August 31, 2020 Eat Outside Day Living in the gulf coast region of the United States of America is like living upside down from the rest of the world. We may as well be living in Australia. Our seasons are all opposite of every other place in the world. For example, today is "Eat Outside Day." Are you kidding me? Outside today in my world is about 110 degrees. During my teen years, a hot summer meant sleeping away the morning and venturing out at night. The most exciting thing to do on a hot summer night in my small town was to drive around with friends. There is an old song which marks me as a Boomer, but I don't care. It is "Down Home," by the country band Alabama. You only hear it once in while on the oldies radio station nowadays. The song is about all the goodness of living in a small town--and refers to goofy kids riding around in evening. Somebody would get their parents car, then go pick up enough kids to fill it up. After that, there wasn't much else happening, so we would all " ...go see what's shaking at the Dairy Queen." My town had both a Dairy Queen and a Sonic Drive In. And truth be told, there was never much shaking at the Dairy Queen, except at lunch--during the school year. Sonic was the place to go at night. We would order drinks and ice cream and look around to see who else was there. We would then drive past people's houses that we knew, checking to see if they were home. If they weren't, that meant they had a found a better party to go to than ours. We would continue prowling around town until someone hurled or a Journey song came on the radio. That was our signal that it was time to go home. I will not eat outside today. I might eat outside in November. By November, my upside down climate will feel like many other places in the world feel in August. So eat outside today, if you dare. Or if you live somewhere in the true North. August 30, 2020--National Beach Day When it comes to vacations, it boils down to two things; you are either a mountain person or a beach lover. My spouse professes to love the mountains, while I am born for the surf. His long legs make hiking the mountains easy. If I take five steps, he takes one. Perhaps his height has something to do with it as well. At six foot four, he looks above everyone's heads so much, that it seems reasonable. Of course he would want to summit a mountaintop--to really look above everyone's heads and, in fact, the whole world. I am a beach girl to the core. I like how the waves can, at times, be the one constant thing in our lives. They roll in in. They move out. Each one different from the previous one, but they just keep coming. A bit like life--sometimes the surf is so choppy that it is a fight to wade knee deep. Sometimes waves just roll in peacefully, as if not to disturb anyone. I also like how you can look out from your beach chair and see the end of the world meet the bottom of the sky. You have to wonder, what is out there, after all? Love mountaintops all you want, but I would ask you this question. What do you get from the top of a mountain? Isolation with a great view. What do you get from the ocean? An invitation to another world. What lies across the ocean at our feet? Only other countries, cultures, and people. Things different and exotic, yet common in their humanity. Somewhere, there is a woman standing on the edge of the sea, wondering what traditions and lifestyles lie across her ocean while I am simultaneously wondering the same thing. She is thinking about me while I am thinking about her. Build your castles in the air, if you will. I prefer my castles in the sand. August 29, 2020--Lemon Juice Day
Do you get your lemon juice from real lemons or do you buy it already squeezed out and into a container at the grocery story? I keep a large bottle of the stuff in my refrigerator because who has the time to stand in the kitchen and squeeze lemons? However, when I was a child, Mother kept a yellow, plastic lemon full of lemon juice, the kind you can find in the produce section, in our refrigerator. My first experience with this kind of lemon juice involved some funny business when I was a small child. I had never noticed the glowing plastic orb in the icebox before. Nor when shopping with my mother in the Piggly-Wiggly. Since my brother is older and wiser than me, he must have discovered it on a family excursion to gather supplies. One day he told me to follow him to the kitchen where he said he had to give me something. He opened our refrigerator, reached in, and grabbed the lemon juice. "Time to give the baby her medicine," he said. "What's that?" I asked. "It tastes like lemonade. Try it," he said. "I don't want to." "Come on. Pretend you're the baby, and this is your medicine." I hesitated. He unscrewed the green plastic top. "Open your mouth and I'll squeeze it in. It's fun. It will shoot right into your mouth." I gingerly opened my mouth, and he pointed the plastic lemon in it and squirted. I expected lemonade. Instead, I got a mouthful of bitter, sour lemon juice. I puckered up my mouth. My brother burst out laughing at the facial expression I made. I didn't know what to make of this. It tasted terrible, but it made him laugh. I was so confused. He did it several more times on different days, and as long as he kept laughing, I would keep complying. Then one day my mother came in when he was squirting the lemon juice into my mouth. "What are you doing with my lemon juice?" she asked. "He's giving me my medicine," I said. She told him to stop. "But look at her face when I do it," he said. "It's funny!" "It's not funny. And you're wasting my lemon juice." And that's when I started to cry. I thought my brother knew what he was doing. I trusted him to not break any rules. I hated breaking rules of any sort. Doing so usually led to getting chastised by someone older than me--which was everyone. I was willing to be my brother's clown, or guinea pig, as long as I thought it was legit. It may be how I learned to relish the spot light at an early age. However, Mother was having none of it. And if she wasn't laughing, then why was my brother? And you know what they say. It's all fun and games until someone starts crying. August 28, 2020--National Power Rangers Day
I am outnumbered in my own home. I live with two boys (my son and my spouse) and if you count the dog, that makes three male brains. To live with all this maleness and its left brain dominance is daunting to my right sided cerebrum. To live with a boy, however, one must overcome what is in her own nature. I hereby admit that I have always feigned an interest in science. My right brain leans more towards the arts. Maybe it's my upbringing, maybe its my left-handedness, but I just have never held much personal interest in systems of any sort. And I think that is what all science is based on. Now that I have already raised a boy, I can openly say that I have faked my way through all of it--the structural, intellectual, systemic way of left-brain thinking. My boy's main interests in life have run the gamut from the solar system to entomology to botany to ornithology to mineralogy and everything in between. And his favorite stories--science fiction of course. When Power Rangers first became popular, my son received a toy megazord for his birthday. A megazord is a fighting machine made up of a giant robot. As a toy, they can be rather large. This 'zord lived on our coffee table for weeks after the birthday gift was opened. I started to consider it a talisman