And On The Left . . .

I had an SUV pass me yesterday. That in itself isn’t very notable. It seems most SUV drivers feel they can do most anything with their oversized 4-wheel drive, big tired vehicles, even when the roads are slick with snow and ice. The roads yesterday were slick with snow and ice and the SUV was one of those larger ones and had big tires. I’m guessing it was also in 4-wheel drive. The notable part about it passing me was that I was at a stop sign and it passed me going sideways in the lane that is usually reserved for oncoming traffic. No one was there and the SUV managed to clear the intersection and got hung up on one of the larger snow banks across the street. It bottomed out. The snow bank was holding the SUV up and all four of the big tires were off the ground. Still spinning. The driver was going to have to dig the snow out from under the vehicle. The driver was okay but I didn’t offer to help with the shovelling. I figured that, for at least a little while, we’d all be safer on the road.

Ho Ho Humbug

There’s a radio station in town that’s been playing Christmas music since Halloween. It’s the one that plays oldies the rest of the year and it’s one of the stations I listen to a lot. But not since Halloween. There are some nice Christmas songs but there aren’t that many of them. I think it takes about an hour to go through the entire list of Christmas songs, even with commercials. The next hour they play the same songs over as performed by a different artist. They have another group lined up for the next hour and the next and they’ve been doing this since Halloween. I haven’t stayed with the station long enough to hear The Messiah as performed by Alvin and the Chipmunks but I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. I just don’t want to hear it. I want my oldies back but I have to wait until January. It’s going to be a long Holiday season.

Just so you know, and I don’t know what criteria they used, but the Number One all time Christmas song is Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer as performed by Gene Autry.

Oh Boy.

But Does It Have A Second Rinse?

There was a commercial on TV this morning from an appliance manufacturer who wanted to show how tough their washing machines were. They lined up two rows of washers, put up some ramps and ran a pick-up truck over the top of them. I’m not sure what this has to do with the clothes washing capabilities of the machines but none of them buckled or bent. They are tough washing machines, the kind someone would buy when they are looking for something special to run a pick-up over. There’s no need to go out in the woods to find tree stumps or fallen logs to blast over. We don’t have to search city streets for the perfect pot hole to give us bounce in our drive, we can just line up washing machines, grab a couple of ramps and have at in the back yard. Excitement and thrills without having to leave home. I started thinking of the possibilities and wondering how the washers would hold up to an overloaded minivan when I noticed the tag line scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen, “Do Not Attempt At Home.” Darn.

The Next Call Is For . . .

Candidates for public office are getting fairly intense these last days before the election. Besides all the commercials on TV and the leaflets left on our door they’ve started doing robo-calls. A computer dials the next phone number on the list and a taped voice tells why an opponent ranks with the scum of the earth or why the campaign generating the call is promoting someone who could be the next messiah. It’s getting old.

I hang up on robo-calls but I’ve been able to tell which campaigns are more desperate. They’ve started calling my fax machine and this is causing some anxiety in the household. The fax (I call her Fanny) has been close enough to the computer monitor to read the web pages of the political doings and has heard the TV news. Fanny is one of the ‘undecideds’ and the robo-calls aren’t really helping. Should she vote against the guy who hates kittens or for the guy who wants to turn Lake Superior into a water park to increase tourism? Not needing to breathe, Fanny has no opinions about coal burning electrical plants but she does worry about the quality of electricity from wind farms (“Yeah,” shy wrote on a note she pushed through the delivery tray, “you humans can breathe better with wind power electricity but will there really be enough to fire my circuits?”) And so it goes. I can’t wait for Election Day to be over. The political commercials will be done and Fanny can go back to work as a fax machine instead of concerned (almost) part of the electorate.

The Other Side of Delivery

My grandson arrived about a week ago. He’s cute, although in coming years he probably won’t want to be described that way. Kate’s doing well and Owen seems to be okay but he’s going to struggle with the affliction of all new dads – loosing the baby weight he put on during the pregnancy. It doesn’t seem fair. For everything else they go through, women loose a lot of weight they put on during the pregnancy just by doing the delivery. We guys put on weight, too. We do sympathy eating. The wife has a craving for something and we dig in as well. They want ice cream, we bring an extra bowl to share the experience. I could go on with food groups but you get the idea. They scarf something down and we do too then they deliver and we have something the size of a basketball hanging over our belts. It’s not a pretty sight and no one compliments us on our glow.

A Different Way To Go

There seem to be a lot of exercise places around now. I don’t go to any of them but I keep seeing different ones whose offerings seem to go a bit past what the local YMCA does. There’s one that caught my eye called La Fitness. I assumed it was from a French exercise conglomerate that was trying to help us be healthy with a Continental flair. Being French, I thought they’d also have some specialty courses you could sign up for that would be unique to their culture. They could teach us things like how to eat a bushel full of croissants without developing carpel tunnel or how to hold our hands and arms up in surrender for hours without strain or muscle fatigue. They would have a class on how to hold our faces in a look of perpetual sneer without having facial tics. And, I thought, they’d have a class on balance and agility for folks who worked their way through multiple bottles of wine with dinner.

I was thinking about other courses they could offer when Chris told me it was actually called LA Fitness, a health spa thing out of Los Angeles that was hyping the idea that if we went in and sweated up we could all look firm and tan and twenty years younger. That won’t help me. Sweating isn’t on my list of things to do, firm lost out to gravity a long time ago, I try to stay out of the sun and twenty years backwards wouldn’t be much of an improvement.

I was a little bummed that it wasn’t the French thing. I was actually thinking about the croissant course

How I Never Learned The Four Step

There’s a new product on the shelf at our local grocery store. Goat Milk. It says so right on the side of the carton in big letters so no one can claim confusion when they try it later for breakfast and wonder why their cereal tastes funny. Goat milk isn’t like the stuff you get from cows. It tastes, well, goaty. I know. I used to have a goat when I was a kid (no pun intended) on the farm. And I had to milk it.

I got a goat because I thought they looked kind of neat with their floppy ears and small beard. My goat, though, had no interest in being a pet. It wanted to be a free range farm animal and although it had recently weaned a kid it had no interest in being milked.

Milking cows was fairly easy by comparison. You bring them into the barn, lock their heads between two sturdy staves and feed them some corn to keep them occupied while you grab a bucket and stool had have at it. Most cows you can milk in minutes.

Goats don’t work that way. For a reason I never understood you have to lift them onto a platform several feet off the ground. It was supposed to keep them calm while you milked them. It didn’t calm mine. It made her want to dance. The Irish River Dance people had nothing on my goat. She never left the platform but she had a four-step routine that made it hard to squeeze a teat and hit a bucket with a stream of milk. I mostly managed to lather the stage for her next number, which was often wilder than the initial warm-up she performed and by the end of her set I was exhausted.

I didn’t have much luck with the goat and never got enough milk from her to develop a taste for it. All I remember is that it tasted goaty. Somewhere, though, someone has learned to dance with a goat well enough to fill cartons with goat milk. They’re selling it at the local store. I’m going to pass on it.

Playing Tag

A while ago I wrote about the Powerball lottery. Twice a week I buy a ticket with two numbers. They’re numbers Pat picked out using some mystical numerology consisting of immigration dates, birthdays, etc. She thought these would be better than the Quick Picks I used to get every once in a while. So far they haven’t been and I’ve been doing some thinking about that. It occurred to me I’m taking the wrong approach to keep this fun. I’ve adjusted my thinking.

