Blog Index - May 2017

May 1, 2017	Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme
May 19, 2017	Message in a Bottle
May 20, 2017	Fog in the meadows
May 21, 2017	Mystery  unsolved as of yet
May 22, 2017	Braised radishes with Portobello Mushrooms
May 23, 2017	Time versus heat in the kitchen – Let’s pressure cook
May 24, 2017	Cosmos coming into bloom
May 25, 2017	Spent brass bullet jacket
May 26, 2017	Unusual knowledge for a new secretary
May 27, 2017	“Is that a borrow-me?”

May 27, 2017 – Is that a “borrow-me?”

        We’ve had a lot of rain here in North Carolina.  Cool and rainy and the radishes love it and the lawn is trying to overtax my husband’s lawn mowing schedule.

        So, not being able to work out in the yard we’ve been camping in and I have taken in a few interesting old movies and then even I have been TV surfing.

        I like to stick to TCM so that I am not inundated with advertisements, but eventually I got desperate and had to succumb to channels that have more advertising than programing.

        Gwynniebee.com was advertised for the larger lady to have a “rotating closet”.  Now this piqued my curiosity because the spokesperson was a large sized gal and when she mentioned sizes 10 to 32 I frowned.  Since when is a size 10 a “large size” for a woman?  In fact, I don’t believe I even know of anyone who is a size 10 unless it is a teenager.

        I jotted the web domain down with the thought of perusing it.

        Tucked in the back of my mind I have a wedding coming up and I, just like many woman I know, can claim – “I have absolutely nothing to wear!”  I probably could dig in the closet and eventually find something to make do . . . but I decided to check out the “rotating closet” concept.

        I found it interesting – you rent clothes – you ship them back and get more.  But, I wonder about the fit.   The website is set up with different styles and selections and I must admit – after much prowling I didn’t really see anything that looked like I would wear it.  But, the concept is interesting . . . but it is not new . . . .

Years ago . . . .

        When I first moved to the area I was fortunate to become good friends with a front door neighbor and a back door neighbor.   Life was simpler then – we actually had a life outside of work.  Our work weeks were typically 9 to 5 Monday through Friday and we could shop and do lunch on Saturdays; which we did often.

        I am the youngest in a family of three children and the only girl.  My Mom is a tiny woman and I take after my large framed father.  So, the concept of borrowing something of my Mom’s to actually wear was just about ‘nil’.   I do remember I got into a red chiffon blouse of Mom’s one year at Christmas time when I was pre-teen, and then the only other borrowing would be a scarf or a hat . . . but what 1970s teenager would borrow a scarf or hat from their Mom.  It just was not the “hip” thing to do.

[However, later my castoffs of accessories I left when I moved out became integral parts of my Mom’s wardrobe; case in point, a white vinyl “GO-GO” hat. That silly hat is still in my Mom’s possession and the older gals in her church always comment on it.  Yes, my Mom looks cute in it.]

So, it was completely foreign to me that a new girlfriend would be shopping with me and be admiring my new dress and as soon as I had purchased it mention.

“Is that a borrow-me?” Geraldine asked.

I turned and quizzed her with just my facial movements.  It was a new dress, two sizes smaller than I had been in for years; it came just below my knee cap which is the length I like.  It was a great moment for me and her request was a big surprise.  The dress was a print – but a modern print which was very unusual for me as I am a classic solids type of gal.  It had a pearl essence white background with navy, grey, and silver lightning bolts design.  Long sleeves, jewel neckline and nipped in at the waist with extremely flattering darts at the front waist along with a full zipper at the back.  And, yes, it did require a full slip for it to hang properly.

On the way home she explained what she meant.

“Sometime could I borrow that dress?  I’ve weddings to go to in a few months . . .” she suggested.

I thought about it and my selfishness got the better of me and I made no comment. But later I discovered that was how things worked here in the area between good friends.  Not long after that request I was admiring something she was wearing.

