Sunday, January 25, 2015

Hi y’all!

So much news to report this week I hardly know where to begin.

Yes I do. Let’s start with desktop pictures for this week.

Mike’s cat Macchiato is a very handsome guy and very photogenic too. He is my current desktop photo.

Ginger, my best girl, is sitting patiently, waiting for me to interview a couple of working men for my newly launched FaceBook page, HIM. Humans I Meet. (I sent you a link to it.) Ginger graced my desktop for a while too.

I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a web page so you wouldn’t have to go onto the FaceBook website, but they only give you three or four pages free, then you have to pay for it. I don’t think it would take me long to fill a page. Of course, now that I think about it, I don’t know what constitutes a page either.

As it is, you can view my FaceBook page without logging in or creating an account. I just don’t know if they allow you to post comments from there or not. Maybe someone will let me know.

I also have been toying with the idea of changing the name.

“Why’s that Peg?” you ask.

Well, there can only be one HONY (Humans Of New York), which is an awesome site, but I don’t feel good about riding on his coattails. In fact it isn’t even where I want go, it’s just a starting point. Ultimately what I want to do is short human interest stories, not the little snippets like I’m doing on my page. But I felt like I had to start someplace and I had to have a name. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say, but after a week of posting on my Humans I Meet website I have realized that I don’t want to be an imitation of HONY. I want to be my own thing.

Anyway.

Let me throw a couple of ideas out and maybe you can help me come up with something clever and appropriate.

On The Streets. Around Town. Wit N Wisdom. Frick N Frack. This N That. Fun N Folly. Out And About.

“Have you thought about including animal stories on your page?” Rita, my Indiana gal asked me. I hadn’t. And with the word ‘Humans’ in the title it sort of precludes animals. So there would be another reason to change the name.

Speaking of clever…

I asked Mike if he would rather be wise or clever.

“Wise,” he answered without any hesitation at all. “I’m already clever.”

I had to laugh. It’s true, you know. He is. He’s always coming up with ingenious and inventive ways to accomplish the tasks and chores we need to get done.

Me? I think I’d rather be wise. Sometimes my clever ideas backfire on me.
Case in point.

Sometimes I dry my can opener in my oven. I just hate when there is crap all over the cutting edge of a can opener, I think it’s disgusting. But if you wash it and it doesn’t get dry, it rusts, and that’s disgusting too. So I’ll warm my oven and set the can opener inside. That’s the easiest way to dry all the nooks and crannies that a towel can’t reach.

This past week I made tuna salad for lunch. I washed the tuna water from my can opener and turned the toaster oven on to dry it. I set the timer for a few minutes and walked away. I got busy with housework and next thing I know I smell plastic getting hot. I’m such an idiot sometimes, I’m telling ya! I never gave the drying can opener a thought. But then again, I never planned on watching it either. I planned on the oven warming, shutting off and the opener staying in the warm oven until it was dry. So when I started smelling plastic, it never dawned on me that my can opener was melting. But that is exactly what happened. It melted. I poked a button wrong or knocked the dial and at the pizza cooking temp of 425, my opener never stood a chance.

When I opened the oven door, smoke rolled out. Yeah. That’s how long it took me to figure out why I was smelling plastic burning. I shut the door quick-like. It would never do to set the smoke alarms off. They are hard wired throughout the whole building. If they go off in one place, they go off all over. I could just see them evacuating the busy Thai restaurant downstairs as I swallow my embarrassment and explain why I was cooking my can opener.

Open windows. Open oven door and let a little more smoke out. Turn on fans. Let a little more smoke out. It’s got to come out sooner or later, doesn’t it? I grabbed a damp towel and waved it around. Can you see me doing that? What a site I must have been.

When the immediate danger of setting off the alarms had passed, I inspected what was left of my can opener. I could see myself smearing plastic all over the place if I tried to clean it up hot or worse yet, burning myself, so I determined I wasn’t going to do anything until it cooled. In the meantime I was just very thankful I hadn’t set the smoke alarms off.