With most lotteries you get numbers and hope it matches up with the winning numbers. That works well on a Quick Pick where a ticket holder’s numbers are chosen at random. Our numbers, though, are the same every time and I’ve realized we’re on the other side of the game. The Power Ball has to hit us. It hasn’t. Now it’s like playing a game of tag and, so far, I’m not It.

And Next On The News

We had a news flash the other day. There’s been a break-through in toilet paper technology. Apparently Northern Tissue has figured out how to make a 3-ply paper that is stronger, softer and more absorbent than the 2-ply they’ve been selling for years. I called this a news flash but actually the local station devoted an entire segment of the news to this development. They did some in-depth reporting on fiber bending, twisting and bonding that made this break-through phenomenal. We were spared film footage of the test trials.

I expected the next segment to be about the newest development in toe jam remover technology but they went on to Weather and Sports.

I don’t mind when there’s enough right with the world that there’s a slow news day but I wish they’d tell up front that nothing happened worth reporting and we’d probably have a more enjoyable time flipping stations to a Seinfeld re-run. They won’t. It’s a ratings thing. But I wish they would.

Clearing The Clog

I went with Pat to walk our Wheaten Terriers this morning. Usually she does it alone in the morning and we go together in the evening but this morning I went. It was crisp and clear, not much moving except the garbage trucks making their Friday rounds in our neighborhood. We went past one at the start of an alley and I’m here to tell you that there is not a medication on the market that can clear morning sinuses faster than garbage truck aroma. It probably helped that we were downwind so we could take full advantage of the effect but I think even upwind there would have been a benefit, it just wouldn’t have stayed with up for the next half block.

That was about an hour ago and my sinuses are still clear. I came on this treatment unexpectedly and thought I should pass it along in case you have sinus issues. For relief all you need to do is chase down a garbage truck and take as much of deep breath as you can handle. It’s free and it seems to work just fine with no side effects except, maybe, a decreased appetite. And you may want to shower and change clothes before heading off to work. But your sinuses will be fine.

Using A Life Lesson

I went past an athletic field a few days ago. There was a team on the field at soccer practice. The coach had the players in a scrimmage and was teaching them to move the ball up the field against opposition. When opposing players approached the kid with the ball the coach would yell, “Dribble Through!” Sometimes it worked but when it didn’t they would try again. Dribble Through.

I watched for a while and got the feeling the coach wasn’t teaching them soccer so much as a Life Lesson. Studies too hard, a mid-term coming up in your worst subject, you feel the pressure building? Dribble Through. If it doesn’t work you can try again. It’s a lesson that can carry through for most of life’s problems.

While doing laundry Pat asked how I managed to get coffee stains down the front of a shirt. It was one I’d worn to the dentist. Coming home I wanted a cup of coffee. It’s hard wrapping novacaine-numbed lips around a coffee mug but I managed to drink some. For the rest of it, I just dribbled through.

And We Haven't Hit Bottom Yet

I’ve seen girls do stupid stuff but I don’t think they can hold a candle to the level guys can take stupid to. It’s to the point that I’m periodically embarrassed by my gender. I wish we’d quit but I don’t think it’s in the DNA. Over the weekend Jeff told me about a new level we’ve gone to.

Jeff’s roommate had gone a friend’s house few nights before with a couple of other guys and there was some drinking involved. (I’ll say here that alcohol isn’t necessary for guys to do stupid stuff but sometimes it helps us get over the threshold.) The friend (I’ll call him Barney) had his dog’s shock collar lying on a counter. One of the visitors asked how well it worked and Barney decided to demonstrate it for him. Barney put the collar on, strapped it in place and handed the visitor the remote.

“Go ahead,” Barney said. “Push the button. I can handle it.” The friend pushed the button on the remote. Nothing happened. They checked the remote and the collar. Both were in the off position. They flicked the switches on and tried again. Again nothing happened.

“Damn,” Barney said. “The thing doesn’t work.” And Barney got shocked. It turned out Barney wasn’t wearing the shock training collar but the shocking bark collar and “work” sounded enough like “woof” that the collar shocked him.

It could have ended there but when it shocked him Barney yelled “AAAHHH!” and the collar shocked him again, To which Barney yelled “AAAHHH! again. This set up a pattern of Shock – “AAAHHH! – Shock – AAAHHH! that went on for about a minute before Barney passed out.

The friends got the collar off before Barney came to, made sure they were switched off and put them away. Barney, when he woke up, decided that after such a harrowing experience, he should calm his nerves with another drink.

Barney probably won’t make the Guiness Book for stupid things done but he should be in the runner-up category.

Making Sure We Can Still Get There

There’s a billboard by the freeway near downtown Minneapolis that has a caption:

“Oil Is The Alternative To Ethanol”

It’s good to know somene is planning ahead for the day when we use up the last of the corn crop.

Something To Get Pumped About

There’s a machine at our drug store that measures blood pressure. Your drug store probably has one, too. You slip your arm through a cuff and push the button. Air pumps in and cuts off circulation for a while then releases and numbers pop up to tell you what your blood pressure is. There’s a chart on the machine to tell you what the numbers mean. I don’t remember what the categories were but it took me three tries to get to get to what the machine considered healthy. It’s an hour later and my arm’s still a little tingly. I think the blood’s finally finding its way back to my wrist and fingers.

I did much better that the lady who got on to the machine after me, though. I waited until the cuff had a firm grip on her arm then stood behind her and said, “Boo!” She jumped in the chair and a warning light flashed on the machine that said she should see a doctor immediately. I think she wanted to chase me down but the cuff still had her arm. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. We healthy people can run pretty fast.

It's Not The Song, It's How You Sing It

I was in an audio earthquake a couple of weeks ago. You’ve probably been in one, too. An audio earthquake is caused by a car overloaded with woofers and tweeters and every size of speaker in between with the car stereo cranked up to full volume. You don’t hear them come up so much as feel them. There’s a pulsing in the air that gets more intense as the car comes closer. They like to stop next to me at red lights and rattle everything on my vehicle with the ‘whump, whump, whump’ sound they emit. The tools in the back of my van bounce around, my seat shakes and the dust on the dashboard dances. I don’t like my dashboard dust to dance for any one but me and I usually save that for the radio station that plays ‘60’s music.

These audio earthquakes were getting to be more frequent and I thought it was time to do something drastic. I spent a Saturday putting woofers and tweeters in my van, wired them to my CD player and went looking for an audio earthquaker. I didn’t have to go far. One pulled up beside me at a light and between the whump’s I put a CD in the player and turned the volume up.

Besides ‘60’s music I like bagpipes and I have a CD of the Royal Scottish Bagpipe Band blowing in all their glory. I used the automatic levers to put the windows down and adjusted the volume to a couple of decibels below what it takes to shatter glass. I won’t describe bagpipe music since most everyone’s heard it but I will say that have it come up loudly and unexpectedly help you to understand why the English used to wet themselves back when and why they incorporated bagpipers into their army as soon as they could work out a deal with the Scots. The Audio Earthquaker who pulled up next to me didn’t seem to be having much more luck than the Middle Age English. He whipped his head at me, eyes popped open and his jaw dropped. He nearly missed the light changing to green.

