Sweatshirt or teacups?

By Posted in Bras, Shopping, teacups Tagged , , 3 Comments

Most females —  pubescent girls to great-grandmas — hate to shop for brassieres with good reason. It is a daunting task.

With a selection of options dangling over our arms we enter fitting rooms. Will these fit? The light is so dim and so yellow we can’t find ourselves in the mirrors.

There is an amazing multitude of choices — see-through, peek-through, maximizer, minimizer, strap, no strap, stays, zippers, sexy, modest, sports, evening, buster booster, training. Then there are color choices from white to demure pastels, vivid colors, camouflage, leopard spots, zebra stripes, and fabrics from cotton, rayon, nylon, satin, spandex, and trims from dainty ribbons to sequins, rhinestones, lace, and mirrors.

As far as I’m concerned, the perfect bra is a sweatshirt. —Maxine

Once a year I force myself to shop for these skimpy necessities in a jungle of Maidenform, Olga, Jockey, Playtex, Bali, Warner’s, Vanity Fair, Bare Necessity and Glamorise.  Where is a saleslady when I want one? I wander alone through clogged aisles, searching for white comfort, size, wire-less, padding-less.

Finally, armed with several types, I enter a murky dressing room that shows signs of someone having lunched there. I strip from the waist up. Ugh. The mirror, obviously, came from a defunct funhouse!

But I get lucky. Two options work. Done. I am prepared to stuff my merchandise in my purse and leave if I can’t find someone to ring me up quickly.  A clerk from Bed & Bath finds me before I make my getaway.

A good friend is like a good bra…hard to find, supportive, comfortable, there to lift you up and always close to your heart! — Anon

When I clip the tags off my purchases, I see this: The Playtex Vacationer™ — Around or out of town, this felxible [sic] bra will whisk you away with coolness and comfort. Destined to be your go-to-bra, wherever you go. I seldom go anywhere anymore, but now, when I do, I’ll have the perfect undergarment with …rounder…accommodating cups [that] mean less spillage….  If I’d wanted a teacup I’d have gone to Housewares.

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Prince Albert Collection teacup.

Gentle gray wisps.

By Posted in Beautiful Tagged , 12 Comments

 

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When I began my walk today, the morning was bright,
the sun so brilliant my eyes ached.
No more than a few hundred yards along, fog wafted in like
a worn gray picnic blanket settling on the emerald grass.
The fading dogwood blossoms glowed

It lasted only a few minutes, but long enough to gentle my roiling mind.
I continued walking, lightened,
as the fog lifted and sunlight returned.

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Grandma can tell you where to go.

By Posted in Hilarity, I'm not techno-savvy Tagged , 2 Comments

A map and sometimes step-by-step directions are all I ever need to get where I’m going. I don’t need to know where I am on the globe, nor to listen to an uppity woman tell me which way to turn. Generally, once I’ve been someplace I can find my way there again if I need to. Incessant yakking from the bowels of my dashboard confuses me.

We were just going to Lowe’s, for heavens sakes. My car could drive there by itself. But, as I backed out, the harridan ordered, “Go right one block. GO RIGHT ONE BLOCK.” I could hear echoes of my mother calling long ago, “Judith Ellen, come home, come home right now!”

I went the way I needed to go. “Recalculating,” cranky-voice said. She was frowning, I know.

“Might be fun to go wherever she says,” I said to my husband.

“How does she know where we’re going?” he asked. He didn’t know himself anymore, he just goes along for the ride.

“She doesn’t know! I didn’t even turn the darned thing on,” I grumbled. “And I don’t need her to tell me anyway.” I continued south and at every intersection she yelled, “Turn back now.” When I didn’t obey, she recalculated very grudgingly.

The  tirade continued until we got to Lowe’s, then she shut up. Not another peep, not then, nor on the way home. I’ll bet she forgot to sprinkle a trail of bread crumbs and couldn’t find the way herself.

I laughed the next morning when I saw this “Speed Bump” strip in The Roanoke Times. That’s my kind of message, homey and welcoming! There’s probably a rhubarb pie cooling on the windowsill.

