Cop Car's Beat

One of those days

I just returned from my trip to the butcher's shop, preparing for another spate of hunkering down with ice and snow. Mostly, I don't include meats in my order to the grocery store (for pick up) because I don't have enough trust in their shoppers to let them substitute if the store is out of whatever it was that I ordered. Today, for our hunkering down, I particularly wanted to buy a beef roast. Right.

My shopping at Sig's, today, was more pleasant than my previous foray. The co-owner was working (the only worker in the shop while I was there) and there were no other customers in the store. I timed my trip to make the chances of having other shoppers present minimized. I double-mask to go inside, but the workers and customers on-the-whole, do not.  Anne, the co-owner with her son (Sig, her husband, having died about 15 years ago) told me that she had to come back to work because they had been unable to find reliable help. I understand that. The last time I was there, several weeks/months ago, there were three men working - one butcher and two counter servers - none of whom I had seen, before. (There was a reason for that: Not one of them had been employed there for more than a couple of weeks, and the guy who waited on me said that it was his first day on the job.) 

Moving right along...this (below) is the treasure trove with which I returned home.

Hmm...let's see, now...taking inventory I find two 1.5-pound packages of ground Chuck, one hunk of frozen salmon, one package of pork loin, one package of young fryer chicken (that probably won't get fried since HH thinks that any fried chicken that isn't "extra crispy" from KFC can't be worth eating), and a pint container of ambrosia (a dab of fruit and shredded coconut with a whole lot of whipped cream) that HH will devour. What? No beef roast? Oh, yes. Instant flashback photo in my mind tells me that there were a lot of various steaks in the display case, but no roast. Drat! As it turned out, I should not have worried. In placing some of the packages in the downstairs freezer, I found this package (below) - "Beef Top Round Steak" that will substitute nicely for a beef roast. Note that it was packaged on November 16, 2020. It's about time that it be used.

Why did I need beef roast in the first place? Because Roberta X has, unknown to her, "talked me into" trying something that my mother couldn't get me to try after decades of pleading - parsnips.

As a child, age 8 or 10, I remember sitting at the dinner table (actually, our only table) dejectedly staring at the parsnips on my plate. The odor off of that root vegetable turned my stomach. I was forced by my (truly) loving parents to consume them - after which I promptly went to the bathroom to barf them up. I caught holy heck from my folks. but have never knowingly eaten parsnips since that day. 

Enter Roberta X of The Adventures of Roberta X. If you've never read her blog, Roberta is a techie who occasionally writes about her cooking adventures - such as here, here, or here. Those adventures frequently (as in the previously linked postings) feature parsnips. OK, Roberta. I'm going to give parsnips another try. It has only been 74 years (at least) since my last trial. Mother would be proud.

I think I have enough root veggies (below) to make a decent try at it. Having Idaho potatoes, sweet potato, onions, turnips, parsnips, tiny carrots, and radishes on hand, I may pare it down to just three or four of them.

 

Partial Week in Review - February 2, 2022

Monday - Started off with a bang rattle

At about 11am, standing at the kitchen sink cleaning veggies, I heard the dishes in the cabinets rattle. The rattling pulsed for a total of about 22 seconds.

Other than the earthquake and a bit of cooking, my day was taken up finishing up the watering of trees and lawn (oh, and a bit of leaf raking). The weekend had provided us mild weather, allowing me to strike out against our drought conditions by watering newish trees and grass. I'm assuming that, although we have had temperatures in the single digits in November-January, the grass has not gone into dormancy since about 50% of it is still green. So far, the local water companies have not levied restrictions on water use, but we've had a total of less than 3/4-inch precipitation in the past three months, so I let established trees and plants fend for themselves.

Tuesday - Adventurous cooking

Tuesday is our preferred grocery pickup day. I had ordered two 1/2-gallon containers of milk and a 4-ounce bottle of vanilla extract to assure that we had sufficient ingredients for the snow ice cream I expected to enjoy. We were smack in the middle of the band of Kansas forecasted to receive 6-9 inches of snow, Wednesday and Thursday.

