The back door needs to be removed from its hinges, the whole frame readjusted and the door rehung. It's definitely a spring project. So, I looked at the front door.

There was a layer of ice at the bottom of the door. The threshold here is not flush with the bottom of the door. It hasn't been for years. I need a new threshold. Cold air could seep in under the storm door and the whole interior of that door was covered in frost.

I probably should have put the cup on the milk box outside but I thought I'd see if I could get the soda to freeze just between the doors. The threshold of the house door is very good and there is little cold air coming under the door when it is closed. It was cold here, but was it cold enough?

I set the timer for an hour. It took 3 hours between the door before I got any kind of freezing. Between hours 2 and 3, it started to freeze and I got this when I pulled it in. It wasn't slush. It was ice and was freezing. The top 2 inches was large ice crystals of Dr Pepper. Below that was very cold soda. 

Unfortunately, it was flat. I think that was partially due to my checking on the process every hour and removing the plastic. I also think that's part of the nature of freezing soda. The "carbonation" doesn't last. When you consume slushed soda, you're not interested in the carbonation. The flavor and the texture make up for that lack.

But when you're doing an experiment like this and I remembered the times I got nearly frozen Dr Pepper by forgetting a can in the freezer, it seemed like the carbonation was gone or nearly gone from that, too. I'm thinking you can't freeze fizz. If you, like me, like the fizz, freezing soda isn't going to give you that tickle. The Dr Pepper actually tasted rather foul and I wound up pitching it. That is, perhaps, an experiment for another day. Would it be foul tasting if I partially froze it in the can or bottle?

I'd also like to find out how long it would take to freeze a can or bottle at negative temperatures. I know it's kind of akin to just sticking it in the freezer part of the fridge, but I'm curious simply about air temperature. And yes, there are probably reams of information somewhere in the vastness of the Internet which would answer these questions, but I like to conduct the experiments myself.

The weather has turned mild now, for January, which I do not mind in the least. So, answers to these and any other experiments involving cold and soda will have to wait. Plus, I'm not buying any more soda until maybe the first weekend in February when that one sportsball event takes place and every junk food and soda on the planet is on sale.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Things I See

Back in July, there was a rather large inspection project which started right when I got back from my Virginia vacation. Divided into two halves, I did the bulk of the inspection work which encompassed the Columbarium at Bohemian National Cemetery and a lot of homes on the far east end of the project. I've been in a lot of homes over my 16 years of doing this and I've seen a lot of stuff; some good, some bad, some horrible, some extremely interesting. I'm going to file this under the "I remember that" heading.

If you are a certain age, this might be vaguely familiar to you. The rest of you are going "Oh...my...god." Sears sold this wall paper at the end of the 60's and into the first couple of years of the 70's. I walked into her kitchen, where this is located, took one look and said one word, "Beatles". She gasped and said, "How do you know?" Truthfully, I don't know myself how I knew but I knew this was a) from Sears and b) inspired by the psychedelic phase of the Beatles, where Peter Max and Yellow Submarine reigned.

It was hard to put it up because it is plasticized. I remember Sears marketing this as easy to remove, back when removing wallpaper generally involved giving up and painting over it. You would not believe how many houses I find where that was the method decided upon to change the wall colors; paint over the wall paper because you couldn't get it off the wall.

The homeowner was living in the house her parents bought when they were newlyweds.  The original kitchen wall paper was yellowing and was stained in places with grease, but her parents weren't interested in removing it. "If you want to change the wallpaper," she remembers mom telling her, "you have to buy the new stuff, take down the old and put up the new on your own. I'm not helping because I don't care if it ever changes." She said she was fresh out of college, working in downtown Chicago at her very first job. She went to the Sears store on State Street, which was the flagship store of the whole chain and paged through the wallpaper books. She was a huge Beatles fan and Sears had a line of wallpapers inspired by the Beatles. She measured and bought enough, with one of her first paychecks, to redo the kitchen. This was in 1972.

The thing about this wallpaper, because it's plasticized, it wears like iron. I saw no fading anywhere and there is a big east window to the left. Oh there are corners which have come undone over the years but a little rubber cement will push those back into place. Grease and stains wipe right off it.

