Repurposing a Squirrel

I suppose there is a secret to skinning a squirrel. I have watched some YouTube videos on how to do it, and of course, these manly men get the skin off in short order. I did prepare squirrel stew once—and it was very good—but getting that skin off was so difficult I decided struggling with it wasn’t worth the effort, so nuisance squirrels that Richard shoots are offered to raccoons and opossums (whoever gets to it first).

But this time shortly after I put the squirrel in the basket, I was very surprised to see a tufted titmouse land on the squirrel and begin plucking fur for its nest. It collected quite a beak-full...

flew off...

and came back several times.

You’ll notice the duct tape on the feeder. That was to repair a crack in the plastic caused by a squirrel.

Richard can’t shoot them easily when they are on my side of the house (my side being where my office is), so I do have a live animal trap that I set and sometimes am successful at trapping them. Last week I trapped 4 squirrels in 3 days. The two squirrels that were here today stayed well clear of the trap, but I think that is probably because a chipmunk came and cleaned out the sunflower seeds I left as bait without activating the the trap.

At church yesterday morning, this book was on the pew where we sit. 

If I can figure out how to outwit the squirrels, then I will be happy to not have Richard shoot them. Having looked through the book yesterday after church -- and it is very entertaining -- but it appears that outwitting squirrels is just about doomed to failure.

Fifty Years and Counting...

Rumor has it that something always goes wrong at a wedding. It’s probably not true, but something did go wrong at our wedding, which was 50 years ago today.

The church where we got married had very strict rules about the songs that could be sung during the ceremony. No secular music allowed, and I had to choose from a list. My dad was very disappointed, because he wanted the song "Sweet Leilani" sung. I had some ideas about songs too, and none of them were on the list. I chose a song that was okay, and I don’t remember now what it was.

At the rehearsal, the minister was kidding around with the soloist and said, “See you at 8:00.” Well, the wedding was at 7:00.

When it came time for the soloist, he wasn’t there. The minister waited a beat and then carried right on, and so we began married life together. 

The past 50 years have seen some “ups and downs,” but I am very glad I said “yes” when he asked.

Mother's Day

I saw my mom last in the summer of 2009. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and chose not to receive treatment. She had a deep abiding faith in God and knew where she was headed. She died in October 2009. I called her two days before she died, and according to my sister-in-law who was there, I was the last person she talked to before she slipped into a coma.

She was a wonderful mother and I miss her.

But in addition to honoring my Mom’s memory, I am thinking about two other mothers who had a profound effect on my life because of the way they raised their children, one of whom grew up to become my mom and the other my father. Unfortunately, I did not have a long relationship with either of them.

 My mom’s mother, Elsie, died when she was 70, and I was 7-1/2 years old. 

My memories of her are fuzzy. I particularly love the picture of Grandma Elsie dressed up in man’s clothes on their ranch in Colorado. 

 I have always wondered what the occasion was.What was she up to?

 My dad’s mother, Theresa, died when she was 65 years old and I was 9. 

My memories of her are a bit sharper. 

I am stunned at how beautiful she was.

I am so incredibly thankful for these wonderful women and their legacy.

How to celebrate Mother's Day? Several days late, but that's okay. We have not gone out to eat in a restaurant in more than year, but will take a chance on Tuesday -- several days late, but that's okay. I was given a gift certificate at a local steak house for filling in on the piano at church for 3 months when the organist broke her leg and couldn’t come to church, much less play the organ. So, we’ll take advantage of that.

Things will be rather simple around our house today. I’ll make turkey tetrazzini from the standard recipe in my cookbook.  

I found a jar of molasses in the cupboard, and I believe gingerbread cake with whipped cream (or perhaps lemon sauce – I haven’t decided) (also from that cookbook) will be on the menu today.

Getting Back in the Groove

Yesterday started off fine. I woke up at 6:15 instead of 4:00 a.m. Two extra hours of sleep is a big deal.

I ate Cheerios for breakfast and was feeling groovy. 

 

 Then things started going downhill, and I stopped feeling groovy.