“Oh, it’s a borrow-me.” She explained. She had worn it to a wedding that weekend and decided to get one more wear out of it before she gave it back to a gal she worked with.  I understood the economics of it because she was a single woman with a young child to bring up and it was weekly repair the automobile or some other cash emergency.

I wore my new dress to church several times, and out to a few posh dinners and even a corporate event.  I felt beautiful in that dress.  So, when the request came a few months later from Geraldine to wear it to a wedding, I acquiesced.  I’ll admit it didn’t look as good on her as it did on me as she was a few inches shorter – but it made her so gloriously happy to be wearing a “new-to-her-frock” to a friend’s wedding.  She shared with me all the compliments she got from that wearing and it made me feel like I’d gone to the wedding myself.

It’s funny how my new girlfriends and their many friends had the Gwynniebee.com concept down to a science back in the 1980s.  They were way ahead of the fashion curve.

May 26, 2017 – Unusual knowledge for a new secretary

        Yesterday I blogged about hearing gun shots and I am sure I piqued your curiosity about me being on a pistol team when I was a single woman.

        The gun club was only a couple miles from my home and my boyfriend at the time was big into pistol shooting.  I caught the bug quickly after I had the unique opportunity of actually shooting a Thompson Machine gun.  That was fun . . . rat, tat, tat, tat!

        I had to get a firearm license before I bought my first handgun, a used .22 target pistol.  I remember the night I proudly brought it home and plunked it on the kitchen table to show my parents.  I opened the case, cleared it of the cartridge and set it out for their review.

        “I thought we’d got past this with the boys, but I never expected my girl to buy a gun!” My Mom exclaimed. [My Dad didn’t own any guns and I had two older brothers who had never gone hunting and my father didn’t go hunting – so this was a surprise to both of my parents.]

        My Dad, a Purple Heart decorated veteran of World War II, didn’t have much to say and he didn’t even pick it up to look it over.  He told me my Uncle Willie might be impressed as he was the head of a nearby gun club which was news to me.

        The reason I got the target pistol was for competition.  I practiced diligently and that year I aced the women’s competition because the other gals were lazy and not practicing.  If they’d know I was in the wings, they’d have practiced more.  As I was one of the winners, I was invited to Uncle Willie’s range for advanced competition.

        My Uncle Willie was impressed when we meet and how I cleared the pistol, put it on safety and set it out for him to look at.  He liked the way I had done it correctly and vocally pointed that out to other team members.  He wished me luck, but I wasn’t naïve – his gun club had fine women shooters and I didn’t make the cut. But, it was an experience.

        Memories flooded over me after yesterday’s Blog . . .

At my first job – my pistol packing experience came in handy and made a big impression on my first boss.

        The day after high school I started my first secretarial job at Charles A. Perkins Company in Clinton, Massachusetts, a surveying and engineering firm.   Charlie died in 2007 at the ripe old age of 94, after an active life and career.   I worked for him in the early 1970s and at the time I didn’t know that all secretaries didn’t typed numbers [which is another story].  It was great experience for me and I honestly enjoyed most of the job. I have many fond and funny memories of Charlie and the guys at that surveying and engineering firm.

        One day Charlie asked me to look in his top desk draw for a screw driver in order to fix the back door latch to his office. He noticed I paused as I saw a handful of brass .32 caliber bullets.  I handed him the Phillip’s head screw driver which was directly behind them.

        “Do you know what they are?” He quizzed as he spurted out the words at the same time he clamped down on his ever-in-his-face pipe – lite or un-lite.

        “.32 caliber.” I answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

        He finished fixing the loose door knob while I sat patiently waiting for him to dictate some letters.  YES, the old fashioned way – he dictated and I took it down in shorthand on a pale green steno pad which rested on my crossed knees.  That was how it was done back in the 70s.

        When he sat down at his desk he looked at me carefully.

        “How’d you know?” He asked with a curious twinkle in his eye.

        “I’m on the pistol team . . . .” I said and he let me go into great detail.

        I could tell by the look on his face that he was impressed.  It was actually unusual for a young lady of that day and age to have a handgun license and be a member of a pistol team.