My first selection was Scotland the Brave and I charged alongside the Earthquaker to the next light. We stopped there together while the bagpipe band finished and then went into a rousing rendition of Loch Lomond. The Earthquaker and I did two more lights together with this song. At the fourth light the band started playing Amazing Grace. Something in the song must have touched the Earthquaker because he started praying for me to stop. He seemed penitent so I said, “I will if you will.” I turned the volume down on my CD and heard . . . silence. I stayed with the guy for a few more lights to make sure there wouldn’t be a relapse then went on to look for more earthquakers.

I made four converts to quiet rides that Saturday and a few more since then. The system seems to be working well. I think on Monday I’m going to try it during rush hour to see if bagpipes can soothe people to be more polite on the freeway.

If Chosen I . . .

There was a news article last week about the state judiciary. The state courts system has a budget shortfall. To help make up for the shortfall the courts are lowering the per diem for jurors from $20 a day to $10. I can’t help but thinking that if they keep this up, no one will want to serve on jury duty.

The Chicken Hunt

This isn’t the next story I planned to post. I’m working on one about Kate and chickens and I saved it to the file I where I usually save stories. The computer decided to put it somewhere else. It won’t tell me where. I did a search for ‘chickens’ and the computer chuckled at me. Actually it sounded more like a cluck. A chuckly cluck.

I read somewhere once that if a computer were any other appliance it wouldn’t have made it to mass market. I think that’s true. I’ve never had to download a program into a stove or refrigerator to get them to work. I’ve never had to re-boot a toaster or had it hide my toast somewhere that takes a while to find it. Not computers. They want to do things their own way and have me try to figure them out. If it keeps it up I may get to the point of re-booting it the old fashioned way. Until then, I’ll be looking for chickens in the computer.

Cluck, cluck.

And The Lights Went Out

For years we’d had a TV in the kitchen and, since we spend a lot of time there, it’s the one that’s on the most. The TV is dying, not quite gone yet but I don’t hold out much hope for it. We turn it on and it plays for fifteen or twenty seconds and then turns itself off. Chris says it’s giving up because of our viewing choices. I disagree. We watch quality television. We watch early morning news and weather while we wait for the coffee’s caffeine to kick in. We watch the evening news while cooking supper and it had good reception for shows on PBS. Where the TV would really shine, through, was on old sitcom reruns like Seinfeld or Cheers. It would seem to sit straighter on the counter, the picture would get sharper. It got even better with the game shows. The TV would actually elongate the picture to follow Vanna White as she pointed at empty boxes and have letters magically appear on the Wheel of Fortune and you could almost hear the TV boo the Banker on Deal or No Deal. The TV seemed to be emotionally involved with game shows. It started shutting itself down during an episode of Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader. We’d gotten through most of the questions but I think the suspense got to be too much for an aged TV.

The TV is still on the counter, still plugged in. I’m viewing this as a form of life support. I check its vital signs a couple of times a day to see if it will do more than flicker for fifteen or twenty seconds. So far it hasn’t and I’m thinking it’s time to pull the plug. We’ll have a little service before we take it in a procession to the hazard recycling center. We’ll comfort ourselves with the thought that it had a good life. There's a little mystery, too. We'll never know what that last Fifth Grader question was that put the TV over the edge. We're wondering if, maybe, we could have answered it.

Next Up On The Grill . . .

I heard the TV weatherman say that we were past any chance of rain until sometime next week so, of course, the forty-five minute cloud burst we just had didn’t roll in until after I put the slow roasting chicken pieces on the grill. We picked up about a half inch of rain. That doesn’t sound like a lot unless you’re standing in it trying to turn over pieces of chicken while holding the lid at an angle high enough to turn, low enough to not get the pieces wet and far enough away no to get burned by the grill. For the most part it worked. The chicken didn’t get too wet and the couple of burns should heal in about a week.

I’m telling you about this because there’s quite a bit of grilling season left this summer and I thought I’d pass along a couple of tips. Before starting the grill, don’t listen to the weather people. They’re usually not very good. It’s better to call some one you know who lives up wind and ask what the weather’s like. Use someone further than your next door neighbor. The neighbor won’t know more than you and may want to come over for dinner.

Cold rain water running down your neck while working a grill is annoying, at least it was for me, and the thunder and lightening was a distraction. To counter this you may want to keep a wet suit handy as well as a pair of sunglasses and ear muff hearing protectors.

Yep, get all that stuff, suit up and you’ll be ready for summer grilling. I’ve got my gear. I’m ready and I think the next thing I want to put on the grill is the weatherman. Slow cooked. I won’t care if it rains.

Another Thing To Smile About

Pat put tooth past on my store list. The old tube was running low and we like to stay ahead of some things. Deodorant, soap – laundry, dish, hand and bar- and tooth paste are somewhere near the top. I stopped at the dental aisle and found the section that has our regular tooth paste. There are different kinds in the brand. They have extra whitening, one with mouth wash in the mix, cavity fighting and a couple of others but today I noticed a new one. The box had it in capital letters, so I’ll put them here: AGE DEFYING. I have no idea what that means. The box has picture panels that show teeth going from grungy to sparkly white but so do the others . Tooth paste is supposed to be good for you as long as you spit it out at the end. It’s kind of like hygienic wine tasting though I doubt you could ever get people over for a tooth pasting party. And then there would be the problem of what kind of cheese and crackers to serve with it. I’d be a little suspicious of someone who recommended rye crackers and brie with the extra whitening. It doesn’t sound right.

I asked a clerk who happened by the aisle what AGE DEFYING meant. She wasn’t sure and suggested I read the box. I did. It didn’t help much. The best I could understand was that it would firm teeth up and take away wrinkles. It also tastes better than facial creams that say they do the same thing. You wind up spitting both of them out but you could take a little longer with the tooth paste.

I bought a tube just to hedge my bets. The firming quality may help if I ever develop a droopy overbite and this looks to be the best way to delay those telling tooth wrinkles. Now if I could just find the right cheese and cracker combination . . .

Starting A Movement

I signed up the ‘No Call List’ as soon as it came out and our dinners were no longer interrupted by people trying to sell me aluminum siding for my stucco house or other great offers that were just as useful. Telephone calls still came in, though. Caller ID helped to slow a lot of things down. I don’t pick up the phone for any 800 number or the callers whose identity is Unknown or Unavailable, though there is the inconvenience of getting up and walking to the telephone read the display. I figure that if the call is important they’ll leave a message. They never do.

Chris came up with an idea that seems to work fairly well and I thought I’d pass it along. Maybe we can start a Movement. When an unfamiliar number comes up now I run it through Google to see how many other people have been bothered by the caller. Usually there are quite a few. From there I tuck the number away and use it whenever someone wants a telephone number and I don’t want to give them mine. I use it a lot on the internet when I want more information on a web page and can’t get it without filling in the name, address, phone and email boxes. There are a few of the crank calls that have an address attached to the number and I write that down in the space provided. For email, I use the address of the folks that send me spam. It’s easy, it’s fun and all you need to get started is a pencil and paper, a telephone and an internet connection.

The goal here is to have all of the telemarketers and spammers call and email each other and leave the rest of us alone. Some night I hope to hear the Nightly News have a story that aluminum siding sales came to a standstill when all of the sales people were put on hold and told to wait for an important message. That’s a story I could eat dinner to.

