Grandma Stenger's Apple Pie Squares

Ingredients: 3 3/4 cups flour, 1 1/2 TB sugar, 1 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 1/2 cup shortening, 2 egg yolks plus enough milk to make 1 1/2 cup.
Directions: Sift flour, salt and sugar into bowl. Cut in shortening until coarse crumbs are formed. Mix in milk and egg mixture using just enough to make a stiff dough. Roll out 2/3 of the dough into a shape large enough to cover a jelly roll pan. Transfer dough into the pan fitting well in the corners. Fit the bottom and the sides of the pan.
Filling: 1 cup crushed corn flakes, 1 TB. flour, 3 TB. sugar - mix these together and spread in the bottom of the pan. Add 7 cups of peeled and sliced apples. Mix together 2 cups sugar, 2 TB flour and 1/2 tsp cinnamon and spread that evenly over the apple slices. Dot with 3 TB of butter.
Directions: Roll out the rest of the pastry and cover the apple slices. Seal the edges. Slash the top pastry in several places. Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Lower oven temperature to 350 and continue baking for 20 minutes. While still warm, frost with a thin frosting (I mix powdered sugar with milk or water).

I Was Wrong

I thought there was a doe with a fawn living in my yard for the past couple weeks. I scared the mother out of the grass out by the canoe last week. I've seen her in the driveway when I leave in the morning and when I come home in the afternoon. She's here all the time and she's very skittish. She'll leave when I approach but she doesn't go very far and she keeps looking back at me. Last weekend we saw a fawn running along the edge of the woods. This morning from the deck I saw both speckled fawns sunning themselves on the edge of the woods. I watched until the mother came out and called them back into the shelter of the woods. So I was wrong about the doe and her fawn. She had twins. I'll bet they are glad it's windy today. The mosquitoes are so nasty. My legs were eaten up when I weeded the garden Friday afternoon.

Happy One Year Blog Birthday

Today marks the one year anniversary of this blog, Orange Is My Favorite Color. Thank you for reading. Thanks to my friend in St. Cloud who suggested the blog title. Thanks to everyone who mentions reading it because it gives me a little thrill to know I'm being read. Thanks to all the other bloggers who have inspired me and who, after reading them for years, have become as close as friends. My sitemeter tells me that people from as far away as Ontario. Pennsylvania, Reno, St. Paul, Michigan, Texas, London, and Hamburg, Germany have read my blog. Some people have been led here by google searches. Here's a list of the most recent google searches and I think it gives a taste of what the last year has been about: pileated woodpeckers, black socks, ice cream, birch bark house, orange is my favorite color, your engagement, Masai warriors, ovenbirds, potato sausage soup and orange birds.

Too Much Information?

I found a new website today. http://www.accuweather.com/ Check it out. Type in your zip code and you will get all kinds of weather information about your area including forecast, weather summary, ultraviolet ray danger, arthritis index, and, as you can see on the left, frizzy hair forecast. No wonder I'm having a bad hair day.

