Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to one and all.  They just said on the evening news that they are going to give a tip on how to get rid of leftover Halloween candy. Really?  Is getting rid of left over candy a problem. For that matter how do you define "leftover" candy? Leftover food is easy to understand. It's an item in your refrigerator that makes you feel virtuous twice; once when you wrap it and carefully stash it in the frige and later when it has turned weirdly green (shades of Halloween) and you throw it away before some one eats it and is poisoned. As for candy, I have never had rhe experience of candy languishing in my cupboard for so long that it goes bad. I suppose there's always a first time but I don't think it will be this year.

Two and a half hours later

I took my cute little Fiat into the dealership today for a very minor repair. I was backing out of a tight parking space a few days ago and brushed my front right tire against a curb. Better the curb than the car on the other side, right? I knew I hadn't damamged anything but the next morning when I started my car a flashing light signal informed me that I needed to check the pressure in my front right tire. So I made an appointment and took it to the service department. I figured I would be in and out in a half hour, How long can it take to blow a little air into a tire?  Two and a half hours later I was finally informed that my car was ready to go.  They did indeed put some air in the tire, gave it a five mile test drive and got the sensor light to turn off. They also did a "multi point" inspection and a "Software Flash" update, whatever that is.  As I waited for my car I heard snatches of conversations at the parts desk which was near where I was sitting. After hearing one man object quite vocally after hearing that the part he wanted to buy would cost $1200.00, I was beginning to envision a mamoth bill at the end of my wait. The longer it takes the more it costs. At least that has been my experience in the past. But, hooray, hooray, it turns out everything they did was covered by my warranty. I don't mind a statement with lots of zeros on it when there are no large numbers in front of them.

Advanced Notice

I think it's only fair to let people know in advance that tomorrow is (are you ready for this?) Candy Corn Day. At our church Halloween festival last week there were bowls of candy corn set out on the tables. I was interested to discover that candy corn now comes in different flavors.  Everyone knows the traditional orange, white and yellow candy corn flavored candy corn, but now you can get apple flavored candy corn (pink, white and green) and there was another flavor but I don't remember what it was. They really looked pretty mixed in the bowls but, sadly for me, I don't much like candy corn, so tomorrow when I go to the store to pick up some last minute Halloween candy I will not be buying candy corn.  I realize that that is what I should buy because I won't be tempted to eat it myself but I know in my heart that I will end up buying something chocolate flavored instead. There must be a Chocolate Candy Day coming up soon.  Oh wait, I think they call that Valentines Day. 

Make a Difference Day

According to my nifty calendar, today is "Make a Difference Day" and, while I can't claim to have made a difference to anyone today, one group certainly did. A motorcycle group (I won't call them a gang because they are much too good for that) spent today -and a good deal of money, I'm sure- planting trees. They replaced 75 trees that had died over the last 100 years in Memorial Park. The original trees had been planted to memorialize local soldiers who died in battle in World War One.  The new trees will be dedicated on Veteran's Day, November 11. I like the idea of trees as a memorial. I think I'll try to go to this dedication.  Although they weren't from Allen County, my mother-in=law's three brothers and my father-in-law all fought in WWI. I never knew my father-in-law. He died before I met my husband from heart problems brought on by the mustard gas he had inhaled during the fighting in France. It all seems so long ago but it was na ugly war.

Another kind of play

I saw a fascinating play at First Presbyterian Theater this evening. It was not a typical FPT play but it was fascinating. The play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf" was presented as a fund raiser Genesis, a local organization which provides homes and support for women getting off of drugs. The play itself was a wild emotional ride exploring the lives of a group of black women. I think what I appreciated most about this play were the quick mood swings from hilarious scenes to somber one to grotesquely tragic and back again.  It was presented with no intermission and tha 95 minute play certainly held my attention.  Kudos to the eight ladies who carried this off. There are two more performances tomorrow, 2:00pm and 6:00pm (this one with dinner).