She said she sometimes thinks that she should pull it down and redo the kitchen, "...with maybe more tasteful wallpaper or, perhaps, just paint." She looked around. "But there is something about walking into this room and feeling like it's 40 years ago and I was so excited to show my parents that I could be responsible and do something for the house. How kind they were to let me put this up when I know my mother thought I was nuts. It's a link to them."

Perhaps, if she wanted to, she could pull it down and sell it on eBay for a princely sum. We looked at a seam which had come loose and it seems that a slow tug would get each strip off the wall in one piece. "You probably could make a lot of money since this kind of thing is worth a lot," I agreed. "But what would you lose in the process?" She smiled. "You get it," she said. This wallpaper represents something much more, something that repainting in a lovely buttercup yellow isn't going to capture.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Better?

One of the few souvenirs from Disneyland I allowed myself was this antenna topper.

I'm thrilled with it. it matches my personality and really, who wouldn't want Jack Skellington, with a smirk, stuck on your antenna?

I'm going through my Flickr photos and here is Ms. Green, the antenna topper Jack replaced because she was stolen. I'd had her pop off my antenna a few times and she was more than a little worse for wear by the time someone purloined her.

I really like her. Jack's fantastic, but he's not green or chocolate. 

Beverage:  Raspberry Seltzer

Deb

A Wee Touch o' Sadness

I was going through my photos on Flickr today, as I ate my lunch, trying to put a bit more organization to them. I still have a ways to go to get through some 6,000 photos taken since 2009, but I made a bit of progress. I stumbled across this photo.

Oh man. I remember this event. I went to the store and bought these beers, and a few others not shown, all of them of Scottish origin. Belhaven was, at the time, my favorite, but I'm thinking I wound up liking the Old Engine Oil best. I found the blog post which used this photo but it doesn't say how I liked Dark Island. I don't remember. Perhaps worst of all, I don't remember how any of these tasted.

Now, mind you, life changes on you and what you once took for granted can be gone quickly. With rheumatoid arthritis drugs in my body, my liver cannot handle extra things like alcohol. I will, on extremely rare occasions, drink a teaspoon of something, but when the choice is RA drugs or a damaged liver, I'm going to choose the drugs.

Still, I'm feeling nostalgic for the time I could look in the fridge and find a wide variety of Scottish beer. In 2012, there were times I'd be out for dinner and feel so awful about not being able to share a drink with friends. In 2016, I don't think twice about it. I've given away almost all the alcohol that was in my house. I have some unopened bottles of things in the basement. They are going this year. It's all about your perspective. Making this choice was easy for me, if the implementation was a bit hard. The photo represents a time in my life that was different. I'm happy with where things are now.

Beverage:  Raspberry Seltzer

Deb

Scattered for Spring

I try, very hard, not to disturb the milkweed plants which sprout around the yard. This year, I was rewarded by the sight of 4 monarchs. It could have been the two I originally saw back in August, but I tell myself it was four separate butterflies. I would really like to enlarge that area with the rudbeckia and daisies but I need to hire someone to do that. My days of digging up my yard are limited.

Anyway, the second best thing about milkweed plants is when the seed pods open in the late fall or early winter.

The desiccated plants are easy to snap off and the pods pop open with a satisfying 'pook'. It doesn't take much to knock the main stem down and then the seeds are off with the wind.

The flight of the seeds is so pretty. A big gust can fill the air with dainty white tendrils. I remember, as a child, popping open the pods and throwing the seeds into the wind. There is something magical about their dance. On this date, the pods had opened and were just hanging around. There was no wind to toss them into the air and carry them around the neighborhood. I'm fairly certain my neighbors don't have the same admiration for milkweed that I do and consider it a nuisance.

Milkweed needs disturbed ground to settle and sprout but need nothing after that. I'm going to have a lot of the trash trees removed from the back and side yards this spring and part of that is to grind out any stumps to make sure the tree doesn't come back. That's 'disturbing' the ground for sure. There are a couple of places I think would look good planted with flowers, perennials, mostly, which will include more prairie plants. Common milkweed fits that description.

I weighed the removal of these volunteer trees and with the detritus of the winter with all the birds which seem to be in my yard now. The birds will hang around and I think, with more flowers to attract bees and butterflies, the overall attractiveness of my yard will remain high. That's the ultimate goal here. Dancing milkweeds and dancing butterflies and dancing birds.

