Blog Index - June 2017

June 7, 2017	“Two Points”
June 18, 2017	Cool . . . ahhhh . . . Cool Mornings
June 19, 2017	Fractured Fairy Tale: The Tortoise and The Hare
June 20, 2017	You’ve a lovely view
June 21, 2017	Fill up your senses . . . Summer Solstice
June 24, 2017	Broken Toe
June 25, 2017	Day Two – Broken Toe and Mr. Snake

June 25, 2017 – Day Two – Broken Toe and Mr. Snake

        It is just a little broken toe.  Who would have thought it can disrupt your life so much.  Pussy footing around – walking on mostly my left heel to avoid pain I notice I don’t have very good balance.

        You walk or stand for just about everything.  You are standing for 90% of all housekeeping – making a bed, folding and putting away laundry, cooking, feeding the cat and dog, and taking the dog out for a walk.

        I haven’t put on shoes yet and I was out on the front steps barefoot with Jack dog on a leash.  Not much balance, I had to hold on dearly to the railing.  I hobbled through the wet dew grass while he was doing his duty. I snapped off four blooming gladiolas that last night’s fierce rains knocked to the ground.  I am just as unbalanced coming up the stairs to get back inside.  I will need to re-think everything I am doing for the next few days.

        I didn’t sleep well, the covers rubbed on my toe and woke me up.   

        But, I have to keep moving.  The garden produce is coming in and you just can’t let it wait or it will be ruined.  Barefoot, I hobbled down to the vegetable garden with my plastic produce basket to pick beans. 

The two short five foot rows of bush beans, yellow and green were fully loaded for a second picking.  I bent at the waist for picking at the waist and worked one side with my 2 ½ foot reach, then hobbled to the back side for the rest of the 2 ½ foot reach.  I must say I did pretty well with balance until I had to stand up – then I got a little wobbly. I netted about 3 quarts of beautiful fresh beans.  On the way back to the house I hobbled to the patio vegetable garden to check on the status of the Bok Choy and the white Tokyo turnips. 

What has dug up several turnips?  They were tipped over and lying on their sides, the center root still in the ground, but the soil completely swept away around the white roots so that they looked like motionless spinning tops.  I leaned in closer to inspect. Who would have done that?

Then suddenly I noticed the unmistakable black scaly skin of the tail end of a snake only inches away.  Barefoot, and unable to move quickly I yelped a startled cry.   I backed away carefully, as I’d just about touched the tail end of a black snake.

I could see it clearly now, unusual, looped back and forth and intertwined at the base of the flowering sweet pea vines.  Unusual the way it’s head was tipped back so that the whitish underneath chin was exposed.  At once I realized it was hung up or caught in the plastic netting that I had used for the sweet pea vines to climb on.  It had its full length swelled with lizards or lizard eggs [skinks] and it couldn’t get out of the unintended trap.  It had entangled itself and its wreathing tail has swept back and forth in the soil and swept my turnips mostly out of the soil, now only clinging with their deep center roots.

This was the first year I’d ever used the plastic 1 inch square netting.   Was the snake dead? It was more than five feet as it was looped the full width of my 5 foot wide garden.  It was not moving.

I backed away further and told my husband who came to investigate while I safely hobbled into the house.

“She’s exhausted, but still alive.”  He reported when he came into the house.

“Why a SHE?  HE was after lizards and did you see how he swept my turnips out of the ground?” I replied.

I didn’t want to even think about it. I’d have to get rid of a dead snake in a day or so which made me involuntarily shudder.

Later in the afternoon my husband, the ‘Good Samaritan’, had cut away the majority of the netting so that the snake could get loose and get away.

“I cut away the netting, she’s gone off now. She didn’t bother me, she just looked at me, didn’t want to bite me as I got her free.”  He told me.

Me, I wasn’t thrilled that the snake was alive to scare the daylights out of me in the future, that it had swept my turnips out of the ground, that it had hunted and probably exterminated all my lovely lizards [skinks].  But, when I glanced at the area where the snake had been entangled, I noticed that my husband had ruined my stand of flowering Sweet peas.  Half the flowering row was torn out and laid limp on the ground.

I was thankful I didn’t have to deal with it, but I bet that snake is a HE and his name is ARNOLD and he is chanting as he is resting up before his next foray back to my patio garden.

“I’ll be back.

I’ll be back.

I’ll be back.”

        

June 24, 2017 – Broken Toe

        There is nothing like instantaneously being taken out of commission.  One minute you are fine - the next you are snarling “#$%@!”  and hopping around on one foot holding the other.

