Observe

October 22, 2013

For the first seventeen days of October, I didn't pay attention to much.  I got wrapped up, first in the government shutdown and standoff, and then, as the 17th approached, the possibility of a debt default.  Although I didn't have immediate personal consequences from the closure, I had friends that did.  I also worried about families that I knew of who had children trying (unsuccessfully) to enroll in clinical trials.  After I read about a single dad cafeteria worker at one of the Smithsonian Museums wondering if his landlord would wait on the $350 rent for the one-room he shared with his son, I added non-governmental contract workers who would not receive back pay to my list of people who were taking it on the chin because of the hold up.

When I finally looked up in the aftermath of the almost botched fiasco (with me still not having rainbow-tinted thoughts concerning the junior Senator from my state or for that matter anyone from the  particular caucus from my state every last one of whom voted "No" that night),  I noticed that the world continued on even as I had abandoned my role as close and keen observer.  

The mid-month rains helped raise the lake level enough that I could actually notice. We now look like we live in a natural wetland (though not really a lake yet), with water flowing through and around the field grass that had grown up on the lake bed after the big frac.  FYI, the shore birds really like this situation and have flocked to the lake, like, well, like flocks of birds.

The weather patterns have not been so kind in Australia where fires and (apparently) megafires (whatever that means) are raging.  The Tjoelkers are okay as of this morning.  Here is Elaine's self report (with my editorial add ons in parentheses):

The fires are in Springwood and Winmalee. Schools are closed and there has been an advisory to evacuate before noon tomorrow or plan to stay. We are leaving to spend the day at the Uni in Richmond (Between their house in Linden and Sydney. This is where Mark works) and then stay with Susan (for you local Presbys, this is Susan Phalen) over night if we can't get back. The fires are on the other side of the highway, nearer to the aquatic center (this is where Walter worked out when we were visiting, which just goes to show how close it really is), and we are not directly in danger. We are each packing duffle bags tomorrow and a few favorite things, but I fully expect to return to my laundry pile and dirty dishes You can google Rural fire service NSW (Here: I've done it for you: http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=683. I zoomed in until I could actually see Linden on the map following along the A32), but it may still be hard to tell what's going on. Anyway, this has been going on since last Thursday - I am ready for rain!

We're still short of rain in the Brazos Valley, but I'm willing to share with New South Wales if you can figure out a way to get it there.

Not everything in the world has risen to the level of world economic cataclysm or devastating and unprecedented wildfires.  I have also taken in some less eventful news.

In the last few days, I have noticed several links to this story coming across my news feed:

"Mammals Urinate for 21 Seconds"

I was absolutely certain this was a hoax.  I mean, really?  The only time this happens to me is if I get the Spaten at the Irish Pub on Friday evening or if I wait for the commercial break during an EPL game.   Apparently, it is not a hoax.  It is true-ish.  It doesn't apply to human or mammals smaller than cats (think viscosity and surface tension as the game wreckers).  However, thanks to this observational breakthrough--that elephants on down the line to dogs and goats pee for the same duration and that duration is 21 seconds--we can now redesign water towers to make them more efficient.

And one final thing that has recently edged its way into my perceptual space:  marching band butt.

The observation was that I don't have it any more.  

When I was in the high school band, I could march for an hour playing a trombone and never miss a step or a note or run out of breath.  That high stepping action was the norm.  And I think it contributed mightily to a firm and perky set of gluts.  

Now, I can barely march a hundred yards (even if I leave my trombone at home) without needing a short break.  

Not that you will see me doing this.  

But I did put two and two together conceptually the other day, and decided that while walking is good for me, and I do about 15-20 miles a week, it does not give the old seater the tone that marching band did.  So, I have added marching to the morning walk (when it is too dark for the neighbors to wonder about that strange person high stepping on the dam).  I'll let you know in a few football seasons whether I have reclaimed my marching band butt, and simultaneous developed the exercise craze poised to overtake Sh'Bam.  You can guarantee I'm not going to call it "Prancercize."