to our home. Eventually, it left its spot on the coffee table for a front row seat to the orchestration of imaginative play in my son's bedroom. However, in all the time it lived on our coffee table, I admit to thinking about how I could incorporate it into our home's decor. A talisman for the home is a good idea, I decided. And what better than to have one that is a magnificent robot, with its sword in the charging position--and with the ability to morph into five powerful and mighty superheroes? And this novel idea is how living with a boy has changed me. August 27, 2020-- National Pots de Creme Day Damn you, Julia Childs. Damn you to hell. You make it hard for a girl to comply. I wanted to celebrate today with eating one of these delicious pots of chocolate cream, but I had to put a stop to any recipe that calls for me to water board my food. A pot de creme is a small, individually sized portion of chocolate heaven. The problem with this decadent dessert called Pot de Creme is that it involves cooking, melting, baking, and something mysteriously titled "water bath." I barely have time for my own bath, let alone allowing time for my food to take one. I don't see how that is going to happen. So I researched other recipes for a pot de cream for an easier method. Guess what? The easiest method does not exist. So, if I were to bite the bullet and try to make a pot de creme, it would go something like this:
August 26, 2020--National Dog Day
Dogs don't live as long as humans; I am sad to say. And as our children grew and flourished, our dogs, who we had adopted before the children were born, diminished. First one, inside his dog house, died a natural death. Then one day I found the other one fallen, on her way to her favorite spot in the yard against the back fence. It looked as if she had been trying to get there as her final resting place when nature intervened. We buried each of them in the back garden and therefore, were inducted into the business of pet funerals. My son was in the seventh grade when our girl dog, Winnie, passed. And he and I had just returned from a class camp out where I had attended as a parent volunteer. The camp out had been filled with everything nature related, from looking at the stars, hiking, bug bites, my son's first time to pee in the woods (another story), to singing hokey Woody Guthrie songs around the campfire every night. The director, a friend of mine, got the kids to experience living in the woods with an appreciation akin to Henry David Thoreau. But the thinking ran even deeper than that. We were immersed in a total living off the land experience, with some 20th century conveniences. If we took a rest room break, for example, the kids would be enlightened with stories about how the native Americans might have done the same thing. While searching for arrow heads, sitting in peace circles, and looking at the night sky in all its vastness, our minds filled to all kinds of ideas about nature and our relationship to it. It was thus that I returned home, exhausted, but with my head full of thoughts and ideas about the interconnection of all things. Then I was asked to preside over our dog's funeral. We waited until dusk on that crisp fall evening. It was a clear night, and a few stars could be seen in the heavens. We marched the kids outside to the dog's grave site. I told everyone to hold hands and searched my mind for the right words to say. I asked everyone to say one sentence about Winnie. "She was a good dog," was the most popular answer. Then, I began a closing prayer. "Oh great Spirit in the Sky, we commend to You, our dog, Winnie..." After the prayer, the undertaker/Dad-to-this-bunch lowered her body, wrapped in a blanket, into the previously dug grave and covered her thoroughly. We were all silent in the darkness as we headed back to the well lit house. We made quite a line of mourners with our differing heights grotesquely illuminated in the shadows, each of us lost in his own head. As we all shuffled onto the patio, my son remarked, "I never knew Winnie was part Alaskan Husky." August 25, 2020--Park Service Founders Day Once upon a time, when I taught sixth graders to write, we had a textbook example of a good descriptive paragraph that told about the national park, Crater Lake. No where did it tell the reader or teacher where this place was located, and the internet had yet to be invented. As I prepared this lesson at home each term, I could feel my students falling asleep--even as I searched the fine print of the article to find out if the place described really existed. Due to copious research on the internet, I now know that it does. I can still recall how that piece went, though. "A hike through old forest growth will eventually bring you to a fantastic view of the intensely blue water of Indigo Lake." As great as Crater Lake may be, this tale of description inspired no one. Too bad, because I happen to know that the national parks are pretty fine. Our nation has 84 million miles of National Park lands. There are 400 national parks, and I hope to visit all of them during my lifetime. Your local park ranger is a member of the National Park Service and can be of vital support when visiting a national park. Always, always stop by the guest services booth when on a park visit. Ask for directions, a t-shirt, and help with ice in your cooler. Then find out what kind of wild life will possibly kill you when you are inside the parks' borders. Wild life that I have encountered that tried to kill me when visiting various national parks have been numerous. Among, but not limited to, near death experiences from wildlife are bees, mosquitoes, bears, snakes, rats, squirrels, owls, more bears, deer, wild hogs, coyotes, herky-jerky teenagers, and rabbits. I have personally been attacked by at least three of these creatures, and I have observed maybe six of them try to kill someone else. With a visit to four of our national parks in my pocket, I only have 396 of them left. Time to get hiking. *DeGray Lake is a State Park in Arkansas August 24, 2020--Pluto Demoted Day Today is the day that in 2006 the planet Pluto got demoted from its status as a regular sized planet to a dwarf planet. I found this out when I started reading an article published by the International Astronomical Union, or IAU. They identify a planet as a celestial body that :
I don't remember learning that in school. Maybe they have always had to do this, and maybe Pluto just got tired. Pluto may have decided to go on strike or vacation or something. Why should Pluto have to keep on clearing the neighborhood, anyway? Is Pluto always going to be responsible for everyone else's messes? When will these asteroids, meteors, comets, and moons finally learn to clean up after themselves? Pluto is, by the way, out there at the furthest orbit around the sun. Just like how they stick the shortest girls on the end of a chorus line, Pluto is the tiniest planet and has the longest way to travel. Evidently, "Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet because it does not meet the third criteria to be a full-sized planet. It is not the dominant object on its orbit around the Sun - other bodies can be found in the region around its neighborhood." Pluto, I am so sorry. Since the IAU is cracking down on planet-hood, it is going to be tough to regain your former glory as a full-fledged member, but it can be done. And you cannot buy yourself out of this one. Here are a few suggestions for you, Pluto.