Beverage:  Dunkin' Donuts tea

Deb

The Random View of Thursday at Disneyland

Here's a collection of photos from Thursday, November 5th. Let's start with the mountains.

This is the view from the Mickey ferris wheel. The real mountains are in the distance with the fake mountains from the Cars Land ride in the foreground. The fake mountains don't look all that out of place from the real ones due to the realism of the fake ones. I also like the clouds in the sky. Just needs a couple of vertical lines and you'd have a tic tac toe game in the sky.

How about a fountain?

This one is in Downtown Disney. It's a stylized flower. I like the undulating shapes and the gradation of color from center outward. There aren't a lot of fountains around. It wasn't until I was looking through my photos that I realized this isn't a part of the decoration in either park. Fountains take space and they tend to break up a path. Disney is about funneling large amounts of people from one point to another. A fountain is just in the way. Oh you could tuck it off the the side. This one was alongside a thoroughfare, but that seems to defeat the purpose of a fountain as a focal point. This one is quite pretty. The color change was achieved with small tiles. Wonder how long it took people to apply the tiles?

Speaking of tiling, here is the floor in the pseudo French Quarter of Disneyland.

Attention to design is paramount at Disney. Liz pointed out, on many occasions, where you could find the outline of Mickey in the architecture and design of both California Adventure and Disneyland. While Mickey's not here, on the floor of the Pandora Jewelers, I like the use of tile to create a mosaic which fit with the surroundings. I see things like this and I remember working in mosaics in an art class in college. We worked with heavy paper and the section on mosaics was to help us understand color. If I wasn't so busy with other craft projects...

Color and design on the ground is not limited to mosaics. Witness what they did with colored cement.

"Cement" is a bit of a misnomer for this ground covering. It's an aggregate which can be tinted in a large number of colors. I've seen this in a lot of places. One of the problems with it in cold climates is that the colors are usually separated by thin pieces of metal. The surface is sealed so you never feel the change from one piece to another. But, the ground freezes in the upper Midwest, so spring heave is a big concern. I've had to inspect designs such as these and you find all sorts of cracks at corners and uneven heave can produce a large crack in, say, the middle of one of the yellow triangles. Ground issues are probably not a problem in Southern California, so they are free to be inventive with the design and color. It was quite impressive.

I would do this in a heartbeat if I could figure out how.

This was outside the Starbucks where we had breakfast. It's a mesh in which a variety of plants have been planted in what appeared to be a peat-like potting soil. This would be a wonderful way to shade a patio. I could see it planted with flowering plants to provide color. It appeared to have a design to the plantings but was in the midst of a change of seasons so some plants were new and not completely filled out. I also loved that, unlike Disneyland, there were birds nesting in the mesh. That, alone, appealed to me. I'm all about providing habitat for nesting birds. I'm sure, if I looked, there are plans online for something like this. You'd need it to be fairly high to block out the sun, but you could make it merely 6-7 feet tall to act as a screen.

Could it get any better than this?

Part of the design of California Adventure is the recreation of an early American amusement park. Witness the roller coaster and the ferris wheel. LOOK! SWINGS! Liz and I walked toward the ferris wheel and she pointed out this ride. I love this ride! I am at the edge of fitting into the chairs but it was an absolute hoot. I have so many, many warm memories of county fairs with a swing ride. I wouldn't go up in a ferris wheel, but I'll let a ride fling me almost sideways with nothing but a chain to hold me to the top. You are never too old to have your feet dangling in front of you, the wind in your face, giggling for all your worth, while your 9 year-old self comes bubbling to the top for a ride. That's Disneyland, for you. It's okay to be on the backside of your middle ages yet riding swing rides.

Beverage:  Raspberry Seltzer

Deb

Books 2, 3 and 4

It's euphemistically called "the creeping crud" and I got it in the middle of January. I thought it was just allergies; that all the new construction and paint in the office was finally getting to me. Hence, I treated it like an allergy. Yeah, well, about that...

It was nothing more than a heavy cold. Well, a heavy cold that knocked me out for a week. The great thing, if there is such a thing with a cold, is that it's conducive to reading. I can't breathe through my nose. I'm exhausted so I'll take a quick nap that devolves into a 3-4 hour sleep. That means, I'm wide awake at 2 a.m., glaring at the alarm clock. Oh well. Get out of bed, settle into the recliner and pick up my latest Discworld book. 

