Peggy's Jibber-Jabber: Happy 2023!

Happy New Year!

I started writing a weekly letter in 1998, twenty-five years ago.

Twenty-five! Two five! That’s a long time and I can’t believe all y’all aren’t tired of me yet!

In 2022, last year, I wrote you sixty times. With fifty-two weeks in a year, I blessed you with an extra eight letter blogs. I only missed one week and that was near Christmastime in order to bake.

Have I ever had a perfect year?

I don’t know.

My blog site only lists fifty-nine entries for 2022 and that’s because I took down the story of my cousin’s death. It upset one of his grandsons.

Six hundred sixty-one pages. My average letter blog length was eleven pages.

The average views, or how many times it was opened on the internet was forty times per week. Although, I have to tell you, one of my blogs alone received 256 views. I didn’t count that one in my total since it was an anomaly and it was on the post I removed.

So there you have it!

Would you be surprised to know that I’ve read over thirty books this year?

Would it surprise you to know that I started 2022 reading Where The Crawdads Sing, borrowed and read it again in mid-March, saw the movie, and I’m closing the year out by reading it for a third time?

Although I know how it ends, I’m still enjoying it. And I do prefer the book over the movie; it’s much richer.

Another book that I read and liked last year was A Man Called Ove. That book has been made in to a movie called A Man Called Otto. Tom Hanks bought the rights, stars in it, and it’s coming to my area in mid-January.

“Why did they change the name?” you wanna know.

I know, right! I wanted to know, too. So I Googled it. Ove is Swedish and they changed it to Otto to reflect its American setting.

>>>*<<<

Our week started with an icy, a very icy, driveway. A sheet of ice as a matter of fact. Mike was worried we’d slide into one of his stone pillars or maybe slide right out into the middle of the road but he took it slow and careful, keeping one tire in the snow, and we made it out for church (and back in) with no mishaps.

These guys keep their hunting gear on the front porch. All I could think was, “I’d hate to have to shimmy into those cold things.”

Our pretty little creek on Sunday.

We didn’t need to go out again until Tuesday. Then the creek looked like this!

I had my last eye appointment on Tuesday, so it was an early morning trip to Wilkes-Barre.

“Do you wanna stop and get breakfast at McDonald’s?” Mike asked me or maybe it was me that asked Mike. After being together for twenty-eight years we’re kinda the same person anymore.

I’m always up for breakfast out. “Sure!”

Our pretty Susquehanna.

All the lights on the bull haulers' trucks.

“Even when I was driving truck, the bull haulers always put extra lights on their trailers,” Mike said. “Some other guys did it too but I never wanted extra lights on mine. I thought it just called the cops' attention to you.”

If you knew how fast Mike drove in his day, you’d wonder how he managed to not kill himself.

Speaking of trucks, we spent a few minutes discussing what the name of the company on this one was.

“Is that Bettzway?” Mike asked.

I took a picture and zoomed in. “I think that symbol’s supposed to be an A like better way — Bettaway.”

I was surprised when we pulled into the McDonald’s drive thru. “They put bars across the window!” I exclaimed.

“That’s to keep people from climbing in,” Mike said.

Stopped at a light in Tunkhannock, I look out my window and see how pretty they painted the door frame.

I took a picture for you.

Then I see it on the computer and realize there’s a whole lotta stuff to look at besides the door frame.

Saw this in lots of places along the road.

Turkeys scratching through the cow poo the farmer spread on his field. I’m sure they found a banquet of undigested seeds. Probably not a lot in the way of bugs though.

Crossing the Susquehanna into Wilkes-Barre and we are almost to my doctor’s office.

“What did you have done?” you ask.

I had the YAG procedure done on my other eye. I talked about that a couple of weeks ago.

For the rest of that day everything was blurry in that eye and my eye bothered me a little. Judging from past experience I knew it would be better the next morning.

After my appointment we went to Sam’s Club for a little shopping and a lunch of hotdog and a shared slice of pizza.

It’s twenty-three degrees out and this guy is dressed for summer! I was cold just looking at him!

Mike doesn’t wear a jacket either but he wears a heavy long-sleeve shirt over his everyday button-down and he keeps a jacket in the back of the car in case he does need it.

I knew another guy who hardly ever wore a winter coat. Bob Johnson. He was a guy I worked with a hundred years ago. Granted, he didn’t dress in shorts and short-sleeves in the winter either.

“Why don’t you wear a coat?” I asked him once.

“I can get from the house to the car and from the car into here without one,” was what he said.

And I confess, I go out without my coat, too. But not when I'm shopping! To go out and fill the bird feeders, I don’t put a coat on. To dump the cat litter into the weeds, I don’t need a coat for that either. No matter how cold it is!

This empty and dying house sticking out over the water is one I’ve shown you before.

I’m not sure what Mike was thinking about, maybe that guy with no coat on, but he asked, “Wouldn’t it be terrible if we got stranded out in this cold?”

Without missing a beat, and knowing Mike’s jacket was in the backseat, I said, “I’ve got two jackets. I don’t know what you’re going to do.”

I shocked myself and had to laugh. Quick-witted I am not — normally. “That sounds like something you’d say!” I said. I guess we’ve been together a long time.

We’d gone ten-fifteen minutes up the road towards home, to a town called Dallas when Mike says, “Uh-oh.”

“What?” I asked.

He held his hand out to me and wagged his fingers. I wasn’t catching on.

“What!”

“I lost my wedding ring.”

This time when I looked at his hand, I could see the indentation where his ring had been.

We’d only been to two places. The eye doctor and Sam’s Club. “Where do you think you lost it?”

“I think when I washed my hands at Sam’s Club. They have those hands-in hand dryers and with the noise, I didn’t hear it slip off.”