Shopping And A Show

Pat called and asked me to pick up a gallon of bleach on my way home. I stopped the local dollar store in a strip mall near my house. There’s a supermarket there but I thought I’d save a little at a the dollar store. After all, bleach is bleach and a one item purchase should be a quick in and out thing and I was in a hurry.

I pulled the bleach bottle off the back wall of the store and went up to the register. Just ahead of me a woman pushed a full shopping cart up to the counter and started unloading. She pulled out pots and pans, cleaning supplies, a broom and dust pan, bed sheet, towels and just kept pulling from the cart. She was chatting with a friend and it turned out she had just moved in to town and was setting up an apartment. It took a while and she finally finished. It took the cashier a little longer to ring up. The total was $127.53. At a dollar store. She probably saved a lot.

The woman dug through her purse, found a check book and wrote a check. The cashier started processing the check then stopped and told the woman, “I can’t accept this. It’s a starter check”

“There’s money in the account,” the woman said. “I just opened it. The bank gave me these checks to use until the regular ones come in.”

“Yeah,” the cashier said, “that’s why they’re called starter checks. We can’t take them. It’s a store policy.”

They had a bit of a staring contest then the woman dug through her purse a little more and said, “Fine. Put it on this.” She handed over a credit card.

“We don’t take credit cards,” the cashier said.

“Everybody takes credit cards,: the woman said.

“We don’t.” They stared at each other a little more.

“What do you take,” the woman asked?

“Checks that aren’t starter checks and cash,” the cashier said.

By now there was a line behind me that ran about halfway through the store. The woman started digging through her purse. It was a large purse, stuffed with enough things to get her through a few days of electrical blackout or being stranded in a desert. There were a couple of water bottles, candy bars, tissue, an assortment of make-up items, a mirror, kids toys, a mirror and those were only the things I could see on top. She dug deeper. Cash and coins were scattered through the purse and she kept a running total as she pulled each out. She lost track a couple of times and had to start over. Her final total was $89.24. A bit short and she started discussing options with her friend. They could either take things off until they came down to cash on hand or go get more cash. They opted for the cash. The woman looked around the store and asked, “Where’s your ATM?”

“We don’t have one,” the cashier said.

“Well, who does?” The woman was getting a little exasperated. Weren’t we all. Most people in the line behind me were making exasperation noises. I’m being kind here.

“The grocery store and the drug store in the strip mall,” I said. “The two gas stations on the corner, the bank up the street.” I decided it was time to be a little active before the bleach bottle in my hand reached its expiration date.

The woman grabbed her purse, shoved the cash and coins back in to it and started out the door with her friend. She half turned and pointed to the counter. “Leave all that where it is. I’ll be right back.” We watched the woman and her friend get in to a car and drive off. The cashier had bagged the items as she checked them. She put everything into a shopping cart and pushed the cart aside and cleared the register. Looking up she said, “Next!” There was almost a cheet in the store.

It only took a few seconds to ring up my bleach. In less than a minute I was in my van heading home. It had taken over twenty minutes to buy a gallon of bleach. I think I saved about a quarter but I got to watch live theater. Shopping and a show.

Would You Really Rather Have A Buick?

In the summer of 1967 a ten year old Buick, the model with port holes down each of the front fenders, chugged along an old highway in rural Iowa. The highway was essentially a large loop that had been left for the farmers who lived along it when the Highway Department decided to straighten the main highway out. There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the loop during the busier parts of the day, mostly farm trucks and tractors hauling a load to the barns or to the fields. At night traffic was more sparse. The Buick wasn’t even supposed to be there but then neither was the driver. My brother, Bob, was behind the wheel. I was the passenger, the one who was supposed to be driving , but there’s a reason why I wasn’t.

We grew up along this old highway, walked along it, and rode our bikes down it. I had my first job working for one of our neighbor farmers when he told me to drive a tractor from a field back to the farmstead. This highway was the first one I drove on. I was 11 years old. Over the next few years I learned to drive the other tractors and the farmer’s jeep and pickups and by the time I got an actual drivers license I already had five years experience behind the wheel.

We moved from the country to a near by city before Bob could get experience and I always felt a bit bad about that so, when I had the chance I let him drive down country roads. We were moving from the city back to the small town and our folks had sent Bob and me to our city house to pick up a load. We packed the back seat of the Buick with pots and pans, Mom’s china and a box of kitchen utensils and headed back to the country. When we got to the turn off for the town I pulled off the highway. A left turn would take us to town and our new home, a right would take us down the old highway past the house where we grew up. It was getting dark and there was no traffic on the road. Bob nodded when I asked him if he wanted to drive and we switched places.

Bob wasn’t a fast driver then and even on the straight stretches of the old highway he’d only do 25 or 30 mph. The road would easily handle 50 and I’d gone down it a lot faster than that. I told him, “You need to go faster. Get this thing up to speed.” The speedometer needle would creep up to 35 and then 40 as I kept at him to go faster.

Bob had had enough of my scolding by the time we got to the end of the highway so instead of pulling over he turned down a gravel road that had a small S-turn before it became a dirt road and went over three roller coaster hills. When he came out of the S-turn he gunned the engine. I looked at the speedometer when we came up to the first hill. 70mph. The first one put my stomach in my throat, the second hill had a steeper drop and on the third one my head bounced up against the car roof. “Is that fast enough for you?” Bob asked. “How’s your head?”

I was a little put out so I told him, “Bet you a quarter you can’t do that again.”

“You’re on,” he said and drove up to a cross road to turn the car around. Seat belts in 1967 were a novelty nuisance in cars. They usually got shoved in to seat cracks to keep them out of the way. I started digging around the crack to find both ends of mine and put it on tight enough to cut off blood flow to internal organs. This was a bet I was not going to lose. Bob got up to 90mph on the return trip and I didn’t leave the seat. “You owe me a quarter,” I told him.

“You know,: he said, “that really wasn’t fair. The hills aren’t as dippy coming back this way.”

“Fine,” I said, “turn it around.” He did and I pulled the seat belt a little tighter.

Headlights at night don’t really give you a good view of scenery along a roadway. At normal speeds you can see the contour of the road and the weeds along to side and glimpses of the ditch. Bob got the Buick up to 105mph and all we really saw was blur. From the first hill to the second my stomach didn’t come out of my throat. At the top of the third hill we left the ground.

It took three bounces (with some good air time in between) for the Buick to stay solidly on the ground. At each bounce the contents of the back seat attacked us from behind. We were pelted and slammed by pots and pans and kitchen utensils and Mom’s china. The china didn’t do so well. After we stopped and took a few breaths our eyes refocused and among the pots and pans and utensils there were shards and pieces of plates and serving platters and other bits of china liberally scattered on the dashboard, seat and floor. I got out of the car and grabbed an empty box from the back seat. Bob did the same on his side.

“Everything that’s whole goes in a box,” I said. “Anything that’s broken goes in the ditch.” We did find enough unbroken china to fill a small box. We shook the shards out of the pots and pans and put everything in the back seat. We had two empty boxes left over so we threw them in to the ditch, too.

I drove back to town well under the speed limit. Bob kept telling me I should go faster.

We didn’t get caught and that amazed us. We expected to be grounded and banned from even sitting in vehicles until old age but it didn’t happen. Life went on pretty much as before. The closest we came to getting found out was a few days later when I was standing with my Dad at the local gas station. He was talking to the owner about something and we watched my older brother drive up the street and stop at a stop sign. He turned and drove past us. Trailing behind the Buick was a gas tank strap. The gas tank,, now being help by just one strap, bobbed and bounced as he went. Dad turned and asked me, “Do you know anything about that?”