On This Day Last Year

On this day last year, a friend (she is a saint) drove from her house in Stillwater in her new Prius to my house. She picked Offspring #2 and I up and drove us across the 35W bridge to Abbot Northwestern hospital. They have valet service there. They need valet service because it's about 2 city blocks from the parking ramp to the same day surgery check in. We were lost but a kindly nurse showed us the way. I got checked in and they had me change into a gown. This was a gown like I had never seen before. This gown had a vacuum cleaner attachment. I had a remote control and after I was hooked up, air blew inside the gown keeping me as warm or as cold as I preferred. I cranked it up as high as it went and was very comfortable. After waiting around for a couple hours I was taken in for my spinal stimulator implantation surgery. I have never had to lie face down on an operating table before. As I put my face into the face holder, I could see myself in a mirror. I guessed the anesthesiologist used the mirror to check my breathing during the operation but it is a little strange to see yourself in a very tense situation like going into surgery. They told me I would be somewhat awake during the surgery but not enough to feel any pain. I trusted them. Soon I was awakened by someone calling my name. I don't remember going out until they woke me up. The voice wanted to know if I could feel any tingling. "Yes," I said in a laughing voice, "I can feel it in my waist and it tickles!" They kept asking questions and adjusting the tingling until I could feel it in my lower back and right and left legs. Then they quit asking questions and went back to work. I said, "Hello! I can feel that." I could feel a pain where they were cutting in my back but I wasn't feeling the hurt of the pain. The surgeon, nice lady from Iran, asked me to relax and take a few deep breaths and shut my eyes. She went back to work. "Hello! I can still feel that." I know I was saying this in a snarky teenager voice but that is how it came out. Again she said, "Please close your eyes and relax." Next thing I knew I was lying on my back in the recovery room. I woke and was aware instantly and immediately started talking. "Man, my mouth tastes like Doritos. Nacho Cheese Doritos! I haven't had nacho cheese Doritos for years but I can sure taste them now." Normally I am a reserved person, even leaning toward quiet. But give me the right drugs and I become a blabbermouth. A nurse was helping another man who was vomiting. She asked me to close my eyes for a minute (translation - quit talking). But I couldn't. I kept talking. Eventually she got me a glass of water and a can of diet sprite. She mentioned closing my eyes several times but it didn't work, I kept talking. She moved me into another room so she could shut the door on me and my babbling. The constant urge to keep talking felt very foreign to me. I remember resolving to be more tolerant of the talkative. After a while they let me get dressed and go home. My friend, the saint, drove us home before going back to Stillwater. She must have put on a hundred miles that day. Recovery went well. It was strange to have two incisions - one for the battery in the hip and the other for the wire leads. I had to wait a week before they turned the machine on. Am I glad I had it done? Yes. Without this I doubt I'd be able to work. Does it help as much as I had hoped? No. I still limp. I limp like the Real McCoy. If you are younger than I am, I will have to explain that TV reference. The Real McCoys was a television show about a farming family in a small community in which, after season 2, the grandfather in the show had a distinctive limp. He walked normally at first. Grandpa lived with his son, his son's wife, and his grandchildren. They were always getting into situations. The Real McCoys was a great show. I can't exercise or hike like I used to. But the pain is manageable as long as I am careful to listen to my body and rest when the body says rest. My scars have healed. I can see the shape of the battery showing through my skin but it doesn't show through my clothes. The battery is rechargeable through the skin. About every 3 weeks I wear this big metal plate on a belt around my hips and recharge myself. The process takes about 6 to 8 hours. I have a remote control where I can turn the device off, up, down, etc. I never turn it off. I turn it down to a barely perceptible level so I can sleep but I turn it up to get around the house and I turn it up even higher to work or garden or walk. On a pain scale of 1 to 10, the stimulator brings me from an 8 to a 5, and sometimes a 4. I have a very few days where it's back up to a 6 or a 7. Those are the days where it hurts to bend to sit down and I struggle to get my right leg in and out of the car. Those are the days I rest. The stimulator changes the pain from a sharp shooting pain to a duller ache. I feel very fortunate to have it. I've learned how to live with it and the remaining pain. I used to walk 15 miles a week. Now I walk minimally. I do tai chich, I bike, and sometimes I swim. More importantly, I focus on being grateful for what I can do. I've had a good year.

Purple Ditches

I've had a busy week this week. Normally I work in Blaine but sometimes I go to meetings in Anoka or other nearby cities. In any case, I've been up and down Highway 10 more frequently than usual. I really enjoy getting out of the office when the weather is fine as it has been this week. On my travels, I've noticed the wildflowers blooming in the ditches and fields along the way. Between Main Street and Foley Boulevard, the ditches are positively purple with wildflower blossoms. There are more purple patches on the southern side of the highway. I saw a huge batch of the same flower in the fields surrounding the Rum River library. I think the wildflower is purple crown vetch but I'm not 100% sure. It's hard to get a close look when you're driving down the highway. In any case, the ditches are beautiful.

Young Me Now Me

I found a cool new website at colorwar2008.com. People post pictures of themselves at a young age and at their current age. These pictures are a hoot. I always enjoy comparing young and old pictures. I study the wedding anniversary pictures in the newspaper because I find aging fascinating. At this website, there are more than just married couples. Most are of single photos. Some show parent/child combos. You see a 2 year old boy sitting on his mother's lap and then you see a 45 year old man sitting on his mother's lap - how can that not be funny? I also enjoy the sibling combinations. You see 3 kids sitting in a wagon and then three adults crammed into a wagon - all trying to arrange their limbs and faces to match their childhood self. Some people try to wear the same clothing that they wore as children. People are very creative on the website. You might want to take a look.

