This and That

 

We have nice blue skies today.

We have a glorious break in the weather this week with temperatures in the 70°Fs and 80°Fs. Such a welcome break from the feels-like 100-degree heat we were having. But the cold front that brought the nicer weather brought a lot of rain with it. We had 5" at our house in under 2 hours. Unfortunately, that caused water in the basement. But fortunately, the waterproof flooring we had installed a few months ago held up well. An area rug, not so much. Everything has finally dried out, and we're good to go. This was a minor inconvenience compared to the devastation that can come with floods caused by heavy rains. We know we are lucky.

Do you ever have those moments when you learn something that the rest of the world has known forever and wonder how you missed the information? Well, I had a couple of those this week. First up, I was baking a cake, and my baking powder was a couple of years past its best-by date. I didn't want to ruin the whole recipe, so with a little Googling, I learned that you can put baking powder into hot water to test it. Bubbles=good. No bubbles=bad. Fortunately, mine was good.

The other thing I learned about was that my vegetable brush has two sets of bristles--a stiff set and a soft set. I had never noticed that until I tried to brush silk off corn on the cob, which was another new thing I learned from a friend. 

I don't know if you remember, but after last Christmas, when I was putting my mantle back together, I couldn't find the two framed X-stitch pieces I had displayed there. I usually stand them upright next to a shelf or dresser in an out-of-the-way place while the Christmas decorations are up. 

However, this year, I couldn't find them. I looked and looked at various times and in a lot of extra places where I was pretty sure that they weren't there. Wally looked. Ward looked. No luck. Well, I finally found them this week. They were hidden in plain sight, hanging on the wall in the extra bedroom, also known as the drop-it-here until you have time to put it away room. I went into the room regularly, but never noticed them, which made me feel silly. I am relieved that they are back where they belong. 

That's all for now. Time to go outside and enjoy the weather.

Until next time...

Perceptions

 On Facebook the other day, I got a friend request from my freshman high school English teacher. But before I saw that, I got a private message from her. She said that whether or not I friended her, she wanted to reach out to me, asking if I remembered her. Then she proceeded to say some very complimentary things about me as her student. I was surprised to hear from her, and I did remember her all of these many decades later. Then we did a brief catch-up on what we had been doing for all of the years since then. I had a smile the rest of the day as I thought about her kind words.

A few days later, I was relating this story to Wally, and as he was trying to remember his teachers' names, he could tell me where all of their classrooms were. He remembered some teachers and some classmates, but he remembered almost all of the locations of his classes. And that was the first thing that came to his mind. 

That surprised me because my first thoughts were about my classmates and my teachers (which, by the way, I can name almost all of my teachers for my 12 years of school before college). I could come up with some locations when I thought about it. Maybe part of these differences between us comes from the fact that he has good spatial skills and I do not. I'm not sure.

I found this school discussion very interesting. It was much like the time when I discovered that Wally didn't see many pictures as he read, but more imagined sounds. He was in high school when he told me this, and that he was very much an auditory learner. This floored me because it seemed impossible to me to read and not see pictures, because that's the way my brain works.

Both of these examples reminded me that you never really know what or how someone is thinking. There are some things we do or perceive that are so innate to us, we don't even think to consider that others could be perceiving things another way. And this is even before we factor in the nurture or experience part of the equation.

So when someone does something that doesn't make sense to me (and there's a lot of that), I try to imagine how they might be thinking differently than the way I do. And sometimes, I'm successful. Sometimes.

Until next time...

Book Reviews, Children's version-almost

 Here are a few more book reviews. 

Counting Lost Stars, by Kin Van Alkemade, adult historical fiction, 2023

This is a complicated story about two women during World War II. One, Corneila, is a Christian who realizes that she is working with a computer project that is helping Hitler find Jewish people. She hides extra punch cards to have some kind of record of people who are being targeted.

Meanwhile, she falls in love with her Jewish neighbor, Leah, and they devise a plan for her to escape before the soldiers come for her. However, plans go awry, and it is Corneila who ends up in a concentration camp. 

This story alternates with one in 1960, where Rita becomes pregnant by a college professor, which gets her kicked out of college. Her college experience lands her a job working with an old computer, and with some sleuthing, she eventually finds Corneila's computer cards, which help a friend uncover the truth about his mother, who had been in a concentration camp. (How's that for a run-on sentence?)