        “Just so you know, my .32 is in this drawer.”  He raised up the hand gun briefly and then put it back in its hiding place.

“It’s loaded – in case I need it.”  He cautioned.

From that moment on, I suddenly had a different caliber in his eyes.

       

        

May 25, 2017 – Spent brass bullet jacket

        We are in the country and it is not uncommon to hear gun shots.  I have excellent hearing, unlike my husband who is half deaf, and I can decipher between rifle fire and hand gun fire. [In my single woman days I was a member of the pistol team.]

        I was in the middle of reading The Unwitting by Ellen Feldman as I was stretched out on the bed with big pillows propping me up when I heard “BAM”.  I sat up.  That was close. A handgun.  It came from the proximity of my mailbox at the end of my driveway.  It was evening and the sun had not set yet.  There had been no cars driving by as I can hear every one that passes when I have the windows open and the cooling fan on low.  I settled back into my pillows and immediately back to the book as it was a “page turner”.

        It is not unusual here in this country neighborhood.  Someone had probably found a snake and decided to shoot it and be done with it.  We have acres of kudzu behind us and in the fall the owner of that property seeds the tall pine hillside with deer corn and a salt lick and then thinks he is a sportsman bushwhacking the lured deer.  It upsets us, but that is the mentality down here.  

During the various hunting seasons we hear rifle shots while we are sitting out at the gardens closest to the back wilderness property line.  On several occasions we astutely and cautiously move to the house patio so that we are not the unlucky victims of a stray bullet.

But, a few minutes later I hear “Bam, Bam, Bam” – three shots and this made me come to a stand and cautiously go to the bedroom window first and step to the side so that I could not be seen – no traffic – I couldn’t see anyone.  Again, it sounded like it was from the location at the end of my driveway – somewhere between the neighbor’s mailbox and the end of the street.   It was still light out, but we were into the “evening” hours.

I quickly went to the front office windows and again, covertly stepped to the side of the window and peered between the edge of the lace curtains and the window frame not wanting to be seen and become a target.  If it was a typical handgun they’d have a few more rounds available. 

I saw nothing and then went to the living room windows and followed the same protocol.  No sign of any activity in the neighborhood and I could see three houses clearly from my vantage point.  I lingered a few moments, heard nothing else. .  . I was expecting someone to come slamming out of a house and speed off in their car.     [Do I sound hysterical to you?  NO – I am being a realist.  We had a double homicide in the newspaper only this week here in town.  We are not in a Chicago or New York City – we are in the slow paced country in rural North Carolina.  We don’t expect to pull the newspaper out of the mailbox and open it to a front page “two dead” headline.  But, it is starting to become more frequent as we live here.  It brings you to attention.  When you hear gunfire now, it makes you get up and start looking out windows more often.]

The next day my husband is taking his health walk which just happens to be from our mailbox towards the neighbor’s mailbox and proximity of where I heard the gun shots of the night before.   Upon his return he hands me a spent brass bullet jacket he’d found on the side of the road.  He found only one, but he had looked for more. 

“Keep this.  Won’t be any use to the police now, my fingerprints are on it.  But, it’s a .32.” 

“Yeah.  It is, isn’t it.”  I looked up inquiring.

“Right where you said the shots came from.”

It has been a couple of days now and we haven’t seen any police activity anywhere in the neighborhood.  Was it a drive-by?  Was it merely a snake shooting?  Did someone rob a neighbor’s house and the hoodlums decided to test out the piece they had just acquired?

We will keep quiet and watch the papers to see if there was any mischief in our neighborhood and “if” needed for ballistics, we know where there is a spent brass bullet jacket available for comparison.

May 24, 2017 – Cosmos coming into bloom

       My brother sent me a free packet of cosmos seed from The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy entity promoting The Sacred Heart out of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was a packet that came in the mail to my Mom and he sent it along knowing I would plant them.  [He is into vegetables in his gardens.]