        It was a simple matter of stepping over Jack, our dog, who was sleeping in the hall which runs from the day room [TV/Kitchen] end of house through the dining room and formal living room to the bedrooms.

        I have just washed the inside and outside of the day room windows and have the lace curtains in the wash and intend on getting the second load of laundry started which is in the bedroom area.  With one foot, I step too close to Jack who isn’t sleeping but faking it and he half jumps up and growls and I instantly step extra wide with the other foot to avoid a canine nip and try to catch myself before I fall.  While catching myself I slam my moving foot – into the leg of the dining room table instead of falling head long first into the glass front china cabinet.

        “Crack.”

        I hear the sound of the broken toe before I even feel the pain. I was certain of the sound.  I’d heard that ‘crack’ once before when I was a kid on vacation in Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire.

        Of course I gasped and I am clutching at the table cloth on the dining room table trying to right myself when I notice that all the assorted “junk” that I intend for a yard sale is starting to slide towards the floor.

        In order to stop the trajectory of the assorted yard sale minutia, I have to stand on both feet to stabilize myself; my broken toe is definitely confirmed by the ensuing pain.

        “I’ve just broke my toe.”  I announce loudly.

        “How do you know?”  My husband asks casually as he is watching the morning news.  He doesn’t move, doesn’t even turn his head.

        “I heard it crack. I broke my toes on vacation once as a kid,” I answer as I hobble to the refrigerator, grab one of those ice packs that you can mold around a body part, then hobble to a chair and fold it around my left foot to freeze the pain out of it.

        Now he is looking at me with disbelief thinking I am a super wimp.

        “You should have shoes on anyway.”   He claims noticing I am barefoot.

        “I kicked my muddy shoes off at the door.  Besides, I am always barefoot in the house.” 

Why am I explaining my bare-foot-ness to a man I have lived with for 40+ years?  He quickly escapes out the back door to mow the lawn or take out the trash or some such chore so that he doesn’t have to deal with my minor injury.

       

        Ticking through my brain is the rest of my “to-do” list.  I have the curtains to put back up when they come out of the dryer, I have the kitchen floor to wash now that I have moved all the furniture out in order to give it a serious scrub after all the rains and muddy feet.  I’ve . . . I’ve. . . . darn this thing hurts.  I pull off the freeze pack and inspect.  YUP – already turning black and blue.

        After the toe is frozen enough, I set up the floor washing so that I can sit on my bottom and scoot around on the floor.  I take out the curtains and put them in the dryer and I start the next load.   With my implements around me I scoot around on my butt like a land crab and get the kitchen floor and my lower cabinets washed cleaned to my satisfaction. [And doesn’t the telephone ring incessantly – “let it ring – let it ring” – I say out loud several times.]

        However, getting up off the floor is tricky.  No matter which foot I put up with a knee to raise myself up it hurts.  I try both ways, bad toe foot up with a knee – no; then I switch to the other foot up with a knee to get up and the broken toe foot down as the push off.   I had to get up – a major OUCH.   More ice pack. I won’t be getting down again I can tell you until my toe is healed.

        Hobbling with frozen toe I put the lace curtains on the rods and re-hang them.  I sit to re-freeze the toe and notice there seems to be something wrong with the curtains. ‘Where are the birds in the lace,’ I am wondering.  Sitting with my toe in the freeze pack again, I study the curtains for a time and notice that all three curtains are hung upside down.  Getting them down again I realize I’ve strung the lace curtains on the rods by their hems not by the top casing. When I am re-hanging them I find the tags at the top right back of every panel as they should be.  My husband comes in and sees I am okay.

        “You might need to know that the tag goes on the back side, upper right hand of each curtain.” I mention casually to him.

        “Why would I want to know that pray tell?” was his answer.

        I shake my head sadly as I can already imagine myself about 95 years old unable to “do for myself” giving direction to a young care giver about how to take down the lace curtains and how to hang them up properly again.  Add that to my theory on the proper way sheets should be put on a bed and I know I will be the most cantankerous elderly person in the county. 

What a frightful future to look forward to.

        

June 21, 2017 – Fill up your senses

Summer Solstice – 14 hours and 31 minutes

        Last week I noticed that the nights were getting much longer and in the back of my mind I knew I would notice that the onions were “making” or you could say “bulbing” or “developing” which is a sure sign of longer days and Summer Solstice.

        In celebration of the Summer Solstice, I decided after dinner last night to test drive my brick patio for a “sit-out” until dark – since it was the longest day of the year.  I actually cannot remember the last time I sat out until darkness had fallen.