Chanticleer was wonderful

I saw the singing group Chanticleer this evening at First Presbyterian Church.  They were here as part of this season's music series and I'm sure this will turn out to be the most well attended music program at FPC this year.  Always a treat to see the church so full. Chanticleer is a GRAMMY award winning all male a Capella singing group based in San Francisco. Their 12 members come from all over the US and present an amazing range of sound. They sang an interesting variey of music this evening ranging from "Haec dies" composed in 1572 to "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"  After the performance members of the group were waiting to greet us as we walked out. Ihappened to be close to one of the singers on the way out, and said "You were wonderful." to which he responded "I know." A little further on I passed another one of the group and said something about how much I enjoyed the program. He responded "I'm so glad you liked it.  Thank you for coming." Now that was a nice answer.  His mother would be proud of him. 

Revisiting the cursive debate...

I don't think I'm a cursive snob but something that happened today has me wondering.  I received a thank you note from the walk in clinic I went to last Thursday after my granddog accidentally clawed me.  That, in itself, is pretty noteworthy I think. I certainly wasn't expecting a thank you note.  I'm not sure about the proper etiquette but it seems to me that perhaps I should have sent a note. You know "Thanks for the painless tetanus shot and the great taping job." or something like that. The note I did receive was brief and polite and signed by the two people who worked with me. However it was hand printed (no cursive here) perfectly legible, but it looked like a third grader printed it with uneven lines and a random mixture of upper case and lower case letters.  I can't help feeling that, in this situation, if writing the note in cursive was not an option, it would have looked much more professional to type the note, or just send me an email if they were afraid I couldn't read cursive.  But, once again, no one asked for my opinion. Go figure.

It's coming.

Christmas that is.  It's coming, as it always does.  I've been lulled by the beautiful weather we enjoyed during the first half of October, but suddenly, BAM!, within the last 24 hours I've been hit with Christmas decorations in a store (I know, I know, we're not even past Halloween yet), cold weather, and two Christmas catalogs in my mail.  Speaking of those catalogs, they are skinny little things compared to the ones we use to pour over when I was a child.  You remember "the good old days" when the catlogs were an inch thick and contained everything wonderful you could imagine? Today's versions still happily picture dolls and trucks and blocks - sweetly familiar, but also pages of technology and more pages of Legos. All of these are great toys and some bring back memories. Not the technology toys of course, but there are still some things that I do know how to manipulate, like the boxes of Crayola Crayons. I used to love to get a brand new box of 84 crayons.  Yikes! another harbinger of the Christmas season was just on the news. The weatherman says we could see a few snow flurries by morning.  I'm contemplating hibernation.

Addison is moving on.

I'm a fan of the TV show the "The Voice" and this year there is an extra reason for me to watch. A young lady (16 years old) named Addison is competing on the show. She's from Fort Wayne, and an aquaintance of one of my granddaughters. So far so good for Addison. When she did her first blind audition two chairs turned for her and she chose to be on Miley's  team. This evening she sang a duet in the battle competition.  She sounded wonderful to me but sadly her coach chose to keep the lady she was competing against. I don't remember her name.  Happily, as soon as Miley decided against her, two coaches attempted to steal her.  She decided to go with Adam, so all is well for now and she will get to perform again. Win or loose this has to be a great experience for her.  Go Addison!! I might jsut have to vote this year.

The Wired Word

We started a new Sunday morning discussion group at church this fall.  We meet between the 9 am and 11 am services so people from both can attend. So far it has been a very interesting class.  "The Wired Word" is a national, non-denominational program that sends an email each week to the group leader. He then forwards the information to all of the class members. Each week we look at a current event and then look at how our faith impacts our reaction to that situation. There are always suggested Bible verses and a series of questions to open up discussion.  This morning we departed a bit from the current events theme to discuss our understanding of 'grace' vs 'good works'. It is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation started by Martin Luther and his 95 Theses.  Since I was raised Lutheran this was familiar territory to me.  What I'm really enjoying about this class is that it is attracting a variety of ages from young couples to old timers like me. It was started with the intention of giving young parents an interesting program while their children are in Sunday school but more than half the people who come regularly are over 50. The age spread makes for some interesting differences in perspective and everyone seems to enjoy the discussions.  I recommend "The Wired Word".