        At the time I received it I admired the nice “advertising” ploy to obtain donations and I shook the packet knowing exactly where I was going to plant them.   That weekend I planted out my radish seeds and lettuce seeds in the patio garden and I sowed a nice neat row of cosmos between the two. As I planted them, I had the additional confidence that the Almighty would make them sprout and flourish.  The frilly leaves were quick to come and eventually outpaced the radishes in the foreground.

        Then, our church had a “30 days to Morning Glory” consecration to Mary religion class that I attended and now I am in the middle of a weekly “Consoling the Heart of Jesus” retreat which is uplifting and revitalizing my spiritual strength and boosting my faith.  Now, I don’t think it was a coincidence that innocent little seed packet found its way from my Mom’s mail to my brother then down to me.  It was in God’s master plan.

        Daily as I open the kitchen slider drapes in the morning my eyes immediately go to those dainty cosmos in bloom and reminds me who has given me all my talents and treasurers and this lovely life – Jesus Christ.

        The soft mist of the daily morning fog back-lights the fragile pink blooms and I pause daily to take in the moment so that I never forget and give daily thanks.

May 23, 2017 – Time versus heat in the kitchen – Let’s pressure cook.

        For years I was always under pressure when I worked.  Now I’ve shifted that pressure to putting my entrée under “pressure” as in pressure cooking supper.  It cuts time, is a one pot meal, and the results equal a tender and tasty pot roast in a jiffy. And, in our home without air conditioning, it keeps the kitchen much cooler than roasting in the oven for hours.

        My mother used to pressure cook often in order to get the meal on the table quickly for a hungry family.  I’d often hear the sizzle of the pressure regulator weight as I’d come in for dinner and knew something really good would be served up for dinner shortly.

        I have about 4 recipes I only make with my pressure cooker.

        Tonight I made Beef Bourguignon for no special reason except for something to eat for supper on a weeknight.  I’m barefoot, dressed in summer capris, and have just poured myself a nice glass of red wine in one of my best wine glasses. [They used to be saved for special occasions, but I save nothing for special occasions now. I enjoy my good stuff everyday now, no holding back.] I have just put all the ingredients in the pot, clamped the cover, and it is coming up to “jiggle” as I call it, as I sit down to my computer to blog.

        The phone rings and it is a dear friend who is still working in the fast paced, stressed, 24/7 on call, daily grind and she often complains about having no time or “no life” due to her demanding job. As usual, she is calling from her long commute home.

        “What are you doing?” She asks,

        "I’ve just started Beef Bourguignon.” I answer.

        “Oh, it sounds SO good.  I can almost taste it.” She says excited.

        “When will it be done?” She asks.

        It is not as if she can make a detour on the way home from work to drop in and partake of my cuisine as she is in Massachusetts and I am in North Carolina.  She knows it traditionally takes several hours to make.

        “I’ve got it in the pressure cooker – hardly any time at all.”

        “My grandmother used to pressure cook, but I’ve never done it.” She reminisces.

        “I guess you have to be brought up with it.  My Mom did it often.  I grew up with it.”

        “Is it dangerous?”

        I smile to myself, “Not if you read and follow the directions.”

        I thought, my mother worked 40 hours a week outside the home and she quickly got good food – soul food - on the table quickly after she got home from work.   Me, I followed suit and got a pressure cooker when I first set up household – over 40 years ago as I always worked outside the home.  It does frighten my husband, but it doesn’t frighten me.

        “The new ones are so much safer than the old days.  In fact, I think they have electric ones now.”  I add trying to put her at ease that I won’t be blowing myself up or something.

        “What’s the theory behind a pressure cooker, anyway?” She asks.

        “It’s quicker, the meat comes out tender, the flavor is more intense and it saves you gobs of time.”  I answer.  I wonder if it is the same theory as a convection oven and I can’t explain that either.

        “In fact, I think KFC pressure cooks their fried chicken.” I mention that trying to grasp at a mainstream use for pressure cooking.

        “Oh, I haven’t had KFC in years . . . . ”  She talks on and on about when and where and what she had at KFC the last time.