August 23, 2020--Black Ribbon Day/European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalin-ism and Nazism
On February 14, 1945, my dad's Uncle Buddy took his final flight over Dresden, Germany, in a B-17 Bomber. His plane, attacked by German air fighters, caught fire, and all of the crew exited the plane. His body and half-opened parachute were found by the Nazi army in what is now Czechia, or the Czech Republic. Why were they flying thus? He was stationed in England, and along with RAF, or the Royal Air Force, American war planes routinely flew from there over Germany. This flight was his crew's thirteenth flight, and had they made twenty-five flights, they could have retired with full military honors. I heard this story when I was a child, although I, of course, never knew Buddy. He was my granny's second younger brother and my dad's uncle. In 2005, my dad, step-mother, and other family members visited the site of Buddy's plane crash in Czechia. And in a town nearby, there is now a plaque in a museum that commemorates the crew of his plane. Everywhere my people went in Czechia on this trip, citizens expressed deep appreciation for the Americans who freed them from the Nazis. Today, Uncle Buddy has an empty grave in Richmond, Texas alongside his mother and father since his remains have never been found. Based on eye witness testimony and written record, we surmise that Buddy made it out of the plane alive. Two surviving crew members claimed to have seen Buddy in the final moments of the plane's journey. One said he was sure Buddy had on his parachute, and the other said Buddy had sustained some kind of injury to his head, but both agreed they saw him crawling out of his ball turret gunner position. In addition, a Nazi captain's log book was located that described a half-opened parachute attached to the body of an American soldier, found near where other members of the plane's crew were captured. The dog tags on said soldier were burnt beyond recognition. We think he jumped. We hope he jumped. Even with the plane on fire, ready to explode very soon, as soon as the flames hit the fuel tank, and even with a wound sustained to the head, we hope Buddy had the fortitude to jump, and by jumping, to think that he felt a shred of hope. And I like to think that the head wound killed him on the way down, instead of the alternative. This man, Albert Stanley Lubojacky, or 'Buddy,' is a distant relative of mine, if by distant you mean one generation removed. Although his position on the plane was ball turret gunner, an extremely dangerous job, I only understood his story fully when I finally watched the movie, Memphis Belle, released in 1990. I was going to close this post with the poem by Randall Jarrell, "Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," but upon a review of it, that poem is just too creepy, or realistic, if you will. What remains today of Buddy is a plaque, an empty grave, and so many unanswered questions. With DNA testing, perhaps Uncle Buddy's remains will be located, identified, and finally laid securely to rest among those who loved him. August 22, 2020--Take Your Cat to the Vet Day When I was growing up, we kept a clowder of of cats as pets. They were inside/outside animals. And none of them ever saw the inside of a vet's office, except one. Whiskers was my cat acquisition. On the day Whiskers came to live at our house, I was first informed that the house two doors down had kittens for sale. The cost--free. My best friend and I went to the cat house which was right next door to hers and knocked on the door. This was a house of four or five rowdy boys. We were invited in by one of them because that is what one did. When a kid from your block knocked on the door, and you (also a kid) answered it, you just opened it wider to let them pass. It was an unspoken rule--kid to kid, like a secret speak easy with a silent password. It wasn't long until we were introduced to the kittens and asked if we wanted one. My friend said no, she had a dog. Her dog's name was Gentle, but he was no gentleman. He tried to hump anyone's leg who stood still for more than two minutes. I, however, had no pet at the moment. You might even say I had been shopping around for one, since our cat, Ruffy, had been evicted from our home. Ruffy, our first cat, had been given away because he was mean. My brother and I were afraid of him. If Mom asked us to go get him so she could feed him, he could be found in her bedroom, doing strange things to her favorite, pink, angora sweater. If we told her he was busy at the moment, we were told it didn't matter and to bring him forth, pronto. So we would, but not before getting scratched. After so many times of getting scratched, we would just start crying upon getting told to bring the cat into the kitchen. My dad finally became the family cat wrangler. It was not long after Ruffy scratched my dad that Ruffy entered into the witness protection program. I told the owner of the free kittens that I preferred a boy kitten because I had been warned that cats have kittens when we got Ruffy. So with much trepidation, I took my favorite boy kitten home. I had him in my arms when I asked my mother if we could keep him. To my surprise, she said yes! And that is how Whiskers became part of our family. One day, much later, my grandmother, Nanny, was leaving our house when something shot out from underneath her car. It was Whiskers. At first, we thought that Whiskers just didn't like the sound of the engine. But when we called a while later, no Whiskers. We were initially unable to find our pet. Finally, upon inspection of the shrubbery around our house, I spotted something furry. Eventually, my dad was able to coax Whiskers inside the house. He still went to hide, but was somewhat slower getting there, limping along to find a spot underneath the couch. My parents discussed what to do. Whiskers was only the second act in our clowder. My dad's only experience with cats, before the Ruffy incident, were the feral ones that hung out in my grandpa's barn. So, he didn't necessarily believe in house cats to begin with. However, upon seeing Whiskers injured and hearing our pleas, Dad melted. Whiskers was whisked off to the vet. When our kitty returned, there were two diagnoses--a back leg was broken. Whiskers learned to drag the gigantic hind leg cast behind, like a crucifixion cross. But it was not to be the usual instrument of death. The second diagnosis--Whiskers was pregnant. August 21, 2020--National Senior Citizens Day