like a faded patchwork quilt

I know it was a beautiful day today but I didn't get out much.  I was busy with a Word project so I sat at my computer with my back to the window for most of the day. However, when I did take a few breaks to rest my eyes, the view from my balcony was lovely.  While I like the warm weather we've been having, I was beginning to wonder if the trees would ever start changing colors. Finally they are, and today. with a little mist in the air, the trees spread out below me looked like soft pieces of old, slightly faded fabric.  The oranges, reds, golds and light greens spead out like a much washed,  lovingly pieced together, hand stitched quilt. It was a quiet feast for the eyes and I loved it. 

enjoying a musical on TV

I'm not a fan of most regular Friday night TV shows so I'm trying something different tonight. PBS Great Performances is showing a musical this evening called "She Loves Me". I have never heard of this particular musical before but so far it's quite good. I'm not sure if this play was written before or after the movie "You've Got Mail" (I suspect before) but it's very much the same story. A man and a woman who work in the same shop (a perfumery of all places) know and loathe each other. But in their private lives they have been writing to each other as part of a lonely hearts club, and, having never met, are madly in love with each other. Needless to say complications ensue. So far, so funny. I recommend it. 

She didn't mean to do it.

I know she didn't mean to hurt me, but yesterday, when I stopped by my daughter's house, one of my granddogs, the sweet boxer, in her evident joy at seeing me, jumped up on me and snagged my hand with one of her toenails.  Suddenly I had a rather deep gash in my hand.  It was only about an inch long but deep, and it bled so much at first that I thought I had cut an artery. I realized pretty quickly that that wasn't the case but by then I had scattered blood around quite a bit of my daughter's kitchen.  I think I got it all mopped up.  When my grandkids got home from school a few minutes later they provided bandages and patched me up. Later in the evening, after a couple of hours of bagging food, when my hand started bleeding again, my daughter patched me up once more and all seemed well. However, when I woke up this morning it still seemed to be bleeding a little, and I have a fear of infections, so I went to my doctor's walk in clinic, thinking they could make sure it was clean and stitch it if necessary.  Turns out it wasn't long enough for stitches (the NP measured it to make sure) but they did soak my hand in antibiotic solution, closed the cut with steri strips, and then, just for the sake of being thorough, gave me a tetanus shot and a 10 day prescription for antibacterial medicine. Over kill?  Maybe, but I must admit I feel much better about the whole situation now, although I find my self hoping for cold weather so I'll be wearing gloves the next time I visit my granddogs. 

Winning for a good cause

We won, we won!!!  This evening my family and I participated in our church's "Kids Against Hunger" food bagging event. We have had a Foltz family (and friends) team for the last four years, since we started this mission project at First Pres. The goal of the evening is to pack 25,000 meals for people in need in places like Haiti and, this year, Puerto Rico. We bag, seal and box a mixture of dried chicken protein, vegetables, protein powder and rice. When it's cooked in water each bag makes five nutritious meals. During the evening each team mans a table where we assemble the finished product in an assembly line process.  It's very rewarding to feel like we are accomplishing a good thing. To add to the fun we compete to see which team accomplishes their quota first.   For the last three years our team has come in second, but tonight we won!!
We worked hard and we worked fast and we finished first. Do I sound a little competitive?  It's true, I love to play games and I love to win.  Was it worth it tonight? Yes, indeed, and I will wear my prize (a tee shirt) with pride, especially next year when we compete again. 

Life's adventures aren't over yet.

Yesterday I went to lunch with my daughter-in-law and two granddaughters. We went in my daughter-in-law's car and ate at Friends (love that lemon soup). Nothing particularly unusual or adventuresome in any of that until you know that it was my 15 year old granddaughter who was driving the car. She got her beginner's permit last week. Wow, I'm not sure I'm ready for this. Thankfully I'm not the one who has to ride with her regularly while she completes her 50 hours of required practice driving.  She actually did quite well yesterday.  It was her first time driving through downtown and she handled the lane changes and turns safely. This week she's taking her driver's training class for two hours each evening for six evenings so that will give her more practice, including some driving in the dark.  I've been having flashbacks today, remembering some of the adventures and misadventures of my childr3en's and my own first years of driving. I'm sure my granddaughter will do every bit as well, idaeally with fewer dents and bumps than we experienced. You go girl!!