“Nope,” I said. “It must have rusted off.”

______________________________________________

One afternoon a while ago the kids were over and we got to talking about things they did when they were younger. Pat and I knew most of it but then she said, “Tell us something you did that we didn’t find out about. We promise not to get mad.” It took a little coaxing but they each had something. Jeff’s was the topper. He had a swim meet one Sunday morning and took Pat’s Neon. He had to be there early and while the sun was up not much else was. He was running late and was speeding and decided what the heck and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. He got the car up to 100mph on the freeway. Pat was shocked he would abuse her car like that. I was shocked that a Neon could do 100. We kept our promise and didn’t get mad but after they left I went out to double check the gas tank straps. Just in case.

A Country Road Taking Me Home

There’s a dairy company here that puts pictures on the sides of their trucks, the big 18-wheelers that deliver to the larger supermarkets. You can see them on the roadways but I found one in a supermarket parking lot. I think they’re trying to put across the idea their milk and dairy products are fresh and closely connected to the land. The pictures are farm scenes.

The one I saw has a farmstead with a white house, red barn, fencing and a country lane that reminded me of a farm near where I grew up. It was enough to make me nostalgic, thinking about my youth and driving along that lane and thinking about what might be around the curve. I used to floor the gas pedal and barrel past the house. At 60 mph the car would skid a bit on the road but stay clear of the ditch. At 70 things got a little dicier and for a moment I could feel the engine rev up and road gravel under my wheels.

I managed to pull myself back to the present and stop the car before I hit the side of the truck. I want to pause here and thank Land of Lakes, Inc. Their marketing program took me back to my youth for a few moments and almost got me to where my ancestors live full time. Thanks again.

And They Were Off . .

I don’t spend a lot of time under the couch. As a kid I found out there’s not much to do there and it’s kind of boring. I’ve carried the attitude and experience with me in to adulthood and have found it’s much better to be on top of it. It’s more comfortable and I can bring things to read or watch TV more easily. There’s a loveseat in the living room, too, and the same goes for that.

I’m talking about couches and loveseats because they’re easier for me to move than Pat and one of my jobs has been to pull them out once in a while and clean underneath them. I’m not very good at that job. It’s not hard but I don’t remember to do it very often. The dust ruffle hides a lot and it usually takes a little prodding from Pat for me to get to it. Sometimes she forgets to prod for a while.

This actually started over a fan. We use air conditioning but, unless it’s really hot, we prefer fans for cooling. It was on the warm side last week and since some of our fans died at the end of last summer I went out and bought a new one. The box claimed it was a ‘Tornado Power Turbo Fan.’ I thought that meant they put an extra blade on it or maybe added a few RPMs but when I plugged it in and flipped the switch to high I realized the box was trying to tell me something. The fan blew enough air to give lift to small aircraft.

We don’t have aircraft in the living room but we do have dust ruffles and they started to flutter in the breeze. That’s when the dust bunnies escaped. A few came out from under the couch and loveseat as singles, there were quite a few doubles and threesomes and one grouping that looked like a dance line. They scurried and ran and did a Rumba across the floor. A few tried to take flight but didn’t make it. They finally bunched up in a corner, twirled a bit like a nervous bunch of cows then broke loose helter-skelter across the floor. All I could think to do was to yell, “Stampede!” And that woke up our dogs.

We have two Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers, George and Murray – half brothers from two successive litters. The Wheaten Terrier breed started out as the Irish peasant all-around farm dog with specialties in vermin hunting and herding. We haven’t had any vermin for them to hunt since they got here and their herding skills are less developed but they tried. They chased and snapped and found it’s really hard to kill a dust bunny. They barked a lot but the bunnies didn’t intimidate well, either. Herding was the last option but the bunnies wouldn’t settle down until I turned the fan off and then they wouldn’t move as directed.

George and Murray snapped and barked and pushed at the dust bunnies for a while until they felt their job was done and they trotted off with a smug look. I got a broom and dust pan and started cleaning up the dust bunnies they left in their wake.

Pat came in from her garden as I was finishing and asked what all the commotion was about. I told her I’d just gotten around to cleaning under the couches and the dogs had tried to help. She gave me one of those Uh-huh looks and asked, “How’s the new fan work?”

“Really well,” I told her. “Really, really well.” I thought that was all she probably needed to know.

And The Lucky Number Is . . .

I stopped in at the local gas station/superette the other day and went in to pay for what I’d put in the tank. I’ve been gassing up there for years and know the cashiers. As one of them was ringing up the gas I told her, “The lottery ticket you sold me the other day didn’t work.” She looked up and I continued, “You know if this was Target, I’d be bringing it back.”

I got a “Yeah, right.” and a chuckle as a response.

Back when it first came out, I used to buy a lottery ticket every once in a while. I looked at it as entertainment. From the time I bought the ticket until the published results told me the ticket was a loser I could spend idle moments day dreaming about what I could pay off, where I could live, trips to take, philanthropy to do and about a dozen other things. For a bit, it would take away cares and free up creative juices. When the ticket didn’t win I’d go back to my real life with some things to think about. It was cheap entertainment for a buck.

Pat kept telling me I didn’t win because I had bum numbers. I always took the ‘quick pick’ but I told her if she didn’t like mine, she should come up with her own. She did. It’s a combination of birthdays, an anniversary, and a number from her grandparents arriving in America. Actually, she came up with two sets of numbers – almost identical – and she couldn’t decided which to use so she kept them both. It somehow became my job to make sure we have a ticket. Twice a week I’m at the superette getting a lottery ticket at two bucks a time. So far this year, I’ve won seven dollars.

The lottery isn’t as much fun to play when it becomes an obligation. Creativity is replaced by anxiety when I realize late on a Wednesday evening that I don’t have a ticket and I’ve got twenty minutes to bustle out and buy one. There’s only about a one in four billion chance that one of the two numbers will win but if one of them ever does and I don’t have the ticket . . . I’m toast.

A Time To Clean

My minivan is mostly a work vehicle for the property preservation work I do now. It has tools and tarps, bungee cords, a folding ladder, extension cords in various sizes, pieces of wood and plywood, plumbing supplies, an air compressor, locks and a lot of stuff I’ve picked up along the way that I needed for one job or another and has been riding around with me ever since. I do a thorough cleaning about twice a year where I take everything out, reorganize, get rid of things I no longer recognize or have a need for. It takes about a day. The periods between the clean-outs Pat refers to the van as a Black Hole – like the ones in space – anything that goes in there disappears and you don’t see it again until clean-out day.

There’s some truth to what she says. There are times something I need is buried in there, know I have it, remember buying it and I have no idea where it is. That’s when I realize it’s time to clean. I usually get around to it a couple of months later, after more things have joined the pile and I have trouble seeing out the back window. Sometimes, though, there’s an added motivation.