I finished the first 4 in January. Now, before you say, "Whoa, that's a lot of reading", understand that Discworld books are wonderfully quick reads. There are underlying meanings and commentaries, if you choose to look for them. Otherwise, they are whoppin' good yarns. Pratchett is great at telling stories and, superficially, you can knock off one of his books in 3-4 days, a week tops. The other thing you should know, I've read all of these before, not in order, other than the first two, but over the course of years, I've read them. I don't always remember them but I have read them because they were in the basement, in the stack. So, a second read goes a bit faster than a first read. 

This is the second book of the introduction to the Discworld. The first book ends in somewhat of a cliffhanger. You wonder what will happen to Rincewind, Twoflower and the Luggage. The book takes a bit of love to get into. It could be read as a stand alone book, but, in reality, 80% of the story comes from "The Colour of Magic", so I recommend you read that first. There are more topical references in this book than in "Colour of Magic", so someone looking for the Pratchett wit won't be disappointed. I thought it might not be as quotable, but, once it gets going, the quotable parts come fast and furious. "It is said that the opposite of noise is silence. This isn't true. Silence is only the absence of noise." "...darkness isn't the opposite of light, it is simply its absence."

The metaphorical Pratchett makes its first appearance here. Read those quotes. The opposite of [insert word] is its absence. I remember, when I was a junior in high school, we took a two week family vacation, which was a drive through the mid-south, following, sort of, the meander of the Mississippi River to the gulf. One of our stops was Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. There were a number of tours of the cave you could take. We took one which was 90 minutes underground. I remember, at one point, the ranger said, "Now, we're going to ask you to sit here (indicating a seating area) and we're going to turn off our lanterns and I'd like to ask you to be completely still for two minutes. I have a timer so you'll know when 2 minutes is up. Trust me. That will seem like an eternity." When Pratchett says the opposite is absence, that's what I remember. The black dark; total absence of light. It was creepy. Add to that, no noise. Where we were didn't have any water in it, although there are places in the cave which have running or dripping water. 

I remember the eerie silence. We sat there for 2 minutes and it did feel like an eternity. You started to hear your breathing and your heart beating. I think, as humans, we crave light and noise. Even now, quiet, for me, includes hearing Pilchard snore, or the tapping of computer keys or the crimple of the page of a book as it's turned. We could not live without light and sound. 

This is the third book. There are a lot of characters on the Discworld and Pratchett introduced them in a higgledy-piggledy fashion. I'm focused on reading the books in chronological order, which is far different, other than books 1 and 2, to how they were written. It might be fun, in 5 year's time, to read these in the order they were written, to see how that compares to the chronology. 

This book introduces Esme (Granny) Weatherwax, one of the more colorful characters on the Disc. I like her in later books where she is a character, but, in rereading this book, I don't like her here. The book attempts to lampoon the idea that there is "women's work" and "men's work". Women can't be wizards and men can't be witches, "...because of the lore". It's a feeble excuse and this is meant to highlight how limitations in what men and women can do are silly. 

Granny's purpose is to come to grips with the idea that Esk, the other female character in the book, can be a wizard because she's the 7th child of a 7th son. Technically, the 7th child should be a boy so when the wizard staff is given to the baby, the wizard magic is passed to a male. But that doesn't work out. Granny struggles against convention and, eventually, comes to see that Esk's training needs to be in wizarding and so she has to go where no woman has gone before; Unseen University and wizard training. The problem is how this message is transmitted. 

Granny comes across as a bully. When she's not mildly bullying Esk, she's openly bullying the adults she meets. This is, perhaps, meant to say that her age and wisdom give her an advantage to know that her opinion is the right one, if they would just go along with it without question. But, I felt, many times during the book, uncomfortable with how she was portrayed. She's generally, though not always, right, but this is depicted as only because she glares at people and makes them uncomfortable. That's not depth of character so much as bullying. I didn't see that the first reading through. I'm fairly certain she evens out in temperament in later books so I'm treating this as an introductory story where the character is here and let's see what other adventures she can have later. I don't remember if I've read of Esk after this book. I'm hopeful she will be further developed. I don't remember if she was successful in her studies. 