Among the items we brought home from the grocery store was a package of thick, boneless pork chops. I had really wanted lamb chops, but Dillons had none on hand and I didn't feel like making a run to Sig's butcher shop. I decided to try a new recipe (below) for making lamb chops, on the pork chops. (I don't recall the name of the source of the page shown. It was an unsolicited advertising publication.)

Girding my loins, I dived into making the chops for lunch. Immediately, I had to make a substitution - the only lemon on hand was not suitable and I didn't consider a lime to be a good substitute, so I used balsamic vinegar. Other than that, I followed the above recipe, using HH's 2019 Georges-Dubɶuf Beaujolais-Villages, his pre-dinner wine. It was a lovely meal, each chop complemented with a really small baked potato (with sour cream) and fresh cherry tomatoes.

ADDITION of a few hours later, because I forgot to include it the first time.

This is what the pork chops looked like while being cooked.

Wednesday - The white stuff came & Hair today, gone tomorrow

Snow: As usual, not being a good sleeper, I arose for a couple of hours in the early hours of Wednesday. It was snowing. It wasn't heavy, it wasn't blowing, it hadn't accumulated very much. By mid-morning, the wind had come up and although it didn't appear that we had received much snow, it had drifted a little. Our rain gage had trapped about four or five inches of snow. My attempt to take photos were met with a "Battery too low to take photos" message. The photos, below, were taken at about Noon. In the first photo, the rain gage is shown with the snow trapped inside. (I had removed the "funnel" and "measuring tube" to allow snow entry.) At 9pm, the depth of the snow in the rain gage was 8.5".

The second photo shows a pan of snow scooped up from the back porch for my Noon-time dish of ice cream. Each meal, that day, comprised a bowl of snow ice cream. Yum!

The snow was a skier's delight - dry powder. Fortunately, despite the wind, the snow is clean. It is late enough in the season that leaves and bits have already fallen from most trees. The snowfall was preceded by very light rain (think Seattle rain) for a few hours, knocking the dirt particles from the air and off of the trees. The snow kept well because the temperature was in the high teens (Fahrenheit).

Hair: (Important stuff - there will be a test - oh, yea.) The history of my life includes eras during which my hair was long, and eras during which it was short. Only because I could not maintain a schedule (from lack of proximity or lack of money) of having my hair cut often enough did I wander into a few weeks' time of wearing medium length hair - and during the two years that I lived in humid Florida. I wore long hair until age 14, short hair from then to age 31, long hair from then to age 57, short hair until COVID-19 made me too chicken to go to the hair cutting shop. It takes about one year for my hair to grow out so, now after two years in which to grow, my hair is long, again.

Early in the process of letting my hair grow out this time, and recalling that my Great-grandmother S wore her long hair up in a bun, I consulted Wonderful GrandDaughter (WGD) and Rachie. Being nurses, they have tended to wear their long tresses up in buns for the past several years. They are talented at making it look effortless, neat, and attractive. How did they do it? They told me. I practiced. I could never get the hang of it - until this past week. I got it! My bun looked effortless, neat, and mostly tidy. To memorialize the event and to be able to send them evidence of my feat (I cannot see them in person, after all), I had a passport-type photo taken at our local Walgreens (below). What an eye-opener. I shuddered looking at the too-honest photo. Obviously, WGD and Rachie looked wonderful in their buns because they are young and good-looking. Who would have thought?

I used the above photo to update the photo at the top of the blog page for a couple of days; but, Wednesday, I did something that I had not really been able to do, before. I took a selfie. It shows me with my hair down (below) and conforms more to the mental image I hold of myself. I may never be able to wear my hair "up", again!

Writing that last sentence reminded me that my mother had worn her hair in an "up-do" for some years in the 1940s and 1950s and that I had worn mine in an "up-do" on special occasions (photos of each, below). Had I remembered the photos of my own up-do in 1969, I might have been spared the trauma of going through my more recent up-do attempts. I must admit that the 1969 up-do had looked a lot better before the Kansas winds assaulted it.