I didn’t have much hope that we’d ever see it again but nonetheless, I called Sam’s Club. “My husband thinks he lost his wedding ring in the restroom. Did anyone turn a ring in?”

“Someone did turn a ring in,” the gal said and for the second time in not so many minutes, I was shocked. “It’s silver with a braid in the middle.”

“That would be it,” I told her. “We’ll be right back to pick it up. Thank you!”

So we went back.

At the service desk, Mike asked if they had his ring. The gal got on her talkie and found out where his ring was.

“It’s down at the checkouts,” she said.

Not knowing who he was looking for, he wandered that way. The gal was expecting someone and Mike looked lost, so she started waving at him. He went over. “Do you have my ring?” he asked.

“What’s it look like?” she asked.

Mike described it to her and even showed the empty indent on his ring finger.

She handed it over. “Does this get you out of trouble with your wife?” she asked.

“Yep,” Mike said.

I honestly didn’t think he’d ever see his ring again. “Don’t you wish you could thank the guy that turned it in?” I said.

And speaking of my handsome mountain man, I love this shot of him. It reminds me of the Praying Man print Momma had hanging in the kitchen when I was growing up. I don’t necessarily think it looks like that, it just reminds me of it.

“Is he praying?” you ask.

Nope. He’s clipping his fingernails over the trashcan while Tiger looks on.

>>>*<<<

I made ham and bean soup this week. I don’t remember my mom ever making ham and bean soup but she sure did make a good hearty beef stew!

Soup is just the thing for these cold winter days and ham and bean calls for a few carrots and a half-stalk of celery. So I had to buy both.

“Peg, don’t you eat carrots and celery?” you wanna know.

We do eat carrots, but the baby carrots. And celery? Not my favorite. Smear it with cream cheese or peanut butter and it’s edible.

It’s just downright silly to buy a whole bunch of celery when all you need is half a stalk.

“Do you know what I’m going to do with the rest of the celery?” I asked Mike.

“Wait until it wilts and throw it away?” He was half right.

“NO! I usually wait until it’s rotten before I throw it away! But I’m going to freeze it this time. The carrots, too! Then, when we make soup again, we won’t have to buy ‘em.”

I took all the leftover celery, cleaned it, cut the long stalks in half, and was working on the carrots while the water for blanching came to a boil.

I should make a carrot cake, I thought. I don’t think I’ve made a carrot cake since our youngest and very handsome son got married in ’09!

This is Kevin with his beautiful wife Kandyce, taken on this New Year’s Eve. Aren’t they a handsome couple‽

I took two of the carrots, grated them, and had more than the recipe called for. Too bad, I thought. It’s all going in anyway. Who needs grated carrot hanging around?

I blanched the celery and carrot halves for three minutes, dumped them in ice water, laid them out on a cookie sheet, and froze ‘em. The next day I put them in a freezer bag. Next time I need a half a celery stalk, all I have to do is pull it out of the freezer.

It seems like, for as long in the tooth as I am, that I would’ve come up with this sooner.

This recipe is an orange carrot cake. It has mandarin oranges in it. It also calls for orange peel which I never have and always leave out. But this time, since making lemon cookies, I do have lemon peel.

I called Miss Rosie. “They’re both citrus, do you think I can substitute the lemon peel for orange?” I asked.

“I think you probably could but I’ve got some. Let me see,” and I could hear her shuffling stuff around. “Yep. I can send Lamar up with it if you like.”
I hated to drag him out in the cold for that. “Well, here’s the thing. I wouldn’t have it for the next time I make it so it might be nice to know if the substitution works.”

“I’ve got two so I’ll just give you one. How’s that?” Miss Rosie said.

“Well alright then! And while I’ve got you on the phone, I’ve got another question for ya,” I said.

“What?” she said.

“I don’t have any cream cheese to make the frosting but I’ve got a can of cream cheese frosting. Should I use it or just leave it off?” I asked.

“I like cream cheese frosting. I say use it,” she answered.

It wasn’t long until the driveway beeper went off and the dogs started barking. Tux and Lamar came up the driveway.

I teased him. “So when Rosie says go, you go?” I asked. That would never work in my house.

Lamar laughed. “Pretty much.”

Then we had a discussion on carrot cakes. “I’m guessing, since carrot cake isn’t one of Miss Rosie’s favorites, that she never makes it for you.”

I think he agreed to that statement and went on to say, “Most times when you order it in a restaurant, it’s so dry you wished you’d never ‘ve ordered it.”

Knowing I sometimes end up with dry baked goods, I replied, “I hope I don’t dry mine out.”

“I’m sure yours’ll be good.” Lamar had much more confidence in me than I did!

I made the cake, dished out a container for the Kipps, three for the freezer, and ate a piece.

And the canned cream cheese frosting was just as awful as I remembered it being.

I’d’ve been happier with no frosting as to have that stuff on it. However, the dogs don’t seem to mind it.

“Why did you buy it if you hate it?” you wanna know.

And that’s a very good question. One I have a very good answer for. I didn’t know I was going to hate it when I bought it and I’d bought two cans at the time. But now they’re gone and I won’t ever buy it again!

That evening I got a special call from one very handsome neighbor. “That is some excellent carrot cake!” Lamar said.

He’s not wrong. The cake itself was moist and delicious. Only the frosting was bad, and I can scrape that off.

>>>*<<<

Wednesday morning, I was up before the sun. I was working on my morning love note when I got up to get another cup of coffee and see the most beautiful sunrise. I sure am glad I didn’t miss this one.

That night, I saw the eastern sky was lit with pinks from the setting sun. I went out front to see if we were going to have a pretty sunset and this is all there was to see.