Maybe I'm too sceptical...

but I don't think so.  I know that we're supposed to believe that everthing politicians say is true but this comment today left me wondering.  60 Minutes had a report last night on the really negative, and supposedly unanticipated, results of a drug bill that was passed through both houses of Congress last year which makes it much harder for the DEA to intercept and confiscate large shipments of oxicotin drugs. Today on the evening news I heard snippets of an interview with a senator who pushed the bill through. He was asked if the fact that the drug industry gave $177,000 to his last campaign had any influence on his support of this bill? His response was that each of his campaigns cost, on average, over 10 million dollars and he really didn't keep track of individual donations. Really?  Granted, &177,000 isn't a huge percentage of ten million, but I find it really hard to believe he didn't know about it. So am I too sceptical? You decide.

movie review

i saw the movie "Victoria and Abdul" this afternoon. It starred Dame Judith Dench and I would go see any movie she's in because I think she's an excellent actor. I would have said 'actress' but I believe it's politically correct to call all male and female thespians actors these days. She did not disappoint in this movie.  It was a beautiful period piece based on the last years of Queen Victoria's rule and her friendship with an Indian Muslim named Abdul. It's really a very good movie, I think, but not easily catagorized. It's certainly not a romance or an adventure movie, nor a military or mystery adventure. There are no wild chase scenes. A friend who saw the movie yesterday described it as a 'quiet movie' and I think that's a pretty good description. I liked it.

farewell to Hamlet

There are some marvelous lines in "Hamlet". "To be or not to be...., To thine own self be true..., Neither a borrower nor a lender be...,, The serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown.," and on and on. Alas, I will not be reciting any of them even though I would have loved to play the ghost. First Presbyterian Theater will be presenting an all women version of "Hamlet" in March of 2018 but I will be on a trip for over two weeks in February, right before dress rehearsals will start.  The director and I agree that it would be really hard to miss the last two intense weeks of rehearsals and then try to pick up where I Ieft off before my trip.  Happily, lots and lots of ladies showed up for the first stage of the audition this afternoon so he will have plenty of good actors to choose from.  I think so many showed up because it's not often that women get to act the really great scenes in Hamlet. While I'll regret not being in it, (but not enough to give up a trip to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji) I will cetainly look forward to seeing the production when the time comes.

bald or bold??

Looking ahead on my nifty calendar I see that tomorrow is "Be Bald and Free Day." When I first glanced at the entry I thought it said "Bold and Free" and I started thinking about what I could do to express my boldness and freeness tomorrow. I started my list with eating whatever I felt like, including at least two cookies, but then I glanced at the calendar again and realized it said Bald not Bold. Well, heck, I can't be bald and free. I did get my hair cut recently but I'm not quite bald. I guess I'll go eat a cookie to ease my disappointment.

I shouldn't watch this show.

I should never, ever watch Antiques Road Show. It's not that I want to discover that I own a fabulously valuable piece of art, although I certainly wouldn't complain if that turned out to be the case, but I find myself getting the wild urge to go out and start exploring antique shops. The problem here is that I probably wouldn't know a valuable antique if it jumped up and bit me.  Like people often say about art, I don't know much about antiques but I know what I like. I also have a problem distinguishing between antique and just old.  My husband had a cousin who filled her house with old furniture - rickity tables, uncomfortable, shaky chairs and dark old pictures. None of these were particularly attractive. I have no idea of the value of the various pieces but I would have found it depressing to live with such gloomy pieces.  My mother-in-law used to laugh when we went to estate or yard sales if she saw a piece she remembered from her youth. She would point out a dish or cup for sale for $50 or so and laugh because she remembered buying the same thing for ten cents "at the dime store" when she was a young housewife. I enjoy using the few things I own that are really old, mostly dishes and other small items that I've inherited, but it might be better if I never know their value. I would never want to be afraid to enjoy a piece.  A friend who deals in antiques tells me that old dishes don't sell well these days, young people just don't want them, so I probably have nothing to worry about.