"Yellow Birds Unite!" or "Migwe Has Visitors"

I was cleaning out the bird cage this morning and I set my canary, Migwe, outside to give him a shower and so he could get some fresh air. I left him out there for a few minutes to clean my bathroom and when I came back, he had company. A pair of goldfinches came over for a social call. You can see the male in the picture perched on top of Migwe's cage. The female isn't shown but she was there as well. They stayed to chat and to snack on some canary food that had spilled. They grabbed some of Blunder's hair that was lying on the deck from a recent grooming and took off. I haven't any goldfinches on the deck for several weeks so I can only assume they were attracted there by Migwe's presence.

We also saw a young and clumsy speckled fawn - no larger than a small dog - running along the edge of the woods on the south end of the property. I wonder if the fawn belongs to the deer that has been hanging out here for the past couple weeks.

Happy Solstice!

Happy Summer Solstice - the longest daylight of the year. Yeah, it's all downhill from now until December 22 when the days start getting longer again. I celebrated the beginning of summer by being very lazy. I had lunch on my swing on the deck. I read the paper out there. Then I finished a book out there. And finally, the dog and I took a nap out there. Tomorrow I shall be more industrious. I was out and about early this morning. I took my compost (banana peels, watermelon rind, onion skins, etc) out to my compost bin this morning. As I dumped the compost into the bin, a deer scared up. This deer had been napping in the tall prairie grass to the east of my house. I've seen this deer around often lately. When I mowed the lawn on Monday it scampered back and forth in the yard like a dog. Odd to think of a deer sleeping just outside the house here. The windows were open. It must have heard us talking, listening to the television, brushing my teeth with my electric toothbrush, and even taking a shower. Sometimes I forget that in my attempts to observe wildlife, wildlife observes me.

A Gathering

Tonight Offspring #2 and I went to a neighbor's house for a DFL precinct gathering. We sat and talked to almost 20 people about the elections and the candidates. We talked about how it's hard to be a Democrat. One man in Ramsey had his Obama lawn sign stolen. Ramsey has many proud and loud Republicans. Some Republicans and even some Democrats get very belligerent in political discussions. Like one man said tonight, Ramsey is Nascar country. We Democrats feel lonely sometimes. We had a big discussion whether Obama should or should not choose Clinton for his vice president. As a black candidate, Obama is breaking a barrier. One older man talked about as a 8 year old boy, he sat around the kitchen table with his elders discussing the Kennedy candidacy. Although his family were all strong Democrats, they had doubts about Kennedy because of his religion. Turned out, religion was not as important as his Minnesota Lutheran relatives thought it was. Several people asked Offspring #2 if she was going to vote for Obama. They told me I raised her right. The truth is, I'd love her even if she voted for McCain. Even though I was hot and tired and ready to go to bed before we left, I was reluctant to leave at 10. I'm glad we went.

Mosquito Blitzkrieg

This morning, like every morning, I walk the dog out to the mailbox to get the newspaper and allow her to do her business. The mosquitoes have been bad lately. But today I was attacked my a mosquito blitzkrieg. When I reached my hand into the newspaper box, I saw 5 engorged mosquitoes on the top of my hand. Eight more were sucking my blood through my tights on my right shin. I don't know how many were biting my neck. Curse this short haircut! I did a little mosquito frenzied dance out there on the street, swatting myself with the newspaper and my other hand. Unfortunately, my other hand was not empty but was holding the retractable leash - ouch, that hurt. My dog, Blunder, is emotionally sensitive. If I'm upset, she can't do her business. If she doesn't hurry up and do her business, I get more upset because the mosquitoes are draining me dry. Oh, what a morning.