        I am smug. I smile to myself and sip my wine, again admiring the thin lipped wine glass.  I now have the time and have little money, but at this moment I feel like I have the world by the tail. I know I will have something scrumptious to serve my husband and myself in less than a half hour.  She on the other hand is only half way through her commute home from her stressful job and she’ll be starved when she gets home with us talking about food.

        She is in heavy traffic now and we say goodbyes.

Hanging up the telephone I contemplate my life compared to hers.  Yes, it is nice to be retired and plan meals and cook the old fashioned way and the cook gets a glass of wine for her efforts.

        Life is simpler now.  Life is good.  AHHH, this is what retirement is all about; I think I’ve finally figured it out.

        Pondering with another sip of wine . . .

. . . . I should have done this earlier – like when I was aged 45!

May 22, 2017   - Braised radishes with Portobello mushrooms – peasant style

        AHH, didn’t I say the easiest way to get rain for the garden was to start a walking regime for my health?  Three days and evenings, I have been rained out now.  The other nice thing about this is a “FREE” car wash.

        The gardens are nice and wet and when the sun comes out I expect HUGE growth from – herbs, flowers and vegetables.  It will be an explosion! [I imagine the weeds too - ouch.]

        The radishes have been coming in for several weeks and they were getting very “HOT” to the taste with more sun than moisture.   Some are so large now they are starting to split with all this rain.

        I hate for them to go to waste – they are so pretty – but exceptionally hot – yet flesh is still tender.  I pulled several to test a Braised  Radishes with Honey and Lemon recipe.   You might have noticed from past blogs – I rarely follow the recipe exactly when it comes to vegetables side dishes or entrees.  When it comes to baking items – I follow the recipe exactly – but everything else – I sort of use a recipe as a jumping off point and look in the refrigerator to see what I want to add.

        I recently found this recipe going through another stash of papers and kept it because braising [cooking] radishes tames the natural pepperiness of them.  At this point – my radishes need serious taming.

        Original recipe has the following:

2 TB honey

1 TB each lemon juice and vinegar

1 TB olive oil

2 large bunches radishes, roots trimmed and cut into halves

1 tsp salt

½ tsp freshly ground pepper

1 TB chopped fresh chives.

Directions:  Whisk honey, lemon juice and vinegar in a small bowl. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add radishes and sauté 2 minutes. Add honey mixture and stir to coat.  Reduce heat to medium, cover and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper and chives.  Serve warm or room temp. Serves 4.

        How I made my Braised radishes with Portobello mushrooms.

        Handful of fresh radishes – 4 big ones, trimmed and cut into quarters.  5 or 6 small Portobello mushrooms – all trimmed and cut into quarters. In a medium sized skillet I melt 1 TB of butter [YES real butter] and 1 TB of olive oil until it sizzles a bit. Then, I tossed in the mushrooms and sauté until coated well with oil/butter. Then, I added the radishes.  I grind some sea salt and ground pepper over the top.  Shake the pan and toss the ingredients so they cook evenly.  About 4 minutes cook time – tossing often.  I added about ½ cup of sliced romaine lettuce [as in let’s wilt some of it] and tossed it in for about 1/2 a minute. I turned off the heat, added ¼ up of [or I would call it two good pinches] of Parmesan cheese. [This made a serving for one - moi.]

        I located a low pasta bowl and slide it gently into the bowl and voila – I had it for brunch.   SO WONDERFUL. Who needed the honey and vinegar? Not me.  The radishes were al dente and the mushrooms were scrumptious.  The wilted lettuce was a nice foil for the Parmesan cheese.

        Yes, it is fun to experiment with what is coming out of the garden – even when you have too much, too late, too hot, etc.  It is how the peasants used to live . . . it is now how this peasant lives.

May 21, 2017 – Mystery unsolved as of yet.

        We are several years into our central air not functioning.  We’ve had half a dozen service calls that all tell us the outrageous cost of replacement.  We’ve muddled through the steamy hot summers for several years, we will continue to do so a few more.