(Now, how about some sentence fragments. 😀)

Interesting early computer discussions. Main characters are likable. Jewish treatment during WWII horrendous. Two lesbians, loving relationships. Lot's of examples of how there were double standards between men and women. When people were upset, they threw up a lot. 

Good book. Recommend it.

 The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, children's mystery (ages 9+), 1978

This is a children's classic that won the 1979 Newbery Medal for the year's most distinguished contribution to American Children's Literature, along with several other awards.

The Amazon synopsis:

"A highly inventive mystery begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of the very strange will of the very rich Samuel W. Westing. They could become millionaires, depending on how they play the game. All they have to do is find the answer—but the answer to what? The Westing game is tricky and dangerous, but the heirs play on—through blizzards, burglaries, and bombings. Sam Westing may be dead ... but that won't stop him from playing one last game!

Ellen Raskin has created a remarkable cast of characters in a puzzle-knotted, word-twisting plot filled with humor, intrigue, and suspense."

This book is beloved by many, and I read it with my kids when they were younger. I don't remember much about it except that Wally and Theo liked it. I decided recently to give it another try. This time, I listened to it with Ward.

Ward and I both had mixed reactions. First, there were some beautiful descriptions and writing within the complicated story. However, the story didn't always make sense. Characters did things without obvious motivation or significance to the story. Also, not everything in the book seemed child-friendly. Many bad things happen in kids' books, but they are usually viewed from the perspective of the child. Not so much in this book. 

In the preface of the book, it was mentioned that while Raskin was writing this book, she didn't think about whether it was for adults or children; she just wrote. Also, she said she never plots a story. She just writes and sees where the story takes her. Both of those statements seem to explain the flaws we found. With all that being said, there are some interesting twists to the story. 

I didn't like the book as much as I had hoped, possibly because I was reading it with adult sensibilities. Ward didn't like it at all. But I know we're in the minority. The School Library Journal ranked it #9 of all time in a survey of the best children's novels. To each their own.

Breaking into the Light by John Cochran, children's fiction (grades 5-8), 2024

This is a serious children's book about Reese, whose father is addicted to opiates. The situation reaches a breaking point, prompting Reese and his mother to leave his father and live in a trailer on a farm owned by his mother's friend. Also, on the farm are two other kids who are living with their grandparents after their parents died in a traffic accident. The older brother has Down syndrome.

The book does a good job exploring the feelings of Reese and his mother in this roller-coaster story. There is personal growth for everyone, and the book ends with hope.

The author of the story watched family members struggle with addiction and wanted to help them, but didn't know how. He wanted to write a book for kids who may be struggling with the same thing. I think he has done an excellent job with that and highly recommend this book.

Library Girl by Polly Horvath, children's fiction (ages 9-12), 2024

You know me, if there's the word Library in the title, I will be drawn to it, and this book was no exception.

This is a fun little story about Essie, who was found in the stacks of a library and raised there by 4 single librarians who always wanted a baby. They are afraid to turn her in, so they set up a room for her in their inner office. She doesn't go to school, but is educated by reading extensively. Eventually, when Essie is eleven years old, they let her take short trips outside the library. And that's where the story really begins when she meets a boy who she thinks looks like her. There are some interesting plot twists that come with this.

The style of the story reminds me of a fairy tale in that the characters are mostly one-dimensional, and they all live happily ever after. 

I enjoyed the book and recommend it, especially for elementary school children. 

Until next time...

Preserving memories

Recently, we've had more squash and cucumbers from the garden than we could use. I've given some to the neighbors and put a little in the freezer. This reminded me of the gardens of my youth.

I grew up in town in a big house on a small lot, but that didn't stop my father from having huge gardens. He always had a friend in the country who would give him an acre or two to plant. And my father would use every inch of it. Corn and tomatoes got the most space, but there was room for many other vegetables. 

He spent most evenings in the garden after work. Sometimes, my sister and I would join him for weeding or picking, but mostly he saved us for the preserving--meaning the canning and freezing.* We would start our vegetable processing jobs in the evening after he came home, and it would last into the late night if it was something like peas or corn that needed to be processed immediately for the best flavor. The next morning, we would handle whatever else was waiting--usually something like beans or beets or cucumbers for pickles. And the cycle would go on.