Listen

October 15, 2013

I'm not sure what I expected yesterday morning on my first dog walk of the day.  I had pulled on my Red Ball rubber boots.

No snow, of course, but after 4+ inches of rain the day before I figured that I might have to slosh through some puddles even if the thirsty, drought-wracked lake bed had sucked down its fill of the rain and run off.

I leashed up the pups and headed out way before sunrise and was surprised by a growing noise that I didn't recognize.  At first I thought someone had opened an all-night machine shop at the end of the road, with ancient belt-driven lathes and drill presses squealing and shuddering.  I struggled to make sense of that (without the benefit of the first mug of coffee for the day, I might add) and decided that the noise was much more like the soundtrack in the bar at the Rainforest Cafe.  But again, the coffee deprived brain pushed back on that notion with the thought that even a blessed four inches of rain wouldn't grow a forest complete with cacophonous birds over night.

I made the corner and the sounds crescendoed, and I had my epiphany:  frog riot.

The Buengers and the parched Leisure Lake were not the only celebrants of Sunday's rains.  I don't know where they had been hiding or whether they had hitchhiked in for the occasion, but they were some happy frogs.  I would say riotously happy. 

Dear Editor:

Walter awoke at 3:50 this morning agonizing over our Congressman's vote on the Farm Bill.  I think you might appreciate that he spent the day composing this letter.  There is no reason to think that it will ever make it into print, but I thought you might appreciate his eloquence:

*********

To the Eagle:

Bill Flores acted immorally when he voted to slash $4 Billion in food assistance for the poor next year and a total of $40 Billion over ten years.  We the people of his district should be ashamed and called to action.

Leave aside the impracticality of this vote.  It dooms the passage of the farm bill this year and reduces consumer spending while we are still in the economic doldrums.  It exhausts the resources of the churches and community groups who feed the needy.  More children will go to school hungry diminishing their chances of high performance and upward mobility.

Ignore the Republican clap trap about the unworthy poor.  Over seventy-five percent of households receiving food assistance include children, the disabled, and the elderly.  These households include people who work, and for whom food assistance serves as a crucial bridge to greater opportunity.  Food assistance programs offer many incentives to work longer and harder.

Focus instead on what electing the person who cast this vote says about us and our values and ideals.  All enduring religions include strong injunctions to care for the poor and needy.  In Luke, Chapter 10, Jesus offers as a model of right behavior a Samaritan who despite his people’s ingrained hatred of Jews helped a forlorn and forsaken Jewish stranger.  This passage and many others challenge those who would follow Jesus to feed, clothe, and house even the unlovable.

Americans often insist we are building a more perfect Union–a righteous community that serves as an example to the world and a place of equal opportunity for all to achieve success.  In that sense Flores’s vote was un-American and our votes for him to hold office were unworthy of our highest ideals.

People of faith and proud Americans should urge Bill Flores to reconsider cutting food assistance.

Granddog

August 31, 2013

Davis thought he might come home in August.  There are always August chores.  We know that the start of the fall semester is the trigger to a mad dash to New Year's Day.  It really did seem appropriate that he would fly home after we returned from Ruidoso.  I even had it in mind that we could take a road trip for his return to Columbus and drive some of his furniture back.

That was before Lyndon.

Lyndon, my new granddog.

Lyndon, the smartest dog ever.

Lyndon, the dog who spoiled Davis's trip home this summer.  I guess I'd better go and start knitting some winter booties for him, so his feet don't get cold in frosty Columbus.

Back at It

August 13, 2013

And you know what the road to hell is paved with, right?  Which completely explains where I am headed if I don't get back to posting, as I intended.

Really, the only question one should ask oneself when approached by an oil company that wants to "borrow" about a foot or so of the water in your lake and promises to dig a well that will replace the water is "Why would I possibly believe this is in my best interest?"

Rainforest

July 11, 2013 (Part 4)

Day 13 (continued)--And lest you think that snow one day and beach the next is a stretch, when we left Kiama to head home we had to drive through a part of New South Wales that was a rainforest microclimate.