        I pulled on a long sleeve shirt so that the bugs wouldn’t “eat me up”, poured a large glass of red wine and pulled a second lawn chair close to another so I could sit with my feet up and directed my attention to the herb garden 6 feet away and the back lawn slopping down to the Kudzu covered back property line.  There was none of the usual bird life chatter so the sound of silence sort of cloaked the moment.

        The first thing I noticed once I settled into my chair was the scent of the cilantro blossoms which were cascading out of the garden onto the brick paver patio.  Ten minutes later I actually could feel the dew coming down on my crossed bare ankles and my hands and my upturned face.  [I wonder how effective dew drops are in erasing wrinkles; I am hopeful.] Then I noticed that the dew drops stirred the scent of the mint into the air – that was nice.

        Several minutes later I admired what I thought could be a locust “sawing” sound in the trees up near the river birches and it eventually drifted away and was sudden quite.  As if on cue, as in a stage play, I next heard what I believe was a tree frog “gurgling” and the fireflies dancing out in the lawn became more perceptible as the dusk drifted slowly toward darkness.

        The sunset of blue sky with pink underbelly could be seen through the tall trees on the back property line for the longest time.  Eventually it washed out to a medium grey, yet it wasn’t really dark out yet. I could see the color and texture of wispy maidenhair grass, silver foliaged lamb’s ears [Stachys byzantina], and the white blossoms of the cilantro seemed to become even brighter as the dusk drifted away.

        I noticed a movement at the periphery of my right eye and glanced at the brick pavement.  I saw what looked like a crumpled beige paper towel.  I didn’t remember seeing any trash on the patio when I was re-arranging my chairs, so I got up to inspect.  Two steps toward the beige mound and “hop” – it was a toad that had come out from who knows where.  I settled back into my lawn chair and admired the firefly show and the grey sky becoming subtly darker.

        Over time, Mr. Toad made his way about six feet to the raised garden edge and then managed to disappear into it somewhere under the cilantro blossoms into the damp earth of the garden.  I called to him and told him “happy hunting” in his quest for insects.

        Then I noticed the white blooms of the going-to-seed arugula were in direct competition with the cilantro.  Possibly the arugula blossoms open up more at night?  I don’t know but I pondered this. They seemed luminous suddenly.

        Even at 9:30 p.m. [almost an hour after sunset] I could clearly make out all the details of the patio and back yard.  About that time, a concerned husband opened the back door and sent out a blinding flashlight beam to roust me back into the house – but I told him to not lock up – I was going to stay out until I felt it was as dark as it would get.

        That make-out-the-details light didn’t seem to change for the next half hour to 45 minutes.

        I challenge everyone who reads this blog to try a “sit-out” during the longest nights we have in summer . . . and live the lyrics from Annie’s Song:

“Like a night in the forest, you fill up my senses.”

NOTE: Following is a link to a chart of sunrise, sunset and other interesting things like Astronomical Twilight, Nautical Twilight, and Civil Twilight.

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/charlotte

June 20, 2017 – “You’ve a lovely view . . .”

“You’ve a lovely view out your bathroom window.” My friend mentioned when she came out of the bathroom.   

   

     My heart leapt in my chest at the compliment.  A friend was visiting and she needed to use the rest room and I sent her through to the master bathroom. I thought, ‘How lovely she noticed and said something. And, yes, I see that view every day and admire it myself.’

       

     "The brick patio looks great from that window – doesn’t it?” I answered.  I got no additional comment and was disappointed, but then I should expect that.  No one passes out compliments freely anymore – except me.  When I see something lovely or interesting – I admire it and let the person know.

        Why is everyone so stingy with compliments these days?

     Years ago when I was a paralegal in Spartanburg, I sat in on a meeting to take notes of a conference between my boss and an elegant older man, who was well known in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  He had narrowly escaped the German death camps in Hungary in the mid 1940s and came to America.  He was well known, in fact, a building was named in his honor at Wofford College.

     He complimented me, which surprised me as we were in a business setting and I was only there for the purpose of taking notes.  I blushed and whispered, “Thank you that was nice of you.”

    He was amused that I blushed and said something about what is wrong about this world. I remember it as: No one gives people compliments anymore.  It is not as if they are reaching down into the bottom of their pocket and pulling out money . . . compliments are free.

     You can visit the following site and learn all about this elegant man that taught me the power of the compliment – a lesson I learned firsthand from a pro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandor_Teszler#cite_ref-1

     From that moment onward in my life I have been passing out compliments [FOR FREE] because paying a sincere compliment feels even better than receiving one.

     All these years I have been receiving some of the nicest dividends from it in the form of big smiles, soft chuckles or even laughter and sometimes: “You’ve made my day” or simply a slow soft smile or nod or a blush.