My Bone

I've been carrying a piece of leg bone around in my car ever since I found it at the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge back in May. My friend and I figured it might belong to a sand hill crane. We had just been observing some sand hill cranes when we came upon the bone and the bone was entirely hollow, hence our thought it could be a sand hill crane leg bone. I showed it to a naturalist friend of mine. He said it was too heavy to be a bird bone. He said all bones are hollow. He suspected it was the knee bone of either a year old white tail deer or possibly a coyote.

Meat

Blogspot tells me this is my 365th post. How can that be? This blog started 6/28/07 and today is only the 17th. I doubt I posted twice a day. Maybe the blogspotter counter is off.

Yesterday, after talking to a friend of mine, I got to thinking about my conversion from a omnivore to a herbivore. I asked him about fishing. He's been fishing and has caught a few muskies. His property on the Rum River is flooded and the river is nearly up to his deck. He caught a couple small northern pike with his bare hands in his front yard. Like my friend, I used to fish quite often. I used to eat and enjoy eating meat. But now I eat no meat; no steak, no chicken, no fish, and no pork. I think it's been 12-15 years since I ate meat. I do eat dairy products and eggs. Lately I can't eat plain eggs anymore. After my trip to Africa where I was served eggs every morning, I haven't eaten a plain egg since. I get my protein from beans and bean products, nuts, gluten and dairy. I am not an animal rights activist. I think it's fine and healthy for other people to eat meat. The reason I have become a vegetarian is that I intensely dislike the idea of chewing muscle. I cannot imagine catching a fish, feeling it pull and tug on my line, scooping it up, filleting it, cooking it, and eating it. I am now at the point where I don't want to feel it struggle and tug on my line. I used to clean buckets of fish. I was fairly skilled at filleting northerns and removing all the "Y" bones. Talking with my angling friend reminded me of where I used to be and where I am now. I've changed. In a way, I am depriving myself. Meat has SO much more protein per calorie. I try to follow a low calorie, high protein diet and that is hard to do when you don't eat meat. Some soy products will give me a gram of protein for ten calories but that is about the best I can get. Salmon will give you a gram of protein for only five calories. But, avoiding meat is where I am right now and this is what feels comfortable for me.

What Book Are You?

Take this interesting book quiz to find out what book you are. I am Anne of Green Gables.

Pontoon

Last week it was my turn to review the book at my book club. I offered four books and they choose Pontoon by Garrison Keillor. I thought it would be an easy book to review. The media has tons of information about the author and it's a light hearted book. Truth is, it was a hard book to review. Yes, reviewing the author was easy but this book has no discussion questions. Many books have discussion questions in the back but not this one. I even went to the Penguin Publishing website - no questions. I brought a couple other of his books to pass around. That was helpful to a point. When I passed around his book entitled, "The Pretty Good Joke Book," my usually decorous book group got wild. I read a couple jokes to start them off - my mistake there. I like the "Your Momma" jokes. I am a momma and I have a momma but I find these jokes hilarious. "Your Momma is so skinny her eyes are single file." "Your momma is so fat that when she got lost, her picture took up all four sides of the milk carton." "Your Momma is so dumb that when she saw the sign that said AIRPORT LEFT she turned around and went home." Various people in the group just had to read their favorite jokes aloud. These people were laughing so hard tears were flowing from their eyes. I had made up some thought provoking discussion questions but it was about impossible to keep these people on track. Lucky for me I have years of experience as a substitute teacher and a Girl Scout Leader. I know rowdy crowds. I can handle rowdy crowds. Not everyone liked the book. Not everyone likes Garrison Keillor. He can be very insulting in his descriptions. He goes too far - that is part of what makes him funny. But they all seemed to enjoy discussion the book. Not all of Pontoon was funny. There were some very sad and depressing issues in there amidst the comedy. This book club has been around for 30 some years and I was told we've never had such a uproarious and lively discussion before.

Family Picnic at Como

m How not to make a good impression at a family picnic? Forget to put the handicap parking placard in your vehicle and park in a handicap spot and have the park police track you down and lead you away from the picnic to show your placard. But I was grateful. He ran my license plate and took the time to find me at the picnic. He could have given me a ticket. I told him, "I thank you $205 worth." Good thing I made the signs that said Suchy Picnic or I would have gotten a ticket for sure. Other than that, I had a really good time at the picnic. I connected with cousins that I have not talked with in years. I learned how to make balloon animals. Years ago I bought a book on making balloon animals but I could not figure it out. Now I know how to do it. I had plenty of practice because all the kids wanted one. The weather was perfect and the food was delicious. I had a great day.