We also stopped at place called the Illawarra Fly Walk which has cat walks suspecded at the level of the treetops above the rainforest.  When Adam and I climbed even higher on the watch tower above the treetop walkway, we could see to coastal Wallangong and a hundred miles in every direction.

Sea Change

July 11, 2013 (Part 3)

Day 12--Walter, Adam, and I peeled off in the rental car and headed down to the coast.  On the way, we stopped off at Fitzroy Falls 

and then wound our way through Kangaroo Valley which is as different from the Snowy Mountains as you can imagine.  I pictured a road winding through pasture with herds of kangaroo hanging around and maybe a kangaroo-herd keeping watch.  When we drove through, I realized we were sooo wrong.  Kangaroo Valley was like driving through the set of The Shire from Lord of the Ring.  I really thought I saw a hobbit.

Day 13--We stayed in Kiama, two blocks from the beach.

and two blocks from the Kiama blow hole.

  

Climb

July 11, 2013 (Part 2)

Day 10--Our trip moved further west and to higher elevations.  We had to stop in at Jindbyne to get fitted for our snow shoes before we checked in at the Crackenback Farm.  Snow isn't common in Australia, except here, in the Snowy Mountains.

Day 11--We headed to the top of the Porcupine Summit.  Adam and I stopped for the first photo op at a stand of snow gum trees.

We actually made it up to the very peak and and had this panoramic view.

Play Catch Up

July 11, 2013

Sometimes you have so much fun, you don't stop to talk about it.  So today is catch up day.

Day 8--Day tripping.  We all loaded up and headed west to see the Blue Mountains:  picnicking at Wentworth Falls, a stop by Sublime Point (how yummy is that moniker for an inspiring view?),

and a look around the Three Sisters in Katoomba (and like so many places in Australia, this one is terribly fun to say:  Katoomba, Katoomba, Katoomba.  I think Walt Disney named some of these places.)

Day 8 was just a warm up to Day 9

We started our excursion.  First stop Canberra (pronounced Canbra) where we visited both the Australian War Memorial (for Walter's book on history, memory, and identity) and the National Museum of Australia.  While we saw many mazing sites that deserved photos, I chose two of the same subject, an unknown Australian Serviceman, because he had a striking resemblance to WB.

Apple Crisp--Almost

July 6, 2013

Day 6--Walter and I packed up the bags, hopped a train, and ended up in Linden, NSW.  The Tjoelkers home is brilliant, tucked into the edge of national park in the Blue Mountains.  After a quick tour about the house, Adam was excited to demonstrate his cooking prowess, learned in cooking technology at school.  He prepped his space and as he cored the first apple the knife slipped.  We spent the next six hours exploring the intricacies of the Australian health system.

Six stitches on the web between his thumb and forefinger on his violin hand.  I think he will still be able to make it to Carnegie Hall, and also to the Sydney Opera House where he has a solo at the end of the month.

Day 7--We had a chance to catch up, relax, and get our reading in on Day 7.

Explore

July 4, 2013

Day 4.5--We capped off our 4th day with a rooftop dining experience at the Sydney Cafe.  I won't rub it in that we are experiencing brilliant weather (high expected today of 70F), but I will say that the roof view from atop the fifth story of the historic Sydney Charter House was sublime.  Unfortunately, I'm a bad photographer (but here is an attempt at the Harbor Bridge and to the right, the edge of the Opera House:

Day 5--I'm not sure what it's like to travel and not see folks we know  We knew we'd be with the Tjoelkers, but we also had the good fortune to connect with some of the Keblises.  Hilary taught 6th grade math at Jane Long when Erin was there ,and Cat was a brilliant all-around soccer player from the earliest days, who I apparently didn't ruin by bad coaching when she was a elementary and intermediate school student.

I could actually go on and on about the Royal Botanical garden, where we saw one of the rarest trees in the world, a wollemi pine, and acres and acres of amazing gardens and botanical specimens.  However, let me just show you the scale of what I'm talking about.  [NOTE BENE:  Walter's wing span is six feet six inches.  There is no photoshopping involved to stretch the scale of the girth of this Moreton Bay fig tree.  Yes, I said fig tree)

Arrive and Thrive

July 2, 2013

Day 2--in flight.