        We are doing it the “old fashioned” way.  We have ceiling fans and window fans and I close off the sun on the front of the house the first half of the day and then I close off the sun from the back side of the house in the afternoon.  When the temperature drops in the evening, I set the window fans in the windows and suck in the cool air for the night through to the early morning.  When the sun comes up again, I pull out the fans, close the windows and pull the drapes to keep in the cool.  It works pretty well, most of the time.

        Well, yesterday the cat seemed to find a cool place and my husband mentioned,

        “Where is the cat?  Has she gotten out?”  He asked worried.

        “She's hiding somewhere that is cool, but I am making tuna fish sandwiches for lunch and she will come out, always does when she smells it.” I answer not as concerned.  She has many hiding places and every so often she finds a new one.

        “Is she locked in a closet by mistake?”  He asks.

        I am making a mental check list of her hiding places.  Sometimes they are for warmth and then sometimes they are for cool.   Once it was for warmth and she was curled up in the mudroom in the corner where I’d just cleaned out old garden sneakers and the warm air was coming out from the underneath of the refrigerator and she had a nice warm corner.    That was a new hiding place and didn’t last long as I easily re-cluttered up the area with snow boots and such.

        I drained a teaspoon of tuna fish juice and placed a little chunk of tuna in the center in a low bowl and put it on the counter.  I am certain she will come out soon as the ceiling fans send the tuna fish fragrance from one room to the next.

        We had lunch.  After lunch I checked that she wasn’t locked in any bedroom closet by mistake and I then I made my tour of checking in all her favorite places:

Is she behind the curtain on the kitchen sliding glass door?

No.

Is she on my computer chair?

in the box under the computer desk. 

Behind the computer desk credenza where the books are piled, under the beds in all bedrooms that stay cool because the fans blow the air to the hardwood floors and up under the beds. 

I also checked behind the drapes puddled on the drawn windows, in various rooms,

behind the chair in one bedroom,

between the pillows on the guest bedroom,

on the dining room chairs that are shoved under the dining room table

 . . . she obviously has someplace new.

I went out to work in the garden and upon return my presence awakes my husband from his after lunch nap in front of the ball ball game on TV.

I also notice the tuna fish chunk and tuna fish juice are gone.  I hold up the little bowl to the light and see cat tongue lick marks . . . no my husband didn’t feed her and then wash it and leave it on the counter for me to put away.  Jasmine ambled out from hiding and found her treat.

        The licked bowl confirms she didn’t “get out” as my husband had feared.  

        I make another search for her in all her usual places and still don’t find her.

        “Well, Jasmine, you’ve found yourself someplace special this time.”  I announce and my husband and I go out grocery shopping.

        Returning a bit later, I am unlocking the back door and I notice pointed ears, and celery green eyes looking at me from a yawning cat sprawled between the sliding glass door and the puddled drape pulled to keep the sun out of the kitchen. She wasn’t there when we left.  But Jasmine is there now waiting and watching for our return to make certain we’d gotten her much needed cat cheerios from the grocery store.

        Unlocking the door she greets us at the door with her “chirping meow” and rubs around our ankles for her late afternoon snack.

Cat mystery is still unsolved.

May 20, 2017 – Fog in the meadows

        It was such a lovely sight this morning just after dawn when misty fog masked what lay in the distance.  Truly a perfect photographer’s moment with dew on the grass, the outline of a fence softened by the fog and then the inability to see what was in the distance.  It gave me a romantic perspective for only minutes before the sun came up and started to dissipate the fog.

        I never remember if it is cold ground with warm air or warm ground and cold air.  Or, maybe it happens to be both that make this fog effect.  But, it is May and we usually have this in August.  When it is in August the local folk lore advises you to count the days of fog in August and that is how many days of snow you will have the following winter.   So, if we are having this fog in May – what is that telling us?

        I headed out of the house as soon as I could to get my morning health walk in.  Me, retired now I feel I need to step up to the “health walk” regime.  I take my Rosary beads and do a Divine Mercy Chaplet followed by a daily Rosary which times out to just a little over a half hour.  It is a peaceful start to my day.   But also it is the easiest way to get it to rain. When it rains for a few days it breaks my regime cycle and makes it hard for me to get back into it.