Finally, I finished this one on Sunday. It takes a bit for this tale to get going. A full 2/3rds of the book is setting up the last 1/3rd which sucks you in and makes you want to keep going, even though it's way past your bed time. 

The personality that is DEATH, i.e. "Mort", a pun of which everyone in the book seems to be aware, is more fully explained, but, again, I don't like him nearly as much in this book as in later books. I think DEATH was meant to be a major character all along but getting him to a point of continuity would be bumpy. 

The actual ending of the book, the last 3-4 pages, feels jerky. I didn't like the segue from the real climax to the end. Too much was left unsaid, unfinished and I don't think it ever gets tied up. In a way, it felt as if Pratchett had created a conflict he couldn't quite resolve in the direction the ending was going. Essentially, DEATH takes an apprentice and the story revolves around the growth of that apprentice into the job and DEATH's foray into the world of the living to figure out why we like life. 

Two characters of note show up; Rincewind, of the first two books, and Albert, DEATH's manservant. Albert becomes important again in a later book and I'd forgotten his backstory. Rincewind, however, feels like an afterthought. The person he is could have been named "Bob" and it would not have changed the story. And how Rincewind got to the position he's in is never explained and that, I feel, is a big oversight. Maybe it will come later, I don't know. Rincewind kind of disappears from the series, if I remember correctly. 

This isn't as much of a quotable Pratchett as his other books are. The musing on mortality, given Pratchett's death last year, was poignant. "Reality is not always what it seems," is probably the best. The book deals heavily with what is and is not real and how one person can change reality. Still this is worth picking up for a long plane ride. It will have you wondering, as DEATH does, "WHY IS THERE A CHERRY ON A STICK IN THIS DRINK. IT'S NOT AS IF IT DOES ANYTHING FOR THE FLAVOR. WHY DOES ANYONE TAKE A PERFECTLY GOOD DRINK AND THEN PUT A CHERRY ON A POLE?" (DEATH's name is always capitalized and everything he says is capitalized.) My friend, Pam, does not like maraschino cherries. I don't think I knew that when I read this book the first time. When I encountered this quote this time, I laughed so hard. She agreed with DEATH's sentiment. 

I'm about a third of the way through book #5, "Sourcery". It contains my all-time favorite Pratchett quote, but I'll leave that for the review. So, this is math, but, if I've done my math correctly, I'm reading #5 and there are 40-ish total books, so I'm 1/8th of the way through the series? That doesn't sound so intimidating. When this task is looked at as, there are 40 books and I've read 4 which means there are 36 more to go, it feels like I won't make it. I'm going to do this. This is my goal for 2016. 

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

Done Done

The former office keys. Yes, there were two of them. We had the building doors to pass through before getting to the office doors. The locks were changed twice in the 16 years I was in the building; the first time when we moved across the hall and took over the space vacated by some real estate company, and the second time when an employee was fired. This new space has one key. We have a front and a back door, but they are keyed the same. AND, that key is a much lighter weight silver-colored thing. The change in weight of my key ring has been very noticeable.

We hired a cleaning company to clean our new offices twice a month. They also do close-outs so we hired them to clean the old space. It was amazing. The building owners were responsible for the cleaning company and we must have gone through at least 8 different companies in 16 years. You saw the ants on my windowsill. Yeah. They just didn't clean everywhere. This new company cleaned the faceplates on the light switches, dusted and washed all the walls and cleaned blinds. When I met the cleaning company's estimator at the old office she looked at me and asked when the last time was the blinds were cleaned. Darned if I know. We had vertical blinds in the old office and some of them were not working properly. We gave up trying to get them fixed. They were not wiped clean.

I had this corner office on the first floor. It's a southwest corner, but those windows leaked so badly. My office was usually 8-10 degrees colder than the other offices. I would have a space heater under my desk in the summer, too, because the AC seemed to think it was cooling the entire Chicagoland area and blast on high all day. In the winter, the space never heated up. It would be 78 in other offices and 68 in mine. It's tough to type when your office is 65 when you walk into it in the morning.

This is the front door. In the fall, the leaves from the vines growing on the wall would collect in front of the door. It was kind of interesting from a science standpoint because the design would cause air to swirl in front of the door. You'd get this great pile of leaves in that nook, leaves which would then stick to your shoes after a rain and get tracked into the building.