Chris and I were working on a house in a section of St Paul where a lot of immigrants live. I needed a tool and knew I had one in the van. The van was fairly full and I started at the top, pulling, re-piling, pushing things aside. I’d burrowed deep and heard a hiss. A fire extinguisher somewhere in the middle had lost its pin and my last re-shuffle pushed the handle into the ‘Let ‘er rip’ position. I took the blast full in the face. My glasses shielded my eyes but I was blinded from the lenses out

The extinguisher shot out a light colored powder with a greenish tinge and my first thought was, ‘This doesn’t taste very good.’ I can’t even think of what to compare it to except “Yuck.” I backed out of the van, pulled my glasses off`and turned toward the house as a group of Hatians were walking by. They saw me, started screaming and ran down the sidewalk. I found out later they thought I was a Voodoo god. Not one of the nicer ones.

It took a while to brush the powder away, at least enough to go back to work. I was still dusting bits off most the rest of the day. And I scheduled Saturday for a clean-out.

When A Candidate Comes To Town

Chris was late coming to my house today so I called him on his cell phone. He said he was on the freeway but stuck behind John McCain’s campaign bus. I told him I understood. John’s kind of old and he probably drives slow. It turns out he was also weaving a bit. And wearing a hat. And, yeah, the blinker was on.

The Last Laugh

Twenty-some years ago a friend brought over a paper bag with sticks poking out of the top. They’re maple trees, he told me. They looked more like something that wanted to be walking sticks when they grew up. There were four of them. One made it. I didn’t think too much about it when I planted it in the side yard but now it dwarfs the house. It’s too big to trim in any meaningful way; too tall to top it off. The most I can do is climb the tree every few years to lob off a branch that wants to tap the side of the house or stroke the shingles.

I’m thinking about the tree now because it’s a maple. Every year it drops seeds that do that helicopter thing as they fall to the ground. A slight gust of wind sends them further into the yard or out toward the street. They’re fun to watch. As a kid I remember using the leafy part of the seed for a whistle. I tried it this year and it still works.

Other than making whistles, Pat and I spent days watching the seeds do their spin as they fell. Thousands of little helicopters spinning toward the ground. We had a bumper crop this year. And now we have to pick them up. They’re not fun to pick up. Some of them are trying to burrow into the ground. Picking them up one by one is tedious and when I use the rake they want to cling to the grass like they were attached with Velcro. It’s a long process.

Our friend, Bob was his name, became ill last year and died. He had a laugh that was both unique and hearty. I heard it this morning when I was trying to pull seeds out of the lawn with a rake and not having a lot of success. Bob liked a good joke. Today, with a rake in my hand and half a bag of maple seeds by my side, it’s on me.

A Question Of Balance

I was going to drive Chris back to the University across town on a really cold winter day. I usually bring coffee along and I heated a cup to near boiling for the drive. We got our things together and went out. I put the cup on the car roof, opened Chris’ door, walked around and opened mine. We got in, buckled up and started off – down the alley, turn, drive a couple of blocks and turn again It was cold enough I wasn’t going to push the vehicle until the engine warmed. I reached down to the cup holder for the coffee. It wasn’t there. I’d left it on the car roof. I hadn’t heard it rumble across the roof (from past experience I know what that sounds like) so I eased up on the gas, pulled to the curb and gently braked.

As I unbuckled and opened the door, Chris had a puzzled look and asked, “What are you doing?”

I stepped out and, yep, the cup was still there. I grabbed it by the handle, slid back to my seat and took a sip. “Ah,” I said, “just right.”

“You didn’t plan that," Chris said. I just gave him The Look as I put the car in gear and started off again.

There’s a time I think every parent experiences. It happens when the kids are young, their problems small and their life is limited to the things we’ve been able to expose them to. It’s a time when a parent can cure ills, kiss away pain and is a constant source of wonder and knowledge. This period doesn’t last very long but for a little while the kid thinks we’re a god. I miss those days. The best I can do now is to try to keep them a little off balance. It re-creates the mood. It helps kids remember that parents are still a little special.

It Rains and Then . . .

The yard's been fairly dry lately so we were kind of glad to get a thunderstorm through this afternoon. It rained a bunch, then it hailed some - smaller than golf ball, bigger than peas. The rain soaked immediately in to the ground and for the first time I started looking at hail as a time release capsule. Except for the shredded plants and the dents in the car they worked really well. I think Nature just needs to work a little on the delivery system.

When It's Time To Shine On

I’m getting ready for a wedding. Kate’s getting married and the ceremony is in about three hours. We’ve all been assigned tasks. Mine is the shoes. I was in the Navy years ago and Pat thinks all ex-sailors know everything about shining shoes. I also know how to tie a few knots, steer a ship, fold a flag and run a combat solution on radar but Pat has this fixation on shoes. And she wants them shiney

I heard years ago that most girls start planning their wedding when they’re about eight years old. I think that’s true. For most guys, planning a wedding means trying to schedule it so it doesn’t interfere with the fishing opener, any one of the hunting season starts, or a really good ball game. I learned over time the best way for a guy to survive a wedding (and everything that leads up to it) is to keep your head down, say “Yes Dear” a lot, find out where we’re supposed to be, when we’re supposed to be there and what we’re supposed to wear. When the women ask a question they don’t want an answer. They want affirmation. “Yes, Dear.” And I learned to never, ever get caught in the cross fire between the bride, the mother, the mother-in-law or any other woman involved to the planning or execution of The Wedding.

I’ve been keeping my head down a lot the last few months and have managed to stay out of the firing line. When it came to the shoes I gave the appropriate response (Yes, Dear”) and now I’m looking at several scuffed pairs and a fresh can of Kiwi wax polish.

There is actually a method for getting a mirror shine on shoes. If you look closely at the shoe leather you’ll see pores in the cow hide. The trick is to rub in enough wax polish on the shoe to fill the pores, then put another coat on top and buff very lightly with a cotton pad. Do it right and you can actually see reflections. It takes hours to get there and I’m not doing it.

I did know a guy on the ship who used another method. He found an old pair of paint spattered boondockers in a trash can one day as we were finishing work. He tried them on and they fit so he took them to the paint gear locker and used sandpaper to get down to bare leather. He painted them black and after the paint dried he put on a couple of coats of varnish. This wasn’t a recommended way to do things but for an inspection a week later the rest of us were filling pores with paste wax while he just pulled the boondockers out, dusted them off and was good to go. He got a compliment from the Captain on the quality of his shoe shine while the rest of us stood in formation watching the tropical sun melt our shoe wax into a cloudy glob.

When the varnish cracked on the guy’s shoes he’d just sand them down and paint and varnish them again. The boondockers were good for three sandings before they wore through. Then he found another pair and started over.

I thought about him as I was polishing the wedding shoes. I didn’t give them a mirror finish but they had a fairly good shine. They should be okay. If not, for next time there’s some black paint in the basement. And I know where we keep the varnish.

Traffic Signs

I get along with most traffic signs. I stop at the stop ones, yield at the yield ones and move over when a sign tells me my lane’s going to end. It took a while to get used to the international ones like the red circle one with the white bar that essentially tells me I’m not welcome on whatever road or driveway its posted in or the red circle one with the diagonal line that tells me not to do something or if I am doing it to quit before I get in the line of sight of the next cop or state patrol trooper.

The signs I have a little trouble with are the warning signs – the yellow square one tipped on end to look like a diamond shape. The ones that tell you to slow down for the next curve can usually be ignored. At least I do. Most of the time, I find I can go 15mph over what the sign suggests without much effect. At 20mph centrifugal force reminds me why I wear a seat belt. 25mph over gives a little screech to the back tire and adds a little pizzazz to the driving experience. Once in a while the sign is actually serious. I find most of the ones that recommend 15mph for a right angle turn mean that at 16mph you’re going to jump the ditch and plow into the tree that was planted to discourage both the centrifugal force and pizzazz experience.