  

                                                                                                                        December 1969

Skinning Cats

Elder Brother was considered the brightest of us three siblings, regardless of the fact that he completed the least amount of formal education - a year of graduate school in Chemical Engineering. Thus, I am always confident in asking advice from him. It is bound to be great - right? Ah, yes. Sometimes we agree on the approach to solving a problem; there are times when we are far apart. A few days ago, during a phone call, EB gave me input that was somewhere in-between. 

Trying to get more junk out of our house, Hunky Husband had allowed me to relieve his den/workout rooms of 8-9 empty cardboard boxes. While I was at it, he threw in a couple of boxes full of junk. Among the junk was an external ZIP drive, about which I was ignorant. I had known he had, some years ago, used an external hard drive: I had not known that it was a ZIP drive, nor would I have known what that was. I'm still not clear on the concept, but it is obvious that the 3.5" floppy disks that the drive uses are slightly different from the standard 3.5" floppy disk (see photo, below.)

Problem? I intend to box up the drive and the unused floppies and take them to the electronic recycle people in Wichita. I wanted to destroy the floppies on which HH had backed up his hard drive. What's the easy way to destroy floppies? It's having been at least 10-15 years since last I destroyed floppies; I don't recall what I did at that time. I do recall that we shredded floppies with an industrial shredder on classified programs, then burned the bits of confetto. HH suggested that I remove the sliding metal closeout of each floppy and put the medium through our cross-cut shredder. Hmmm...I don't know. That leaves the metal disk at the center. I don't wish to put our residential shredder to that task. I'll go with the brute force method of getting at the medium.

First disk: Insert screwdriver through the central hole, pry up at each corner to separate the two plastic halves, and shred the medium.

 

 

 

Second Disk: Insert screwdriver through central hole, pry up, insert long needle-nose plier through the central hole, pull out medium and shred it.

Third Disk: Insert screwdriver through central hole, pry up at the two corners away from the sliding metal to break attachments, insert needle-nose plier into gap in the side, pull out medium and shred it.

I've one more disk to shred* but have yet to come up with another way of brute forcing the medium out of the case. (Perhaps use a hammer?) Mom always assured me that there were multiple ways of skinning cats. Unfortunately, she's not around to see me apply her adage.

The photo, below, shows what will be taken to the e-cycle people.

There was a price for all of the fun I had devising different ways of destroying stuff: my unattended spaghetti sauce made a mess in the kitchen.

___________________________________

*ADDITION of 1/24/2022 - OMG

One box among those HH gave me for disposal, the innocent looking box in the photo below, contained a surprise: more disks.

These disks are just regular 3.5" floppy disks, rather than ZIP disks. Fortunately, only four of them need to be shredded. Some were blank. Most were used by HH for benign information concerning his volunteer service with an NGO providing disaster response. [HH served on over 50 disasters, including the responses to several hurricanes, among them Hurricane Katrina and to even more tornados, among them EF-5 tornados in Greensburg KS (1.7 miles wide, wiping out 95% of the town of nearly 1600 people - 2007) and Joplin MO (ranked as deadliest tornado in US history at the time - 2011- with 158 direct deaths and 8 more related deaths). HH was supposed to have been the originating director at Greensburg KS but came down with a virus just a couple of hours before he was to leave home - not before he had dispatched me to Topeka KS to provide liaison in the State Emergency Operation Center - my first large disaster. HH did, indeed, work in Joplin directing the operation - just not as the originating director. When the original call came, he was tied up in Reading KS on a small disaster training a new director of operations. OTOH, I was sent to Kansas City MO to provide liaison with FEMA.]

But, wait...there's more! That thin, long, black "thing" is the battery to a laptop. At first, I assumed it was the "lost" spare battery to the Toshiba that I shipped off to Elder Brother a few months ago; but, no, it is to HH's HP Envy laptop. That made me give the box another look. It was the box in which HH's Envy had arrived - back in 2015. The battery is now appropriately bagged in its anti-static sleeve, labeled, and ensconced in a storage compartment above the said laptop.