The great butter debate

Some years ago I remember Dear Abbey running a series of columns in which people responded to the question "Which way should you hang your toilet paper on the holder. Should it unroll over the roll from the top or under the roll from the bottom?"  Needless to say there were strong feelings on this topic and I suspect there still are. In fact, there have been a couple of times when I've found the roll in my guest bathroom reversed. In case you're wondering, I'm an over the top person. Now I've been involved in a similar controvesy.  I was at a friend's house for a dinner meeting and she apologized because the butter she put on the table with the rolls was still hard.  She had forgotten to take it out of the refrigerator. That brought a comment from the other end of the table "You know you don't have to keep butter in the refrigerator." to which came the response "Oh, yes you do. It will go bad if you don't." This set off a lively but short discussion of butter keeping practices. Personally, once I've unwrapped a stick of butter I put it in a butter dish and keep it in the cupboard. I've never had it go bad yet and it's always ready to spread. I do, however, keep my unopened butter in the refrigerator, or if I have extra, in the freezer. So now you know my position on this spreading controversy. Of course all this really means is that I'm one of those people who eats real butter, usually melted on steamed vegetables. I'm pretty sure butter is on the 'good for you' list right now but even when that changes (and you know it will) I'll keep eating butter. 

News Flash, alert the world!

It's official, my oldest granddaughter now has her beginner's permit. Not only that but I understand (from an unimpeachable source - her younger sister) that her other grandmother is giving her driving lessons. So are her mom and dad, I'm sure, but that doesn't concern me. What does concern me is the idea that she might want to drive my car. Now, for a long time her other grandma and I have had a non-compete agreement. We don't try to out do each other with Christmas or birthday gifts and this works very well for us. But I'm very protective of my little blue car and my granddaughter too.  Her other grandmother drives a big, heavy GMC SUV which I think is a safer training car than a Fiat. That's my rationale and I'm going to stick to it, at least for the first few months of her driving adventure. 

Yumm, maple...

I heard recently that maple is replacing pumpkin as the most popular fall flavor this year.  So when I found myself at Dunkin Donut this afternoon, killing time between a couple of meetings at the church across the street, I decided to try their new iced coffee flavor, Maple Pecan. I must say it was delicious. Of course it's really not surprising. Real maple syrup is the best thing there is to put on pancakes. I should also mention here that having a Dunkin Donut store inside our downtown library is a marvelous idea. Sweet treats and an endless supply of books.  What better way to pass some free time?

seems a little ironic to me

According to my calendar, and several sale commercials on TV, tomorrow is Columbus Day.  Tomorrow is also, according to my calendar "Native American Day". This seems strangely ironic to me. Who decided it would be a fine idea to celebrate the life of the man who "discovered America" and opened up its resources to the rest of the world on the same day we honor the people Europeans murdered and stole from to aquire those resources. Couldn't we at least give them their own day?

That's not how I remember it.

I saw a fascinating play this evening at First Presbyterian Theater.  "Faith Healer" is the story of a possibly sincere faith healer and his wife and manager who travel for years through Scotland and Wales, doing one night stands offering miracles of healing, sometimes with quite successful results but not always. The story is told by the three characters, each doing a lengthy monologue, and you fairly quickly realize that they each have very different memories of the same events. In his notes in the program the director comments that often members of a family will retell remembered events differently. I know this happens when my brother and I sometimes recall an incident from our childhood.  We never seem to remember it quite the same way. I think we are always trying to portray ourselves in the best possible light or as the victim depending on the circumstance.  That's just what happened in this play, leaving the audience wondering who, if anyone, is telling what truly happened during various landmark events that they all remembered. 

at the Arena

Some friends and I attended the play at the Arena Dinner Theater this evening, "Rehearsal for Murder". The dinner was quite good; stuffed pork chop, baked sweet potato (with brown sugar and butter, yumm) and pumpkin pie for dessert. Also peas and a salad but who cares about those?  The play was very good - a true murder mystery; a play within a play, with plenty of misdirection and a satisfactory plot twist at the end.  Some of the acting was a little spotty but the main characters played their parts very well.  All in all, it was a very entertaining and tasty evening.