The day before I had pulled my car, a 1994-year-old Buick just-get-me-there-and-back-please-God-sedan, farther up the driveway than I normally do so Richard could park behind me to unload groceries.

I got a little too close to a tree as I was backing down the driveway and ripped off the cover to the driver’s side parking light. I also discovered the body of my car is not made of metal. It is some sort of “plastic” material” because it did not dent. It cracked. I remember when cars were made of metal and if you got a dent you took it to the body shop and they put some sort of filler in the dent and then sanded it and painted it. It looks like this crack could be repaired with some sort of adhesive and a strip of duct tape.

Richard was not happy.

When we sat down to lunch, he asked whether I had made the Szechwan Carrot soup I said I would make two days ago. As I mentioned, we had gone to the store the day before and got the carrots. Well no. I forgot.

I got out the recipe and saw that I needed fresh ginger. When we buy fresh ginger, we peel it and freeze it so we have it on hand.  I used the last of the frozen fresh ginger several weeks ago, but I had failed to tell Richard to put it on the list. We could have gotten some at a very good price at the store (which is about 12 miles away) when we got the carrots. The price at the local store is $4.90/lb.

Again, he was not happy.

I made the soup using ground ginger. You can find the recipe for the soup here  (it is very good!)

Later in the day, he got over being unhappy, I quit mentally beating myself up, we started laughing about something, and to borrow from the movie Cannery Row (I am not sure if the quote is in the book):

“Things were finally back to normal…once more, the world was spinning in greased grooves.”

Dressing Up Pancakes

Why some of our childhood memories blaze like they are lit up in neon and others fade to gray like a sign that has been left out in the elements and untouched for 60 years remains a mystery.

And frequently what is remembered is not something that is very important.

This morning as I was spreading peanut butter and lilikoi jelly on my pancakes...

I remembered sitting down to eat pancakes with my cousins Teri, Mark, and Nadine at Uncle Bud and Aunt Vera’s house. I don’t remember if I was by myself (they invited me to go to the Seattle World’s Fair with them) or if this was a family vacation and everyone was there.  

Lilikoi jelly? Lilikoi is the Hawaiian word for the variety of passion fruit that grows there. Cousin Teri lives in Hawaii and she turns it into jelly. She made some last year and sent me a care package in January.

Passion flower vines do grow here grow here in the wild...

and I suppose I could make jelly, but the fruit is very small and I have never felt like it was worth messing with.

Where was I? I was so surprised when cousin Mark spread soft butter on his pancakes and then sprinkled sugar on top. Butter and sugar on pancakes? That was not how we ate pancakes at home!! I did try it and it was delicious, of course.

So are peanut butter and lilikoi jelly.

Icky-ness

Some years ago I was invited to be a judge at a Speech and Debate event for area schools held at the local high school. The session that I chose to judge was Dramatic Readings, and student I voted for to win did a dramatic reading of part of Robert Fulghum’s essay “Dinner Dandruff, a chapter from his book It Was on Fire when I Lay Down on It. This essay apparently has become a favorite of English teachers and can be found as part of examinations on the internet.

After the dishes are washed and the sink rinsed out, there remains in the strainer at the bottom of the sink what I will call, momentarily, some “stuff.” A rational, intelligent, objective person would say that this is simply a mixture of food particles too big to go down the drain, composed of bits of protein, carbohydrates, fat, and fiber. Dinner dandruff.

Furthermore, the person might add that not only was the material first sterilized by the high heat of cooking, but further sanitized by going through the detergent and hot water of the dishpan, and rinsed. No problem.

But any teenager who has been dragooned into washing dishes knows this explanation is a lie. That stuff in the bottom of the strainer is toxic waste—deadly poison—a danger to health. In other words, about as icky as icky gets.