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Oh ho, oops, apologies are in order. Karen Jacobson isn’t a harridan at all, in fact she’s very talented and funny. Watch this: https://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/video/watch/24209607/the-voice-of-siri-and-gps/#page2

 

Thanks to Dave Cloverly for permission to use his 4/10/16 strip
Thanks also to au.tv.yahoo Sunrise.

 

Here we are now and here’s where we’ve been.

By Posted in Natural beauty, Travels, Where to go Tagged , , 6 Comments
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2015 Staycation.

Peter and I were lucky enough to be able to cram in a number of wonderful trips in a few short years. We loved where we went and we’d go again, if we could!

The Botswana safari was the best. I posted a  series about that adventure. The Norway trip was a lifelong dream for me, likewise going to Netherlands at tulip time.

We journeyed up the Pacific coast from Vancouver to Alaska in a bathtoy-sized ship, and by land on to Mount McKinley. We made friends we’ll never forget. Another year we crossed Canada by rail, west to east, and the next year, we sailed around the British Isles on a voyage to discover the mysteries and beauties of ancient peoples, Not even my English husband knew about most of the places we explored.

In another small ship, we endured eighteen hours of seasickness to get to the San Ignacio lagoon on the west side of Baja California, Mexico. There we were able to touch the young gray whales when their mothers brought them to us. Back south and up the east side of the peninsula into the Sea of Cortez we saw most of the indigenous whales, including the great blues.

Our final trip, five years ago, was west to the glorious canyons of Utah and Arizona, and the wonders of Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons in the northern Rockies. Breathtaking.

Our trips now are only local ones. Neither of us minds that our suitcases are packed away, our passports, expired. Air travel these days is worse than ever with all the restrictions, implied threats, added costs, delays, deleted services. We’re happy to stay home, thankful to have lovely trips to remember…well, I remember, Peter looks at the pictures:

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Watt the heck happened?

By Posted in Circuitry, Shopping Tagged , 2 Comments

“The bulb broke off in the socket and you can’t get it out,” said the wizened helper at our local True Value hardware store. I’d walked in holding the socket and the broken remains of a three-way bulb aloft in a plastic baggie.

“Well, yes,” I said, “but that’s not the problem.” He was already heading to the front desk to get a screwdriver. Quick as a bulb burning out, he had the shards removed.  “What happened is, I put in a new bulb, after the bulb I’d just replaced two days ago burned out. When I screwed the newest bulb  in, it flashed then exploded. Glass sprayed all over. It looked like fireworks.”

He stroked his chin. No place but in a local hardware store would a clerk stroke his chin. Nor for that matter, help without being asked. I love local shops.

The solution was, buy a new socket assembly. I bought that and a bag of the peppermints I can only find at Christmas. The guys at the counter laughed at me. “Well-l, I didn’t really come in here to buy candy,” I said, attempting to make excuses for myself.

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40 years’ use shows.

The next day I decided I could replace that socket myself. I consulted our 1975 edition of How things work in your home) and what to do when they don’t.  Can’t beat its concise directions and easy to understand drawings. I attached the twisty little copper wires onto one thingie, then the other twisty copper wires to the other thingie. Put in a new bulb, and POW. Three in two days. I was running out of bulbs. I called son-in-law Martin. He and Les were on their way out — they’d stop by in a few minutes.

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Look at diagrams once, and once again.

When I showed him how carefully I’d followed the book’s instructions, he looked at me with a grin teetering on the edge of laughter. “That’s not the ground,” he said, “this is. You shorted it out.” I mistakenly wrapped one of the copper twizzlies around the switch instead of the terminal. Not good.

Within seconds he’d done it properly. Helpful sons-in-law are as good to have as a helpful hardware man. We have another good son-in-law in Bill, but he lives too far away for these drive-by fix-its I seem to need more and more often these days.

 

The week that hummed.

