Kitchen Disaster

Well ………… maybe  ‘disaster’ is a little too strong a word.  Perhaps a “Kitchen Oops” would be a more appropriate title, but it’s less dramatic.

I mentioned in a previous post that I usually grind whole coffee beans for my morning coffee.  The other morning  when I tried to lift my grinder it was stuck to the kitchen counter and took some effort to lift!  At first I thought I must have spilled something on the counter and set the grinder in it the last time I’d used it.  But that was not the case.  It was the plastic on the bottom of the grinder that had become soft and extremely sticky.  The counter top was clean.  I have no idea how this could have happened.  I hadn’t left it plugged in.  It’s possible that it had overheated the last time I’d used it and I hadn’t noticed.  In any event, I decided it was no longer safe.  Into the kitchen trash container it went, and I settled for instant coffee for breakfast.

In the afternoon I went to Sears and bought a new one.  Yesterday morning I used the new grinder for the first time.  I loaded the whole coffee beans, and ground   them – – and then, as I had always done with the former grinder, I turned it upside down for the grounds to gather in the  plastic cover so I could pour them into my coffee maker.  Here the difference between the grinders suddenly  became apparent.  The cover of the old grinder had clung tightly to the main unit, and I had to apply some pressure to separate it.  Not so with the new grinder.  This cover fits very loosely.  Thus, when I inverted the grinder the cover dropped to the counter – and it was like an explosion!  I had coffee grounds from my chin down across the entire width of my shirt and across the front of my cargo shorts.  There were grounds on my shoes – all over the counter – in the sink and on the floor.  Grounds even found their way into the three drawers under the counter.  From the look of things one would have assumed I had ground a full pound of coffee!  Thank the Good Lord for vacuum cleaners!!

Listining to the Radio While Home from School for Lunch

Back when I was in elementary school – the days before television – radio was the companion of stay-at-home moms as they went about their homemaking chores. In our house the radio was on before we kids even got up, and it stayed on all day, except when my mother went to the grocery store,  until my dad came home from work.  Mornings had lots of music and news, but weekday afternoons were mainly devoted to soap operas.

There were three 15 minute soap operas playing while I ate my lunch – which I will never forget.

The first, Wendy Warren and the News  was one of the strangest program ever produced on either radio or television.  It began with a short legitimate newscast with Douglas Edwards, who later did the news on national television, followed by the actress performing as the title character who presented some actual women’s interest news.  Then Douglas and Wendy said their pleasant goodbyes, sound effects produced a door closing, and Wendy went out into her fictional soap opera world of trials and tribulations.

Then followed The Romance of Helen Trent.  This show was on the radio from 1933 until 1960 (7,222 episodes), during which three actresses played the lead roll.  Every episode began with the following announcement”

“The real-life drama of Helen Trent, who, when life mocks her, breaks her hopes, dashes her against the rocks of despair, fights back bravely, successfully, to prove what so many women long to prove, that because a woman is 35 or more, romance in life need not be over, that romance can begin at 35.”

Helen remained 35 throughout the 27 years.  In all that time she had an off and on relationship with a character named Gil Whitney – but they never married.  They would get close often, but something always happened to break them apart, and Helen would have dalliances with other desirable and undesirable men until circumstances once again brought Helen and Gil together.

Finally, as I was having my cupcake or other snack and getting ready to return to school, came Our Gal Sunday.  I usually left early in the program, so I don’t remember much about it – except for the opening announcement:

“Once again, we present Our Gal Sunday, the story of an orphan girl named Sunday from the little mining town of Silver Creek, Colorado, who in young womanhood married England’s richest, most handsome lord, Lord Henry Brinthrope. The story that asks the question: Can this girl from the little mining town in the West find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman.”

When I arrived home each day there was a non soap opera program already in progress which always disturbed me.  It was a locally produced program in which a little old man named Al Sigl with a high pitched and trembly voice talked about things going on in the city – things like the Elks Club putting on a pancake breakfast the coming Sunday, and like a family whose house burned down leaving them with only the cloths on their backs in need of help from the community.  He also was a one man blood bank – calling on people with particular blood types to donate for a specific person or to replenish hospital supplies.

Those things didn’t bother me, but it was his reading of the daily obituaries in his shaky old voice that shook me up.  “Martin Gilhooley, age 59, died suddenly Tuesday night at his home at ………….  He is survived by …………  Viewing will be hald at ……………… Funeral services will be held at …….. and burial …….”

I mean – like I was just a widdle  kid.   😯  And this part of the program really upset me – especially the suddenly ones – the ones who croaked after long illnesses were bad enough.  At that time my parents were really old ……… mother was almost 40 and dad was 12 years older!!  I had a very vivid imagination and would visualize one or both suddenly keeling over dead at any moment!  I will never forget or forgive Al Sigl for daily traumatizing me.

Note:  I got the texts of the openings of the soap operas from the Net.  My memory is not quite that exact, although I can actually recall most of each.