     So, when I received the compliment at the opening of this blog I reveled in it and felt I had been given a big fat expensive gift.

     Then, I decided to browse the internet about compliments and possibly the etiquette thereof and fell upon a lovely website noted below.

        Nataly Kogan writes: 

“We all know how great it is to receive a compliment; research shows getting a sincere compliment gives us the same positive boost as receiving cash!  But did you know that the health and happiness benefits to the compliment giver are also well-documented?  Compliments really are one of the easiest two-way streets available in terms of spreading happiness around you and increasing our own. The more you compliment, the better you feel.”

Then Nataly gives you a wonderful list of 100 ready-made compliments to get you started on your journey of learning the art of compliments and getting a payback as good as cash.

https://www.happier.com/blog/nice-things-to-say-100-compliments

June 19, 2017 - Fractured Fairy Tale:  The Tortoise and the Hare

Below is the result of my monthly writer's club prompt.  This exercise was to take a Fairy Tale and fracture it and make it different.  I struggled with this.  Took me a few weeks just to research dozens of fairy tales that I knew and read up on ones that I didn't know. I tossed out a half dozen false starts. Finally I got a glimmer of an idea and I ran with it. 

I tested it on a good friend and my brother who both got a good chuckle out of it so I am sharing it with the world.

A Note of caution:  If you don't like politics - I suggest you pass this by.

The Tortoise and the Hare

In the fall of 2016, there was “A Presidential Election” which took place in The United States of America between a Tortoise and Hare. Every four years this Presidential Race takes place in an effort to maintain the democracy of the United States of America.

This race started with a debate cycle among 17 Tortoises and 2 Hares.  After various contestants dropped out, the race was reduced to one Tortoise and one Hare, namely Trump Tortoise and Hillary Hare.

Trump Tortoise and Hillary Hare competed in various televised debates with questions posed by every-day citizens as well as TV commentators.

During the debates, Trump Tortoise nicknamed Hillary Hare as Crooked Hillary and Hillary Hare called all Trump Tortoise supporters “Deplorables.”  Vitriol and divisive mud-slinging was had by all including the biased media.

Trump Tortoise ran on the slogan “Make America Great Again”.  His sea of followers wore red ball caps stamped with his slogan and came out in the thousands.  Meanwhile, Hillary Hare’s slogan called for their vote on the premise of being the First-Woman-as-President and “I’m with HER” and “Stronger Together” as her slogans.  Her artwork was a red arrow overlapping a large blue H that too many Tortoise supporters assumed meant “stage right exit” from reality.

Trump Tortoise slowly plodded across the entire United States, from North to South from Coast to Coast and he particularly paid attention and plodded slower in the “Fly over” section of the country – the center of the country where the “elites” and “liberals” were not so densely concentrated.

Hillary Hare hopped and skipped over the fly-over area and stopped briefly only where she was “adored”.  Her platform was vague to the common man.

During the last weeks of the election, the FBI brought up, again, the criminal investigation of her missing emails and illegal server. Hillary Hare quipped, “You mean wipe, like with a cloth?” thinking her humor would sooth the voters, but it had the opposite effect. Meanwhile, Trump Tortoise followers loudly chanted “Lock her Up, Lock her UP” at his rallies.

Hillary Hare supporters claimed Tortoise Trump was a misogynist which is a fancy word for woman-hater.  Hillary Hare claimed that women should have complete control over their bodies including the right to kill their unborn child.   Many of the evangelical leaning  Trump Tortoise supporters were “anti-abortion” and felt that the Hillary Hare supporters use of “Pro Choice” was a euphemism for Pro-abortion.

During the final days of the election process, Hillary Hare hopped around to her favorite spots while Trump Tortoise plodded along to those states where the “forgotten man” lived.

The late night race results showed Trump Tortoise, who had plodded to each and every electoral checkpoint, had accumulated more “electoral votes" than elusive Hillary Hare’s hopping in and out of checkpoints so fast that the electoral college wasn't swayed to her side.  The election finals showed Hopping Hillary Hare miscalculated by obtaining only 232 electoral votes while Plodding Trump Tortoise collected 306 electoral votes.

The Moral of the story: Hopping Hillary Hare had missed the point: You don’t win by Popular Vote you win by obtaining 270 or more electoral votes.

June 17, 2017 – Cool . . . ahhhh . . . Cool mornings

        We have been enjoying the bounty of this lovely rain we have had almost daily for several weeks now.  Alas the lovely rain, but alas the luxuriant weeds that come from it as well.  But, today I want to boast about cool cumbers.