Another Happy Day In Arden Hills! Woot! Woot!

Today a friend and I went to the Drivers License Exam Station in Arden Hills to take our motorcycle written permit test and we passed! Woot! I actually yelled Hoo Hoo in the lobby there. I got 34 out of 38 questions answered correctly. We took the test on a computer and we find out immediately after each question if we were correct or not. The young man behind me, sadly, did not pass. He got 45% on his test. I don't think English is his first language. I can't imagine I'd do very well if I had to take the test in his language. He had a good attitude though and said he would do better next time.

We walked out of there on cloud nine. The last time I went to the Arden Hills Exam center was when I was 18. To this day, that was the happiest day of my life. Oh, I was happy when I got married. I was happy when I found out I was pregnant. I was happy when I had Offspring #1. And I was happy when I had Offspring #2. But the day I got my wheels, well, nothing can compare to the happiness I felt on that day. I love to drive. I took off in my 1968 Rambler American on a natural high that has yet to be matched in quality or intensity.

We're taking the basic motorcycle safety training in early July. I don't have any immediate plans to buy a motorcycle. I'm just taking it one step at a time. With my permit I am allowed to ride a motorcycle in the daylight, off the freeway, only with a helmet and without any passengers. I'm not riding anything until I take that class in July.

Sex And The City

With three female friends (one engaged, one in a serious relationship, two unattached) I watched "Sex And The City," the movie, last night. What a perfect movie for the four of us to see! I won't give anything away except to say there was a lot of sex and a lot of the city. Lots of skin too, especially Miranda's skin and Samantha's skin. The movie was true to the television series highlighting the roller coaster relationship of Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big. Go see it!

What I want -

I want to live my next life backwards!
You start out dead and get that out of the way right off the bat.
Then, you wake up in a nursing home feeling better every day.
When you are kicked out of the home for being too healthy, you spend several years enjoying your retirement and collecting benefit checks.
When you start work, you get a gold watch! on your first day.
You work 40 years or so, getting younger every day until pretty soon you’re too young to work.
So then, you go to high school: play sports, date, drink, and party.
As you get even younger, you become a kid again.
You go to elementary school, play, and have no responsibilities.
In a few years, you become a baby and everyone runs themselves ragged keeping you happy.
You spend your last 9 months floating peacefully in luxury, spa-like conditions: central heating, room service on tap.
Until finally…You finish off as an orgasm.
I rest my case.

We Are Biking!

I fixed up Offspring #2's bicycle. The tires were flat, the seat was stuck, and the handlebars hung low. Now it's working and Blunder and I have learned to bike together. Because of my limp, it's much easier for me to bike the dog around the block than walk the dog around the block. It took a while but we have a pattern down now. I bike and she walks or runs along. I hang on to her retractable leash with one hand. She has learned that she can stop to go to the bathroom. At first she thought she had to keep going but now she knows she can stop. She can't stop like she used to when I walked - at the margin of every single driveway we passed. She can stop two or three times and I'll wait. I've learned to know when she will probably stop so I can brake in enough time. We went around the block at first, gradually building up time and miles. Now we're riding 45 minutes. She'll run the first 2 or 3 miles and then I lift her up and put her in the basket so I can really ride fast and she can rest.She has learned how to let me know she's ready to take a rest. She'll lag behind and when I ask if she's tired, she'll approach me. When I reach down my arms she will leap up into them. And then she rides in the basket and I bike. We've been riding around Elmcrest Park. I don't want to get too far away from home at first and it's a pretty park with smooth paths to bike on. A large part of Elmcrest Park is soccer fields. When those fields get busy, there can be hundreds of people out there playing or watching. Last night, as we passed by with Blunder in the basket, a girl pointed and said, "Look at that dog in the basket." The entire team of teen aged soccer girls said, "Awwwww! C - u - u - t - e!" in unison. Seconds later a soccer ball got between my front wheel, my back wheel and my pedals. That part wasn't so cute. But I'm glad they said cute because I was worried I'd look like someone else. After all, Blunder is half cairn terrier, just like Toto.