Day 3--In awe and almost forgot to take pictures.  Missed the ancient fig tree in the botanical garden and the sunset over the Harbor Bay from our 31st floor room.  Luckily, WB was on the ball and captured the Sydney Opera House.

Day 4--Today we visited Manly, a beach town accessible by ferry and named by Captain Arthur Phillips because the indigenous people discovered there were such fine physical specimens.  It is "Seven miles from Sydney and a thousand miles from care."

Don't the Tjoelkers look fabulous?

Fly

June 29, 2013

Day 1

This evening we fly to Australia.  Kat and Emma are taking us to the Dallas airport. The waiting is the hardest part.  Well, it's the hardest part except for the 17 hour flight.  Leaving 105 degree temperatures is the easiest part.

Happy Birthday, Erin

June 20, 2013

Ten years ago, Erin celebrated her 6th birthday and a year of treatment with a strawberry birthday cake and three special friends--Nico, Katie, and Tiffany.  These fine children stuck with Erin through thick and thin.  She had many more birthday with these and other friends, but not enough.

Excavate

 June 18, 2013

My porch is on my porch.  By which I mean, someone is slowly, but steadily, moving the header beams and posts of my porch down to the porch deck.  This happens a few grains of saw dust at a time, but it happens inexorably

Some of our guests think we have bumble bees.  We don't.  We have those industrious carpenter bees who live to excavate tunnels in the softwood of our cedar porch.

I guess it would be okay if these little guys were just digging a small hole, but once they get about an inch in, they take a right or left turn and keep burrowing.  Before too long it is conceivable that my porch roof will be supported by hollow beams (hollow, except for the baby carpenter bees that soon hatch out.  They are also never satisfied with one hole. . .

If our house falls down while we are in Australia, at least you'll know why.

In the nonce, I need to go to the steel wool  and dowel rod store.  Can you guess why?

Spur

June 3, 2013


Last year about this time Matt Yglesias made this observation in Slate:

America—at least in its own imagination—stands for certain things. For the idea that hard work and sound judgment bring success, and that success deserves celebration. That winners should be celebrated as long as they play by the rules. That teamwork, leadership, loyalty, and excellence all count for something. And that’s why the San Antonio Spurs, currently riding a stupendous run of 19 straight victories, are America’s favorite professional basketball team.

Except, of course, they aren’t. 

I so relate to this, and I guess a couple of you do, too.  

The rest of you have probably been ignoring the basketball playoffs for weeks and could not care less whether the Spurs are America's favorite or least favorite professional basketball team.  [Or perhaps you have wondered why would a "spur" be a good mascot?]

Maybe you have entirely different NBA favorites.  Or maybe you turn to football, soccer, or baseball to get your kicks and give your loyalties.  I'm guessing that for some of you, college sports always has and always will trump those staffed by professionals.  

There are also among my friends, who have already tuned me out in favor of sorting your yarn or to return to your kvetching about The Game of Thrones.

There are, however, few clubs that match the Buengers' psyche more than the Spurs.  No side orders of drama, peevishness and petulance, impulsive bad behavior, or narcissistic attention seeking.  Step up.  Work together.  Do things right.  Appreciate the success of those around you.  Even if it is boring (although, really, is winning ever boring?).  

Tonight the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers will decide who goes forward to face the Spurs in the Championship Series. I'm hoping for a physical clash of the Titans, where all the starters have to play more than their usual minutes and the game is not decided until the last seconds.  

Davis and I have been and will continue to wear Spurs black for good luck (and most of you know Vickie in Black is a pretty rare occurrence).  

I've even been sleeping in the Spurs shirt Davis silk screened for me for Christmas.   He actually made one for each of us, which we wore like we were identical triplets (awkward or not) when we went to SA for a real live game.

So, tonight, Pacers and Heat. . . play hard!  By Thursday the mantra will be Go Spurs Go!