Guilty Secret - culinary

In seeking a posting that I had made having to do with re-using jam jars, I ran across this posting - not yet published - that I had written on 7/2/2019. Why it didn't get published, I can't say. The only thing that comes to mind is that COVID-19 had just gotten to the point where I wouldn't wish anyone to think that Hunky Husband and I still ate out in restaurants. We still don't, but I'm going to publish, anyway.

As one who was raised on beans and potatoes, I never really learned to appreciate fine culinary arts. It's just not in my DNA. I enjoy food; but, it tends to be low brow. Despite its reputation, low brow doesn't always have to be unhealthful. The low brow food that I put together for Hunky Husband (whose taste in food is even more low brow than is mine even though his sister is a professional chef and his mother and grandmothers were gourmet cooks) and me is, on the whole, balanced and not high in fats and sugars. However, when we go out to eat, it will more than likely end with our having less than healthful foods. Here are some of my favorite meals when we eat out.

Village Inn tilapia dinner shown in the photo with green beans and rice, but which I order with mashed potatoes (no gravy) and steamed broccoli. The dinner also comes with Texas toast (for which I ask to substitute one slice of regular whole wheat toast), and soup or salad (for which I ask to substitute a small dish of fruit which HH will consume for me). This is one of the more healthful meals that I enjoy eating out.

ADDITION of 1/13/2022 - (Toasted) Texas Toast

Jason's Deli Pacifica Salmon Salad with cucumber vinaigrette dressing, another healthful meal, is large enough for two meals; so I take half of it home for dinner that evening. One can tell that this was written some time ago. Jason's no longer offers the salad, or so I'm told.

NuWay crumbly burgers with deep fat fried onion rings and, if my essential tremors are under control and I've not had one for a while, a Diet Dr Pepper fountain drink. Hunky Husband has curly potato fries with his burger, and root beer in a frosted glass mug. The burgers are loose meat served on a bun with finely diced (and slightly cooked) onions, dill pickle slices, and yellow salad mustard. This meal is obviously not at all healthful; but, I do ask them not to add salt to the burger and rings.

Addition of 1/10/2022: Every few weeks, HH's "low crumbly warning light" comes on in which case we are apt to go through the drive-thru window, picking up our meals to bring home. As the nearest NuWay is a 30-minute drive away from our home, I usually warm HH's curly fries in the toaster oven to re-crisp them, but the crumbly burgers stay hot. At some time since 7/2/2019, I have switched from ordering onion rings for myself to ordering garlic salad. It's an acquired taste, but I enjoy this slightly more healthful side dish as much as I enjoyed onion rings. Garlic salad at NuWay is a very finely chopped slaw with much garlic in it. For our take-out meals, we do not order drinks to go, preferring to drink our tap water when at home. I've gotten to the point where I no longer have a Diet Dr Pepper, even occasionally.

This photo of Nu-Way Sandwich Shops is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Freddy's Steakburger and French fries are not healthful; but, we enjoy them on occasion. I order single burgers (their "standard" is a double!) with tomato, onion, and pickle (hold the cheese), and (again, depending upon my tremors and previous drinks) a Diet Dr Pepper fountain drink. HH orders a single cheeseburger with pickles and mustard. Generally, we share an order of French fries.

This posting results from an email conversation with a blog friend. I don't normally photograph a meal before consuming it. You can see that I've relied upon photos that the restaurants (or others) have taken of the above meals.

This one's on me

One should never air their dirty laundry in public...or so I was taught. Despite Mom's & Dad's best efforts, I am breaking the rule. Below are some photos showing our pantry.

 

 

 

The other day, there was a reason that I was delving into our pantry: I needed ingredients for making Seafood salad - and the recipe called for capers. Aha! See the closeup, below, with the cap to the capers circled*. There they were.

Upon opening the little jar, I thought that the capers smelled a bit different, but merrily measured out two tablespoons' worth and chucked them into the bowl. Only when I started to put the remaining capers into the refrigerator did I discover my error. The jar had been in the correct spot in our pantry. The lid was the correct size and the bottle was the correct shape. Why in the world would I have purchased Green Peppercorns?