Not The Monday Morning I Had Planned

Some Mondays are harder than others.

I got to work on time and turned on my computer and updated my voice mail as usual. I was about to walk up to the office to check my mail box (catch up on the weekend with my coworkers) when I remembered I was supposed to be at Cub Foods. I don't normally go to Cub Foods during the work day but I offered to help someone learn a new Traveler bus route. All she needed was a little help to make the right connection and I was to tell the driver where she needed to get off. From Friday afternoon to Monday morning, this obligation had completely slipped my mind. So I rush back to my car and head to Cub Foods where I see the Traveler route 805 heading north. It's now 7:40. She isn't due to catch her ride (805 south) until 8:18. So I wait thinking she should be along any minute now. My person who needed just a little help never showed up. By now it's 8:18 and I see the Traveler 805 stop. I get out of my car and approach the bus but before I could hobble over there, it takes off. Although the windows are tinted, I think I see my person already on the bus. I was pretty sure I glimpsed her dark hair and anxious posture in the front seat. She must have gotten on the wrong bus, took a half hour tour, and is now, by default, on the right bus. So I hobble back to my car and try to follow it. Well, the Traveler wastes no time and was on Round Lake Boulevard before I could get out of the Cub Foods parking lot. I was just starting to catch up when the Traveler caught a lucky left turn green light going into Riverdale. The light turned red as I got into the left turn lane. I'm a little anxious to help this person get off at the stop which is coming up quick and there was no one in the north bound lane so (please don't tell anyone) I went through a red light. Breaking the law did me absolutely no good because my person didn't get off at the stop she was supposed to get off at. She stayed on, at least I was fairly certain she stayed on, if she was on there at all. So I thought I could just stop the Traveler bus and get her off, drive her to her job, and all would be well. You try getting a large transit bus to stop! It's not easy. I waved out the window. He stopped to let someone off and I pulled up behind it in the right turn lane, jumped out, only to have diesel fumes sprayed into my face as it pulled away. Disappointed, I hobble back to the car to try again. Rope would help. If I could lasso this Traveler, then it would stop and all would be well. I continue to follow it through the twists and turns of Riverdale. It crosses Main Street. I think it will stop at Target. It doesn't. Doesn't stop at any of the stores it passed by. The Traveler pulls up to a red light to turn left onto Main Street. I debate leaving my car in the left turn lane and knocking on the driver's window from the median. How much longer do I have before the light turns green? Turns out I had plenty of time but I didn't know that until too late. Left we go onto Main Street and left again onto Round Lake Boulevard. Now I debate pulling a cop move on the Traveler. What if I pass it and force it to the curb by stopping in front of it? I decide the Honda Civic will loose in a battle between it and a 30 passenger vehicle. So at the next stop, I'll get out faster and catch that driver for sure. Now we're going east on 119th in Coon Rapids. No chances to stop the Traveler. He crosses Coon Lake Boulevard and heads south on Northdale. By now my person is 20 minutes late for work. Finally, near Coon Rapids High School, people want to get off the Traveler and three people want to get on giving me time to get out of my car and walk up to the door before he pulls away. My person is in the front seat as I suspected. She isn't too happy. She knows she's late for work and she hates that. The driver says, "You have been following me." He noticed! I tell him I've been trying to get him to stop for the past 3 miles. He didn't notice that but he lets me take my person off the bus. By now I am shaking from the adrenalin and anxiety. I call the office and tell them I've got her and bring her to work. She's really not happy and I'm a convenient target. I can see her point. She had a week of vacation and didn't know about this transportation change until she got back. And she's not happy that it didn't work out for her. And she hates being late for work. I drive her to work and head back to my office, about 2 hours later than my first attempt. What a morning.

