Plans for the Future

I should like to say that I really do feel bad when my postings on this here blog thing are as sparse as they have been lately. This has recently been due in part to our being out of town a lot, but even when I am home sitting at my computer, there are times when I just can’t think of anything to write about. I considered calling it quits altogether, but my most loyal reader (that would be my wife) convinced me that infrequent postings were better than none.

Then in my travels around the Internet this morning, I came across "Elizabeth Kauwell’s Blog" in which the titular blogger has posted a handful of term papers she wrote in high school (specifically for Mr. Weinberg's fourth-hour English class).

Why didn't I ever think of that? I have every term paper I ever wrote in my ten years of college, and even one or two from high school. I'm sitting on a veritable treasure trove of blog postings.

Since all the old papers were typewritten, I'll have to scan them and then do some serious formatting, especially for those with illustrations, but once they're ready, all I have to do when I come down with a case of blogger’s block is pop one in.

I cannot guarantee all of them are going to appeal to the general reader, but anybody who is game for an in-depth analysis of the first movement of Anton Webern’s String Trio, Op. 20, is in for a real treat.

On the Rocks

We got lucky during the recent ice storm that knocked out power for half a million people in the U.S. and Canada. We were in Indiana where it just rained, and the power was out only about 12 hours at our house, according to our neighbor.

I heard on the radio this morning that there are still over 3,000 homes and businesses in this area that are still in the dark, eight days later.  They also said that Lansing's Board of Water and Light has announced that those customers still without power should check out the "Outage Street List" on their website (lbwl.com) and add their address if it's not already listed.

One presumes this is after they carry their computer, tablet or smart phone to a place where they can plug it in and turn it on.

Recipe to follow....

Like I said, my Aunt Mae was a very good cook, and a good story teller too. There is one story of hers I have always enjoyed retelling.

She and Uncle Bob were entertaining another couple for dinner. I don't know what Aunt Mae served exactly, but it involved roasted meat and potatoes and gravy. The man absolutely raved about the gravy all through the meal, and after dinner when the men were sitting around and the women were cleaning up the kitchen, the wife said to my aunt, "You have to tell me how you made that gravy. My husband hates my gravy.  He says it tastes like flour and water."

Aunt Mae didn't think there was anything special about it, but, willing to help, she asked the woman to describe how she went about making gravy.

"Well, I melt a little butter, and then stir in flour and water, and salt and pepper..."

"Wait a minute," Aunt Mae said to her.  "What about the drippings from the meat?"

"Oh," the woman replied dismissively, "I throw that away!"

Aunt Mae, bless her heart, just smiled sweetly at her and said, "Well, I think we might just have figured it out."

Who knew?

I spent a good part of my youth and childhood proclaiming to hate lasagna. Seriously? Pasta, ground meat, cheese, tomato sauce -- what's not to like?

But this stemmed from my first experience with the dish when I was about twelve years old. My Aunt Mae had served it -- well, she served something she called lasagna -- and it was dreadful.  I cannot now even imagine what she did to it, but because she was a good cook, I just assumed that's what lasagna was, and I avoided it steadfastly thereafter.

About twenty years later, I was served lasagna again as a guest at someone's house, and I believed it was incumbent upon me to take a deep breath and try to choke some of it down.  And, of course, it was delicious. I wish I knew where Aunt Mae had gone wrong.

You would think that taught me a lesson and I now try everything twice.  No.  I've only had beef brains once, and I won't be doing that again.  Actually, Aunt Mae made that too.  Hmm.

It's the truth

I recently heard someone say that I was the most honest person they knew. Well, that's nice, and it might be true, but it's not because of some overpowering sense of honor or principle. It's just that I have a hard time not saying exactly what I think, which can be torture for me sometimes. Like when somebody walks into a room wearing something perfectly hideous and says, "How do I look?"

But honesty can be fun too. Long ago I worked for a head hunter in what was called a one-girl office, just me and the boss. For some reason, it took two or three phone calls to make an appointment for one guy, and he flirted with me every time we talked on the phone. He kept asking me to go out with him after his appointment with my boss, which I wanted no part of.

At one point he asked me what I looked like. "You sound tall," he said. "Are you tall?" I replied, "No, as a matter of fact, I'm short and fat and wear real thick glasses."  He laughed hysterically and told me I was adorable.

When he walked into the office on the appointed day and saw that I was exactly as I had described myself, it was my turn to laugh at the look on his face, the pompous ass.

Roses are Green and White, Ohio State is Blue

Sometime in the late 1980's I saw a really cool shirt on the clearance rack at T. J. Maxx. It was heavy cotton, maroon in color, and had three-quarter raglan sleeves. There were also three letters, USC, in yellow on the front, but I didn't care. It was a really cool shirt, and it was only $3.

I loved that shirt and wore it a lot.  In fact, I was wearing it a week or so before Christmas in 1987 while doing my holiday shopping at a local mall here in Mid-Michigan. I had my coat open, of course, since it was warm in there, and even though I was doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary to call attention to myself, I noticed that people I passed were giving me the hairy eyeball. Some looked downright hostile, and I was starting to get rather paranoid.

An idea struck me on the way home, and when I got there, I said to my partner, "Who is Michigan State playing in the Rose Bowl?"

"I think Southern Cal," replied she.

Oops.

Michigan State won that game 20 to 17. In a little over three weeks from now, they will go back to the Rose Bowl for the first time since, having soundly beaten Ohio State last night in the Big Ten Championship game. I am in the market for a Stanford shirt to wear to the mall. After all, as they say in the beer commercials, it's not weird unless it doesn't work.

Go State.

Good Food

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, never my favorite holiday, for a number of reasons. Because of that, I really do not have a lot of memories, happy or otherwise, associated with the holiday, but I do remember one particular Thanksgiving in the late 1960's. The big family Thanksgiving dinner for grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins was to be at our house that year.

My mother planned for two weeks, prepped for one, and cooked for three days. She produced a traditional Thanksgiving feast that was a monument to her skills as cook and hostess. There were many sincere exclamations:  "Oh, Betty! The [turkey/dressing/mashed potatoes/gravy/green bean casserole/dinner rolls/cranberry sauce] is [delicious/fabulous/spectacular]!" But it was Aunt Blanche who stopped the show when she was heard to say, almost as if to herself, "Man, these olives are good."

Aunt Blanche loves green olives, and it was clear that she was thankful my mother had gone to the trouble of opening a jar and putting some on the relish tray.

Date and Time

It's 11/12/13, but that's all I have to say about it.

It snowed yesterday, our first snow of the season, although it left barely a quarter inch of it on the ground.

Another first snow I remember occurred when I was in college in Wisconsin many years ago.  We woke up one November morning to find three inches on the ground, and it was still coming down hard.

When I left the dorm that morning for my first class, I saw a girl who lived across the hall from me out on the lawn in front of the building, no coat or hat or gloves or boots. She was laughing and dancing and twirling, her arms outstretched and her head thrown back to feel the flakes land on her face. She was from Hawaii, and it was the first time she had ever seen snow fall from the sky.

I feel obliged to report that after another three weeks of Wisconsin winter, her delight in seeing snow had pretty much disappeared.

On the face of it

We had lunch out at a local restaurant yesterday, and I became quite fascinated by a group of women at a nearby table. There were nine of them, and the youngest of them was at least 65, and some appeared much older. There was no apparent guest of honor, and I got the idea they go out to lunch together somewhat regularly. I would like to have known how they all knew each other.

Seeing them all together reminded me a story about my grandmother when she was of an age to fit in with that group. She had agreed to watch a neighbor's child after school until her mother came home from work. One afternoon the girl, who was about seven or eight, arrived to find my grandmother getting ready for a little get-together for three or four of her friends. She explained that "the girls" were coming for coffee.

After the last guest had gone, the little girl asked, "So when are the girls coming?"  My grandmother replied, "Those were the girls," to which the kid responded, "But they all had grandma faces."

No Place Like It

When we travel, we realize we are trading the comforts and conveniences of our home and our way of living there for the excitement of seeing and experiencing new things. But I will tell you that after our recent driving trip to the West and Southwest, I can pinpoint exactly what I missed most about home.

We were on the road for 31 days, and our accommodations (not counting a few nights' respite with relatives) ranged in price from $54 to $230 a night (that would be California) and included motels (one each Travelodge and Super 8) and hotels (Hiltons, casino hotels), a bunch of Holiday Inns/Expresses, and one very lovely Candlewood Suite. Some were shabby, some were brand new, all were basically clean (probably), but they all had one thing in common that frustrated and disappointed me at the most fundamental personal level: cheap-ass plastic toilet seats and cheap-ass toilet paper.

I shall not elucidate. But it is good to be home.

My Kind of Celebration

Instead of a party for her retirement this summer, my partner wanted to take a celebratory trip to the Grand Canyon.  We left in the middle of September, traveling by car to the West and Southwest and became avid seers of sights.  There are so many absolutely magnificent things to see in this country.