The one warning sign I do not understand, though, is the one that says Bump. I’m not talking about the temporary ones road crew put up at construction sites where they’ve torn out half the road so you get the idea they’re doing something. I’m talking about the ones that are permanently planted along road ways and highways that give you the thought that if you hit it at normal traffic speed your vehicle will be airborne. Mine never has. In fact, I find the actual bump anticlimactic. I gear up for it, brace the steering wheel and, maybe, tap the gas pedal a little. The actual bump doesn’t even give the suspension a good workout. Maybe I expect too much. Sometimes I forget I’m driving a vehicle and not flying an F4 Phantom. There are days, though, when I would like to.

Spam. It Isn't Just For Breakfast Anymore

I messed up. It wasn’t a deliberate thing. I didn’t spend time planning this move but it happened anyway. I was on a web site, wanted a little information and made the mistake of putting my email address in the appropriate box. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time but my address got passed on and now the world knows where I am. At least the part of the world that wants to sell me something.

I know how to work the delete button and it’s been busy. I got back one afternoon and found fifty-seven things to delete. Three more popped up almost immediately. I deleted those, too.

This morning there were only eight, coming out of the weekend and all, but two more have popped up since I started writing this. As of right now I can get a degree online from a university I’ve never heard of, there are three offers for a free laptop computer (two of them are from Dell, which makes me think their computers stutter), I can get a free year’s supply of diapers even though I haven’t needed the regular ones for years and haven’t had enough body parts go wrong to where I need Depends.

There’s an offer to sell my gold and jewelry, two job opportunities to become a Mystery Shopper, someone who wants to sell me auto insurance and Blockbuster wants me to rent some movies.

The only one that looks interesting is from a company that has a formula to rejuvenate my mind, body and soul. If part of their formula has a technique for blocking the irritating effects of spam I might take them up on it.

Here’s an offer for now: If you’re looking for something different or unique or just quirky let me know. I might have a place where you can get a deal. Hurry, though. The offer ends as soon as I can fire up the delete button.

Recycling

I’m looking for a guy. Maybe you can help. It’s the guy who throws the local shopper newspaper onto my porch, up the sidewalk, into Pat’s flower beds, or just leaves it flopped in the front yard. Winter, summer, rain, snow, sleet, hail and in the dark of night this guy pitches newspapers I don’t want and have to pick up whether they’re dry and neatly bound with a rubber band or, more usually, in a soppy, sodden soaky mess. I want this guy. I want to know where he lives because I’ve been saving the papers – nearly a dozen trash bags now – and I want to give them back. I figure he’s been doing this for so long and with such enthusiasm it must give him real joy. I want to feel his joy. I want to giggle as I whip wet crusty newspapers toward the front of his house, onto his walkway and at his wife’s flower beds.

Actually this is just a bargaining chip. The guy I really want is the one who leaves the forty pounds of phone books on my porch every year. I don’t need them, don’t want but maybe one every couple of years. I figure the shopper guy has crossed paths with him at least a few times, had a conversation or two, can give me the make and model of his vehicle or even knows where he lives. If I can find that guy then he’ll get the newspapers and the phone books. I’ve been saving them, too. And I’ll probably be giggling with joy at each one I whip into his yard..

Having That Run Down Feeling

My minivan leaks transmission fluid. Not a lot, there are no puddles, it’s more of an intermittent drip. It’s enough to let me see where I’ve parked but not enough for someone to follow a trail. I think it’s some sort of design flaw. Other minivans I’ve had have done the same thing. I’ve just gotten used to bringing along a couple of quarts of transmission fluid to periodically top off the tranny.

There are times, though, when I forget to check for a while and the van follows this pattern: It backs out of the drive just fine but when I put it in to Drive, it just sits there. Sometimes it takes a little while to hit the gear and start moving forward. Other times it doesn’t. It stays at an angle blocking the alley and waits for me to feed it. It did that last week and I jumped out, dug around in the back for the tranny fluid, popped the hood, pulled the dip stick and started to pour.

I think when the van first nudged me is when I realized the gear shift wasn’t in Park. A further nudge confirmed I’d put in enough ATF to get the vehicle moving, though standing in front of it while I had this realization was more than a little problematic.. I don’t recall ever having a vehicle chase me down an alley (or anywhere else for that matter), having it be a vehicle I owned made it a little more unnerving. I had never been mean to it, I oiled and fueled it regularly, cleaned it out and washed it once in a while, and yet here it was trying to run me over.

I don’t run as well as I used to but having a ton and a half vehicle bearing down on me gave a little extra motivation to move. I managed to get far enough ahead to side step it, jump into the driver’s seat smash on the brake. I put the gear shift to Park and put on the emergency brake before I got back out.

The hood was still open and the dip stick was where I left it by the radiator. The engine was making a noise like I should pour some more ATF down the spout but I figured it had enough for now. I rammed the dip stick hard down its tube several times muttering, “You thought you could run me over, huh, take that!” Jab. Jab. Jab

The minivan ran more smoothly than normal for the rest of the day. I think it was trying to apologize. I haven’t decided whether to accept or not. The experience is still a little nervy. I think I’m just going to watch for a while to make sure this was a lapse and not part of a new pattern. If it continues to be good I’ll give it some high octane for a treat but I think I’ll be pouring the ATF from the side.

Don't Try This At Home

I don’t know how you feel about leaky faucets but I don’t like them. I don’t like the drips. They do a mini-rumble out of the faucet nozzle, free fall toward the drain and land with an annoying, room echoing ping. Thought stops, breathing is interrupted, anticipation builds. Life becomes centered on the next falling drop of water.

We had a kitchen faucet that finally decided to give up. We are ‘Kitchen People.’ We spend a lot of time there and the drip cycle was interrupting cooking and meals, making visiting and conversation nearly unbearable. Every pause was filled with the steady sound of a drip, The faucet came with the house and was probably only a few years younger than me. It was one of those with one handle and no washers; I needed to replace the whole thing. I bought a new faucet and waited for a day when everyone was gone. I noticed there was no shut off for the cold water when I was looking at the faucet so I had one of those, too. I figured the whole replacement thing would take about an hour.

It probably would have gone better if I’d realized the main shut-off for the house didn’t work. By the time I found that out I had the cold water connector unscrewed and water was shooting everywhere. I quickly grabbed the new shut-off and tried to force it on the pipe. No go. Too much water. To lessen the pressure I ran around the house and turned on every faucet there was. Still too much. The only thing left was to run upstairs and flush the toilet. That did it. I got the shut on and turned it to close just as the toilet tank filled. I laid in the water under the sink and finished up with the hot water side and mounted the faucet. It worked. And it only took a lot longer than an hour. Sopping up gallons of water off the kitchen floor and from under the sink stretched the job out a whole lot more.

I got dried off and changed just before Pat got home. She noticed the new faucet. She noticed the sparkly clean kitchen floor more. I told her I had extra time that day so I thought I’d do a little around the house. Pat thinks I’m handy, as in Handy Man. It’s an illusion. Some day she’ll probably figure out I’m a guy with a basic knowledge of how a screw driver works. Until then she’s got a new faucet and, for a while, a really clean floor.