One of the very few reasons I had any respect for my mother when I was thirteen was because she would reach into the sink with her bare hands—BARE HANDS—and pick up that lethal gunk and drop it into the garbage…

The entire chapter is available here:

http://englishiva1011.pbworks.com/f/DINNDAND.PDF

I was reminded of this essay last night as I finished washing the dishes. The kitchen sick is divided. On one side I wash dishes in a dish pan because the stopper that is supposed to go in that drain does not hold water. Attached to the drain on the other side is the garbage disposal. A mesh screen fits in that drain to stop utensils and catch dinner dandruff so it can be dumped into the compost bucket.

Because I was not “thinking” about what  I was doing, I removed the screen -- it was really gunked up and needed to be cleaned --and then I dumped the dishwater and watched a measuring spoon go into the open maw of the garbage disposal. Not wishing to damage the measuring spoon and/or the garbage disposal, there was nothing else for it but to stick my hand down there and retrieve the spoon (note to self: always, always, always dump the water first and then clean the screen)

Quite icky indeed.

Giving Up

Two Sundays ago my car was covered in ice, and the doors were frozen shut. We had just had a discussion about my tendency to ask himself to do things for me that I could do myself. So instead of asking him to solve the problem, I got the brilliant idea of getting a pitcher of hot water and pouring it over the door handle and around the rim.

It worked and I was able to open both doors. Yay! I went back in the house very proud of myself and told himself, and he laughed and said “Well, they will just freeze up again…” So I went racing out there, and the passenger door opened (barely) and I was able to get my driver’s license out of the glove box (it locks), which is where I keep because I do not normally carry a purse. The driver’s side had indeed already froze shut again. I drove one of the cars that lives in the garage to church.
 

More weather came, and the car hasn’t moved since. I haven’t left the house except to feed the birds since last Sunday (church was cancelled). Richard has managed to get out to the highway and go to town, and we will leave a little later to get the second COVID shot and make a pass at the library to return books, which would have been overdue yesterday except she renewed them for me over the phone.
 

I have had no exercise at all since last Friday. I have not been to the aerobics class (although I do plan to go back Monday), I  have not  taken a walk (when we had the dog, I would bundle up and take her for a walk when it was single digits, but not now), and I have not gotten on the recumbent cycling machine. I feel like a blob.
 

The church I grew up in did not “do Lent” and I don’t recall any of the Baptist churches we attended mentioning Lent either. However, the Presbyterians do “do Lent” and so this has been a new experience for me. Lent is a time for personal reflection that prepares people's hearts and minds for Good Friday and Easter and often involves “giving up” something to help remind folks to focus on their relationship with God. However, in past seasons of Lent I have not given up anything with that purpose in mind.
 

This year is different though. I can see that I do need to deepen my relationship with God, and I have figured out what I am giving up to help me do that. Or at least will try to do. And that is uncontrollable snacking after dinner. About 2.5 hours after dinner (we eat very early), we usually have a salad, which is mainly vegetables and usually no lettuce (not at $1.99 a head). And we eat that while we watch television. Then I sit in my recliner and read for another hour or so. But I don’t just read. I graze – peanuts…crackers and cheese… and then yogurt with fruit.

I have decided to stick with the salad and yogurt and give up the “grazing.” Perhaps I can lose a little of the weight I have put on by exercising my elbow.

Giddy-up

Once upon a time, if I mailed a letter on Monday to my parents in Gardena, CA (a suburb of Los Angeles), it often arrived there by Thursday.

But times have changed.

My little brother’s birthday was on Jan 21 and I remembered to send him a birthday card with some money.

Here he is on Super Bowl Sunday. 

I imagine he was disappointed at the outcome of the game.

Last year when I mailed his card, I left one number off the address on the envelope, and even though I had included the extra digits on the ZIP code that should have sorted the letter to his house, it did not arrive. I got it back in the mail several weeks later.

This year I was very careful to write the correct address but was little late getting it in the mail. I forgot the post office would be closed on the Jan 18th for MLK’s birthday, so the letter was not postmarked until the 19th.

I knew it probably would be a little late.

A little late?

My brother called me 2 days ago (on the 9th) to let me know the card had arrived. It took 20 days.