By Posted in Fun, Natural beauty, Travels Tagged , , , 3 Comments

Baja Judy

Eight years ago and 3100 miles from home, I petted a baby gray whale. We were on a NatGeo photographers’ whale-watching trip off Baja California, Mexico. Of eight people in our Zodiac I was the only one who hadn’t  touched a whale, but just as we were about to return to ship, a mama whale nudged her baby up to me and held him there. It remains one of the biggest thrills of my life.

Last week I snuggled with a young alpaca — Trenton — sweet, gentle, soft, sweet-smelling Trenton.  He ranks right next to that little whale.

Trenton lives with sixty-some other alpacas about seven miles from our door. The visit to Poplar Hill Alpacas was just one event in Carolynn’s and friend Robin’s springtime visit to us. My eldest has loved alpacas for years. She has a folder bulging with information about them and a dream as high as the Peruvian Andes where they come from.

Owner Pat Fuller gave the five of us — Carolynn, Robin, Leslie, Peter, me — a tour that lasted nearly two hours. We went into the barn and paddocks with the animals, and she urged us to pet them. Cuddles were encouraged too as long as we held them firmly around their necks. The day was sunny and too warm for the fleece-coated ‘pacas, but they submitted to our clinging hugs willingly.

And they hummed, as alpacas do.

Carolynn’s idea of heaven.
He’s a character.
Young ‘pacas in a paddock
This big guy had the second best fleece in the world a few years ago.
Juvenile males are separated from females, because there’s only one thing on their minds.
Peter isn’t a hugger.
Beautiful young lady.
Three youngsters waiting to show us their fleece.
Trenton thrilled me.
Leslie organized the herd.

Another day we visited a stunning exhibit, Jennifer Carpenter’s “Colored Pencil in Bloom,” at the Peggy Hahn Pavilion in the VT Hort Gardens. Then we had an alfresco picnic under some pines.

Sunday, Leslie set a beautiful table and fixed a traditional English dinner — roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and veg, trifle — to commemorate the “Downton Abbey” series finale.

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Robin bakes.

We had several meals out, plus Carolynn made creamy chicken soup one evening, and Robin’s favorite birthday meal another — colcannon, sausages, carrots in horseradish sauce, and lemon curd with cream for dessert). I was permitted to prepare lunches, and Robin demanded baking time to add to the supply of delights she brought to us — Irish soda bread, cheddar crisps, raspberry chocolate bars, mincemeat cookies, ginger snaps, marshmallows.

Every day was feast day all day long!

In addition to card games, our evening entertainment included the hilarious “Meet the Patels” on Netflix, and “Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot” at the cinema. We also went to “Lady in a Van” to see Maggie Smith as a homeless, wheelchair bound character. Instead we saw “45 Years” because I had the dates mixed up!  A grim movie, but I liked it. Carolynn, Robin and especially Peter glared when the credits rolled.

All in all, everything about the week was lovely. It proved you don’t have to leave home to have a good time. Well, except for Carolynn and Robin. They traveled 1192 miles round trip.

Now back in her routine, I know Carolynn is having alpaca dreams that will come true one day.

Pies are round like my hometown’s square.

By Posted in Nostalgia, Uncategorized, Where to go Tagged , 2 Comments

Every time I travel this way, driving north from Columbus…I feel that I’m entering another country…”

I’m an Ohioan, a buckeye, rooted in Mount Vernon just a few miles north of the geographical center of the state. My father never lived anyplace other than Knox County, nor any town other than Mount Vernon, except for the first four months of his life. He was born seven miles northwest in tiny Fredericktown.

Now we come into Mount Vernon … With its cobbled brick streets, Civil War monument town [round] square, block after block of handsome turn-of-the-century housing… And yet, there is something congenial about the place: stately houses, modest bungalows, backyard gardens, quiet streets…” 

That my dad lived such a long life — ninety — is attributable in part to pie. That’s what he would say anyway. In Ohio, pie is a meal, a food group!

The man never met a pie he didn’t like, with the possible exception of coconut crème and butterscotch. Fruit was his filling of choice: apple, cherry, peach, rhubarb, strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, elderberry, grape, plum, banana, and even raisin. Now he didn’t bake the pies — women’s work, he said — but he did pick, clean, sort and chop the fruit.