Of course, by the time we got to the Grand Canyon, the juvenile delinquents who are representing us in Congress had shut down all the national parks, so we couldn't get in.  Never got near it.

As for me, I had always wanted to visit Reno, but we unwittingly arrived on the weekend they were hosting “Street Vibrations” there.  Thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists descended on the area like locusts who choked the life out of everything with their leather and their noise and their gang colors and their endless parade of motorcycles.  I never even got to see Downtown Reno.

We went to Boulder City.  The park that provides the most beautiful scenic view of Lake Mead was closed too, but some of the lake is visible from the road, and we did get to drive across the Hoover Dam.

Before we left for our trip, I gathered 10 dollars in quarters and 50 cents in copper (pre-1982) pennies so that I would be able to avail myself of those machines that squish pennies into souvenirs, to add to my collection.  In the 31 days we were gone, we saw only one such machine, in New Mexico, and it was out of order.

Could we surmise this trip was something of a disappointment?  Well, only here and there.  After all, I did get to see my great (or grand) nephews in Kansas City.  I also gambled in 16 different casinos, visited 4 states I’d never been to before, added 8 state capitols to my collection, and saw enough breathtakingly beautiful scenery to last me a lifetime.  Oh, and there was one other thing.

On the beach at Pacifica, California, on October 1, with the ocean waves crashing into the rocks behind us, the Rev. Terri J. Echelbarger, pastor of the Peninsula Metropolitan Community Church in San Mateo, performed a simple ceremony which she concluded by saying, “By virtue of the authority vested in me by God, the Metropolitan Community Church, and the State of California, I now pronounce you spouses for life.”

I didn't get to see the Grand Canyon, but I did get to marry, legally, the woman with whom I have shared my love and my life for the past 27 years.  Altogether, I’d say that made for a pretty good vacation.

Very grand and great they are too

I referred to my niece's son as my great nephew, and someone suggested that was wrong and that I should call him my grand nephew.  The argument presented was that the grand child of my brother should be my grand nephew.

Well, okay, but the sister of my grand mother is my great aunt, isn't she?  So there.

Stupid is as ...

Something I heard today reminded me that we all do things that are useless from time to time. There are two incidents in my life that I consider prime examples.

One occurred in 1965 when I was in college. I was having trouble with an assignment for my 8:00 o'clock class the next morning and stayed up until nearly 2:00 in the morning getting it done. When my alarm went off at 7:15 in the morning, I turned it off, turned over, and went back to sleep.  I might as well not have bothered.

The other one was about 20 years later. I had finished doing my wash at a coin-operated laundry, except for one item. I pumped at least four more  dimes into a dryer trying to get the bath mat dry when it finally dawned on me that the bath mat spends most of its life damp, hanging over the shower curtain rod. Duh.

Midwest of What?

The Food Network has a new show called "Heartland Table" hosted by one Amy Thielen of whom I have never heard.  She's a native of Minnesota, and, according to their web site, she will be "celebrating all things Midwest" and sharing "rustic recipes from inside her log cabin."

Well, cool.  Today's premier episode was all about making things with butter -- so much butter, in fact, that one wonders if she is channeling Paula Deen. There was a blueberry-lemon pie with a butter crust and new potatoes with grilled onion butter. Well, okay.

The final dish, however, really brought it home.  Nothing spells rustic Minnesota log cabin more than collard greens with traditional Ethiopian spices.

Dangerous Associations

My mother had a job at a manufacturing company for a few years, working in the blue print room. Now and then as she left at the end of the day, she could not restrain herself from saying wistfully as she went out the door, "Good night, sweet prints."

Meanwhile, she was having trouble remembering the name of one of the senior engineers, a man named Basset, who often came there himself to order the printing of the blue prints he required. Since he was an important guy, she wanted to be able to greet him by name.  One day while he waited for his blue prints, they got to chatting, and he mentioned having a dog. That gave her an idea: whenever she saw him, she would remember he had a dog, and that would make her think of a Basset Hound, and that's how she'd remember his name.

It worked great. The next time he came to the print room, she flashed him her biggest smile and said cheerfully and confidently, "Good morning, Mr. Beagle!"

Tennis, anyone?

I’ve been watching a lot of the U. S. Open Tennis tournament on television in the last week or so. While watching yesterday’s women’s semifinal between Azarenka and Pennetta, I got to wondering if it was possible for a tennis fan to identify the player(s) without looking -- just by listening to the tone, pitch, length, and intensity of the grunt or gasp or squeal or, in Azarenka's case, shriek that they emit every time they hit the ball.

When I learned to play tennis in the summer of 1959, nobody mentioned making noise on every shot.

Of course, things were different in those days. Rackets were wood, balls were white, and nobody used more than one hand to swing the racket. Players always took two balls to the service line, since you get two chances to get a good serve in. You held both in your free hand, tossing one up for the first serve. If it went in, you carried the other ball throughout the play of the point.

After the two-handed backhand became popular, players had to have both hands free, and that’s when the men started putting the second ball in their pockets. The women came up with this thing where they tuck the ball up under their little short tennis skirts, which makes them look like they have a tennis-ball-size growth on their hips.

Can’t somebody design a tennis dress with a pocket on the outside?

Where are our manners?

I admit I'm short, but I am also wide, and there's no way you're going to miss me coming.

So, how is it that when I go into a grocery store, I am suddenly invisible? People come within an inch of mowing me down with their shopping carts. They cut me off. They rush around to get in front of me and then come to a screeching halt, blocking my path. When they're standing still talking on their cell phones, it's right in front of the shelf that contains what I'm looking for.

My all-time favorite maneuver, however, is performed by the young mother of two who is carrying one kid in her arms and dragging the other by the hand. When she comes into the store, she pulls a cart from the line and then stands right there, blocking everybody else's access to the carts, while she attempts to put the kid with the flailing rubber legs into the cart's seat and then hoist the other kid into the basket.

She has just carried and dragged those two kids all the way from the parking lot -- can't she take a cart and then walk another ten feet to get out of the way before she loads them into the basket? Well? Can't she?

Grocery shoppers act like they are the only person in the store.  And I always wish I actually was.

Just lucky, and that's all

I hurt my knees -- the right one playing baseball and the left one playing football -- before I was in my teens. My Grandma Knez had arthritis in her knees, and there is a picture burned on my brain of her sitting in a chair rubbing her knees because they hurt her so bad.  Whenever I saw her doing that, I would think, "That's going to be me some day." I'm happy to report that, despite further injuries over the last 55 years or so, my knees are still serviceable, probably more than I might expect considering how many extra pounds they have had to carry around.  The same can be said for my hips (knock wood).  The shoulders are another matter.

And I just spent more than two hours folding paper (origami tchotchkes for my friends), and it occurred to me how lucky I am to be this old and have complete and pain-free use of my hands and fingers.

A while back I was catching up with somebody I went to high school with and hadn't seen since.  When I mentioned that in addition to back surgeries and broken bones, I've survived breast cancer and a heart attack, she responded, "Wow, you're a tough old broad, aren't you?"

Yes, I am.

My recently retired partner, who is today an official 65-year-old senior citizen on social security, has been through a bunch of ringers herself but is in pretty good shape for the shape she's in, and I can guarantee her that never having to go to work ever again has a way of making  little aches and pains quite inconsequential.

I think we're both lucky just to have these golden retirement years; spending them together is a bonus.

Happy birthday, JB, from one tough old broad to another.

The Owl and the Pussycat, or the Chihuahua

This morning my tiny dog was standing in my lap, her body and front legs stretched up against me, and as she looked up at me, and I suddenly wanted to play Owley Eyes with her. It's a game I played as a tot.

It takes two people to play Owley Eyes. (I used play it with my favorite aunt.) Here's how it goes:  you and the other person come face to face, literally -- foreheads and noses touching. Then you both close your eyes, and after a suspenseful second or two, one of you says, "Open," and then you both open your eyes at the exact same instant while also saying, "Hoooo!" like an owl. What you see before you looks for all the world like a cross-eyed owl. No, really. It really does. It did when I was three years old, anyway, so I'm sure it still does.

Anyway, just  at that moment this morning, I wanted to play Owley Eyes with my tiny dog, but her eyes are so close together, owing to how tiny her head is, that it just didn't work.

Boo Hoooo.

A day late and a buck short

Today I intended to post the official rules for Cribbage Solitaire, a card game I invented.  If you go to Wikipedia, however, and look up Cribbage Solitaire, it will give you the rules exactly as I devised them, but written by somebody else.

This has happened to me before. I once designed a very nifty new kind of trailer hitch, except that when I showed it to somebody they told me farmers have been using hitches like that for centuries.  I also invented the first skate board, way back in the '50's, by taking an old roller skate apart and nailing the front wheels to one end of a two-by-four and the back wheels to the other end.  Too bad I didn't market it.