        This morning’s wet-grass stroll to the garden netted seven (7) pickling size cucumbers.   My Boston picklers have started to come in.  [Note to self:  Get some canning jars out of shed and the Ice Box pickle recipe ready.]

I noticed that the bees were abundant on one particular cucumber trellis as I have a blue Salvia planted directly in front of it.  [This is the fourth year on having this flowering plant beside a cucumber trellis.] I can think of no other reason except the flowers must be enticing the pollinating bees to that location which are giving me success.  Less than 12 feet away, the bees are not pollinating the cornichon cucumbers that are on - what else, but the fleur de lis trellis? [My brother sent me seeds of the French cornichon last year and they were planted near a blue Salvia and I had amazing production last year.]

        I intend on taking a soft watercolor mop brush and pollinating those cornichon cucumber flowers by hand to see if I can get some cucumbers.

Previously I had always thought that the cucumbers were not getting enough water and they were misshapen due to lack of moisture. BUT, once I attended a Bee Keeper’s class – yes it was absolutely fascinating, and I did pass the test – I realized you had to be braver than I could possibly manage.  I now have an even greater respect for the bees.  But, one of the many excellent instructors pointed out that cucumbers need to be pollinated 12 times in order for the cucumber to fill out completely.

        Daily I remove from my vines any small misshapen cucumbers that are just starting to form and will never fill out properly due to lack of bee pollination in order that the vine puts its energy into properly pollinated vines.  I notice I get a much better and longer crop production from my cucumber vines.

        The real key to success I now believe is nothing more than how to entice the bees to your garden.  I will be planting more blue Salvia next year.

Now that the cucumbers are “coming in” I can slip back into my favorite routine of daily slipping cucumbers off the vine with the soft snip of my thumb nail so that in moments I can slice them into spears and crunch them with my morning coffee. One of my favorite country pleasures is fresh picked produce that cannot be duplicated by anyone except by the resident gardener.  One moment the cucumbers are living organisms and the next moment their arrested aliveness is on your tongue.

        These cool morning cucumbers are a glorious testament to one of God’s most interesting creations – the Bee.

June 7, 2017 – “Two Points!”

        After I did it I realized my competitive spirit is never going to disappear just because I have retired.  I may no longer be competing in the workplace to be the best, earn more, or get ahead, but that compulsive spirit to WIN is still there.  It must be built into my DNA or my Mom and Dad did a great job burning that winning spirit into me.

        That patting myself on the back is still there, always has been, and must be the basis of my self-esteem.

        What did I actually do?   I crumpled up a piece of junk mail and tossed it ten feet away into a waste basket and out loud I declared “Two Points!” and did the accompanying hand pump in the air and said, “YES”. [And, no, I never was a basketball player when I was a kid – only played in gym class.]

        The incident made me smile.  I remembered the last time I did it in a work setting.  Last fall I’d done a similar thing in the wait staff area of the Lake Lure Inn. I crumpled up something and tossed it about 8 feet away and I declared “Two Points” because it went in the trash can successfully.   I think I even did the hand pump as well.   All five fellow workers looked at me, only the male of the group had an understanding impression on his face.  The rest, young women aged 17 to about 25 looked at me and rolled their eyes.  I still don’t know what that look was of theirs, but at the time I guessed it meant: ‘She’s weird.’ Or, ‘she’s out of her element.’

        So, this morning it made me ponder.  Yes, I do a lot of pondering now that I am retired, and less post-worrying or pre-worrying about work and more pondering about my moment to moment everyday impressions.

        For instance, I ponder that the younger generation may be so into computer games and technology that they may not have the same competitive “sports spirit” I have.    Maybe mine is old fashioned in that I don’t believe everyone should get a trophy for showing up – I think only 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd, [the top three “winners”] should be recognized and that those showing up should understand the importance of striving for the best, striving for the award of being the best – no matter how small or inconsequential the competition it is or what the so called “game” is.  

        There is a comment tossed around in the news today, “We don’t win any more . . .”    Maybe some of the younger generation does not have that “winning” spirit anymore.  Maybe it has been undermined by the political correctness of everyone gets a trophy for showing up.

        I don’t know what the answer is.  But, I do know I even do this “two points” declaration of victory even when I am alone.  For example, while out in the garden pulling weeds I chunked out a huge clump of a weed.  I grabbed it, and gave the hefty chunk a swing-toss in to the not-to-close wheel barrow.  It sailed through the air and found the target. “Yes, two points” I say and smile with satisfaction.

        I may no longer be competing with anyone – out in the real world – as a dear friend calls it, but I don’t miss the competiveness of my own work in this thing called retirement.

        I wonder if I shouldn’t keep a daily score card?  Nah, no one would believe me.