What does it mean to be a senior? In high school, it means you run the school. You have been there the longest of the student body population, so you have tales to tell. It means that everybody kowtows to you, at least the other students do. You look at the freshmen, and think how young and naive they are. In college, there is a certain expectation from others when you are a senior. Your classes are more to your liking because they are almost all in your major. In addition to that, you are also met with more mature treatment from other adults, namely professors. If you made it that far, I suppose, they feel they can treat you more as a colleague, or at least as someone who knows how to meet their expectations. I once had a professor keep one of my essay papers when I was a senior. I had made a good grade (surprise!), and he asked me if he could keep it. I graciously said yes because it did not occur to me to say no. He was my professor, after all. Why would he keep it? The answer I came up with is surprisingly egotistical. I suspected that the prof had used my ideas, made them better, and published them in his own paper. It was the only reasonable answer I could conjure. I never had to courage to really check, however. It would have involved so many complications. However, thanks to Google Scholar, I can now say with confidence that was not the case. Boy, was I off the mark, or the rails--you decide. And now I wonder, what is in store for my own senior citizenship? Will I need to purloin ideas from younger, wet behind the ears writers? Someday quite soon, I will be among those who have been here on earth the longest, but hopefully, I will still have tales to tell. August 20, 2020 National Woody Wagon Day
Grandpa bought a new car every two years, or when the warranty ended--whichever came first. Had he been alive today, he would have been a perfect candidate for leasing a car. He did not own a real Woody Wagon, which what today is about, but in the late 1970's, he purchased a station wagon with vinyl-wood trim. This trim was all the rage. My own dad would look longingly at cars that were trimmed in it, although his style of car ran more toward the foreign models than Grandpa's. Grandpa's favorite make of a car was the good old American Buick. And his was the first car I had ever seen-- and sat in-- with real leather seats. He always got all of the latest bells and whistles on his vehicles, and it felt like a privilege to ride in them. One summer, while my mom and dad worked as usual, I was kind of on my own, except Nanny would drive over every morning in the woody mobile to check on me. One day in late August, I asked her to drive me and friend to the mall so we could look around. We really had no business going to the mall on our own, but we thought we did. Furthermore, we had about four dollars between us. Even so, given encouragement by my bestie, I called Nanny up and asked her if she could take me and my friend to the mall that day. I was really expecting a firm "no," as a response. But, low and behold, she said yes. So for reasons I still cannot explain, my friend and I were driven thirty minutes away to the the nearest shopping mall by my grandmother--who surely had better things to do--and dropped off with barely enough money for two small meals. For hours, we walked that mall, admiring all the things we wanted, but couldn't afford. We bought ice-cream and soda. We sampled make-up and perfume. That year, brightly colored suede heels and tie-ups were the thing. We looked at hundreds of pairs of them because it was back to school time, and we were owed one pair of shoes for the occasion. We told each other our moms were going to bring us back and purchase our top pair. Our mothers would not justify the time or the money to purchase trendy, designer shoes. Although we instinctively knew this, that day we pretended differently. We told ourselves that we would be dressed for the new school year in all of the chichi fashions from all the chicest shops. Much too soon, our time at the mall was up, and we went to meet Nanny, who picked us up in the fresh, new wagon with wood grain vinyl siding and leather seats, and for the next thirty minutes or so, all of our school year aspirations seemed so true. August 19,2020--Soft Serve Ice Cream Day
Anna Nicole Smith and I have something in common, besides the fact that we both look fabulous. We both worked at Dairy Queen at some point in our pasts. And for that reason, I have sympathy for that girl. The job at Dairy Queen was my second job, ever. I always made the cones too big on purpose, just to see how high I could make them, each one topping its peak at heights previously unknown. Then at the end of the night shift, my friend and I would clean out the soft serve ice cream machine by letting all of the ice cream come out into a large bowl. While the stuff was draining, we put our spoons into it and had a child's dream of a working-at-an-ice-cream-factory feast. I'm sure the health department would not have approved of this method. I quit that job on a winter's afternoon by calling in sick-quit. A sick-quit is when you say you are sick, but you just never show up again. My manager was a skinny, frizzy blond haired woman who talked like cigarette. She was one smoke away from throat cancer, and her hair was one match strike away from explosion. In short, a scary woman. On the day I quit, the news reports had said an ice storm was coming and to stay home if possible. I used the weather and my fake under-the-weather to call her and say I wasn't going to make it in that night. She did not take the news well. There may have been cursing involved. When you are a teenager, these adult managers always act like you really need the job. I was a sophomore in high school. I had grown tired of coming home at 3:30 and then going out again to work at 5:30. And closing was at 11:00. It was ridiculous. I am so lucky I did not have Anna Nicole Smith's life. She probably really needed the job since she quit high school as a sophomore. Things got better for her, eventually. Before they got worse. August 18, 2020--Bad Poetry Day Today is national bad poetry day which, it turns out, is incredibly easy to write. Read mine, then have a go at one yourself. Haters Gonna Hate There once was a daily blog, Of holidays and such it logged. The writer was winsome. She wrote long and then some, Though some days, 'twas a bit of a slog. Upon August eighteenth she was glad To have a go at poetry--bad. Though she wrote through the dinsome, She confessed she had sinned (some), And had penned a few lines that were sad. Of words, she tried to use 'Tis, And as author she's a bit of a whiz. So although she did try it, 'Twas a bit of a riot. Turns out, it made her head 'dizz. Thankful she was for her readers. They pulled all the stops as cheerleaders. Though writing be hard, Don't feather and tar Because she keeps at it, in spite of the pleaders. August 17, 2020--National #2 Pencil Day