At least I know a good idea when I see it.

Where there's smoke ...

One rather gray autumn afternoon when I was about eight years old, some of us kids were hanging around the vacant lot next to Chuckie Larson’s house on the next street over.  This empty space was our baseball diamond and football field and general hanging-out place.  On this particular day, someone decided it would be fun to make a bonfire.

I joined in with the others, roaming the neighborhood looking for flammable objects to add to the fire.  I got my hands and my clothes rather sooty from the ashes, but I was having a great time, even though down deep I had the nagging suspicion that playing with fire was something I probably shouldn’t be doing.

At one point I looked up and, to my horror, saw our 1951 Oldsmobile 88 coming down the street with my mother at the wheel.  I ran to meet her, mostly to divert her attention.  She told me to get in the car – she had to go to the store and wanted me to go with her, since there was nobody at home.

Realizing what a mess I was, I opened the back door and climbed in.  “Why are you getting in the back?” she wanted to know.  My brother and I used to fight to see who got to ride in the front seat and never voluntarily got into the back.  I said, “Oh, I’ve decided it’s way more fun back here,” or something equally inane.  Used to inexplicable juvenile logic, she just shrugged.

We hadn't gone half a block before my mother said, “Do you smell something burning?”  Afraid she was smelling the smoke from my clothes, I replied innocently and emphatically, "No!"

It was then that I looked down and saw that my pant leg was on fire.

And today is Thursday

Yesterday I complained that with my newly-retired partner not going to work five days a week, I'd have trouble remembering what day it is.  I thought of several things that might be helpful -- checking the calendar in my computer each morning, for instance.  Then when preparing for bed last night, I realized that I have the ideal solution already in place.

In my drawer in the bathroom vanity there are not one but two handy weekly calendars that I see every day.  They are long, narrow plastic boxes divided into seven small compartments that say S M T W T F S on their lids, and as long as I remember to take my pills from the light blue one every morning and the dark blue one every night before going to bed, fill them up regularly every Sunday morning, and not miss a dose, I will always be able to tell what day it is.

All of life's little worries should be so easy to allay.

Old Dog Addled by New Tricks

The layout of this here blog thing is all screwed up when viewed by my Internet Explorer, and it looks like I'm going to have to use Google Chrome. There are other things that really demand it too, but I don't like Google Chrome, and I am going to pout about it. It isn't comfy, and I have never leaped gleefully into new technology, or new anything, for that matter. At work in 1993 they dragged me kicking and screaming into Windows 3.1. I didn't want to leave DOS.  I still occasionally go to the command prompt to deal with files when I need to do something you can't do in Windows.

And speaking of learning new tricks, I sent my partner off this morning to her last day of work, ever. She is now officially a senior citizen on social security just like me, and she will learn, as I have over the last two and a half years, that the most exquisite benefit of being retired is never again having to get up in the morning and go to work.

With both of us retired, one possible difficulty will be remembering what day it is. While she was still working, I could keep track of the week's progress, but now there will be no reference point to reckon the days. Like the Dowager Countess of Grantham, we won't know what a weekend is.

And it will be sublime.

Congratulations, JB!

Sing a Song of Something Else

I was about 11 years old when I discovered for myself a basic truth of popular songs.  I had been sitting on the couch in our living room for quite a long time, listening to the songs playing on the radio in the kitchen when I suddenly popped up, dashed into the kitchen and announced to my mother, who was preparing supper, "All songs are about love."  She agreed with me.

I love you, you love me, I love you, you don't love me, thought I lost you, 'fraid I will, you love somebody else, I'll never love another, I want to hold your hand.  The number of popular songs with a love theme is so overwhelmingly large that there is a special category for songs not about love, the "novelty" song:  Doggie in the Window, Purple People Eaters, Monster Mash.

There are a some other categories that have or have had their day, of course -- Christmas songs, old folk songs, plus the folk songs of protest, and songs that musicals need to move the story along -- My Favorite Things, Whistle a Happy Tune, O, What a Beautiful Mornin'.

I'm noticing something here.  Of the tunes I've mentioned, the most recent is from 1963.  I guess that's to be expected from an old woman.

Le Petite Prince

It's a boy!  Darn it.

I wish Kate and Will and the little prince all the best, of course, but I really was hoping my new 22nd cousin (thrice removed) would be a girl.  Now, barring untimely deaths or abdications, it will probably be 100 years before England has another queen regnant. 

There was a rumor that his great-grandma would "retire" (as Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and King Albert of Belgium have recently done) once the new heir was born, but I think that's extremely unlikely.  A monarch who takes the job as seriously as Queen Elizabeth II is going to see it as a duty to remain on the throne until she dies.  And if she takes after her mother, she's got at least 14 years to go.

Now we wait to hear what they'll name His Royal Totness.  I'm for Arthur, as I said previously, but I would not be surprised if we are going to have a future King George VII instead.

One Enchanted Evening

Like most young children, I asked my mother more than once to tell me where she had met Daddy.  She always told me they met in a bowling alley, and it wasn’t until I was in college that she finally admitted that wasn’t quite true.  Actually, he picked her up in a bar.

In was 1942, and the place was Charlie’s Tavern in Cicero, the near-west suburb of Chicago made famous by Al Capone.  Lending a little credence to the story, there were actually two bowling lanes in a back room at Charlie’s, but they weren’t bowling on the night in question.

My mother had left her small hometown in downstate Illinois to get a job at a defense plant in Chicago.  She was 20 years old and divorced, and when that news got around the workplace, she got hit on by a lot of men who believed divorced women were easy.

She did agree to go out with one of her co-workers, and they ended up at Charlie’s Tavern.  My father was there that night too, and, according to his own statement, when he saw her from across the room, it was love at first sight.

My father knew the man she was with and knew too that the guy was married.  He took him aside and threatened to tell his wife if he didn’t make up an excuse and leave.  The guy introduced the two of them, vouched for my dad’s character, and left.  My father then offered to drive her home.

When he saw her to her door, this conversation ensued:

"Do you like to go to the movies?" asked he.
"Oh, yes, I love to go to the movies," replied she.
"I like to go to the movies too, but I don't have anybody to go with."
"I would go to the movies with you."
"You would?"

Smooth, Dad.  Really smooth.

Royal Watch

I admit to being a Royal Watcher.  Maybe being related to the Queen has something to do with it.  Right now I am anxiously awaiting the birth of my 22nd cousin removed three times.  Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, predicts it will be this week.  Nobody knows if she really knows something or is just guessing.

Coincidentally, today is Camilla's birthday.  She's 66.  I like Camilla, always have.  I think she has handled her elevation to consort of the future King of England with dignity and grace.  I know a lot of people don't like her, having cast her as the other woman in the Charles-Diana breakup.  I blame Diana, myself.  That loveless marriage was bound to be unhappy for both of them, but like many royal marriages over the centuries, it could have survived if Diana had held her end up.  Charles was not the first prince with a mistress, but Diana was the first princess to make a public stink about it.  She knew going into it what was expected of her -- produce an heir and maintain the pretense -- and she only managed half of it.

Perhaps Camilla's prediction about the baby was prompted by a hope that the child would be born on her birthday.  Well, let's see, it's just after 3:00 in the afternoon over there right now, so there's still time.

Come on, Kate.  Get on with it.

What to my wondering eyes should appear ...

Saturday we took a little drive and ended up in a small town less than an hour away.  As we came into town, a man and woman came clopping toward us in a horse-drawn wagon.  We recalled there were Amish in the area, and these people looked so typical in their plain clothes, she in white head covering, he with beard and straw hat.

We pulled into a gas station to fill up, and when I got out of the car, I noticed the Amish couple had pulled in as well.  It was an odd juxtaposition, their rig parked off to one side at a gas station.  I thought they had probably come there to buy something in the associated convenience store.

While I filled the tank, I became aware of activity on the other side of the pump I was using,  but there was no car there.  Curious, I took a few steps so I could peer around the pump and see what was happening, and there was the Amish man filling two large gasoline cans.  When he finished, he carried them to his wagon, then went inside to pay.

I can only assume their community allows the use of some sort of equipment that runs on gasoline, because if it was for his Harley, he would have ridden his Hog into town.

New Royal Due Soon

When Buckingham Palace announced that William and Kate were expecting, all they said about the due date was "in July."  Well, it's July, and anticipation in Britain is reaching fever pitch.

British bookmakers, as usual, are taking bets on anything related to it, from mundane things like sex, weight, and time of birth to whether it will be William or Kate who is holding the baby when they leave the hospital.

As to the child's name, James and Victoria are the most popular choices.  If it's a boy, I'd like them to call him Arthur.  It's about time England had a real King Arthur.  They almost did in the 16th Century, but Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, died before his father, so the next son succeeded him, as Henry VIII.  I like Arthur William Henry Albert George myself.