        Along with the beautiful fog this morning I noticed more traffic on our dead end road than usual.  This week at the very end of our dead end development drive, a neighbor has moved out and another has moved in and we commented this morning there is an awful lot of traffic for one family who has just moved in. We raised our eyebrows in unison at each other not saying the words but thinking . . . if this is permanent we will go crazy with the lights flashing into the day room window when we watch TV in the evenings.

        Lap number one of my walk – the mist has slipped away too soon for my artistic soul – yet I have a concrete answer to all the traffic.   A “Garage Sale” sign is stuck at the end of the street, and I have to step out on the grass apron of the subdivision drive to let bargain-hunter’s cars pass as I am walking.   After lap number one I report the Garage Sale to my husband who is getting increasing upset by the amount of traffic.

        Of course, at the end of my health walk I did walk down to the neighbor’s garage sale, two houses down to check out their sale.  Various items are piled on a row of tables the full length of their shop driveway.  I see lots of buying and I say to the owner, “You’ve got plenty of traffic, looks like you are having a successful sale.”  I don’t get much of an answer as she doesn't realize I’m a neighbor and not a bargain hunter.

        I added, “Did you put an ad in the paper and on Facebook?”

        “No, just the paper.”  She answers as she is busy pocketing money and packing something up for a customer.

        “I’ll have to look at your newspaper ad – whatever you said, got them here.”  I was trying to be upbeat, but it fell on deaf ears.  I thought there must be a reason why she wasn’t friendly and strolled on home.

        Later, when my husband is taking his health walk, another neighbor stops by to talk.  [It seems men talk among themselves much more than they talk to their wives. My husband finds out all that is going on in the neighborhood from the other men who stop their pickup trucks in the middle of the road to kibitz.]

        It didn’t take long for the mist to clear from the neighborhood and to find out the reason for the big Garage Sale a few doors down.  They are “selling up” and moving back to Florida another neighbor reports.   My mind latched onto the phrase “selling up” which sounds optimistic compared to the usual “selling out”.

        That makes three houses that will be up for sale in the eleven house neighborhood at the same time.   As we are both now retired, we will have plenty to entertain us this season as we watch our neighborhood evolve with all sorts of interesting new neighbors.

May 19, 2017 – Message in a Bottle

        Do you remember that movie?  1999.  Starring Kevin Costner, Robin Wright Penn, and Paul Newman and based on a novel by Nichols Sparks. Chick flick?  YES and then NO.  I was reminded of this movie this morning when I was watching the news and I can’t tell you what vehicle was being advertised, but the essence was the sailing team [almost all hunks] were picked up and delivered to the dock and then you see just a glimpse of a sail boat racing. 

        I don’t even think the glimpse of the sail boat at the end was for a quarter of a second but it reminded me of Message in a Bottle.  Me, I’ve been one of the fortunate few who have sailed, and have owned two sail boats when we lived in Delaware.  In fact, I’ve been known to say: 

"A women’s hair should look stylish even when windblown so that when you step off a yacht you look fabulous in your fabulous life . . .and, if it doesn’t . . .then you have the wrong cut."

        Funny thing about sailing, you don’t have to know that much to be captured by the romance of it.  And, as an aside while I was drinking my morning coffee I was pondering on how awful TV was last night.  My husband surfed for something to watch for over 45 minutes [drives me crazy . . . but I was killing time doing some embroidery and tried my best to ignore the ‘surf’]. 

We are in the TV show DEADZONE already and it isn’t even Memorial Day.  We have all kinds of shows that show us all kinds of things – except I haven’t seen a sailing show.  Why not?   Just capture all the major world sailing races, drift from port to port showing all the major yacht club races, meet the teams, find out who the victors are and who their nemeses are, and when you run out of that material you can always interview and preview an actual sail with a sailing entity like the American Schooner which hails out of Rockland, Maine. [If some TV executive actually takes this idea and runs with it . . . please invite me along . . . because I actually do have the right hair style to step on and off sailing yachts. I look great windblown.]