more musings about math

Still thinking about my new tutoring effort. A few years ago I was doing some substitute teaching in the Fort Wayne Community Schools system and ended up teaching math to special ed students at a high school. The students were fine and I understood the material, even though I hadn't worked with algebra for several years.  It was obvious that most of the students were really struggling with the equations, though, and I found myself wondering why these students weren't being taught basic math skills; addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. I asked another teacher, at the end of the day, why these students were expected to learn algebra? Her answer - it's what's required by state and federal guidelines. 
Last week I took some tutor training for a program we run on Mondays after school at our church. We do one on one tutoring for an hour with third through fifth graders who are struggling with reading and/or math. The speaker who led us through ideas to be used to reinforce their math skills (and they were good ideas) stressed that she thinks it's very important that students learn the basics, specifically the multiplication tables. I asked her if the multiplication tables were printed in the students' math books, remembering the pages of tables we always had at the back of our books when I was in elementary school. That's how I remember learning math facts, by reading and memorising and being able to see how the sequences went together. Her answer was "Well, no, there are no tables in the back of the books. We just use flash cards." I'm glad they are stressing basic math facts again, but really, would it be so bad to give them some reference material? or would that, like a calculator, be 'cheating'?

Is this cheating?

I recently started working with a young man who wants a little tutoring, especially in math. He's in his 20s, articulate, a pretty good reader, but feels the need to be more fluent in math.  We were talking the other day and, when I asked him how he does math now, he explained that he uses a calculator, then went on to say "but I know that's cheating." Now I am definitely a believer in teaching students the basics of math.  I think they should know the multiplication tables and basic approaches to calculation but I was surprised that he thought using a calculator was cheating. I thought about it a little bit, then asked him "If you were building a bookcase, and needed to nail some boards together, would you consider it cheating to use a hammer, and try to pound those nails in with your fist?" He laughed at that but he got the point. I told him that if he was in school and taking a test where he had been told not to use a calculator, then to use one would be cheating, but out in the real world it is a good thing to use whatever tools are available to get the job done, and a calculator is a very useful tool. Then I casually mentioned that when I was in grade school we didn't have calculators and that brought up the question of when I graduated from high school. When I told him 1962, he looked at me like that was just inconceivable. Boy do I feel old.

a new title

A friend told me that she and her husband have given me a new name after I managed to pretty much ignore the fire in my apartment complex last night. Granted, it was a very small fire and quickly out but they still think I was pretty oblivious so now I'm "Ms. Oblivious". Little do they know that I actually should have earned this title years ago.  When I was a teenager, one hot summer afternoon I fell asleep while reading in my bedroom and woke up an hour and a half later to find out that I had slept through a visit to our house from the local volunteer fire department. It turns our that our clothes dryer, down in the basement, had started smoking quite amazingly and Mom called the fire department. They came, big red engine, lots of volunteers in their cars, sirens blaring, and put out the non-fire quite quickly while I slept.  They left, more quietly than they had come and I slep on. When I woke up I was told the whole story of what I missed. Which just goes to show that being oblivious is nothing new to me.

Where's the Fire???

So I'm peacefully watching a TV program and get a text from my son asking if I'm OK. It seems he heard a news report that my apartment building was on fire. Within the next few minutes I had a call and a text from my brother and a friend asking the same thing. Meanwhile, I had heard no sirens, smelled no smoke and figured there must be a mistake somewhere.  I walked out on my balcony and saw a fire engine and some police cars parked at the Superior Street entrance to our parking lot.  Now I was curious, so I checked news reports and saw a really dramatic picture on the WPTA web site; a huge billowing cloud of smoke coming out of the top of the east building. I live in the north building, happily. Turns out there was a kitchen fire in a 14th floor apartment in that building.  It's all out now, but it has me thinking. Perhaps I should invest in some sort of fire escape, perhaps a rope ladder?  I was explaining to my youngest brother the other day how I figure I could leap from my balcony to the trees across the parking lot and they would break my fall. They look soft and fuzzy from up here. However he informed me that if I can't jump the width of the parking lot to the tree line on ground level I won't be able to do it from 10 floors up. What a buzzkill, but he might be right. So now I will research portable fire escapes. 

I almost missed it.

Yikes, that was close. I've been gone most of the day and just learned that today is National Homemade Cookie Day. I heard it on TV so it must be true, right?? It's too late now to bake up a batch of cookies (or I'm too lazy) but, lucky for me, my freezer is stocked with cookies from the Johny Appleseed Festival. Now these cookies weren't baked in my home but they were mixed and baked at my home church and sold at a festival in my home town. Close enough. Excuse me while I go celebrate this excellent special day.