The law of succession was changed in 2011 to allow the first-born child to be heir to the throne regardless of gender, so I hope it is a girl to take advantage of it.  And I hope they name her Elizabeth Victoria Catherine Alexandra Mary, but I have a sneaky suspicion they're going to work Diana in there somewhere.

News for today

My postings in this here blog thing are sometimes inspired by something I hear on the radio or see in the paper, and since I couldn't think of anything to write about today, I thought I'd hunt around at Google News.  Nothing.

So I checked today's birthdays and came up with Robert the Bruce (King of Scotland), John Quincy Adams (President), Yul Brynner (bald guy), and Tab Hunter, who is now 92.   Nothing inspiring there. 

There are also a bunch of people, living and dead, born on this date of whom I have never heard. It's a shame too, because I really think somebody ought to be celebrating the 187th anniversary of the birth of the English dude who invented the steam-hauled plow (John Fowler, 1826-1864).

Historical events of July 11 didn't help either.  Henry VIII was excommunicated on this date in 1533, the U.S. Marine Corps was created in 1798, Babe Ruth made his major league debut in 1914 (as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox).  Yawn.

However, that does remind me that last week a headline in the New York Times' sports section was, "Red Sox are a Monster."  I've been working on that.  Red Sox is a Monster?  Red Sox are Monsters?  I can't make it work.

Where are they now?

In an upstairs bedroom at my maternal grandparents' house, there hung on one wall photographs of my grandmother's parents, Turner Hefley and Anna Conley.  They were large portraits in gilt oval frames with curved glass.  As they appeared to be in their twenties -- and judging by his handle-bar mustache and her high collar -- I would say they were taken in the 1890's.

They both wore sober expressions, but a sort of benignity came through, and I always thought that Anna, in particular, looked like she would have been a very kind person.

I loved to sit and study those photographs of my great-grandparents.  More than once when I was young I let it be known how much I would like to have them some day.  My grandmother's house and its contents were disposed of by other relatives when the time came, so I never got the chance to try to obtain them.

Although I have no idea what became of those photographs, I have the awfullest feeling that they are now hanging in a Cracker Barrel restaurant somewhere in Kansas.

The long and the hot of it

I love radishes, and I am anxious for the ones my partner planted for me (in the flower bed under the bay window) to be ready to harvest.  She pulled one up a couple days ago just to see, but the root was very long and skinny, nowhere near mature enough.  I washed it off anyway and tried to eat it, but it wasn't crispy yet, and it was so hot it set my tongue on fire. 

That did not surprise me, however, because in my experience, small radishes are often hotter than large ones.  In fact, the smaller, the hotter, and vice versa.  It makes me wonder if there isn't some universal law of nature that requires all radishes to have exactly the same finite amount of heat, so that the larger the root bulb, the milder the taste since the volume in which the pungency is distributed is larger, whereas a tiny radish will concentrate the same amount of heat-producing elements into its own tiny little self.

Think there's any truth to that?

Nevertheless, it reminds me of a woman I knew long ago whose last name was Braddish.  To help people understand and remember, she was in the habit of saying, "Braddish -- like radish with a B."  Well, that was fine, until one day when somebody remembered the B but not the vegetable and greeted her with, "Good morning, Mrs. Bunyan."

And that is true.

W

The Houston Astros are in Chicago, finishing up a three-game series with the Cubs.  I've watched at least part of all three games, and I wondered why the announcers kept comparing the Houston players' stats to American League players.  So I Googled it. 

Holy cow!  When did the Astros move to the American League?  And how did I miss it?  I guess I really don't pay much attention to what's going on in baseball if it doesn't involve the Cubs, or even if it does, sometimes.

I'm surprised the American League would take the Astros.  They're worse than the Cubs.

I'm watching the rubber game of the series even as I write.  The Cubs are ahead 14-6 with two outs in the top of the 9th inning.  This is my kind of baseball.  Now I'm a big enough fan to appreciate a 1-0 pitchers' duel, but a game like this one is what puts the fannies in the seats.  There have been 29 hits, 4 errors (not counting a couple that were scored as base hits), lots of throwing and running and sliding, plenty of extra base hits, some fine defensive plays and a couple goofy ones.

Because both teams have players named Castro (Cub Shortstop Starlin and Houston Catcher Jason), I indulged in a little fantasy-baseball fantasy in which our Castro is someday traded to Miami.  Then when those two teams played each other, it would be Castro's Astros vs. Starlin's Marlins.

Or not.  Oh, here we go.  Ground ball to the shortstop ... throw to first ... out!

Cubs win!

A little culture in my life

I am reading a biography of human rights crusader Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906). It mentions that she became acquainted with and greatly impressed by the work of Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908), a sculptor someone described as “the most famous American artist you’ve never heard of.”

Well, I had heard of her, but that was all, so I looked online for pictures of her sculptures so I could see for myself, and I was extremely impressed too.

I did find it rather ironic, however, that a sculptor who was brilliant enough to create:

and:

 

and especially:

should be buried in a grave marked with:

 



 

So, okay, here is the story of ...

... how I made it into the elite University Choir.

I’m not much of a singer, but I can carry a tune, and I always loved singing in choruses and choirs in school and at church, and I wanted to be a choir director when I grew up.

To that end, I enrolled as a music major at Wisconsin State University-Stevens Point in 1965. In addition to the English and history and other basic stuff all freshmen had to take, I was also required to take voice and piano lessons, music theory class, and be in two ensembles. Since I didn’t play a band or orchestra instrument, I had to get my ensemble credits from vocal groups, and the only two possibilities for me that first semester were the women’s glee club, which welcomed all comers, and the University Choir, which required an audition.

The University Choir was directed by David Dick, head of the choral/vocal faculty. All hopefuls came to rehearsals at first, and the director scheduled private auditions throughout the first week. Before the first rehearsal of the second week, the cut list was posted on the rehearsal room door, I guess so that if your name was on it, you knew not to come in any more.

My name would probably have been on the reject list except that I managed to miss my originally scheduled audition, having totally forgotten about it. Mr. Dick pointed that out at the next rehearsal, and I was so genuinely embarrassed and contrite that he gave me a second chance. In his studio that afternoon, he asked me what part I sang, and I said I always sang alto. After he heard me sing, I could tell he wasn’t impressed. He sat thinking for several long moments, and I sensed he was uncomfortable. Finally, he said, “Can you sing second?” By that he meant, second alto, the lowest female voice; second altos are generally rather scarce. I assured him I could and had sung second alto. “All right,” he said at last.

Whew. I made it.

When I told my voice teacher that I was singing second alto in the University Choir, she was puzzled because she had already decided I was really a mezzo-soprano. “You do have a strong lower register,” she said, not wanting to criticize the Chairman’s decision. “I suppose that’s why Mr. Dick put you in that section.”

No, Mr. Dick decided that another voice in the second alto section, even a mediocre one, was better than having to tell me to my face that I wasn’t good enough to be in his choir.

Shame on you, Google!

I was thinking about relating the tale of how I got to be a member of the exclusive University Choir when I was a freshman in college way back in 1965.  A principal  player in the drama was Mr. Dick, the choir's director.  I couldn't remember his first name, and although he is most likely dead by now, I thought I might find a reference to him somewhere on the Internet, so naturally I tried Google.

Thinking that his first name might have been Robert, I entered the search terms “robert dick choral vocal choir.”  Notice the first item in the list of search results:

Google must be using an X-rated algorithm.

Lakota, Cheyenne, Custer and Me

The anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn (June 25, 1876) is coming up this month.  In 1983, while driving from Michigan to Washington, we stopped there to take a look.

Civil War battlefields, of which I have seen a few, tend to be picturesque places near rivers or streams where there are trees and hills and low stone walls and ante-bellum farm houses and barns.  The place where Custer last stood was flat, open prairie covered with parched, brown grasses.  It was 107 degrees in Montana that day.  After a look through the sauna-like visitors' center (if it had air conditioning, it didn't work), my traveling companion decided she'd had enough and said she'd wait for me in the car.

I decided to take a tour of the battlefield, which was tricky, even with the map provided for the purpose, because of the lack of any identifiable vegetation or topographical variation by which to navigate.  The National Park Service had constructed some asphalt paths that wound their way around the battlefield, and I began to follow one.  Almost immediately my attention and progress were arrested by a short post at the edge of the path topped with a 5-by-7-inch plastic sign that was tilted up at a 45-degree angle for easy reading.  It said, "STAY ON THE PATH! THIS IS RATTLESNAKE COUNTRY!"

Not sure whether or not the snakes understood that they were not to come near the path, I high-tailed it back to the car, and we drove on.

Noah he wasn't

We've had a lot of rain in the last couple weeks, some in torrential downpours, and seeing water standing in places where it shouldn't be reminds me of the time long ago when the vacant lot behind our house became a virtual lake after some very heavy rains.  I was about eight at the time, which would have made my brother fourteen years old.