It tasted dreadful. The result was that I pitched the whole bowl of seafood salad. Fortunately, I had not yet included the shrimp, only the less expensive fish.  

I frequently fail to follow my hand with my eyes, leading me to pick up something that was adjacent to the desired object. I am left-eyed and right-handed. The only time that I remember my hand/eye coordination's being great was after my first cataract surgery. I wore a protective device over my left (surgery site) eye, forcing my right eye to dominate. The right-eye/right-hand combination worked well.

_______________________

*    Obviously, the photo is a re-enactment. I was not prescient enough to take the photos beforehand.

Week in review

The photo, below, hit my funny bone.

I know how Carlos feels. I vividly recall in the mid-1980s being plugged into a short-term (six week) assignment by my bosses at The Little Engineering Company for lack of availability of other, more qualified, people who had been identified in the proposal for doing the work. The first time this happened, I filled in for a PhD materials expert whose Special Access Clearance (SAC) was too slow in coming. As I already had two or three such clearances, my additional SAC was granted within hours of submitting my request. To this day, I don't know how badly I screwed up "my part" of the project or whether that project ever saw the light of day.

Another time I was a "plug-in", the guy who had been identified in the proposal just flat did not wish to spend a few weeks in Seattle. (We were never notified when proposal writers identified us as principal staff in a proposal and we were required to keep detailed resumѐs on file for their use. My own resumѐ ran eight or nine pages in those archives.)

This project was a somewhat better fit; but, the timeline for accomplishment was far short of allowing adequate time for developing a good product. In order to fulfil the job, I loaned my SOCAL apartment to a coworker, and lived in a motel in Seattle for six weeks. I chose to ride the bus while in Seattle rather than using a company or rental car. It was during that stint that I was notified of a pickup truck's having rammed into my house in Albuquerque. Ah...good old days! [BTW: The above photo was stolen from Oddball Observations where it had been posted in 2013 with the comment, "Don't blame me.  This is a food truck in Houston.  The picture was sent to me by a (to be kept anonymous) friend.  Thanks, Frank."]

Hunky Husband took his car into Wichita for its annual servicing. Why is this big news? Because I did not go with him to navigate. Fortunately, there are only three changes of street in the 15-mile drive from our house to Lexus of Wichita, and HH was confident that he could get there and back. (He did!) We celebrate small victories. 😊 It helps that the car dealership is a straight shot north from one of the local golf courses, Hidden Lakes, at which HH used to play.

Early in the week I worked up the green tomatoes that I had picked before our first hard freeze. Green tomato relish is a good substitute for sweet pickle relish when one wishes a piquant touch on hot dogs or Tex-Mex chili. As one can see in the above photo, some of the tomatoes had started to turn color (and I added a bit of orange bell pepper). In all, I worked up about two gallons, only jarring four half pints and one quart. Without lid flats, their still being unavailable in our area, I decided to freeze the relish. Our downstairs freezer is pretty well stuffed with normal frozen foods and the Tex-Mex chili and baked beans that are awaiting pickup by Elder Brother. Refrigeration would be sufficient, with the sugar and vinegar included in the relish; but, the downstairs refrigerator is still packed with ripe tomatoes and sweet banana peppers that I put up in 2020 - at which time we were already lacking lid flats.

As one might guess, much of my time has been spent in keeping the new grass hydrated. The front lawn doesn't take much work. Three or four placements of the sprinkler suffices. In back, it takes more effort. At any rate, today will find me watering all the little trees in the back and between our driveway and Fred's fence. I've been negligent and we have several projected nights in the 20s (Fahrenheit) coming up.

More publicity for sister-in-law

Several weeks ago, in She has done it again!, I announced publication of Hunky Husband's sister Helen's second book on cooking. Later, The St Louis Post-Dispatch writer Daniel Neman interviewed Helen. An excerpt from Neman's resulting newspaper article appears below.