Home from School for Lunch

When I was in elementary school I went home every day for lunch.  I don’t remember if any of the three schools I attended had cafeterias or permitted students to bring their lunches, but it didn’t matter for me.  I lived close enough to the schools that going home for lunch was easy.

Lunch was the same every day ….. and lunch was different every day!  😉

Heehee…..  It was the same because every day lunch consisted of hot soup, a cold cut sandwich, a glass of milk and a snack.  It was different because the kinds of soup, cold cuts and snacks changed daily.

My mother was a big believer of variety.  Soups were always Campbells – cream of tomato, bean with bacon, chicken noodle, split pea, vegetable beef, New England clam chowder, Manhattan clam chowder, cream of mushroom, cream of asparagus or vegetable.  Cold cuts could be bologna, salami, luncheon meat, olive loaf, boiled ham, liverwurst, or others I can’t recall – usually with lettuce, tomato and mayo.  Snacks could be Hostess cup cakes (either chocolate or yellow with cream inside), Snowballs (small chocolate cake surrounded by marshmallow and coconut), Twinkies, donuts, cookies or canned fruit.

Those lunches were both wholesome and yummy.  I have such fond memories of those times.

If you asked me today to describe the perfect lunch, without hesitation, I would say soup and a sandwich with coffee and a snack.  Yet, I haven’t had such a lunch for decades.  I never buy cold cuts, and it takes me three or four months to use a loaf of bread.  Usually, my lunch consists of a fat-free yogurt,  coffee and maybe a goodie of some kind – Yuck!

Oh–Oh!  While on the subject of food – – a few days ago my 91 year-old  next door neighbor told me that he had had corned beef hash for his dinner the previous day  – and I realized that I like corned beef hash but haven’t had it for years.  My mother used to serve it with green beans and eggs.  It was one of my favorite meals.  So, naturally, that very day, I had to run to the Winn-Dixie supermarket to get some.  This was that night’s dinner:  YUM! YUM!  😀

A High School Lip Dub and Memories of my High School

Last May I posted a YouTube video  here  of a fantastic lip dub made in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Recently, I did a search on YouTube and was amazed to find that students at many high schools and colleges have also done them.  Although none of them achieve the same degree of professionalism as the Grand Rapids video, most were quite well done.

I really liked this one done by the students of Sun Prairie High School in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.  I was also impressed by their school which is brand new – and a  wee bit nicer than the high school I attended – actually a great deal nicer!

My high school, Thomas Jefferson Jr-Sr High School (see photo), was composed of two three story brick blocks connected by a three story corridor, necessary because of the inclement weather for most of the school year.  The main building had just classrooms and offices.  There was what would have been an inner courtyard but it was filled mostly by a two story auditorium. The classrooms were all the same, with hard wooden chairs and desks riveted to the floor.  The second building contained the cafeteria, the nurse’s office, locker rooms for boys and girls, two gymnasiums, a swimming pool and a few classrooms.  All in all it was, and still is, a very dreary place.  It looked more like a factory, but we students didn’t know any different – all the city schools were pretty much the same.  And I have to admit I mostly enjoyed my time there.

Oh – almost forgot – here is the video:

Where Have I Been?

Egads!  I haven’t posted in more than a week.  “Where have you been?” ,  one might ask.  The answer is –  mostly lying on the floor on my stomach working on jigsaw puzzles.  😀

I hadn’t done a jigsaw puzzle for more almost thirteen years.  Prior to that, during an eight year period in which I was the sole caregiver for my mother who may or may not have had Alzheimers (it was severe dementia, whatever the cause) doing jigsaw puzzles, crosswords and reading lots of books were the means that I used to preserve my sanity and intellect while coping with the demands and horrors of my ’36 hour day’.  But that’s another story.

Last week while at the Dollar Store to get a few more of the cheap pedometers I use on my walks I noticed a counter with 500-piece jigsaw puzzles for only (surprise!) a dollar each.  So I bought three of them.

Four days later I had completed all three.  Then I found an unopened 1000-piece puzzle in a closet.  I must have purchased it in 1999 prior  to my mother’s death.  That one is now about 85% completed.

Behold the evidence of my past week’s efforts:

Oh yeah – yesterday I bought five more!

Obsessive compulsive behavior?  ……….. Yup!  🙄

I’m ashamed to have to admit this flaw in my makeup.  But happily I also tend to quickly lose interest in my temporary obsessions.

Picture Post – 2/1/2012

Here’s a few recent pics:

I forgot to include this in the last picture post – a strange looking bug resting on the outside wall of my house.

Colorful live flowers at a grave site.

Colorful artificial flowers at a grave site.

A tiny little dandelion-like flower, less than an inch wide.  I didn’t notice all the little squiggly things when I took the photo.  They are probably developing seeds.  Click on the photo to enlarge.

Ibises in my back yard today.

They didn’t seem to be nervous about my presence.  They only moved when I approached – and then they just turned and walked away slowly.  The lure of bugs in my lawn must have been too great.