Now when the Pony Express was delivering mail in the 1860s, they managed to get a letter from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in 10 days. That’s about 1800 miles. It is 1500 miles from here to my brother’s house in Lakewood. 

We obviously can’t reactive the Pony Express, but my goodness. Something definitely needs to be done about the U.S. Postal Service. And I don’t think we can blame it on COVID.

Silence is Golden

Thursday is our meatless meal day. I fix things that have a complete protein but don’t use meat. Frequently what I end up making is vegan, but we are not vegans. We like meat. A lot. 

I usually end up making enough for 6 people, so I eat the leftovers for lunch for the next several days. 

Tonight we had dal (Indian recipe for rice and lentils), which I got from a great vegetarian cookbook that I have used so much that it is starting to fall apart...

last week we had black bean and quinoa salad, which I got off from the Allrecipes website.. and the week before we had vegetarian chili and cornbread. 

I used two different recipes when I made the chili and got the spices fouled up. I’m not sure what I did exactly, but it was probably the worst-tasting chili I have ever made. 

After we finished, I asked Himself what he thought of the chili. “Oh,” he says, “it was great.” All I said was “Good, I am glad you liked it.” 

As my sweet sissy says “I have found if I don't point out flaws, he won't notice either.” 

I was able rehabilitate the chili by adding some more canned tomatoes and some more chili powder and that did the trick.

A Bite of This...A Bite of That

Along with the instant Idaho potatoes, my brother also sent a bar of 90% dark chocolate. It was rather bitter and not that pleasant to eat – almost like eating baking chocolate. I tried to give Richard half but he declined. It did come at a good time. Part of the instructions the NP sent home with me when I was treated for the “itis’s,” which would be laryngitis, bronchitis, conjuctivitis, and cheilitis (an inflamed upper lip) was “coffee and dark chocolate.”

In the Christmas box my sister sent, was a small bag of caramels. I started eating my half of the caramels along with the chocolate bar. A bite of chocolate… a bite of caramel. Tasted pretty good together.

My sister sent me an e-mail yesterday in which she told me she has found a home nearby for the family piano that we both learned to play on when we were children. My brother also took lessons for about a month but then he decided he would rather go out and play with the boys and so she did not force him. He says now it was one of the biggest regrets of his life.

After we grew up and left home, my mom decided she wanted to do something different with the living room, and so she gave the piano to my sister and bought a small spinet piano that fit perfectly in another spot. Dad could play if he wanted or the granddaughters (one of the granddaughters is very gifted musically) could entertain if they came to visit.

She will be passing it to a family that has two children and lives right down the street from them. The piano is big...

and takes up a lot of room and she wants to do something else with her living room. 

I don’t blame her, but I am a little sad. It is hard though to mentally let go of things that you have had an attachment to.

In her memoir Becoming, Michele Obama writes about being given music lessons by her great aunt on an old piano when she was a child. Her family lived in an upstairs apartment that had been created in an old house that her great aunt owned. 

She learned to recognize middle C because there was a chip in the ivory. When it came time for her first recital, she had no idea where middle C was and was frozen. She was lucky: her aunt came on the stage and showed her middle C and she was able to carry on.

Reading about that brought back a very painful memory. Dad and mom both played, and she began teaching me to play when I was 4. I had an aptitude for it, so they arranged for a teacher and I took lessons. The keyboard was not in good shape. Middle C was chipped, as were the ivories on other keys.

My first – and last – piano recital was a disaster. I was perhaps 11 or 12 years old. When I sat frozen at the piano, which did not have any chipped ivories, I had no idea where to place my hands. My teacher did not come up and show me where middle C was. I floundered. I guess I got through the program I had practiced but not very well. I can’t remember when I was ever more embarrassed. I cried a lot.  

My parents immediately had the keyboard repaired, so when my sister began taking lessons, she didn’t have that problem. Her teacher got me involved in her lessons and gave us duets to play. And she still has the sheet music all these years later. 

We had so much fun. Lots of laughter and joy.

I hope the piano brings the new family them as much joy as it did our family.