A bouquet of #2 pencils. That is perhaps the most, if not the only, romantic thing ever said about the ubiquitous #2 pencil. In the romantic comedy, "You've Got Mail," the character Joe, played by Tom Hanks, writes that he would send this thing to his e-mail pen pal, Kathleen, played by Meg Ryan. That film was made in 1998, and, here we are mid-August of 2020 and in spite of everything that is going on--schools deciding to open, not open, open if you want, open if you do not want, and so many iterations of themselves--stores are at it again. Back to school supplies are popping up everywhere. And among all the latest notebook covers and pencil cases, you will still find the iconic yellow Ticonderoga pencil. Ticonderoga is not the only #2 pencil, but it is by far the most common. It was never manufactured in Ticonderoga, New York, by the way, but the original graphite used in the pencils was mined near there. So, there's that. The number #2 in #2 pencil has to do with the hardness of the graphite. A #1 pencil is softer and therefore harder to read. There is a science to it, after all. The harder you have to bear down to write, the more problems you may have. The beginning writer may develop sore hands and/or poor handwriting. Not to mention the fact that the poor young fellows do not have the muscle strength to begin with. And then there are those pesky test forms for the older writer. As a retired school teacher, I have sent my share of test answer documents through the scan-tron machine, and I am here to tell you, there is a distinct science to that, as well. If fatigue is allowed to develop during the testing session, students will often give up altogether or make careless errors. If you have ever wondered during your schooling what the point (pun intended) of the #2 pencil was for, now you know. I wonder how many kids today might see #2 pencils on their school supply list and think it means something posted on Twitter. #2pencils #truth August 16th--National Roller Coaster Day
Click...click...click...clickety, clackety. Up and up and still further up the car clanks its ill begotten way to the top of the man-made structure. The thrill featured therein is often not the deep diving swerves that follow, but the sheer thought that we might not make it. These rickety metal cars could come undone at any minute. Perhaps slip on their tracks and race backward down into the loading area from which they were launched. And when the whole ramshackle thing actually does reach the top, we can glance for only the briefest time at the vastness of the universe. We see all eternity for only a nanosecond before we are whished downward into our earthly journey. We will surely fall out as our vehicle spins seemingly out of control; at times it appears we are in a straight free fall to our graves, only to rise back up again--but never, no--not ever, ever--reaching the height we climbed at the beginning of the passage when we had just the most fleeting glimpse of our mortality, which is all anyone is allowed. I formally was a roller coaster aficionado. I rode every single one I could find, from coast to coast. Then, gravity--or life--or age--happened. I was forty-ish when I rode a wooden roller coaster at Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. From the looks of it, it didn't seem any more or any less than others I had ridden. It may have been the track, or it may have been me, but I returned from that ride in a worse state of personal health than I started it in. It rattled me, from top to bottom, and it wasn't just my spine, which had been negatively affected. It was my psyche. I could no longer find a great purpose in riding these things. All seemed lost--my health, my bones, my youth, my zest. I came to accept these lost pieces of myself as something that time just takes. I no longer need to ride a roller coaster, but I am saving a few that I hope to ride even if they have to wheel my chair onto it and buckle it down. Those are--the coaster that flies through the New York-New York Casino in Las Vegas, if I ever get to visit there again. The coaster on the Pleasure Pier that goes out over the water in Galveston, Texas, because, you know...the water. And then, the Alpine Coaster that freely winds down the mountain at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, in Glenwood Springs, Colorado which I regretfully declined while recently visiting. There is a reason that roller coasters are meant for youth. There is point in which you no longer need to see eternity, as you come to realize you are nearer to it--much sooner than you expected. August 15,2020 National Lemon Meringue Pie Day
I developed my taste for all things lemon around my granny's round, oak kitchen table. Unlike dinners at my own home, Granny always had dessert available, often more than one choice. Commonly on the menu was lemon meringue pie. The first time I was offered this concoction, I was sitting in my usual spot on the high wooden kitchen stool at the table. Diners were just beginning to depart the table for parts unknown. Typically, I was one of the last ones to leave, as I was a notoriously slow eater. I had always eaten the German chocolate cake for dessert before, if it was offered, because that was my brother's favorite. He ate it on a regular basis, and I was on a quest to be just like him. Something about the gelatinous yellowness of the pie intrigued my sense of color. "Can I have some that?" I asked, pointing at the pie. "You mean you don't won't German chocolate cake?" "No, I want some of that--What is it?" Lemon meringue pie is a wonderful thing. The fluffy sweetness of the meringue contrasts perfectly with the heavier tartness of the filling. I fell in love with lemon meringue pie at the first bite. On my next visit to Granny's house, I was hanging around the kitchen when I watched her put something in the oven. "Hey, why are you putting whipped cream in the oven?" I asked. I had tasted an ice cream sundae before and knew my way around whipped cream. "That's not whipped cream," came the answer. I persisted. "Yes, it is." "No, it's meringue, and you bake it. It's made from eggs." And so began my first lesson on the mysteries of egg whites. Today we celebrate the luscious Lemon Meringue Pie. I have not lost my love for it and order it at restaurants whenever I can. What I would really like, however, is one more chance to dance the "meringue" around Granny's kitchen table. August 14, 2020--National Creamsicle Day Have yourself a Creamsicle ice cream pop for breakfast. You will consume the required amounts of both orange juice and milk. Or at least, that was my fantasy growing up. Today, we are a culture that caters to kids so much that you can actually purchase a 'healthy' ice pop confection at your local grocery store. Have we taken away the final vestiges of imagination? What are kids supposed do now while sucking down their turmeric infested frozen yogurt bars? Certainly not fantasize about a popsicle for breakfast like I did while choking down plain Cheerios with no sugar or banana. Remember when the Popsicle brand, noted on its package with the iconic blue and red modern, geographic label encircled in red dots, was considered a luxury item and not something moms and dads bought from the grocery store on a regular basis--at least not in my neighborhood. If you visited a friend and they pulled out a Popsicle frozen ice pop from their freezer, you knew you were among the elite. Today we celebrate the delicious frozen orange juice on the outside with vanilla ice cream on the inside Creamsicle bar. Who doesn't like a Creamsicle? This ice cream delicacy is said to have been invented by an eleven year old boy in 1905. Frank Epperson