        Years ago I coaxed my brother into sailing with me on the American Eagle sailing out of Rockland, Maine.   It was a great first adventure and then I went again in a threesome with my brother and his wife.  I found it to be perfection – sailing – wind and salt air in my hair, beautiful vistas from the ocean side viewing the land,  good food, and a fun time all around.

I still get the monthly newsletter via email and I know I have at least one or two sailing trips left in me.   If you want to know more about the American Eagle and a great sailing vacation . . . visit the below website.

https://www.schooneramericaneagle.com/

May 1, 2017 – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme

        Do you remember that haunting song by Simon & Garfunkel?   I still do and it was a hit back when I was about 12 years old.   I never caught on to the subtle meaning of the subtext of the second singer; I only remember the herbs listed out and a few other phrases.

        It is strange how I remember that haunting tune when I am thinking about my herb gardens.  But, then, I happened upon the PBS series Rosemary & Thyme which is a delightful show about two professional gardeners that find dead bodies and such in the gardens they are creating or re-making.  The show’s opening theme song reminds me of those haunting notes of the Simon & Garfunkel tune.

        Yes, this is a long introduction to something that happened the other day while I was making homemade chicken soup.  But that tune plays in my head anytime I am working with herbs in the garden or in the kitchen. [Maybe it is the sign of a crazy person? Or, maybe not.]

        The grass is wet and I’ve just taken off my wet shoes and put on my dry slippers when I realize I need some fresh parsley from the garden.  Calling on my dutiful husband, who still has his day shoes on, I sweetly ask him to fetch me some parsley from the garden.  I gave him directions and point to it from the kitchen window.

        “In the center of that first row are two round clumps of green.  The one on the left is the better one, it is curly parsley. The other one is the Italian flat and it is starting to bolt.  Pick me a couple of really nice stems.”

        Out he goes as I am dicing the celery.  He comes back with two 6-inch fronds of fresh dill. 

        “That’s dill and it was on the end – not the middle,” I said flatly.    He is a good sport and goes out again after I give him basically the same instructions.

Yet, I am thinking, ‘sure he picked the only dill plant that volunteered from last year’s dill going to seed and I was nurturing it to get fresh seeds this year because the dill I have planted does want to germinate.  I’ve had drifts of re-seeded dill for years and now suddenly it doesn’t want to re-seed.  What have they hybridized the seed or something?’

        I have moved onto the dicing of the onions.  He returns with a 6 inch branch of Rosemary.  He is rubbing it under his nose,

        “This smells great!” He says.

        “That is Rosemary,” I say shaking my head and smiling at him for his second, unproductive attempt at assisting me, the cook.

        “That was on the end of the second row,” I add not getting angry or exasperated.  What would be the point of getting into a fight over fresh herbs?  Life is too short. I am actually surprised at my level of patience.

But, I am thinking, ‘Never ask a man to do woman’s work . . . it is simply better to just do it yourself . . . yes, I do need to move all my herbs to the garden off the patio. Now that I have those new patio pavers installed I can simply walk out, even in my bare feet, to fetch fresh herbs.’

        “Then, I can’t find it,” He replies and sits down in his favorite chair to watch golf.  

        I am now scraping the carrots and then dicing them fine.  A thought occurs to me – way too much dill and too much rosemary for this one pot of homemade chicken soup.  What would be the point of going out to get fresh parsley now?  I won’t dice these herbs to put in the soup or it will be too strong.  I guess I will simply tie them into a “bouquet garni” like Julia Child . . . or was it Martha Stewart? Doesn’t matter, I will be Chef Tell today.

        Eventually, all the ingredients in the pot have come to a slow simmer and I toss the fresh, fragrant bouquet garni, tied with a bit of string, on top with a flourish and pop the lid on. 

We will go with the flow, go with only dill and rosemary.  I bet he won’t be able to tell the difference.

        Then I notice I am softly singing.

“Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

. . . . a true love of mine.”