He and some of his friends spent an afternoon building a raft out of scraps they scavenged from the numerous houses under construction in our neighborhood. I, of course, was hanging around on the fringe of the activity like any other annoying little sister would do, but suddenly, the most amazing thing happened:  the boys invited me to be the first one to ride on their raft.  Predictably, as soon as it was launched, the raft sank with me on it.  I got soaked. 

Luckily, Mother was just leaving to pick Dad up at the train, so we hid behind the garage until she was gone.  At the back door, my brother picked me up and carried me through the kitchen and down the hall to the basement stairs, so I wouldn't drip all over the floor.  While I put my clothes in the laundry basket, he brought me a towel and dry clothes to put on.

At the time I didn't realize that I had been chosen for the maiden voyage because they weren't sure the raft would float, nor did I understand that my brother's subsequent gallantry was born of fear of the trouble he would be in.  I just enjoyed conspiring with my big brother.

Several years later I saw an episode of "Leave It To Beaver" in which Beaver sinks in a boat built by Wally and his friends.  A very believable story.

In Memoriam Buster Brown

I used to hate dogs. I hated, loathed and despised dogs. I hated dogs most of my life.

My first close contact with a dog came when I was about three and my aunt, who lived upstairs, got a tiny Pomeranian. It was a typical small dog, snippy, yappy and nasty. Whenever I came near it, it snapped at me.

My next dog was my grandparents’ Boston Terrier. I didn’t mind her because she didn’t bother me much, except for when she wanted to play tug and would push at me a rubber toy that was all slimy with dog spit. I hated dog spit.

Then there was the big Irish Setter that bit me, twice, when I was eight. This dog roamed our neighborhood, and I never bothered it at all; in fact, I’d go the other way when I saw him outside. On two (and only two) occasions I went into the house where he lived, and for no reason at all he ran over to me as soon as I stepped through the door and bit me in the leg. Both times.

As time went on, further unpleasant encounters with canines nurtured my hatred of dogs to the point that I was disgusted by the very idea that such things as dogs existed. I said unkind things about dogs, and I thought even worse things. I hated my late mother-in-law’s small but malicious Lhaso Apso so much that I used to wonder if I could kick it in the head hard enough to kill it.

I hated dogs.

My partner liked dogs, however, and after she was employed by our local humane society, it was pretty much inevitable that there would be a dog in my life. She brought home (just for the weekend) a Boxer/Pit Bull puppy who, within the first five minutes he was in our house, peed, pooped, and puked on the living room rug. She brought him home the next weekend too, and he never went back to the shelter.

He grew up to be a gangly, goofy, energetic, fun-loving dude who drooled all the time, and who was all elbows and knees when he tried to climb into your lap, and who went nuts when the doorbell rang. He played catch and fetch and tug-of-war and ran laps in the back yard. He respected other animals and was especially protective of smaller dogs. He bravely warned off every potential burglar and life-threatening intruder with his fierce bark, and he was reduced to a bowl of trembling doggie Jell-O during thunderstorms. He knew when you didn’t feel good and treated you accordingly, and he took his half of the bed out of the middle, sideways.

Of course, I wanted nothing to do with him, and I resisted for the first few years, but he was persistent and persuasive and gradually forced me to change my views. He went to his reward seven years ago tomorrow, and I still miss him.

I used to hate dogs, but I don’t any more, because a dog loved me.

Thinking might help

I have complained before about people publishing genealogical information that has glaring errors in it, like the guy who was supposed to have been born 70 years after his mother died.

It's a temptation, I know.  You find information about people with the same last name, living in the same place at about the same time, and you want to believe they are related.  I understand that.  What I don't understand is complete stupidity that admits no common sense at all.

Yesterday I saw information somebody had put out there about a woman that included her actual date of death in Indiana in 1858 as well as a listing for her in the 1860 Federal Census in South Carolina.  That's not only ridiculous, it also makes you wonder if you can trust any of their information.

What I ran across this morning takes the cake, though.  I found some stuff online about the ancestors of an ancestor of mine, one Alice Carew, born about 1455 in Gloucestershire, England.  There were several generations listed, and since it was all new to me (I don't even have her parents' names), I was pretty excited about it.

I started to copy it all down, but I gave up when I got to the part about one of Alice's great-great-grandfathers who was born about 1325, died about 1381, and got married on 23 July 1948 in Ogden, Utah.

Hel-lo-oh...?  Anybody home?

Remembering Mnemonics

I've still got mnemonics on my mind. My aunt told me she remembered which side of a boat is port and which is starboard by thinking, "Star light, star bright, starboard right." Not real catchy, but it works for me.

That reminded me of a story my piano teacher told me. A little boy is asked by his piano teacher to name the key that has one sharp. He says he doesn't know. His teacher tells him he had better find out before his next lesson or he'll get a spanking. The next week he is still unable to answer correctly, and his teacher says, "Do you remember what I said would happen if you couldn't tell me what key has one sharp?" The kid says, "Oh, gee," and the teacher says, "That's right!"

I know, I know, but it helped me for a lot of years.  Music teachers are full of little helpful tricks, like those famous acronyms for the lines and spaces of the staff -- Every Good Boy Does Fine and All Cows Eat Grass. My teacher had a problem with Good Boys Do Fine Always, however, being a real stickler about grammar. She insisted it should be Good Boys Do Finely Always, since it was an adverb.

That got me thinking about (and this is the last one, I promise) the acronym made up of the initials of the five Great Lakes -- HOMES -- to help you remember Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior, unless, of course, you're Jewish, in which case you'd probably want to remember them as Michigan, Ontario, Superior, Huron and Erie (MOSHE).

That's all.

Thanks for the Memories

Speaking of remembering how to spell lose and loose, in an email this morning, I wanted to say, “It’s the principle of the thing,” and I had to take a microsecond to be sure I was using the right spelling. I recalled the little trick I was taught in grade school -- the principal is your pal. And since that wasn’t the kind I meant, I knew “principle” was right.

There are plenty of mnemonics for distinguishing between similar words. Capitol is the building because it has a dome, and capital is right for all the other definitions. Stalagmites have to be mighty to push up from the floor, whereas stalactites have to hold tight to the ceiling.

But then there’s stationary (not moving) and stationery (office supplies). I was taught to remember stationery is like paper. Well, that’s fine, but somewhere along the line I got to thinking that maybe it was stationary like paper, and I still get confused sometimes. I think maybe I should go with e for envelopes.

Get Lost

When I was in the sixth grade, somebody put a lost-and-found box in the science room.  On the front of it was a sign, hand-lettered in bold, black Magic Marker, that looked like this:

At the time I assumed that someone who couldn't spell (probably a student) had made the sign and that someone else (probably a teacher) had made the correction rather than create a new sign.

In later years, however, I have wondered if it was not a mistake at all but a deliberate and very clever play on the words -- as in, Lose the O.

Regardless, it's how I remember that lose (as in, lost) has one O and loose (as in, as a goose) has two.

Pizza Pie

I love pizza.  I pretty much like anything that is sort of like pizza.  In addition to making my own with real pizza dough and real pizza sauce, I have used things like tortillas, pita bread, and crescent rolls from a can for the crust.  I have even been known to spread ketchup on white bread, top it with mozzarella, stick it under the broiler, and call it pizza.

I've tried all kinds of frozen pizzas and pizza-like things, my favorites being Bagel Bites and Stouffer's French bread pizza (sausage and pepperoni).  Although I've tried all kinds of microwavable pizza products, the best ones are baked in a conventional oven.

Cruising down the frozen foods aisle at Kroger yesterday, I spotted Kroger's own microwavable French bread pizza called "4 Minute French Bread Pizza Pepperoni."  I was intrigued, and since it only cost $1, I bought one.

The bread, a bit smaller than Stouffer's, comes in a little cardboard tray with that shiny silvery paper (technically called susceptor film, I believe) on the bottom and sides that's supposed to brown things in the microwave.  Despite its name, the directions say to nuke it for 2 to 3-1/2 minutes or until the cheese melts.  Since our microwave is more powerful than a locomotive, I checked it after 2 minutes, and it was then that the appalling lack of cheese (my favorite part of any pizza) became horrifyingly apparent.  I added my own shredded mozzarella, nuked it for 30 seconds more, and then began the taste test.

It was ... well, edible, but without the extra cheese I added, it would not have been.  As cheap, quick-to-prepare lunches go, it wasn't bad, but Bagel Bites have nothing to worry about.

OK, I get it now

I was cleaning out files in my desk this morning, mostly old receipts and other miscellaneous financial stuff, a great deal of which went in the trash.