either invented the Popsicle or the Creamsicle, or both. By 1923, he was selling the frozen confection on Neptune beach in Florida, and a new summer tradition was born. He later re-branded his treats "Popsicle" at his children's request, however, in 1989 Good Humor bought him out and now holds the patent to the tasty treat we celebrate. There are all kinds of recipes for homemade Creamsicles. However, I don't think I would attempt one. I have tried my hand at just plain old homemade popsicles before, and the effort is not worth the results. I even own a Zoku homemade popsicle maker which turns out to be more trouble than it merits. By my last inventory, I believe I pawned this contraption off to daughter to take to college. I told her she could make wine pops out of it, but to this date and upon my query, she has never used it. I would rather drink my Creamsicle in the form of a cocktail these days (recipes available on Pinterest), but once upon a time, I preferred it on a stick. It was my personal favorite Popsicle of choice when given one. Something that we used to do during the summer months when I was a kid was to ride our banana seat bicycles to the convenience store and purchase whatever treats we could afford. Often it was penny candy, as much as we had change for. But if we had a full ten cents, we could get a frozen Popsicle treat, and I always bought a Creamsicle. August 13, 2020 International Left Hander's Day Much like the famous quotation about women, "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, she just did it backwards and in high heels," we left handers do everything that right handers do, we just have to do it backwards. High heels are optional. I have smudged my hand with ink until it was in danger of turning blue. I have written in notebooks backwards, used scissors awkwardly, and turned my clipboard upside down in order to write on it. My fingers always develop a callous after a long essay exam. And just forget about writing on a classroom chalkboard while teaching. It cannot be done. The worst thing a teacher can do while teaching in front of students, no matter what their age, is turn her back on them. It is a cardinal sin. If she is left handed however, she has no choice but to do so to write something on the board. I have lost control of a Sunday school class of church goers by turning my back on them. Middle schoolers and high schoolers require such gymnastics to write on the board at such a juncture that I usually reverted to asking a student to scribe on the board for me--a system that is wrought with its own set of problems. And when my school district installed the new and popular interactive smart or active boards in every classroom, they did not consult with me about which side the dashboard of this contraption should go on. And to do this, they had to install extra electric outlets. They told me they had to make the shortest route to the rest of the outlets. Maybe so, but that does not stop me from dreaming. I have a dream today.* I dream of a time when companies and corporations take into consideration the handedness of their employees. The left-handed person is not free and has never been free. Hundreds of years after being accused of consorting with the devil, the left handed person is still sadly crippled by the manacles of right handed technology and the chains of prestidigitation. Hundreds of years later, the left handed teacher still languishes in the corners of a right handed society and finds herself in exile in her own classroom. But let me not wallow in the valley of despair. I have a dream today that someday the right handers of the world will be laid low. The needs of the left handers of the world will be made plain. And when this happens, when we allow left handed instructors to take their rightful place at the front of every classroom standing to the right side of their blackboard and not the left, then every child--EVERY CHILD--will be able to see the writing on the wall and will not be judged by the content of their character, but only on how copious are their notes. *King, Dr. Martin Luther, Jr. "I Have a Dream,"delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. August 12, 2020--IBM PC Day
My dad was a company man when that phrase actually meant something. International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM, in the late 60's and early 70's belonged to families. There was always a large company picnic in the spring, and at Christmas, a family/company party where every kid got a gift. While Dad worked there, he was a member of the parts department, and often worked the night shift. And Mom would frequently take my brother and me to visit. An office building is a quiet and strange place to be at night. And the IBM building of the 1960's in Houston, Texas encapsulated all the newness of that era. Both inside and out, there was a preponderance of stone--marble and granite to indicate, I suppose, the strength of the firm's structure. Inside the giant lobby were marble stairs enclosed in a large window laden box, leading down to the basement where Dad was located. There was a very wide marble hallway of shiny elevators that we always took only one way--down. And then we arrived at the parts department. Underneath that building located at the corner of Holcombe Blvd. and Fannin St. were miles and miles of computer parts. And they were strewn in bins arranged in rows. It was a kid's playground, perfectly suited for a game of chase or hide-and-go-seek, which my brother and I played while our parents talked. Once, my brother quit the game on me, so I began to explore on my own. I wandered more and more off course and away from my parents, taking numerous turns and twists. I could always hear my mom and dad talking, however, so I knew I could find my way back. As I continued my exploration, I soon discovered that I could no longer hear anyone talking. I turned to go back, but which way was back? In every direction, there stretched aisles of computer parts that were so long I couldn't see to the end. Clearly I was lost, surrounded by cartons of gadgets and gizmos that I did not understand and would be of no current help to me. I did not know what to do. Should I stay still and wait for someone to find me? I did not even know if they realized I was missing. I hesitated, then made of decision. The god of IBM whispered to me that forward was the only way to go. The place was a maze filled with pieces of devices that would fill Aladdin's cave of wonders. After a long time of winding through mostly long and a few short rows, I finally heard my mother's voice, "Where is your sister?" she firmly asked my brother. "Back here!" I yelled. I felt rescued, purely based on sound. She helped me find my way back through a primitive voice control system. "Where are you?" "Over Here!" We spent awhile doing this until I found my way out. Then I was told to stay where they could hear me. After so many years of getting told to not talk when adults were talking, they now wanted to hear me not talk. A long human time later, but a short business time later, IBM moved their offices to the north of the city in an up and coming suburb. Mom refused to move that far away from our neighborhood, and Dad refused to drive an hour or more each way to work, so he quit the company. And from there, he made a series of career starts and stops that led to his personal financial crisis and their marital downfall. But not so for IBM, at least not yet. In 1981, IBM marketed the first personal computer which is what we celebrate today. The personal computer is based on a system--which is what I would like to celebrate. Today I remember, honor, and celebrate the safe systems of my childhood that were not meant to break or fall apart--companies and marriages that are strong enough to last and remain in place like those marble stairs that we were not allowed to climb. August 11, 2020-Play in the Sand Day