The current landlord has been trying to sell the building for 3 years. We almost never saw anyone from the management company and I often felt that when we would call about replacing lights or fixing broken things, I was being an annoyance to them. It wasn't unusual to come to work and find the building locked up. Maintenance hadn't gotten over to unlock the doors. This building was also last on the route for snow removal. They considered tossing buckets of salt on the walk, "clearing the snow".

I got the "honor", if you will, of doing the final walk-through, since I'd been in the building the longest. The cleaning company had done a wonderful job. There wasn't much of a deposit to get back, but Mike wanted every penny. The air still smelled of lemon cleaning products. Yes, 8 years of wear on the carpet showed and there were a couple of corners which were dinged, but the space looked great for as dirty as we could get it. The gal who walked through the space with me seemed more annoyed at having to do this than really looking at what we'd done. We made small talk about our move and parted. I did one final walk around. I mentioned this back in December when we officially moved north. I didn't feel attached to the space as I thought I would. 16 years is a long time, any more, to be with a company AND to be in one space. Yet, I don't miss it.

I come here every morning now. We have our number on the door, which helps because each one of us had driven by the office trying to find it. I have a nice east view out my window. Squirrels cavort in the pine tree. It just feels more pleasant. I don't mind the drive each way. It's actually quite relaxing.

Running errands over the past weekend, I wondered if my keys would still work. Our lease at the old space ended last Sunday. I was tempted to swing by the building to see if I could still get in. How often do companies change locks, I wondered? The building isn't on any closed circuit security camera so I could let myself in and out with no problem. Would they rekey the outer door, too, if they rent the space? Could I get in over the weekend to use the bathroom, say?

We've all put our old keys in our desk drawers. I think Gene actually tossed his, but the rest of us have a bit of nostalgia for those keys. Eventually, I'll recycle them or give them to someone doing a craft project with keys. For now, they are a reminder of where I spent 16 years of my life.

Beverage:  Raspberry Seltzer

Deb

Fall Corn

I found these in the stash of photos I have to blog about.

I had been on an inspection job in northern Wisconsin. The road I was on was lined with corn.

It was a beautiful October day with a high temperature in the low 70's.

I stopped. There is a unique smell to autumn corn waiting to be harvested. There are no words which can adequately describe it. It's earthy. It's somewhat "burned". It smells of corn. Seriously. You can smell the corn.

I remember, as a child, wandering through corn fields. In August, with the corn towering over you head, it would be a good 10 degrees cooler near the ground. The air in the rows smelled sweet. I remember the harvest. Inevitably, some ears would not be removed from the stalks. Dad would pay us a nickel per ear for every ear we'd find. We would pull a wagon, fill it, and empty it over by the pig pens. I remember making a good $2.00 one Saturday. To a 7 year-old, that was a huge amount of money.

On this day, I stood next to the field with memories washing over me. Part of me wishes I lived in a small town where the corn fields were adjacent to my yard. But I'm happy where I am and happy to have the chance to drive into the farmland.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

Mom's Cake

I play Dungeons and Dragons with a couple of groups. One group meets online. The other actually plays the way the game started, with pencils and paper and dice and maps. For the latter group, we get together roughly every 2-3 weeks. Part of that involves food. We've had theme food night and last week, it was breakfast.

Originally, I was going to make a chocolate walnut bread, but chose to sink my time into sewing shirt number 2. But I still had to bring something. I wasn't interested in dashing to the store for anything. I wanted to bake. What could I make that was quick but symbolic of breakfast? I know. Mom's coffee cake.

It's ridiculously simple and I've probably blogged about this before. Mix dry ingredients together with vegetable oil.

Set aside a cup of this crumbly mixture and add egg and buttermilk to the rest.

Pour into a 9x13 greased and floured pan and sprinkle the saved crumb over the top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes and inhale the fragrance of cinnamon and nutmeg and brown sugar.

Cut in pieces and serve warm, with ice cream or cooled for breakfast or as a snack. This cake freezes very well. I've made it, cut it into pieces and stuck the pieces in the freezer. Even defrosting them at 3-4 months out, they were still moist.

This was a staple of family meals when I was growing up. I don't know if mom remembers where she found the recipe but she's been making this for at least 55 years, maybe longer. It's pretty much foolproof and would be a great cake to get kids cooking. I took what was left to the office and then finished off what was left after everyone at work had a piece.