I set aside all those pieces of heavy paper that come in the mail with credit cards attached to them with rubber cement.  It is recommended that you make a list of all your credit cards with the pertinent information, including phone numbers to call in case any are lost or stolen, but I never did because I always save these papers that come with the replacement cards instead.

Since I was in an organizing mood and there aren't very many of them, I decided to make one of those lists, but once I began to examine those papers, I realized I might as well have trashed them long ago.  Most of them don't show the account numbers, and only one gave the appropriate phone number to call.  I will have to get the details off the cards themselves.

That must be why they tell you to keep a list in case a card is lost or stolen.  If you don't have the card, you can't very well call the number on the back of it and read them the account number, can you?

Chihuahua de My-Oh

My tiny dog is slowing down in her old age, and I was rummaging around on the Internet this morning hoping to find something useful about dealing with an older dog when I came across the web site FamousChihuahuas.com.  It includes an online store that sells fashions and accessories for Chihuahuas, plus general and health information about the breed, and a gallery of photographs.

It is operated by a woman named nadia alterio who uses absolutely no capital letters and who loves Chihuahuas, especially her own.  She invites Chihuahua owners to submit pictures of their pets and, it being Cinco de Mayo, today's "featured" photos included dozens of pix showing Chihuahuas wearing sombreros and/or posing with a bottle of Jose Cuervo.

The amazing thing is how many people have submitted photographs of their dogs since they had to pay $4.95 for each one (or three for $9.95).  What a racket. Wish I'd thought of it.


I don't have to pay to publish my dog's picture on the Internet.  Here it is.

Is she the cutest, or what?

For the in-between

I went to our local Gordon's Food Service store yesterday to get a few things, including a case of Campbell's tomato juice in the little 5.5-ounce cans.  It's cheaper there than any place in the world.

We also needed some deli containers.  You know the kind -- those rather flimsy clear-plastic things the supermarket deli packs potato salad or cole slaw in.  We have one whole shelf in a cupboard devoted to this stuff, which we refer to as Gordonware. 

It has many uses, although we use it mostly to store leftovers or freeze extra quantities for later consumption.  The best part is that these containers are cheap enough that when you find a hairy baby monster hatching in one in the back of the refrigerator, you can simply throw the whole thing away.

We have deli containers in 1/4- and 1/2-cup sizes, ideal for including little things in the lunch box (crunchies for the yogurt, cream cheese for the bagel), or keeping something so good that even though there is only a little left, you can't bring yourself to throw it away.  For larger quantities, we have 1-cup and 2-cup and 4-cup sizes, which, happily, all use the same size lid, which simplifies storage.

While picking up the ones we needed yesterday, I saw that they have a new item (clearly labeled "NEW ITEM!"), and I couldn't pass it up:  1-1/2 cup containers!  Now we have the ideal vessel when something is too big for the 1-cupper but less than 2 cups.

Yes, they're about the same price as the others.  And yes, you could just use the 2-cup size and leave a half a cup of air at the top.  So why bother to bring home yet another package of flimsy plastic tubs?

Because it's there.

Trash Talk

It's Wednesday, which is garbage day.   I talked once about the tendency of the garbage man to leave our empty trash bins in the middle of the driveway, preventing entrance thereto (see "Garbage Day," August 10, 2011).  He's either changed his ways or it's a different guy, because now the bins are just as likely to be left in the drainage ditch that runs parallel to the street.

Our hired girl comes to us on Tuesdays, and one of her tasks is to gather up the trash and wheel the bin to the street.  The last time I looked last evening, the bin was standing upright at the end of the driveway near the mailbox.  This morning, however, I noticed that it had been blown over during the night and was lying mostly in the ditch.

After I heard the garbage truck go by, I looked out and saw that the empty bin was standing upright at the end of the driveway near the mailbox.

Is he trying to tell me something?

Wait'll you hear this

I read in the New York Times this morning about a housing complex built with state and federal funds in Tempe, Arizona.  Intended to provide a comfortable community for the hearing impaired, it was designed by an architect who is deaf. It includes such amenities as video phones, lights that flash when the phone or doorbell rings, and a mechanism to allow loudspeaker announcements to be piped right into residents’ hearing aids. It’s called Apache ASL Trail (ASL as in American Sign Language). 

All 75 units are occupied -- there was a waiting list even before it opened last year -- 69 of them by persons who are deaf or hard of hearing.

And now the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has concluded that this first-of-its-kind innovation in housing for the deaf is in violation of federal law. The government says they are discriminating against people who have different disabilities or, I guess, none at all.

Your tax dollars at work.

Shtrange

Over a period of several centuries (roughly 1350 to 1700) in England, the English language went through what linguists call "The Great Vowel Shift."  That's basically where our long vowels came from -- A changed from ah to ay, I changed from ee to eye, etc.  Nobody knows what caused it, but these things happen.  Languages are fluid.

I think that American English is in the midst of another change.  Over the last 40 years or so, I have noticed changes in the pronunciation of the short vowel sounds for E and A, so that "better" sounds more like "butter," and "slap" sounds more like "slop." 

One consonant sound is changing too, but this one hasn't been around more than a few years.  People have started to change the S sound to SH at the beginning of words or syllables that start with STR, like "shtrong" or "inshtruct."

This is all very gradual, of course, and not all native English speakers have changed, yet.  I've done a little searching on the Internet to see what other people have to say about it, and I've found nothing about the vowels and only a few complaints about the SHTR thing, mostly from Michelle Obama's detractors.

Nobody has offered an explanation, but I think it's easy to see what's causing this.  Pay attention to what your lips and tongue do when you say "bet" and then "but."  Everything loosens right up, doesn't it?  Do the same thing with "hat" and "hot," and then with "sss" and "shhh."  It takes less energy and movement in each case.

Maybe several centuries from now this will be known as "The Great Lazy Mouth Shift."

Ekshtraordinary.

What's that you say?

My tiny dog is going deaf.  I have experimented calling her name when her back is turned or she is asleep, and only if I shout loudly does she respond, and then she thinks I'm mad at her.  The vet has examined her ears and finds no physical problem, so it seems that, like me, the dog is just getting old.  She's eleven now.

There are times when communication is essential, so I have decided to teach my tiny dog to recognize hand signals.  The one I'm working on first is the signal for "let's go outside and pee pee."  I rotate my fists around each other the same way a basketball referee indicates a traveling violation.  She seems to be getting it.

Signals used by officials in football or baseball don't work as well because those are mostly abrupt, one-motion movements, like the right-hand up for a strike, or grabbing the wrist to indicate holding.  I'll stick with basketball since there are signals that are smooth, repeated motions, like the ones for travelling, over-and-back, or a double dribble.  That one might might be appropriate for "come get your supper."

And if she gets out of hand, I can always T her up.

Today's new thing

My partner and I were watching the Cubs-Rangers game today.  In the bottom of the second inning, Luis Valbuena swung at and missed a fast ball from Alexi Ogando, which moved way inside and ended up actually hitting him in the knee.  To our astonishment, he was not awarded first base.  It was called strike two.

According to Rule 6.08b of the official MLB rules, a hit batter gets to go to first if he is "touched by a pitched ball which he is not attempting to hit."  In other words, if he does not swing at it.

I never knew that.  I knew the batter was supposed to try to get out of the way, which most players don't do very convincingly, but I never heard of that bit about not trying to hit the ball that hits you.

Neither had my partner, and we agreed that that was undoubtedly because we had never seen it happen before.  And we're talking about well over 100 years' worth of watching baseball between us.

So, we learned something today, and saw something that is obviously  quite rare.   And, Valbuena went on to hit a single into right field that scored the runner on third, who would not have come home if Valbuena had been given the free base.

Something for everyone.  That's Cubs baseball for ya.

M I C - K E Y

When "The Mickey Mouse Club" premiered on ABC television on October 3, 1955, I was glued to my television set just as I would be every weekday afternoon for the next couple years.

That year for Christmas I asked for (and got) a wristwatch, so I would be able to know the time when I was outside playing. I didn't want to be late to see my show. I also remember having to sprint all the way home on Tuesdays after my piano lesson so I wouldn't miss a moment.

My fourth-grade classmate Diane Robinson and I spent an entire Saturday afternoon writing a fan letter to Annette, our favorite Mouseketeer, and, I think, most everybody's favorite. I admit to having had a very big crush on her.

Annette Funicello died today at the age of 70. I'm not sure I thought about her more than a few times in the last several decades, but still, I feel like I've lost a friend.  It is the end of yet another era.

Well, Annette ... Now it's time to say goodbye to all our company ... C you real soon. Y? Because we like you.

No foolin'

Since it's April Fools' Day and also the first day of National Poetry Month (as declared by the Academy of American Poets), let us start out with a little Robert Frost:

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee,
And I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me.

Frost wrote a number of little poems like that of two or three lines.  Some are playful, some are deep, most are both.  Where a lesser poet, even if a similar idea had occurred to him, would have tried stretching it into at least eight lines, Frost got to the immediate point and quit.