Canning and freezing were common in the rural area I lived in. However, I felt like I had to do more of it than many other kids my age. Whether that is true or just my perception, I'm not sure. And I wondered if, over the years, I have magnified things so that they now seem harder than they were.

But I found something the other day that suggests I wasn't too far off. I found an inventory list my mother made of what we had in the freezer and on the canning shelves. I don't expect you to read it all, but I'm going to share the lists here. It should give you a sense of what I did in the summers. 

Canned foods: 

Fruits: applesauce, whole apples, crabapple juice, crabapple sauce, blackberries, white grape juice, wild grape juice, wild grape jelly, apple butter, grape butter, pears, yellow peaches, white peaches

Beans: brown beans, dry beans, green beans, pickled beans

Tomatoes: catsup, tomato juice, pizza sauce, whole tomatoes, tomato juice cocktail, V-5 juice, tomato sauce

Other vegetables: plain beets, pickled beets, carrots, corn, peas, green bean juice, vegetable soup, spinach, vegetable broth, saurkraut

Pickles and relish: corn relish, dill pickles, sour pickles, sweet pickles, 14-day pickles, relish, sandwich spread

Freezer foods:

Vegetables: green beans, lima beans, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, beets, carrots, celery, corn, peas, peppers, green tomatoes, tomatoes, pickles, squash, spinach, zucchini

Fruits: blackberries, blackberry jam, raspberries, cherries, strawberry jam, grapes, peaches

A few of those things were left over from previous years, but we did a good job of using most things up during the year.  The rewards of our hard work paid off with delicious food just about anytime we wanted it. 

I don't know many people who do things to that extent these days, except Granny Sue, who lives not far from where I grew up. She is always cooking or preserving something. 

Well, that's my bit of nostalgia for today. 

Until next time...

* Of course, my mother was a part of this but she was working long hours as a nurse, so the major responsibility was shared by my sister and me. 

The Sun is the enemy. Or Is it?

 When we lived in New Orleans and Houston, it was hot and humid for months on end. You may know that kind of weather. The kind where the air is so thick that it's hard to breathe, and the sun is so intense that all you can think about is finding some shade. During those sweltering months, Ward and his friends would often say, "The sun is the enemy." It became a catchphrase for them. (Although thinking back on it now, that may have been code for "Time to have a cold beer.")

Anyway, we have been experiencing the sun-is-the-enemy weather recently. The last time I checked, the temperature was 96°F. Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter. So yesterday, to take advantage of a “cooler" day, Ward, Joe (a friend), and I went to the McKee-Besher Wildlife Management Area (McKee). 

McKee is part of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and one of their goals is to provide habitats for a variety of wildlife.  Part of what they do to create a rich and diverse environment for the animals is to plant various crops for them to eat. They grow almost 2,000 acres of grasses, millet, sorghum, buckwheat, winter wheat, clover, and sunflowers, among other things.  Our goal was to see the fields of sunflowers that they plant every summer for migratory birds.  

We set out early to avoid the heat of the day. Did I mention that this is a wildlife area? That means that there were a lot of mosquitoes, ticks, and poison ivy. So, I was covered up from head to toe with a good dose of insect repellent to top it off. My preparations were successful for warding off pests, but I was hot! Too hot! As we hiked from one place to another, my mind kept going back to the saying, "The sun is the enemy."  Our "cooler" day was 90°F by the time we got back to the car.

However, the sunflowers were extraordinary. And I guess sunflowers don't grow in the shade, so maybe this time the sun was not the enemy. Of course, I only had this thought after I was back in the car, cooling off. 😅

Here are a few photos of our day.

They mow paths around the fields, but this is more for work access than hiking. Lots of tall grass makes it tick heaven. Ward is not as sensitive as I am and didn't wear his long sleeves.

The first field was just past its blooming peak.

but it was beautiful all the same.

The grass was shorter around the next field, but poison ivy was widespread throughout it. BTW, birds love poison ivy berries.

The flowers we saw here were not as mature as the first field. These fields are a photographer's heaven, and all the photographers have ladders to get better shots.

Ward was looking for the perfect flower to show Joe a Fibonacci sequence.

And he found it! Notice the intersecting spirals.

There's always one overachiever in every crowd. 😀

After the sunflower fields, we visited a pond and wetlands area.

Here, we saw a wildflower member of the sunflower family,

and wild rose mallow (hibiscus). Until today, I didn't know that Maryland had native hibicus.

Until next time...