I Don't Stop At IHOP

I think everyone has a food they don’t like, can’t eat, don’t want to be near. It’s the smell, the taste, the texture, the aroma wafting through the air that dulls the appetite, turns stomachs and make us want to be somewhere else. It’s a real back-ended diet technique I’ve tried to avoid. You know what your food is. Mine is pancakes. And I blame my mother.

Feeding seven kids can put a strain on any food budget and my mother was always trying to find ways to stretch our food dollars. She found one solution on a table at the supermarket. The table held packets, hundreds of them, of pancake mix. Add some water, the directions claimed, and each packet could produce enough to feed a village. The packets cost ten cents each. The brand name, as I recall, was Generic. My mother bought five dollars worth and that started our pancake era.

We had pancakes for breakfast, pancakes for lunch, pancakes for dinner. On week days she’d give us the left-over breakfast pancakes to snack on while we waited for the school bus. At school, we’d open our lunch bags to find a peanut butter and jelly on pancake sandwiches. Yum.

It took months to work our way through the packets but we finally made it. It took years before I could look at a pancake dead on. Years more before I could actually eat one and then it was just to be polite. I still only eat them to be polite but it takes less effort. Either my palate is settling or I’m getting better at the polite thing. I think it’s the palate.

What We Don't Heat

I think every family has some short-hand phrase that passes down a few generations and makes absolutely no sense to an outsider. Often the phrase makes little sense to the younger family generation but they all know what it means. Our family phrase has to do with Kroftas. I have six siblings scattered across the country. All have children. Some have grandchildren. Each generation is familiar with the words,

“Shut the door. I’m not heating Kroftas.”

The phrase is said in an overly loud voice during winter and is directed at whatever child has just come in and left a door open. Kroftas is a good word to say in an overly loud voice. It starts at the back of the throat and has a good positioning of hard and soft consonants and vowels that it explodes forward toward the hapless child. Doors are quickly shut at the word ‘Kroftas.’

When they were younger my kids asked, “What’s a Kroftas?” and I’ve explained it this way:

“Kroftas are a gnome-like people that are harmless when they’re kept cold but if you let them warm up they become a mean. They’ll try to steal your shoes so they can nibble at your toes – Kroftas like toes – and they try to lick between your toes with long snaky tongues. After they’ve had their fill they become rude and poke at you and become really bad.” I usually shudder at this point and finish by saying, “It’s not good to heat a Kroftas.” Doors usually shut faster after this story. At least for a while.

Actually, the Kroftas were a family that lived about a quarter mile from our farm house and they were nice enough people. My Dad started using the phrase to emphasize how much heat we were letting out from our wood burning stove when he was the one who had to haul the wood and stoke the fire. The phrase just caught on. My brothers and I used it on each other when it was our turn to haul and stoke and we’ve passed the phrase down. So did my sisters, though they never hauled wood or stoked.

I have a grandchild on the way and he or she will likely hear the phrase more than once. When the time comes to explain about Kroftas I’m not going to talk about farm houses and wood burning stoves. I’m going to tell about the gnomes. Just to have the doors shut a little faster in winter. At least for a while.

Not So Secret, Victoria

I don’t know how I got on this mailing list but Victoria’s Secret keeps sending me brochures introducing new products, telling me about sales and offering free stuff. The one that came today had a card I could turn in at one of their stores for free panties I think are missing material in some of the crucial spots. That won’t fly here. Pat doesn’t allow holes in clothing. She’s thrown away my clothes as soon as I get a scratch hole worked in where I want it. Something that comes pre-done doesn’t stand a chance.

I also got a coupon for $10 off a Dream Angels bra. I’m not sure exactly what that is but I suspect it’s a bra with feathers or wings or maybe both. I’m fairly sure I don’t need it. The last time I had cleavage was when I had to wear a suit with a vest. I hadn’t worn the suit in a while and my shape had changed to the point that the vest pushed some parts of me up where they didn’t belong. Cleavage. And the under wire was pokey. I got a new suit and everything’s back where it belongs. Dream Angels would only confuse things. The feathers could be kind of fun, though, at least once in a while. Maybe I’ll stop by and see how many I could get with a $10 coupon.

A Grammar Question

It was a social gathering but just about everyone there was involved in Education in some way. Most were elementary teachers, a few worked in class rooms or in low level administration and they were talking shop. I’m not in education. The closest I get is once every few years when they want me to vote on a school referendum, so at this gathering I just sat back and listened as the topic changed from student behavior to curriculum and teaching challenges. One of the teachers started up about the difficulty she was having showing students how to diagram sentences.

“They don’t get it,” she said, “and honestly who even remembers it.” I was sitting back quietly and taking it in when she turned and pointed at me. “Do you know what a dangling participle is?”

“Yeah,” I said, “ever since puberty.”

Conversation stopped for a moment, then the group went on to talk about history. I know a bit about history but no one asked me another question. I’m not sure why.

It's A Science Thing

I like talking about science with my kids. They’re further along than I am. I missed most of the science classes when I was in school. I’m more of a liberal arts guy but over time I’ve come to like science. Watching our snow banks go down even though it’s been below freezing, Chris and I started talking about the process of sublimation – that’s when a solid like snow goes directly to a gas (water vapor) without stopping at a liquid state. You can’t really see the process except that the snow bank gets smaller.

Taking it to another level, Chris asked what it’s called when a liquid turns to gas.

Without really thinking I said, “Beer farts.”

I probably shouldn’t have missed so many classes.

Gentlemen, Check Your Engines

My vehicle, like most on the road these days, has an array of lights and symbols that tell me something’s wrong or about to go wrong. The old lights that tell me the oil pressure’s too low or that the engine is heating up to the melting point are still there but I also have lights that tell me I didn’t close a door or the hatch all the way. The vehicle assumes that I, and apparently anyone else, can’t decipher the intricacies of the gas gauge so it tells me when I’m low on fuel. It also tells me when the anti-lock brakes aren’t working, when the turn signals are fritzed and when I’m low on window washer bug juice. There are a couple of lights that are trying to tell me something’s wrong but I don’t know what they mean and it really hasn’t seemed to matter. All of these lights come on with an electronic ‘ding’ sound to ensure I take my eyes off the road, ignore traffic and get blood pressure up. Good things to do in 60 mph rush hour.

The most annoying light is the one that says ‘Check Engine.’ The first time this one came on I pulled over, popped the hood and looked. The engine was still there, still running, still sounding normal. It turns out I wasn’t the one who was supposed to check the engine. When the light comes on I’m supposed to take the van to a garage and pay the mechanic about a hundred dollars to hook my vehicle’s computer up to his computer and tell me every thing’s fine, the sensor just has to be reset. For $100 I could have reset the sensor myself with a hefty wrench.

The vehicle has a computer. It doesn’t seem that it would take much to put a scrolling display in (my telephone and fax machine have that) to tell me specifically what’s wrong with the engine. The vehicle already knows. It could say things like ‘Your Fuel Injector is about ready to crap out’ or 'Piston #3 is slapping around like a Rumba Band’ or ‘The last curb you drove over ripped off your oil pan and you’ve got about a hundred yards to go before the engine seizes up.’ For the cost of a vehicle these days, it doesn’t seem too much to ask. Until then I’m keeping a hefty wrench handy. I may have to re-set a sensor.