For evidence that Frost was a master of the succinct profundity, look no further than his poem entitled "Happiness Makes Up In Height For What It Lacks In Length."  Although I like the poem very much, I've always wondered why he bothered to write it -- the title says it all.

Happy (high and long) April to all.

Number Please

The Bay Mills Casino in Brimley, Michigan, is owned by the Sault Ste. Marie Band of Chippewa Indians and is located on the Bay Mills Reservation.  It has a hotel too, and the last time we stayed there, we were given a key to room 425 and told that it was on the fourth floor.  That was slightly bewildering since the hotel is only two stories tall.  A quick look around revealed that the ground floor rooms were numbered in the 300's.

I surmised there must be a basement and sub-basement, but when we got on the elevator, we saw that the button panel had only two floors to choose from:  3 (the ground floor we were on) and 4 (our destination, one flight up).

They must have gotten a hell of a deal on something -- either the elevator car or a truckload of three-digit number signs starting with 3 and 4.

That is not the only hotel I've ever been in with a weird numbering scheme.  At the small, old, quaint, and very French Hotel Brighton on Rue de Rivoli in Paris (which does have more than two floors), I stayed on the second floor in Room No. 1.  There were two other rooms on that floor, Nos. 2 and 16.

Did the French and Indian War have anything to do with numbers?

Y E, L L, Everybody YELL!

Speaking of basketball, ever notice that at the college-level, the only people actually chanting cheers are the cheerleaders?  Spectators don't, except at Michigan State home games when the fans on opposite sides of the arena do their contrapuntal "Go Green! - Go White!" thing.  And I think the fans sometimes start that themselves.

And speaking of cheerleaders, I have never forgotten a cheer I heard when I was in junior high, in a game played by my eighth-trade team.  During a time-out, the cheerleaders from the opposing school went out on the floor and led their fans (all 12 of them) in a cheer that went:

F!  I!  G-H-T!
F!  I!  G-H-T!
F!  I!  G-H-T!
WIN!

For over 50 years now I've been wondering, why "win"?  Why not
"F I G H T - Fight!"?

No answer.

Leaping Hoops

March Madness is upon me.  By the time the NCAA men's and women's champions have been crowned, I will have seen enough basketball games to last me until next November.

However, I have done some serious watching and comparing to determine just what it is that separates the girls from the boys.  One does, after all, perceive a distinct difference in the movements of the players around the court, even though the women run and dribble and pass the ball and make baskets basically the same way as the men.  The women's game just has a different look, and I've finally figured out what it is:  the women don't jump.

Or at least, not very high.  Even in the performance of a so-called jump shot, the separation between floor and sole of sneaker is tiny for most female players.  And when there is the spectacle of three or four players vying for a rebound under the basket, the women look pretty much like a bunch of young girls at a birthday party jumping up and down in excitement.

I didn't say they can't jump, just that they don't.  If I was a coach who wanted to give my team an advantage, I'd be working on that.

The Daily Doily

There is a lovely crocheted doily sitting on the kitchen table.  I think it's one that my partner made a number of years ago, and I think she got it out to show it to somebody.

I cannot see a crocheted doily (or a knitted or tatted one either, for that matter) without thinking of the two upholstered easy chairs in my grandparents' living room.  They were different in design but made to look similar by being covered with identical form-fitting fabric covers my grandmother had made for them.

The other thing they had in common was that they were always adorned with crocheted doilies, a long skinny one over each arm and a large one on the back flowing down to where your head would rest if you leaned back.  They were held in place by straight pins which tended to work themselves loose.  What I will never forget about sitting in those chairs was how often my elbow got scratched or I was stabbed in the back of the neck.

The doilies were pretty, though.

Literally

The place my father worked was in an industrial park where several buildings shared a drive and parking area.  One evening as he was leaving, he saw a car, traveling much too fast, come careening around the corner of a building into the parking lot and then to a screeching stop.  The driver jumped out of the car and began running toward one of the buildings.

My dad yelled, "Hey, what'd'ya think this is, a race track?" and the guy stopped running and walked the rest of the way.

 And people say I'm too literal.

Spring ahead

It seems too early to change to Daylight Savings Time, but I guess I have to keep up with the rest of the country.  Lately all the clocks in the house seemed to say something different, so changing them all today was a great way to get them all in sync.

There's one I never change, the clock on the mantle.  It is such a pain in the butt to get its little back compartment open that I never do.  All winter it's an hour ahead, but we're used to it and can mentally adjust.  There's another clock in that room we depend on more.  And anyway, it's right half the year.

So, I come into the living room this morning, smile up at the mantle clock, expecting to be pleased that it would already be showing 10:00 without me doing anything, and it says it's 3:17.

I'll have to get the back open now anyway, to change the battery.

Kidding? No.

Walnut Hills Country Club of East Lansing, Michigan, used to host an LPGA tournament, the Oldsmobile Classic.  Every time I attended as a spectator, I had multiple opportunities to overhear the snide comments of Walnut Hills Country Club Members moaning about the riff-raff running around their high-class grounds and among their high-class selves. 

So when I received a post card from Walnut Hills in the mail this week (do you mean a fancy brochure? No, a post card) inviting me to become a member of The Club (the word "country" does not appear anywhere), I smiled.

Times is tough all over, ain't they?

Not on your life.  Thanks anyway.

Names get me, they really do

I see that Joslyn Tinkle is still playing basketball for Stanford.  She's a senior now, and one of their stars.  Two years ago I opened a post by mentioning that there was a Stanford player whose last name is Tinkle, but I decided not to comment further, despite how much I like to deal with unusual names.  All right, all right, yes, I admit it -- I like to make fun of people's funny names.

Thinking about Ms. Tinkle immediately put me in mind of a man I used to know whose last name was Outhouse.  Now somebody with a surname like Knez cannot help but understand that people take pride in their family history and the good name of their forebears, but seriously -- wouldn't you be tempted to do something about it if your last name was Outhouse?

A simple solution, which would detract little from the familial and ethnic heritage of the name, would be to add an N to the end.  Outhousen looks much better in print, and it could be pronounced Oot-hoosen. 

He stuck with Outhouse, however, and when he married, his wife -- and who can blame her? -- refused to take his name and kept her own, which was Lipschitz.

Really.  I am not making this up.

Vaccines

According to the New York Times, it was on this date in 1954 that the first mass polio inoculations of children started in Pittsburgh.  It must have started about the same time around the country, including where I lived.  I remember going to the family doctor to get the polio shots.  It took at least two shots, weeks or months apart.  They hurt like hell and made your arm stiff for a week.  Better than polio, of course.

Another nasty one was the inoculation against cholera, which I had to get in 1971 because I was going to Italy and cholera had broken out in Naples.  It required two shots two weeks apart.  I got the first one the week before I left the States and the second one in Paris.  I made a complete fool of myself at the Parisian clinic where nobody spoke English (or admitted to it), but I finally got the idea that they wouldn't give me the shot unless I went into the bathroom and peed in a cup.  The efforts of the man at the reception desk to get the idea across to me seemed terribly amusing to everybody in the waiting room.

Not much in the way of inoculations lately.  I did get a tetanus booster a couple months ago when I hurt my thumb, but that's all.  I don't do flu shots because they make me sicker than getting the flu, although I admit that after the last one I had three or four years ago, I was only sick for three days instead of ten.

Goodness, this must be maklng for fascinating reading.  I'm outahere.

I Believe!

Cooking up taco meat, using ground chuck and my very own taste-tested combination of seasonings.  Double the meat, double everything else, right?  But wait -- oh no!  Too salty!  Real way too salty!  Now what'll I do?

Add a little sugar.  No good.  Still too salty.

Well, there is one thing.  It's a last resort.  But I'm there -- I'm desperate.  I've heard this works in stews and soups.  Will it work in a pot of ground beef?  Only one way to find out.  I've got nothing to lose.

I peel a small potato, cut it in half, and throw it into the pot.  I let it cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. 

The next time I taste the taco meat -- it needs salt!  OMG!  It works!  Taco meat saved!

Ridiculously salty potato, anybody?

The People's Choice

Tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST, the President of the United States will deliver his State of the Union address to Congress and the nation from Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.  It will be broadcast on dozens of television channels.

Tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST, the Michigan State-Michigan basketball game will tip off at the Jack Breslin Student Events Center in East Lansing, Michigan.  It will be broadcast on ESPN.

The President will talk about the economy, immigration, troop withdrawals, gay rights, and gun control.

The 8th-ranked Spartans (9-2 in conference, 20-4 overall) are tied with Indiana for first place in the Big Ten with #4 Michigan (8-3, 21-3) a game behind in third.

So, what'll it be tonight:  hoops from the Bres, or whoops from the Pres?

Are you kidding?  That speech will be all over the Internet by 11:00 o'clock for me to see, hear, or read any time I want to.

