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.