Daniel Neman: Tony's pastry chef does it her way in new cook(ie)book

Daniel Neman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Oct 18, 2021

Published in Variety Menu

 

To the baking world, it’s an unthinkable suggestion bordering on blasphemy: When making certain desserts, it’s just fine to use imitation vanilla extract.

So says Helen S. Fletcher, the author of “Craving Cookies: The Quintessential American Cookie Book.” It may be the best cookie cookbook you will ever see.

Fletcher is the pastry chef at Tony’s, one of the highest-rated fine-dining establishments in St. Louis. For more than 20 years, she owned Truffes in University City, a bakery that catered to restaurants, hotels and caterers, and also did a lot of work with weddings. So she knows about baking, even when it comes to imitation vanilla.

“At work, at Tony’s… I use vanilla that costs $400 a gallon,” she said, demonstrating in one short sentence the difference between professional bakers and hobbyists.

Even small bottles of what she considers the best tasting, most aromatic vanilla, Tahitian vanilla, can cost $35. And she doesn’t want to price anyone out of the joy of baking.

“My whole mantra is: I want people to bake. I want people to enjoy baking. I want people who have never baked to bake,” she said.

And that means using imitation vanilla when the vanilla flavor doesn’t stand on its own, such as in recipes that also use a lot of spice or chocolate. She usually uses professional imitation vanilla herself, but she also recommends McCormick’s.

Fletcher, 81, has had no formal training as a baker. So she has developed her own way of doing things, tips and tricks and hacks that work wonders but that other bakers don’t use.

“Sometimes, when you are trained, you get stuck on the way you are taught or the way the book taught you. Well, I wasn’t trained and I didn’t have the book,” she said.

Her new cookbook, which is self-published, has tricks for baking the way she bakes.

Summary of the week - July 23

SATURDAY, July 17

Edging of street curb

I finished manually edging the street curb, this morning. The photos show the edged curb and the last load of sod that I removed in the edging process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY, July 18

Flowers for free

On the 11th, Bogie posted More Rain!, including photos of a few flowers that were blooming without her having planted them. She reminded me of a mystery plant that came up under a small mulberry tree that I had saved when having the trees surrounding it removed. I finally thought to take a photo, today. If you can identify the flower, please do so in a comment. I'm calling it a "wild tiger lily" because I don't know what else to call it. For the past three years, I've watched us (carelessly) mow down a couple of irises that I had laid at the base of the tree; thus, I've no idea how long this lily has been there. It has an interesting leaf habit that climbs the blossom stem. The third photo, below, shows what remains of the iris plants for comparison of the leaf configuration to that of the lily. The iris hasn't bloomed for having been mowed down so many times and I no longer recall what sort of iris it is - if I ever knew. I may have picked it up out of my trash heap of irises that were discarded when we sodded along what is now our neighbor's fence line.

 

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

Summary of the week

Hunky Husband's busy calendar - 6/21/2021

It is well that HH is as organized as he is. It really helps him. Today he has a social engagement (to see old friends from 50 years ago, one of whom has come to town) and an appointment with his audiologist. That being the case, HH brought his penciled schedule for the day to me last evening to see if he had missed anything. He had noted the time at which he was to leave the house to meet his old friends at McDonald's, the time he was to leave McDonald's for home, etc. Right on! Unless HH starts getting more anxious about the whole thing, I plan to go to the gym this morning. I should return home before HH needs to leave, but I don't plan to go with him. McDonald's is less than one mile from our home.

How can we be so wasteful? - 6/22/2021

The item, below, is from News for Nerds.

Amazon Labels Millions of Unsold Products For Destruction, New Investigation Finds (theverge.com)73

Posted by msmash on Monday June 21, 2021 @01:39PM from the closer-look dept.