Go Green!

And both of these guys wanted to be President of the United States

Texas Governor Rick Perry has made a bunch of radio spots being broadcast in California in which he encourages companies and corporations there to move to Texas where, he says, taxes are lower and regulations less annoying.

California Governor Jerry Brown pooh-poohs the whole thing, claiming that corporations and entrepreneurs from various countries around the world all want to come to California. “Everybody with half a brain is coming to California,” he said.

That confirms what I’ve always suspected -- California is largely populated by half-wits.

Ex post facto consciousness raising

I love to catch anachronisms in movies and television shows set in other periods. The TV version of “M*A*S*H” was notorious, not just because of references to things that hadn’t happened yet, but even in things like the men’s hair-styles -- much more 1970’s than 1950’s -- and the fact that you never saw anybody smoke a cigarette.

Linguistic anachronisms are my favorite. I’ve noticed a few in my new all-time favorite television show ever, “Downton Abbey.” One scene has a man saying of his fiancée, “She’s just sucking up, Mother.” Nobody would have said that in 1920. I admit that neither She’s just being obsequious nor She’s just fawning upon you exactly roll off the tongue, but still, a writer of Julian Fellowes’ capabilities ought to be able to come up with something more in tune with the times than “sucking up,” the first known use of which, according to Miriam-Webster, was in 1976.

What’s even more fascinating are anachronisms of attitude. “Downton Abbey” not only has a gay footman, but those who know that he is don’t seem to mind. In one episode, he tries to seduce another male servant, who rejects him and reports him to his superiors, but the police are not called nor is he even sent packing in the middle of the night -- he keeps his job. No. Not in 1920.

I have also noticed in "Downton" as well as some other period dramas, including another of my favorites, "Foyle's War,” which is set during World War II, that there is a relentless tendency to refer to young females as “women,” when, in fact, up until just about 1970, they would have been called “girls.”

It seems to me that modern writers ought not to have to forsake verisimilitude for political correctness. But I don’t imagine having much luck getting someone to produce a Civil War drama in which the slaves are constantly called -- you know.

Uncle George

I see that today is the birthday of George Halas (1895-1983), original owner and long-time coach of the Chicago Bears, not to mention original founder of the National Football League.  That guy pretty much invented professional football.

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Papa Bear, not just because I'm from the Chicago area and my family have always been Bears fans.  There is also a family connection, albeit an extremely flimsy one by the time you get to me, through my sister-in-law.  Her uncle was married to George's niece.

That makes George Halas my brother's wife's father's brother's wife's mother's brother.

Bedside Manner

Someone asked me today how long ago it was that I came down with a case of breast cancer.  (It was 1998.)  I couldn't help thinking back to the day I heard the dreaded diagnosis.

Six years before, something "suspicious" showed up on a mammogram and I underwent a lumpectomy, performed by a local surgeon, Carol Slomski, M.D.  A few days afterward at her office, I sat in an examining room waiting nervously to learn if the pathology results showed the tumor was malignant or not.  Finally the door opened, but even before she came fully into the room, the doctor was saying cheerfully, "I've got good news!"

Not cancer, all gone, no further action required.

The next time something "suspicious" showed up (1998), Dr. Slomski performed a lumpectomy once again.  The next day I was at her office waiting nervously once again for the verdict.  This time the doctor came into the room and quietly closed the door behind her.  "Hi," she said, as she walked over to me, "how are you doing this morning?"

Bless her heart, trying to break it to me gently, but the contrast in her manner with the 1992 event told me immediately that this one wasn't benign.

Further action required that time -- chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and five years of Tamoxifen, as a matter of fact, but that seems to have taken care of the problem.  Knock on wood.

Upstairs, Downton

For over 35 years I told anyone who asked, and sometimes anybody who didn't, that my all-time favorite television show ever was the 1970's British drama, "Upstairs, Downstairs."

I never missed an episode during the five years that it was broadcast on PBS. I believe, in fact, that I would have killed to be in front of a television on Sunday evening when it was on. Luckily, that never became necessary, but it is a clear indication of how much I loved that show.

It also indicates how stupendous a moment it was when I threw over "Upstairs, Downstairs" and proclaimed that my all-time favorite television show ever is "Downton Abbey," currently in its third season on PBS.

There are parallels between the two programs, of course. Each one involves an upper-crust British family (upstairs) and their servants (downstairs). Each has a likable if imperfect upstairs patriarch with a formidable wife (Richard and Lady Marjorie Bellamy, Robert and Cora Crawley, Earl and Countess of Grantham), and a downstairs patriarch in the steadfast and steady butler (Mr. Hudson, Mr. Carson). Each has a wholesome and worthy head housemaid (Rose Buck, Anna Smith), strong-willed, scandal-prone children (James and Elizabeth Bellamy, Ladies Mary, Edith, and Sybil Crawley), a cheerless, uppity lady's maid (Roberts, O'Brien), and an imperious, acid-tongued cook (Mrs. Bridges, Mrs. Patmore). Both families suffer mightily from the sinking of the Titanic, fight their way through World War One, and lose someone to Spanish flu.

Both shows have magnificent casts of actors who play characters you love or love to hate, and both have continuing story lines that blend drama and comedy. So why did "Downton Abbey" replace "Upstairs, Downstairs" in my affections?

It has to be the creator and writer of the show, Julian Fellowes. The guy is brilliant. And it probably doesn't hurt that he has Maggie Smith to deliver all his best zingers.

Tenacity in Winter

Looking out at the snow this morning reminded me of a similar winter day long ago, when I was in my early twenties.  A friend and I were driving in her Volkswagen beetle.  We had had a major snow storm, and on an unploughed side street, the car got stuck.  We both got out and pushed the little car forward about ten feet.  When we got back in the car, we found it was still stuck.  Again we got out and pushed it to where we thought it would be out of the deepest snow, but when we got back in the car, it still wouldn't go.

Since we were only about a block and a half from a major road that had been cleared, the logical thing was for her to stay in the car while I gave it a push, and then she could just keep going up to the corner and wait for me there.

I got out of the car and grabbed hold of the rear bumper, rocking it a little.  She gently engaged the transmission, and the car started to move forward.  I kept pushing for five or six steps to make sure it was unstuck, but the speed suddenly increased, and I lost my footing, landing flat on my face in the snow behind the car.  As the car kept moving, I hung on to the bumper for dear life.  I remember actually yelling to my friend to stop, which, of course, she couldn't hear.  The car went at least another 100 feet before it occurred to me that the way to stop being dragged through the snow on my belly was to let go.

Even if I'm not terribly bright, I am at least tenacious.

A Few Good Women

Women in the United States passed another milestone in their long and arduous journey toward gender equality yesterday when the Pentagon announced that women in the military will be allowed to serve in front-line combat units.

There is only one reason that women have historically been banned from soldiering.  It has its roots back in the misty eons of time when primitive humans became consciously aware of what their instincts already told them -- that survival of the species depended upon reproduction.  Since the male's only role in the process was to impregnate the female, a single male could serve an entire community.  A tribe could not sacrifice its women, so when war came, it was the men who were sent to fight and die because they were expendable.

I think lots of them still are, but that's a topic for a different day.

How to Mortify Yourself

There's an old riddle about a father and son who are involved in an automobile accident.  The father is killed, and the badly-injured son is rushed to the hospital.  After taking one look at the kid, the surgeon on duty says, "I can't operate on this boy.  He's my son."  How is that possible?

Even in the 1970's that riddle stumped people.  Feminists bandied it about a lot in those days to show people how bigoted they were.  (If it stumps you, please call me.  We need to talk.) 

I was reminded of it this morning when I saw in the New York Times it was on this date in 1849 that America's first woman doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, earned a medical degree from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y.

I really shouldn't be so smug.  I had a startling experience of my own when I was a student at Michigan State back in the early 80's.  I had run out of a medicated shampoo that back then required a prescription.  (For  more on that, see my posting, "Logic and the FDA" from April 16, 2012). 

Anyway, I called the university health center and told them what I needed and asked if somebody could just write me a prescription without a lot of rigmarole and recording my entire medical history and such.  The woman I talked to told me to come on over.  "I'll have you see Dr. Johnson," she said, "who's very good about this kind of thing."

Excellent, I thought, but all the way over there I rehearsed what I would say so that the doctor would be only too happy to write the prescription and send me on my way.  When I got there and announced I was to see Dr. Johnson, a young woman left me in a little examining room, saying, "Just wait here.  She'll be right with you."

WHAT?  She?  I had just failed Feminism 101.  They said doctor, I saw a man.  I was mortified.  I had humiliated myself in my own eyes.  Is there anything worse?

Yes.  Before I was done castigating myself, Dr. Johnson came into the room.  She was black.

Double whammy to my feminist/liberal consciousness.  But I haven't made that mistake since.