My mother rolled out a pie every few days: flakey, crusty, aromatic, lip-smackingly good. After mom died, dad remarried and Martha rolled out a pie every few days: flakey, crusty, aromatic, lip-smackingly good. I never asked, but I’ll bet in addition to “Love, honor, and obey” there was a clause in their marriage vows that promised, “pies to last you the rest of your days.”

It is difficult to say no to a home baked pie warm from the oven. Dad never even tried to resist as his waistline proved.

When my daughters were small and visited during the summer, their gramps let them have pie and homemade vanilla ice cream for breakfast. “You got your fruit, you got your dairy, perfect breakfast,” he’d say.

I wondered at him letting them eat pie every morning. When I was their ages I had to eat Shredded Wheat, Cheerios or Cornflakes. Sometimes I got a sliced banana.

Last Thanksgiving, our granddaughter Samantha wanted me to show her how to make a pie from scratch. She was a quick learner, and her first pies — apple and pumpkin — were excellent. I’m sorry to say that she’s as messy a baker as I am. Her great-grandmas would be horrified to see the mess she made. But her great-gramps would have loved the results.

Sam learned quickly.
Perfect crust first time.
Perfectly messy.

 

Quotes from Alma Mater, A College Homecoming, P.F. Kluge, Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1993.

Seven miles isn’t far to go.

By Posted in I'm not techno-savvy, Shopping Tagged 5 Comments

UnknownGoing to Lowe’s isn’t as exciting as our travels of years back, but it is only a seven-mile trip. We’ve reached the stage where  things are falling apart around our house. After eighteen years, it’s surprising more things haven’t quit. Yesterday’s adventure was necessary.

We remodeled our kitchen within months of moving in. All. New. Appliances. Yesterday the oven’s light bulb blew. That it lasted so long is amazing! The appliance bulbs prescribed in my dog-eared manual are no longer “appliance” bulbs, and they’re not stocked with all the other bulbs. Now they answer to “multi-use,” but if you don’t know that you have to find someone to ask.

Mayor+Lt+Gov+Elect+Newsom+Attends+Lowe+Store+0eHmL2Z3OmolI found a pleasant, red-vested Lowe’s associate who confessed he was “new,” but said, “I’ve worked in the gardening center for years. They moved me ‘inside’ a few weeks ago. If I can’t find the bulb, I know who to ask,” he said as he toddled down the aisle.

He found Rick. Rick was so nice and able to help me with everything on my list: bulb, Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 1.56.12 PMthermometer, deflectors for A/C vents, dishwasher and stove specs and prices. In return, I gave him advice on knee replacement surgery, told him what I knew about hip replacement, and recommended surgeons. Win-win.

I needed a thermometer to check the temperature in a room versus what the thermostat said. “Don’t look in the heating and A/C area, look in the birdseed aisle,” Rick said.

I knew our dishwasher was as good as dead and reasonably sure I knew what replacement brand and model I wanted. Rick found my choices on his computer at a better base price that included installation, if I could wait to make my purchase after February 10. I’ll be washing dishes in the sink until then. The door gasket spit out another chunk today. I’ve procrastinated too long.

Our stove also needs a pricey cartridge for the simmer control burners. Way more cost effective to buy a new stove, than to buy more than 500 dollars’ worth of parts and installation. The two-bulb package was a steal at two bucks.

I’d been researching dual-fuel ranges on-line and noticed a lot of them have a “Sabbath Feature.” I questioned Rick who said, “People who aren’t allowed to cook on certain days want ‘Sabbath.’ It locks the stove.”  Sounds like a programming nightmare to me. Why not go out to eat, I wondered?

Our fridge? It has surpassed life expectancy too. And the water-heater, though still functioning well, is older than all our other big ticket appliances.

Oi vey!Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 3.14.16 PMA woman is looking at new stoves. “Do you have one with a bigger back burner?” she asks. “There’s a lot of stuff I can’t deal with right now.”