In the 1960's a sand pile dumped on someone's driveway meant that soon a yard of St. Augustine grass would be planted. And all the little kids on the block would flock to the home with the pile of sand, flooding it with small cars, boats, and trains. Cities were created and mansions built, lived in, and demolished for a newer, modern style. More generous dads would allow this construction to go on for a few days. Dads with less time on their hands ended it almost as soon as it started. Once, while staying at my grandmother's house, the family across the street had such a pile of sand delivered. The boy who lived there invited my brother over to play plastic toy soldiers in it. I tagged along behind, as usual. The boy, Jamie, provided all the soldiers who got set up into battle lines in the sand. He showed us his favorite toy soldier, a green beret who was missing his legs. We made up a story that this soldier had lost both of his legs in the war. Then, my brother and Jamie began to play, removing the soldiers one by one as they died on the battlefield. Soon a pile of dead army men collected near my lap. I decided that as more and more of them got shot down, I should make a cemetery for the fallen men. The boys were not approving of my suggestion to do so, but I quietly began my process anyway. I created rows and rows of small graves of dead soldiers. Jamie told me not bury the legless guy, but I talked him out of it by saying that I would mark his grave with a flower. He reluctantly agreed and the play continued. I made legless guy the biggest grave of all. After a while, Nanny, my grandma, came out of her house and called my brother and me home for lunch. We didn't want to leave, but then Jamie said that it was not fair for us to leave him with all of his soldiers to clean up. We began to help him gather them up. Out they came from their graves like some Land of the Giants resurrection day. We were all but done when Jamie asked for the legless guy. I had made a big grave for him, but as I scattered sand in all directions, I could not find him. Of course Jamie accused me of hiding him to keep. I stood up, tears stinging my eyes. "I don't have your stupid old soldier!" I cried. He called me a crook. My brother told me to hand it over. "I don't have it!" I yelled. My brother must have sensed I spoke the truth. "Let's dig some more," he said. We all dug in the spot allocated to the legless one, sand flying to the four winds. There was nothing. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. I wondered if missing limbs could speed up the decomposition process. By then Jamie was screaming, my brother was tired of trying to placate both parties, I was hysterical, and Nanny was crossing the street--fit to be tied. With an adult on the premises, we all sobered up. We were all admonished, told to hush, and two of us marched unceremoniously home. The next day, my brother told me that he was going over to Jamie's house to play soldiers and that I was NOT coming with him. Those were the agreed upon terms after a peace treaty was made at Nanny's house the day before. But in the fresh light of a new day, it didn't seem fair. I cried to Nanny who consoled me by letting me bake cookies with her. Soon enough Jamie's sand pile was a thing of the past, as it became lawn growth fertilizer. However, something good came out this experience after all. Grandpa told us he was going to put a real sand box in his back yard for my brother and me to play in. What? No, seriously, what? We were aghast. No one had ever told us that sand boxes were a thing made for children to play in. What was this brave, new world where adults created play structures intended for kids? What was next? Advertising on television targeted at children? August 10, 2020--Smithsonian Day Last May, I was able to meet my oldest relative, and it was not through Ancestry.com. No DNA test was necessary. All I did was wander into the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins inside the National Museum of National History in Washington, D.C., and voila. There they have a machine that will take your photograph, and then edit it to look like one of your ancestors. You even get to choose the time period. I chose Homo Floresiensis, and here I am. During this period, humans discovered how to control growth and the breeding of animals which led to farming and herding, although they were still humans of very little brain. That does sound like me. I wonder what kind of life this relative lived. Remains of the homo floresiensis have been found in a cave in Indonesia. Was it a three bedroom, two bath cave? Did they have a man cave inside their cave? Theses early humans are thought to be hobbit like, due to small stature. I imagine my ancient relative cleaning up the cave and cooking small animals for her offspring. They are said to have created tools. Did her offspring borrow the tools and not put them back where they belonged? Did her youngest offspring often want her cooking tools to play with as toys? Would she find said tool lying about in odd places? Did she allow the offspring to draw on the walls of the cave? Did she keep primitive crayons sharpened for just such purposes? While politicians would have us believe that Washington, D.C. is a perpetual quagmire to be avoided at all costs, I am here to tell you differently. I have visited the beautiful city three times in my adult life, and each time I swore I was coming back to stay longer and tour all the city has to offer. Today is Smithsonian Day, and the Smithsonian Museums, which are all free admittance by the way, is a set of museums in a city completely full of them. I know traveling today to Washington is a sad, fruitless endeavor. The Smithsonian Museum remains closed due to the Covid 19 Pandemic, as probably all museums do. On this day of discovery, let us remember to keep our hearts and futures open as we plan our next vacation. I know a great place to stay. #Fairmont August 9, 2020--Spirit of '45 Day I am a reluctant dance mom. When Daughter was small, she told me she wanted to be on the stage when she grew up. She is now mostly grown up and has chosen a different career to study at school, but Mr. Keeperofthezoo