Sleeping With The Windows Open

Last night I slept with the windows open. I really like feeling the breeze and listening to the sounds at night. About 11 p.m. my neighbors shot off fireworks. These aren't the kind of fireworks you can buy at the local gas station. These were beautiful (and probably illegal) light up the sky fireworks. Just by tilting my head and looking up, I could enjoy the fireworks. Besides the fireworks and people talking, that is all I heard before I went to sleep. In the morning I heard a cow crying. I live probably less than a quarter mile from a dairy farm. That is a quarter mile as the crow flies. Not being a crow, I'd have to drive at least 10 miles to the nearest bridge to cross the river. The dairy farm is in Andover. I enjoy listening to the cows complain - reminds me of being up north. After that I heard the whine of a dog in the neighborhood. I suspect it's the dog owner a couple houses away - the owner of 2 or 3 standard poodles. These large poodles are amazing to see. They don't seem to realize their size. They jump and leap about like they're 10 pound puppies. Very eager dogs are poodles. The last sound I heard before getting out of bed was my old friend, the indigo bunting. I believe our creator put all the beauty of this bird into the appearance because the sound they make sounds like a sharp, metallic, "titch." Almost exactly like the sound of the wheel grinding when you activate a lighter.

Queue

Queue is one of my favorite words. Queue is defined as a long braid hanging down the back of the head, a long line usually of people or vehicles, a sequence of messages or jobs held in temporary storage, or a data structure where records are entered at one end and removed at the other. The first time the word queue struck me was on a trip to England in 2002. Offspring #2 and I were there to celebrate Offspring #1's graduation from high school. We were at an outdoor market looking over the produce and just taking in the sights. A man asked me, "Are you in a queue?" I didn't understand what he meant at first. The first thing to pop in my head was that I accidentally stepped in a cow pie. Queue sounds a lot like Ewwwww! But this was the city. The gears kept rolling and after a few seconds I understood that he wanted to know if I was waiting in line. I also like the repetitive vowel pattern the word has going for it.

The Curl is the Best Part

I read something on the Internet the other day about Karl Zinsmeister, a Bush appointee to the Council on Morality, complaining about public licking of ice cream cones as immoral and something that should be done only in the privacy of your own home. He thought licking cones in public was uncivilized and animal-like behavior. I don't think it's really true about Karl Zinsmeister because I can't find it substantiated by any reputable source. But I got to thinking about licking ice cream cones. Licking ice cream cones does bring us down to a basic level. We're not using utensils. We're using our tongues to wrap around that globe of sweet iciness. We gauge how deep of a groove we should tongue into the cone balancing the potential for ice cream headache against the mess a melting glop of sweet frozen milk will leave on our clothes. You watch a child eat an ice cream cone and you know what I'm talking about. They make a total mess. Eating a cone is an art neatly perfected by stopping at the DQ on the way home from "Up North." Doesn't everybody stop at DQ on the way home from a weekend away? Give me a small cone from DQ any day. I prefer DQ to any other kind. I don't like the thick ice cream served at 21 flavors or Cold Stone. I also don't like frozen yogurt - it tastes too much like, well, yogurt. DQ is the best if their machine is working right. I advise you not go to Dairy Queen on a really hot day with a long line of customers. By then their ice milk machine cannot keep up to customer demand and you might get a runny cone. But if you get a cone when the ice milk machine is at it's peak, you are in for a heavenly treat. The curl is the best part. Call me an animal but I enjoy wrapping my tongue around a DQ curl.

State Stamps

Whenever I go to the post office to buy stamps, I always ask, "Show me some pretty ones." The people at the Blaine post office are very friendly and they make stamp buying a very pleasant experience. This time I got some Frank Sinatra ones (such pretty blue eyes he had) and some Minnesota stamps in honor of our 150th year of statehood. At first glance, I really couldn't figure out what I was seeing. I couldn't tell if the lighter area was river or sky. Now I can see the bridge crossing the river and the lighter area in between the clouds in the sky. Funny thing I learned today in the paper - the photo on the stamp is a picture of the bridge over the Mississippi in Winona - yeah, the bridge that can no longer be safely used. So although the photo looks great, in terms of crossing the river we are no better and in possibly worse shape than we were 150 years ago. Cars are not like oxen who could possibly ford the river. We're getting some ferry boats in but it will not be easy crossing the river in that spot for a long time to come. How ironic "Like rain on your wedding day, like a free ride when you already paid, like free advice that you just didn't take" (Alanis Morrissette).