 

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah…

By Posted in Beautiful, Cheers, Natural beauty Tagged , 2 Comments
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Photo, Missouri Department of Conservation.

Bluebirds, maybe a dozen in all, zipped around our feeders and vacated birdhouses one very cold morning. There were no mealworms for them, but a few snacked on seeds. Several went into the houses for a few minutes shelter. If they’d had silk ribbons in their beaks they might have been drawing a Disney scene in blue.

I didn’t have to go further than my kitchen window to see them. I stood there drinking coffee, while waiting for my toast to pop. I didn’t think to grab my phone or camera, didn’t think to grab a bird book from the shelf right behind me.

Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 9.12.52 AMBluebirds are year-round residents in our area, and including most of Pennsylvania south and diagonally westward to the middle of Texas. Even so, we seldom see them here in winter. That energetic blue flock was a wonderful beginning to a winter day.

I have a feeling they were being chased by the howling wind and bitter cold being shoved south and east by an Arctic clipper. The bluebirds certainly weren’t looking for available real estate to raise their young at this time of year. When the season is right, this custom bluebird condo, built by  son-in-law Bill, is ready for them.

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"Zip-a-dee-ay…wonderful feeling, wonderful day."

Encore! Encore!

By Posted in Beautiful, Natural beauty, Seasons, Snow Tagged , 6 Comments

Snowflakes pirouetted like ballerinas in crystalline tutus.  Scrims of white came in flurries, gusts, and wind-pushed whooshes. Allegro!

Snow, billowing, beautiful snow.

At last. Nearly two weeks past the white Christmas I dreamed of. Bundled up in layers for the first time this so-called winter, off I went walking…and singing…

For the past several weeks, and months too early, quince blossoms glowed dusky pink, golden jasmine wafted forsythia-like, and daffodils pushed one, two, six inches out of the ground. The Lenten roses opened too, and a cherry tree budded out at the edge of an apple orchard. I opened windows and doors to the spring-like air. We sat outside to have our tea, played cards in the sun.

Too early, too soon.

Retailers complained that winter apparel isn’t selling. People dashed about in shorts and flip-flops.

Today, the wind is cold, the thermometer is stuck below freezing, and the heat creaks on and off frequently. More, more. Encore!

Mahonia, already setting berries.
Snow blurs quince’s pink.
Hellebores ‘Lenten rose’
Jasmine, too soon.
Daffodils shiver bravely.

P-o-z-y-n-y-i spells Xmas.

By Posted in Beautiful, Environment, Natural beauty, Nostalgia, Seasons, Snow Tagged , 9 Comments

As the years go by I get more and more Scrooged-up about the holidays. This season my mood has been especially glum. The weather is just too darned warm for December. If I wanted warm I’d head to Florida.

But I’m not a warm lover. I need snow and cold and fireplace aglow. If I were to light my fire now, I’d have to sit outside and enjoy it through the window.

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S-n-o-w spells happy on our tree, ’cause when mama’s happy, everybody’s happy.

Yesterday though, the tiniest scintilla of spirit crept in when I tackled the traditional Hungarian pastry I learned to make when I was pregnant with my youngest, Leslie. Fifty-two years — with three lapses — I’ve been doing this.

As I shoveled the four cups of flour onto my big board, I thought how much it looked like snow, softly drifting. And as I proofed the yeast that had passed its sell-by date seven years ago, I marveled at the miracle that it was still active. In fact, that dough didn’t double in size, it tripled.

The smell of the yeast, the whiff of vanilla, the mysterious face that loomed out of my yet-to-be-mixed raisin filling, evoked the scent of happy holidays remembered…happily.

 

 

Gallery

Christmas comes once a year: October to December 25!

This gallery contains 8 photos.

I hate to admit that I’m just not into Christmas anymore. I took heart this year when a few major retailers decided against staying open on Thanksgiving. And, too, Black Friday was a bit of a flop.  That’s reason enough for Scrooges like me to celebrate. The last few years I’ve dragged my chains about decorating for Christmas. I’ve always […]