and I spent the better part of her childhood willingly ferrying her to various rehearsals, recitals, and contests. However, I am a reluctant dance mom due to the television program, Dance Moms, which portrayed all dance moms as ambitious and stagy. All a good dance mom needs to do is provide support and get her girl to all events on time, well-rested, and with plenty of energy. The well-rested and plenty of energy part is for the mom, not the girl. (I have seen my dancer swing through dance numbers on injured feet and toes, not to mention the full recital she muscled through with a broken arm.) Dancers do not need rest and energy as they are used to doing without, but a mother must not admit this. I am a reluctant dance mom because I always thought the dance teacher's rules and instructions should be obeyed. Dance Moms always shows moms bucking this idea. Those dance moms need a healthy dose of the Spirit of '45 which is today's national holiday. In 2010, United States Congress enacted the "Spirit of '45 Day" to ensure that future generations would continue to be inspired by the World War II generation's can-do attitude. The "Spirit of '45" embodies three tenets; community service, sacrifice, and national unity. The girl in the picture above is Daughter in 2016 getting ready for a dance number called, "Rosie, the Riveter," that embodies the Spirit of '45. Today, we are all experiencing a rejuvenation of the Spirit of '45 by each of us doing our own small part to get through our current crises. So like a good, albeit, reluctant dance mom, if you are wearing a face mask while out in public, you are serving your community. If you are social distancing, you are sharing in your sacrifice. We are all helping create national unity during this pandemic experience. And as long as we keep the can-do attitude, we will get past it. August 8, 2020--National Garage Sale Day*
A few years ago when our daughter moved to her second college apartment, Mr. Keeperofthezoo and I were there to assist. While he and our son, Muscles Malone, were in the zone--lifting and shuffling boxes from her current apartment to the back of our mini van--I naturally carried out the lightest boxes I could find. It was August in Texas. And this was the third straight year we had moved this child to a different accommodation. (Colleges, why don't you have enough dorms?) On my way back inside from one of my trips to the van, I took a circuitous route to hide/give myself a little break. I stumbled past a garbage dumpster. It was the end of summer term and this college town showed the mess. Littered with boxes and trash bags and odd pieces of broken furniture, I almost passed this dumpster treasure trove by. When what to wandering eye should appear? Nothing but a large wooden piece of furniture behind some boxes. I stepped up closer, to have a look. Was that cherry wood? Was it a credenza? My heart began to pound as I slowly examined it. I tried to gently move it. My, god, that thing was heavy. It must be solid wood. I won't say I ran back to the apartment to tell Mr. Keeperofthezoo about my find, but I definitely walked fast. Mr. Keeperofthezoo was not put off by my plea when I showed him the piece a few minutes later--true proof that it was a find. We got to the point of lifting it into the mini van. It fit fine if we turned it diagonally. Fortunately, we were at the tail-end of moving day and only had a few boxes left. So to Daughter's new place we went in our van which I dubbed, "The Black Pearl," since her hull was full of new found loot. As we unloaded her stuff, I warned everyone not to let the credenza get scratched. Just before dusk, we had one more trip to make, so off we went to Lowe's to purchase a promised dryer for Daughter and her roommate. We bought the cheapest one available and then tried to put it in the van along side the credenza. To make this arrangement work, the credenza first had to be removed, then the dryer inserted, and when that didn't work, we had to figure out what to do next. A brief discussion was held about leaving one us (me) in the Lowe's parking lot to guard the credenza while the dryer was escorted back to the apartment. I quickly dismissed this idea. Mr. Keeper of the Zoo and Muscles Malone removed the dryer, lifted the credenza back again, lifted the dryer again, and on and on until they found a configuration that worked. The only problem was that they also had to fold down all the seats which gave Daughter and Muscles no where to sit. They squeezed in the hull of our buccaneer ship/mini van at whatever angles they could find, and once again the Black Pearl was on its way, full of both purchased cargo and booty. And that is how we rolled. We garage sale shoppers are pirates, hunting for the latest treasure. The garage sale can be just that. But better than a garage sale is finding a treasure for free. *This illustration is Daughter folded into the cubby hole at the back of the van. Where Muscles Malone ended up is anybody's guess. July 7, 2020--Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day
We are a society of over-packaging. On this day of Particularly Preposterous Packaging, I must admit to purchasing the worst product of over-packaging known to man. And that would be a few ounces of real food in a 2.7 ounce package. These items are so popular that I had to make a deal with my kids when they were in elementary school. They got to bring an Oscar Meyer Lunchable in their lunch box every Friday. And I benefited from this deal as they were incredibly easy to pack. Then one day, frugality got the better of me, and I made a homemade lunchable with an old divided Tupperware container. I was quickly told to not pack a homemade lunchable anymore. Until one day, lacking proper grocery shopping planning for the week, I had no choice. I had not purchased the coveted items by Thursday night. So, I persisted with my homemade lunchable one more time. That morning, I happened to be in the school hallway outside my daughter's preschool classroom, as it was also my place of employment (kudos to me). I heard my daughter say with some resignation as she opened her lunch box, "A homemade Lunchable." It stopped me in my tracks. Were the other four-year-olds actually going to say something about this lunch bucket faux pas? And then her teacher, a dear friend of mine, said, "Oh, I just love homemade Lunchables. They're my favorite kind." And just like that, without actually stepping inside the classroom, I could feel the tension ease. Soon after this incident, Pinterest was born, and moms started posting their child's Bento Box lunch for any number of inexplicable reasons. I was officially out at that point, as daughter had moved up a few grades and was no longer eating in the classroom. Buying her lunch from the school cafeteria lunch line was in. Bringing it from home--so yesterday. |
AuthorKaren Schwabenland--Keeper of a daily blog of written matter, reporter of events large and small, and charlatan extraordinaire Archives
September 2022
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