Amazon marks millions of unsold products for destruction each year in the UK, according to a new investigation by British television program ITV News. From a report: ITV found stacks of boxes marked "destroy" that were filled with electronics, jewelry, books, and other new or gently used items in one warehouse's "destruction zone." The news outlet caught the practice on camera while going undercover at the Dunfermline fulfillment center in Scotland. It says it tracked some of the goods to recycling centers and a landfill. About 124,000 items at Dunfermline were labeled "destroy" during a single week in April, according to an internal document obtained by ITV News. Just 28,000 items were set aside for donations during the same period. About half of all the stuff that's trashed are things that people returned, a former Amazon employee told ITV. While the other half are "unopened and still in their shrink wrap," the ex-employee said.

 

Sidenote to Bogie: I recall your telling me about wastefulness when you worked at Brookstone. I think it pales into insignificance when compared with the magnitude of Amazon's wastefulness.

 

Hunky Husband's busy calendar - 6/23/2021

 

 

For the first time since February, 2020, I got to see my friend who lives in a retirement village in northwestern Wichita. Hunky Husband took Elegant Friend and me to lunch at the Bricktown Brewery, a restaurant just a few blocks from EF's apartment. EF and I failed to recall how large portions of food are at that restaurant and each of the three of us took as much food home with us as we ate.

 

We lost our ISP (Cox) - 6/26/2021

 

 

As I was trying to solve a "no audio" problem with my computer software, this morning, I lost Internet connection - at about 7am. Since Cox has been laying some sort of cable in up along the main street that is about 1/3-mile to the west of us, I checked that our Wi-Fi was working and chose not to panic; but, I did check up on it every once-in-a-while. Hunky Husband and I just returned from the public library where, for the first time in 1.5 years I checked out a couple of books (both fiction, this time). In logging the books into my Excel spreadsheet, I note that I now have Internet connection - at about 2:45pm. Yay! HH is going down to his computer to check on his incoming emails.

 

I still have no audio. (Yes, the speakers are plugged in, powered up, and producing sounds.) The Troubleshooter software checked out my system and found nothing that it could fix - even after it reinstalled the audio drivers. I updated the System BIOS which, likewise, produced nothing. I don't much use the audio; but, it would be nice to have it back. 

 

Unlike previous times, HH has been choosing to go with me for most of the errands that I run - whether he drives or whether I drive. This is new behavior.

 

P.S. Weather - 6/26/2021

 

We received 1.6" of rain overnight. That cooled us down a bit, even if it raised the humidity. It was rather nice doing yardwork this morning - pulling millions of weeds and gathering branches downed by the wind.

Some days things go well

At about 11pm yesterday, I placed an online order with WalMart. They immediately sent confirmation with the information that the order would be split into two parts - one to arrive today, the other to arrive tomorrow. Good. This morning, I received another email saying that the item that was supposed to have arrived tomorrow would be delivered today. Well and good.

Hunky Husband and I drove up to Wichita to leave a box of stuff (mostly family's Xmas cards) on Dudette's front porch. As we were leaving her place, I texted her that we had left the box. (We knew that, although she works from home these days, she had wall-to-wall meetings today.) A few miles down the road toward home, HH's phone binged to let him know that he had a message. Dudette had acknowledged retrieving the box. (No, HH didn't read the text. He handed me his phone to pick it up.) A few miles farther down the road, there was a loud ding. I ignored it thinking it was a different type of notification on HH's phone. When the loud bing repeated a couple of minutes later, it dawned on me that the bing was telling me that I had received a voice message on my own phone. Digging my phone out, I saw that I had received a couple of phone calls from an apparently local number. I would have, as usual, ignored those calls were it not for the fact that I had also been left a voicemail. In order to pick up a voicemail, I must delete the phone numbers that had been displayed.

The voicemail was from a (young-sounding) woman saying that she was trying to make a delivery to me from WalMart, but had not been given my address; thus, she wanted me to return her call to provide the data. Oh, me. She was smart enough to not rely upon my phone to tell me who called and gave her phone number, verbally. The big question was: could I remember that number long enough to call her back. Victory! I contacted her, gave her our address, and our journey proceeded. I checked the front porch upon arrival and...there was the package - one bottle of olive oil. I shake my head that someone was actually dispatched to deliver that single bottle!

The photo at the top of this posting is one that was included in an email that I received from WalMart confirming delivery. Cool beans.