Here's the recipe:

Salad Oil Coffee Cake

3 cups flour
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1)  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2)  Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan.
3)  Mix flour, sugars and spices together.
4)  Add oil to dry ingredients, stirring until blended and mixture is lumpy.
5)  Reserve 1 cup of the flour/sugar mixture. Set aside.
6)  Add egg, buttermilk, soda and salt to the remaining mixture. Beat until well blended and creamy.
7)  Sprinkle reserved mixture over the top of the batter.
8)  Bake in preheated oven 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
9)  Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes before cutting and serving. May be frozen for later servings.

Enjoy.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Sunday Supper

After thinking about it for several weeks, I finally decided to make popcorn for supper. Popcorn, as a meal, has a long been one of my family's staples. I remember dad making 2 large roasting pans full of popcorn on Sunday nights. We'd watch Ed Sullivan and Hollywood Palace. Mom would buy a 6 pack of Pepsi and that would be Sunday supper.

Down through the years, popcorn has always been a meal preference. With the arrival of air poppers, we could make it without oil, which saved the need to shake the pan to keep the kernels from burning. I haven't done the shake the pan route in a very, very long time, but I'm pretty sure I could still manage, if I wanted popcorn and there wasn't an air popper nearby. I used to buy microwave popcorn, but always found the "butter" contained therein to be a horrible fake, overly greasy and not tasting at all like butter, substance. I finally quit buying it about 10 years ago, long before the concerns over just what was in the stuff surfaced. It does mean I don't eat popcorn at work, but that's okay, really.

I pop myself a nice big bowl of corn and add more butter; real butter, not fake butter or, horrors, margarine; than I probably should. Add more salt than I should probably be consuming and it's heaven.

But August came and with it that bout of diverticulitis. I heard from friends that popcorn was going to be on the "no eat" list. "The kernels get stuck 'down there'," I was told. This made me sad. I don't eat popcorn every week, as we used to do, but I will eat it one or two times a month. I used to have a cat who would eat a few bits with me, but these two aren't interested. Mija thinks it smells great but when offered a nice gooey, butter-covered piece, she gives me a look like, "You actually eat this?" I fretted that my meals with popcorn were over.

My doctor told me not to worry. "As long as you stay away from the little bits and those ones that aren't completely popped; you know, the ones that sink to the bottom of the bowl; popcorn is fine," he said. Still, I worried. Finally, the lure of popcorn overcame my worry. I know what the symptoms are for diverticulitis. If I start to have the slightest feeling of distress, I'm to contact my doctor right away. I decided to try a big bowl full of popped goodness.

So far so good. I did not eat the little bits at the bottom. I would have cleaned the bowl clear but felt I should leave those. Since I don't eat popcorn but once or twice a month, I don't think I have anything to fear unless I would be in the throes of an attack. I never want to go through an attack again and when I was hurting, food was the last thing on my mind. I think, therefore, I can return to having popcorn on Sunday nights. Now, if someone would have a variety show and a bottle of Pepsi, it would be just like it was when I was growing up.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

Summer Memories

Maybe it's because I've not been well this tail end of summer and bed has been a good place to find me. Maybe it's because the weather has been wonderful for sleeping with windows open; highs in the 80's with nights cooling off to the low to mid 60's. Maybe I'm just nostalgic. I'm not quite sure what it is, but night has brought back some wonderfully warm memories as August turned into September.

My mother's mother lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. One of the things we kids looked forward to was the ability to spend a week with Gram during the summer. She often had to work part of the week we were there, but, when we were old enough, that wasn't a problem. My sister and I went together and we took the bus everywhere. We even walked the couple of miles to a cousin's house. His wife was aghast that we had walked, but, to us, it was no big deal and we were rather proud of ourselves for finding their house. I remember walking to the Dairy Queen on First Avenue, which is, incidentally, still there.

The one thing I'm remembering with much fondness is lying awake at night and listening to the sounds of the city. Gram lived 2 blocks from busy First Avenue, which was the major arterial from south to north Cedar Rapids. When I was a child and visiting, there was a train spur 6 blocks south of her which ran, usually at night.