Second Hand

Offspring #2 shook hands with Obama last night and this morning I shook her hand so that means I had a second hand shake with the Democratic nominee for president, right? Am I disappointed about Hilary? Yes. I was proud to write her name at my primary and I would have been proud to vote for her in the general election. I wish people would give her a chance. Maybe I will have an opportunity to vote for her in the future.

Great Fortune

I had the great fortune of completing two really good books this week. The first one is titled, "The Last River Rat," by J. Scott Bestul and Kenny Salway. It was recommended to me by a fellow student in my master naturalist class. This is a story told about the life of Kenny Salway told in monthly installments. Kenny is a different sort of fellow. He borders on being a hermit. He lived (and still lives I imagine) in the Mississippi river valley in south east Minnesota between Winona and LaCrosse. He hunts, traps, fishes, teaches, and gathers. He spends a lot of time out in the swampy land between the towering bluffs. He is an environmental educator, speaker, guide, and naturalist. He is very observant of the ducks, birds, bees, trees, mammals, wild flowers and water in the slews and on the hillsides. This book kept my attention for all 12 chapters. I think my Dad would like to read it too. He might have read it already.

The other great book I read (actually listened to as I got a book on CD) was "Bridge of Sighs" by Richard Russo. Russo also wrote another favorite book of mine, "Empire Falls" for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Richard Russo's strength as a writer lies in his character development. I feel like I would almost recognize his characters on the street if I saw them. The main character in this story is Louis C. Lynch. He is named after his father whom everybody knows as Big Lou. In school, a teacher, familiar with his father, makes the mistake during roll call of asking for Lou C. Lynch. For the rest of his life in the small town in upstate New York, he is known as Lucy. He takes this good naturedly because he is, more than anyone I've ever met, a good natured fellow. This book came on 17 disks. Today was disk 17 and I hated to hear this book end. I'll miss spending time with Lou C. Lynch and his family and friends.

A Boundary Issue

What, do you think, are the chances of Montana taking over the state zoning laws in Idaho? Slim? What if Washington state decided to start managing the Idaho State parks? Unlikely? Suppose Oregon decided that Idaho would really benefit if they too, like Oregon, insisted on having only gas station employees pump gas and made it illegal for car owners to do it? Unbelievable, not? So imagine my surprise when I returned to my house on Saturday afternoon to find my entire lawn mowed. This year I've been working on changing my lawn from a 2 1/2 hour lawn moving job to a half hour lawn mowing job (actually, more like 45 minutes). I thought it was looking good. I planted 17 chokecherry trees and 16 raspberry bushes to begin to fill it in. In a couple years it would start looking pretty good. But someone else thought differently. Someone, I don't know who, mowed it for me. They even mowed over at least 3 of the chokecherry trees - there may be more gone that that, I'm too upset to look them over carefully. I suspect this person, whomever they are, thinks they did a good freaking deed. Three of my neighbors, seeing me limp around the block, offered to mow my lawn for me. I thanked them and turned them down, explaining that I wanted to have more biodiversity in my lawn and expand the deer highway that runs behind my house and the neighbor's woods. Our neighborhood is the kind where it's OK to have a fairly wild lawn. So I don't think it's any of those three neighbors. I would never mow any body's lawn without knowing it was okay with them first. What can they be thinking that would make it okay to mow my lawn without asking? And what do I do about it? Knock on doors and ask, "Did you mow my lawn?" And then read them the riot act? Do nothing and run the risk of it happening again? Put up a sign saying, "Check with homeowner before mowing." Or better yet, "No trespassing." Last winter someone cleared my driveway without asking. I was grateful for that but also confused because at first I thought the man I hired to do it had done it. But Jerry has moved out so I know it isn't him. What is next? Will they start trimming my trees or paving my driveway? I really resent this random act of lawn mowing. I feel like somebody thinks they know better than I do about my place. If they agreed to pay half the mortgage, I'd let them have some of the decision making power.

You Know You Are Tired When

You know you are tired when you get up in the morning and rub nasal spray on your arm pits and try to fit the deoderant up your nose. My armpits are not sniffly and my nose smells very good. I gotta catch up on my sleep tonight.