Cloves

June 27, 2013

I'm afraid it gets worse.

Along with the ancient box of corn muffin mix, I explained a couple of days ago, we also composted four boxes of barley. . . and I can't possibly explain how a single family (a couple, actually) comes to own four opened and expired boxes of barley.

I do know that we had, for some time, added pearled barley to stew when we made it, but stopped doing so suddenly and permanently after Erin sobbed about it at the table one evening, "why do you always ruin the stew by putting oatmeal in it?!?!"

We were laughing about that memory this morning with my mom, which got us riffing on my complaints about the family stew recipe.  Years ago, some point early in our marriage, I had to forbid the addition of whole cloves to the stew.

My mom wasn't that familiar with cloves, so I reached up in the spice rack to let her sniff the cloves so she could understand why, though lovely in hot tea or wine punch, they would be an objectionable ingredient in beef stew.

The label described in detail all the different ways you might use the "pungent-sweet flavor" of the "dried flower buds of the clove tree picked just before they open."  

It also specifies where these cloves, in particular, had originated.  I have to admit that I was on geographic shaky ground when I read that "Top quality cloves are produced in Penang and the Malagasy Republic."  A quick google showed me that Penang is a state in Malaysia.

The Malagasy Republic, however, no longer exists, and hasn't since 1975.

I think, perhaps, I should pitch a new PBS series:  Antique Roadshow--Pantry Edition.

Confess

May 25, 2013

Do you collect antiques?  I don't.  

At least I don't on purpose.  I have a few things in my house that came from my family or Walter's that probably qualify:  a terrific old rocker, the clock his grandparents received as a wedding gift in 1905, possibly some other stuff.

I'm not sure how old something has to be to qualify as an antique.  It probably depends on the category.    Furniture probably has to be older than a car to be called an antique.  I'm not sure.

What I'm even less clear about is how old food has to be considered antique.

Do any of you have food in the house that's older than your oldest child?  

I tidied up the pantry today as my Saturday chore, tossing out things that had passed their "use by" date.  I found this:

I searched for the "use by" and couldn't find one.  I was about to stick it back on the shelf (which evidently, I have done before) when I spotted this info for a special offer on the back panel:

Walter and I got married in October 1984.  I'm guessing this was one of our first newlywed purchases.  

Should we put it up on the mantle next to his grandparent's wedding clock?

Streamline

April 19, 2013

This is going to have to be an audience-participation post.

While I have been profligate today (in fact, joyfully profligate--at least with my time, though not, in fact with my money) that has not been the case for the last month.

I have had to act with such efficiency that I have really had to streamline my life just to get through the daily "to do" list.

The first "vic" (as they say on Law and Order) was my Google Reader which I swore off of on March 18.  Late Lent?  Not really.  I just knew that I couldn't spend the time I usually did skimming through my blogs and news sources if I was going to survive.  When  I logged back on this morning, the counter had stopped keeping track of the counter.  By the look, I only had 1000+ articles to catch up on.  The reality was more like 9,400+

This was probably a reasonable idea, BUT I also know I have made some bad choices in the last month.

No, adding half and half and sugar to your cup of tea doesn't substitute for lunch.

    . . . Even if it saves you twenty minutes or more that it would take to prepare and eat some canned soup.  
    . . . Even if you also grab a peppermint from the receptionist desk to stand in as dessert.
    . . . Even if you can hold your cup with your left hand, while you grade with your right.

No, "holding it" until the end of the work day so that you don't waste a trip down the hall and can jet "go" on your way to the car isn't a good idea.

I have some more confessions to make about my "time-saving" during crunch time, but I'm going to hold out on you, until you tell me what short cuts you have taken or "read about" when you are pressed for time and need to get more done.

In the meantime, I'm going to pause a moment and get the palm fronds out of my car, that I have been chauffeuring around since Palm Sunday, because I wasn't willing to take the time to do whatever it is that one does with leftover palm fronds.

Please chime in.

Miss

April 9, 2013

Everything goes better with avocados.

Or whipped topping