I remember the sounds. Late at night, after she had watched Johnny Carson and had gone to bed, the sounds of the city were so unfamiliar and so fascinating to a country girl. I would try to stay awake and then, at midnight-ish, there would be the sounds of traffic. There would be the sounds of night insects. Oh I was familiar with crickets and the buzzing insects of evening, but they sounded different in the city. There would be the rare siren and an even rarer train horn. It was just different and so unusual.

I've found myself, over the course of the last month and a half, waking up occasionally at 1 or 2 in the morning. The windows are open. A cat is snoozing beside me and there is the sound of a city summer night. I'm 4 blocks from Roosevelt Road, a major arterial going east west through Wheaton. I can hear the sounds of traffic. Two blocks to my west is a secondary north south route on which emergency vehicles go to get to the north side of Wheaton. It's rare, but I can hear those sounds. And there are the insects. It's the same sound of buzzing and chirping that I remember from summers in Cedar Rapids.

It is all so very familiar. I found myself lying in bed with my eyes closed straining to hear the TV and Johnny Carson's voice. I could almost feel myself lying in the guest bed with a gentle southern breeze coming in the window. My grandmother was a complicated woman but this summer, I've found myself wishing I could go back to a summer so many years ago and lie in a bed in her house and just listen.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

The Next Project

Having finished Carole's butterfly cross-stitch and left it with her to decide how she wants to frame it, it's time to look ahead to the next project. I'm going to a convention in November; BlizzCon 2015; in Anaheim, California. It's a celebration of all the games Blizzard Entertainment does, but it's kind of akin to mecca for those of us who play World of Warcraft. It's everyone's hope they can go to BlizzCon. I skrimped and saved and, thanks to a friend with impossibly good luck, I got a ticket to go.

I'm going with Faience and Lethia, from my guild. We got a fantastic deal on a hotel room and, while I'm out there, I'll be going to Disneyland. It's just down the street from the convention center so why should I not go? I need to buy airfare and pay for tickets to Disneyland as well as my portion of the hotel. I'm considering a used ipad so I can update my blog and the guild web site with photos. Doing all that on a smartphone drives me nuts so I only check email.

When I decided I could afford a BlizzCon ticket and Lethia decided she could to, I promised, if we got tickets, the three of us, I'd make custom shirts for the convention. On August 1st, Pam and I went to JoAnn Fabrics, to make this plan a reality. I love having her along. We looked through all the patterns. I knew what I wanted but we needed to find the exact pattern. I told her my vision and we dived into the fabric stacks to find the perfect fabric. I need to have her along. So...many...wonderful...fabrics...oh look! "No, that's not what you came here for," she'd say. She is, of course, right. I have boxes and boxes of fabric in the office closet not being used for anything. I need to be reminded of that. I shouldn't say not being used for anything. The girls love to climb on top of the stack and sit there. It's like a hidey hole to them.

Along the way to the perfect fabric, I stumbled upon these gems.

That's a silver metallic in between kelly green stripes. It was quite distinctive but as the basis for a shirt, not so much.

It comes in black and red. As I was looking through the patterns, I chanced upon what I think is a "Game of Thrones" inspired dress that was made with the black version of this. I did seriously consider making us vests, since that would be kind of WOW character like. In the game, your character can wear leather clothing. As appealing as this was, it wasn't what I wanted.

No no and no, but it so reminded me of the curtains in the porch/dining room of the farmhouse where I grew up. The nostalgia washed over me and I thought about my mother making those curtains. They hung in the porch until we moved to town. I know I have some of them in a box somewhere, the fabric useful for quilt pieces.

By now, I'm sure you're detecting a theme here. I stumbled across this.

I just...I have no idea how I would work with this even if it was even remotely attractive. I know retro is in. This certainly bears some resemblance to 1960's fashion and in light seafoam green no less.

Finally, I found it.

It's an Indonesian batik-inspired print. It looks gorgeous in sunlight. I want us to be distinctive but a tee shirt just wasn't going to cut it. I think this will work up beautifully and it's cotton, so it will wash and dry nicely. I came home all excited and then got sick.

I looked at the material sitting on the table and felt so badly that I had no energy. I spent all this money and made this promise. Now that I'm feeling better, my goal has been to clear off the living room table so I can start sewing. I could just move everything there to another space, but that kind of defeats the purpose of cleaning. Baby steps. Baby steps.

Watch this space. I'm excited to execute my idea.

Beverage:  Water

Deb