It really didn’t take it too long to cool and when I tried to pick it up, I realized the can opener had molded itself around the rack. No amount of prying by these old woman hands could free it. I’ll have to throw it all away, I thought and put it in the cupboard with the trash can.

“Where’s the rack?” I heard Mike say in my head. Although he seldom uses the toaster oven and may never miss it, it is much more likely the he will ask questions when I say I need a new can opener. Deception is exhausting and I am not good at it. Oh, Lord. I’m going to have to tell him what I did.

I had no sooner gotten the air cleared and the evidence put away when Mike came in. Michael, bless his heart, never batted an eye as I explained what happened. “Where’s it at now?” he asked.

I opened the cupboard door, reached in and pulled it out. “I don’t think it’ll come off,” I said resigned to throwing it away.

Without another word Mike took the whole mess to the garage and when he came back half an hour later, he presented me with a perfectly clean oven rack. The rackectomy was a complete success and I was delighted.

“How did you do it?” I asked.

“I can’t tell ya,” he said letting the rest of the line hang.

Me? I was just happy he saved the rack and I can get a new can opener.

Now, speaking of odors, what do you all do when you get a UFO? Unidentified Fridge Odor, that is.

I know that my hard boiled eggs are odiferous and I can usually identify that smell, but recently I noticed a UFO building. I don’t have a lot of things in my fridge, but one thing I did have was four three-week old apples in the crisper drawer. I checked them and they were still firm. I’d better get them eaten, I thought to myself. Well, they weren’t the best texture, but they were eatable-edible and I ate two of them. The other two…I couldn’t face eating them but they weren’t bad so I didn’t want to throw them out either.

Slowly, through the week, the fridge emptied but the smell was still there. Could the apples be the cause of my UFO? I wondered.

I didn’t want to eat the apples-and yes Momma, I hear you! “Peggy! Make them into applesauce!”-and I didn’t want to throw them out either. If there were only some other way. Then inspiration struck. I took the peels from an orange and a cinnamon stick and put them in a pot of water. Then I chunked the apple in it and let the whole thing simmer for a few hours. My house was filled with the wonderful aromas of my homemade potpourri.

Now that the apples are gone, I know that they were indeed the culprit and now for the real reason I’m telling you this story.

How do you keep your butter from picking up UFO’s?

　
　

Mr. Z and his little dog Georgie have left us. They moved to Amarillo, Texas so Mr. Z could be closer to his son. Mr. Z will get to meet grandchildren and great-grandchildren that he has never met before. He’ll get to attend sporting events and family functions that otherwise would have been impossible for him to go to.

Annie, Mr. Z’s sister-in-law, her granddaughter Fogerty

and son Darrin, threw Mr. Z a going-away party.

I’ll tell you what!

Darren makes a really good pulled pork. “If you ever need anyone for a party,” Mr. Z proudly exclaims, “he’s your man. You should see his fancy smokers. He’s got the setup now, and he pulls the whole thing around behind his truck.”

“Is he trying to start his own business?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but he’s done some jobs around town. Call him, he can tell you better than I can.”

You may see Miss Helen in the middle of this picture. Do you know why? If you said because she lives there, then you would be wrong.

I was invited to the party and Miss Helen agreed to be my date!

Someone else who has gone from my life is my beautiful cousin Jessica, and this time I mean gone in a more somber sense of the word.

At 35, Jessica now rests in the arms of our Lord. She died in an automobile accident last Sunday. She leaves behind her twin sons Jonathan and Jordan, a daughter, Sydney, and all of us.

A cousin to both Jessica and me is Stacey and Stacey has written a very loving and moving tribute to Jessica. If you would like to read it, I’ll be happy to forward you a copy.

There is a passage in the Bible that comes to my mind. One I recently heard. Job 14:5 says; Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.

It means that God knows how many days we are to be on this earth and we cannot exceed that number. Small comfort, or maybe no comfort as we grieve for Jessica. But to quote a wise and beautiful lady, “Trust God.”

More stories waiting to be written, but no more room. We shall call this one done.

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike