does chocolate cause dysania?

 Today is Global Scouse Day and also National Chocolate Souffle Day.  Which brings us to, I believe, seventeen days celebrating one form or another of chocolate so far this year.  Scouse I have discovered by intense research (I googled it) is basically stew made with lamb and beef and is evidently very popular in Liverpool, although it originated in eastern Europe.  So there you have it.  If you're in the mood to celebrate food those are your choices.  Please pass the chocolate souffle. On to a different subject.  I learned a nifty new word today.  Dysania means a reluctance to get out of bed in the morning.  So now, when you hit the snooze alarm or don't set an alarm at all but still feel the need to roll over and go back to sleep in the morning, you can tell yourself and others that you are suffering from Dysania.  Throw a word like that around and you'll get all kinds of sympathy.  

It starts with a riddle

 Yesterday my west coast brother posed this riddle:  If five cats can catch five mice in five minutes, how long will it take one cat to catch one mouse?  I'm sure you've deduced the answer but there's more to the story.  After posing this riddle, which my brother had sent on behalf of his cat Ace, he texted me that Ace had delivered a four minute mouse to the family doorstep.  Cats do like to share.  They live in the country, so mice are in ample supply.  We decided, in continued text exchanges, that Ace is probably in training, inspired by the Olympics, for the Mouseathalon, a dual event which consists of catching mice and napping.  From everything I've heard, Ace is a contender. But enough about the Olympics.  I'll leave you with another riddle (also provided by my west coast brother).  How do you keep Canadian Bacon slices from curling when you cook them?  Take away their little tiny brooms.   

Chocolate

 Anyone who knows me knows that I am a boarder line chocoholic.  Which is not all bad.  It is a basic food group after all.  I am particularly partial to dark chocolate, but I do not spurn milk chocolate or white chocolate or chocolate mixed with another flavor.  I believe I have mentioned chocolate covered cherries and caramels in previous blogs.  Tonight, though, I have discovered a new chocolate experience.  I am a fan of the Great British Baking Show but tonight, when flipping through the channels, I discovered The Great Chocolate Showdown.  It has all kinds of advantages over a piece of chocolate.  First, I can watch the contestants create amazing chocolate concoctions; things I would never dream of creating.  Then, it keeps me so busy watching that I don't get up to fix a snack.  It is an absolutely calorie free chocolate experience.  Now if I only had 'smell-a-vision.'  

fancy cat

 Anyone who knows me knows that I am very fond of cats.  Not fond enough to have one now, but back in the day I had as many as three at once.  In my defense, that was only because, when my daughter moved back home after her divorce she brought her two children and her two cats.  Since we already had one cat, that brought the total to three.  When she remarried she took the kids but left the cats.  Go figure.  Up to then we had only had, at the most, two cats at a time.  I'm not a crazy cat lady, quite.  But all this is simply the prelude to an encounter I had with a cat yesterday.  Now, I have plenty of encounters with dogs because there is frequently one riding with it's person in the elevator when I am getting a ride.  They need to go out!  And that's fine.  I like these occasional chances to pat a dog, but even though I know they are around, cats stay in their apartments and are seldom seen.  Until yesterday.  I was coming home from a meeting when I saw a cat strolling down the hall.  It turns out that the gentleman who lives at the end of the hall lets his cat out to walk the length of the hall from time to time.  A little extra exercise, I guess.  We chatted, as I enjoyed patting the cat, about cats of course.  As I was patting the cat I realized that this was an unusual cat.  In the face it looked like my tabby, all the usual markings, and it was ordinary cat size, but the markings on its sides look like a leopard or bobcat. Spotted, any way.  It was beautiful.  My new friend told me that it is a relatively new breed of cat, a cross between some kind of wild cat and a domestic cat.  Really beautiful.  I googled spotted cats and the closest I found was a Bengal cat, but I'm not sure that was it.  Whatever.  It is a very fancy cat.  

little accidents

 One of my granddaughters, 19 and in college, admitted to me that a few weeks ago, in one of our slushy snow storms, she slid her car off the road and into a ditch.  She's fine and the car is was not damaged. It did get pretty muddy as she tried to get it out herself before calling AAA.  Not quite so recently, but during this school year, another granddaughter, this one a senior in high school, had a flat tire on her way home from a party.  It was late at night, and dark and she was in an unfamiliar part of town so she drove slowly home on the flat.  Shredded the tire but didn't damage the rim.  Thirty years ago, give or take, one girl's father and the other girl's mother (my two children) each had an accident while driving to school.  They weren't hurt nor was anyone else.  

All of these incidents were relatively minor and I am so glad that they happened.  Young drivers seem to believe they are invincible, and a wake up call can help them take life and driving a little more seriously from then on.  

And, in case you're wondering, yes of course I had my own little accident.  In my case, I rolled my first car over and up on it's wheels again.  Since it was a Corvair, it wasn't that hard to do.

Old Matt....

 I watched a beautiful program on PBS this evening.  "The American Horse" was an hour long program about the horses that are particularly American.  Appaloosas, Morgans, Mustangs and Quarter horses all have their place in American history.  Seeing those horses running across the prairies, mountains and deserts reminded me of Old Matt.  Old Matt was the only horse I ever had.  Actually I only 'had' him for a week.  My roommate during my first two years of teaching and I decided to take a driving trip out west one summer.  We camped in Yellowstone and visited Carlsbad Caverns and the Grand Canyon and finished our journey with a week at a dude ranch in the mountains of Colorado.  It was a great experience which included daily trail rides and some cute cowboys.  When it was discovered that I had never ridden a horse before I was paired up with Old Matt.  I hung on and he walked slowly so it worked out just fine.  We were always the last in line, although he did perk up a little when the barn came into view.  Years later when we lived in a rural area in Ohio our neighbors had two horses and a few times my neighbor girlfriend and I rode the horses up the hill a ways to pick black raspberries and just for the fun of riding.  Thanks to Old Matt I did know how to get on the horse and control him with the reins.  One other fun fact, I got my first ever speeding ticket driving a Mustang.  And that's all the horsey memories I have.  

by the numbers

 There seem to be a lot of numbers floating around today.  It is 2-22-22 or, as it's also called. Twos day.  That is pretty interesting, and according to one reporter, won't happen again for 400 years.  I'll have to think about that.  It reminded me that my 70 birthday fell on 12-13-14 which I thought was pretty cool.  But the number I heard today that surprised me and interested me the most is that Vladimir Putin is only five feet, five inches tall.  Which explains why so many of his pictures seem to be on horse back.  And does this mean he might have a Napoleonic complex?  And does this explain current events in Europe? Something to ponder.  

just nonsense

 Three silly things to enjoy:  First a riddle from my west coast brother - "Can you name three days in a row without using Monday, Wednesday or Friday?"

A story read by our exercise leader today - Two hungry robins were sitting on a branch.  After grumbling about how hungry they were, they spotted a freshly plowed field from their perch.  They flew down and gorged on worms turned up in the freshly turned soil.  After they had eaten until they were stuffed, they were so tired that they decided to stay where they were and bask in the sunshine for a while.  They dozed off and while they slept, a big tomcat snuck up and ate them both.  As he strolled away he was heard to say "I love baskin' robins."

Mondays are my day to tutor a fifth grader and today we were reading "The Best School Year Ever" by Barbara Robinson.  In one scene it was time for eye tests at school and the nasty girl told the little boy that if he couldn't read the chart it was because his eyes were in backwards and the doctor would have to take them out and switch them.  When the little boy was being examined the doctor told him to cover one eye and read the chart.  After he did that the doctor said "Ok, now let's switch eyes."  Use your imagination or read the book to see what happens next.  

Strike!

 This afternoon was the last performance of "Sylvia" and I'm pleased to report that it went very well.  One of my granddaughters and her friend came and they thought is was great.  High praise indeed from college kids.  Of course I took them to supper after which may have skewed their review.  What people sometimes don't know is that after the final show it is the responsibility of the cast and crew to strike the set, take down all the walls and windows, store away all the furniture and props, sort out the costumes to be laundered or dry cleaned, and generally make the stage look like the play never happened.  It's actually a kind of therapy, a way to reinforce the fact that it really is over, and free labor of course.  After my last play, strike took from 4:20pm when the show ended to 9:30pm.  Happily, today's strike took less than a half hour.  It seems that the children's theater wants to use all of the pieces of what was a fairly simplistic set, and most of us had provided our own costumes so we took our clothes home and just walked off and left everything else.  And I am completely happy with that amount of closure.  The End.

Burrrr...

 I have a nice view from my balcony of the Old Fort across the river.  During the year several weekend encampments and festivals are held there.  I always know when there is an encampment, even if I don't see any people around, because they raise a flag.  It varies from a 13 star US flag to a slightly later one.  Sometimes it's a French flag.  In nice weather I enjoy going over and exploring what's going on.  In nice warm pleasant weather.  Today's weather is not what I consider nice.  It was sunny, sort of, but really cold.  My friends know that I am a fair weather walker.  I was surprised to see, rather early this morning, that there was an encampment going on.  They were flying a US flag so I knew we weren't under attack but I did wonder why they were there at all.  I didn't see any tents set up so I assumed everyone was huddled around fireplaces inside the fort.  That's where I would have been.  It turns out, according to the evening news, this is an annual winter encampment to learn how early settlers dealt with the cold.  Burrrrr... I hope they had plenty of firewood.  This exercise seems a little extreme but certainly not as crazy as those people who take the polar bear plunge.  But that's another story.

a bit of history

 My page a day trivia calendar asked this question today.  Who wrote "The Book of Hawking, Hunting and Blasing of Arms" also known as "The Book of Saint Albans" published in 1486.  No that's not a misprint, the publication year was fourteen eighty-six.  Now I have read a lot of books in my life so it may surprise you that I didn't know the author.  You probably do, but in case you're not sure, it was Juliana Berners.  She was a Benedictine prioress in England, one of the earliest female authors to be published in the English language.  I found that interesting but I particularly enjoyed that she made up, or at least first used, many collective animal nouns such as a gaggle of geese or a swarm of bees.  I think that's fun to know but I'm also intrigued by the idea of a nun writing a book on hunting and shooting.  But I suppose they had to get their meat somehow.  

Reminiscing

 My oldest niece sent me a text this evening with a picture of a pillow her grandmother, my step-mom, made for her when she was five years old and trying to give up sucking her thumb.  Not sure how well that worked but it did remind me of my middle brother's (her father's) struggle to give up sucking his thumb when he was eight years old. He finally accomplished it when he was bribed with a set of toy pistols with holsters for his birthday.  Two-gun cowboys were big back then and none of them sucked their thumbs.  Remembering the thumb sucking reminded me that when he sucked his thumb he liked to rub a little fuzz under his nose.  I mentioned this to my niece and she said so did she, and so did her husband.  The consequence of this love of fuzz was that my brother plucked his teddy bear and one of my dolls bald.  That's when I learned about doll hospitals.  My mother took my doll, one of my favorites, to the doll hospital where they replaced her wig.  She went from being a curly haired brunette to a blonde with long braids, very pretty and not pluckable.  Now that's got me thinking about dolls but I'll save that for another time.  

restaurant review

 A friend and I ate at Bistro Nota this evening.  It wasn't very busy at 5:30 on a Wednesday evening so we were seated quickly.  It's a small French restaurant on Calhoun Street, two buildings north of Riegel's Tobacco Shop.  I had never heard of this restaurant before but a sign inside said it was founded in 1929.  Maybe, but I don't think it's been in Fort Wayne that long.  While we were waiting for our food I asked my friend what 'nota' means.  He promptly replied that it is a Latin adjective meaning 'familiar.'  I was impressed with his knowledge, he has studied some French after all, until I realized he was reading from a sign on the wall behind me.  The food was delicious.  We each had a small plate item.  My friend had the Croque Madame, a dish he had seen prepared on a TV cooking show - a lavish ham and cheese sandwich with a special sauce and a sunny side up egg on top.  He said it was good although he would have liked a little more sauce.  I had a braised Brussel sprouts concoction with lots of fine chopped vegetables in a peppery, very tasty sauce.  In fact the sauce was so good that I asked our server for some bread and admitted to him that I was going to use it to mop up the sauce left in the bottom of the bowl.  He thought that was a fine and very understandable idea.  I thought it would be a little more couth than licking the bowl. The bread, by the way, was also delicious, dense and flavorful, with a salty crust, and it was sliced.  I didn't have to struggle to cut hunks off a loaf.  All in all a pleasant dining experience.  

skate on

 Still hung up on the Olympics.  I've been watching some skiing, I think it's what they call freestyle skiing, where they swoop up the long slopes, then launch themselves into the air to do flips and spins, and land sliding downhill on their skis, usually.  Fun to watch from the warmth of my living room, especially when the announcer mentioned that the wind chill there today is minus 26 degrees.  But now we're back to figure skating, definitely my favorite.  I also enjoy the couples skating but I must admit it always reminds me of the 2007 movie "Blades of Glory" starring Will Ferrell.  If you've never seen it you really should.  

Good news, maybe.

 As heard on the news this evening - research shows that older adults sometimes have trouble remembering specific information because they have accumulated so much information in their brains over the years.  I've always suspected something like this.  So, the next time you don't remember why you walked into the kitchen, tell yourself it's not because of old age or because you're forgetful.  You simply have so many other thoughts bobbling around in your brain, that it's hard to remember the little things, like potato chips.  I bet you can remember the names of all the pets you had as a child.  On a more positive note, the same study concluded that older adults are more creative. Not sure more creative than what.  So if you went into the kitchen for chips and came out with ice cream you were merely being creative.

about that game...

 I'm really doing it.  I'm actually watching a football game.  OK, if I'm being totally honest, I just watched the last two minutes of the Super Bowl.  And no, it wasn't a magical come from behind win for the Bengals but it was a much closer game than sometimes.  The Rams won it 23 to 20. There you have it, my total interest in and understanding of football.  On the other hand, today is Super Chicken Wing Day, National Tortellini Day, National Crab Rangoon Day and National Cheddar Day.  So if you haven't snacked enough during the game or while ignoring it, there are some yummy ideas for you.  And if you need a chuckle, here is another T-shirt quote "Had a big mix up in the store today.  Apparently when the woman said 'strip down, facing me.' she was referring to my credit card."

Excuses, excuses..

 Last night was opening night of Sylvia, the play I'm in.  It is really fun to be in a comedy, especially when the audience laughs in all the right places.  So far so good on that.  But opening night and two girlfriends staying overnight are my excuses for not blogging last night.  I'm pretty sure I'm too old for slumber parties.  My favorite catalogue showed up in the mail today, and this T-shirt message pretty well sums up my situation - "I really don't mind getting old. But my body is having a major hissy fit."  Sleep well everyone.  

a cozy day

Today is National Cream Cheese Brownie Day and also National Flannel Day.  Doesn't that sound like the coziest day ever?  I have never had a cream cheese brownie but it does sound delicious.  I'm trying to keep track of special days involving chocolate and I think we're up to 12 now and it's only February.  Of course chocolate is a basic food group, but there aren't nearly as many days celebrating vegetables or fresh fruit (except maybe chocolate covered strawberries).  Flannel isn't celebrated nearly so often but it is great stuff.  My earliest memory of flannel is a pair of jeans lined with plaid flannel that I wore when I was about eight years old.  The cuffs were turned up so the plaid flannel showed, very cute.  Many years later, when I spent Christmas in the country with my west coast brother and family they gave me, as a Christmas gift, a pair of jeans lined with soft, dark green flannel.  Not quite as jazzy as plaid, but oh so comfy on cold winter days.  Hooray for flannel, definitely something to be celebrated.

Woops...

 Thank you to my west coast brother for pointing out that I meant device not devise in yesterday's post.  If you guessed hour glass, as he did, you are correct.  Sorry, there was no prize, just the satisfaction of knowing you're brilliant.  Today is National Pizza Day and I actually got to eat some pizza.  Our management hosted a pizza party for all the residents this evening from 5-6.  Pizza and pop (or soda for you east coasters).  I appreciated the gesture, and the pizza, from Papa John's was quite good.  But then I always appreciate free food.  Eating is one of my favorite pastimes.  

Riddle time

 We restarted exercise class yesterday, and part of each exercise session is spent exercising our brains, so here is my favorite riddle from yesterday.  A sundial has the fewest moving parts of any time telling devise.  Which time telling devise has the most moving parts?

More athleticism

 Maybe I enjoy watching the Olympic ice skating because once upon a time I actually could ice skate.  Nothing fancy mind you but I could skate around the rink without falling down (much).  We used to come into Fort Wayne, the big city, to skate on the ice at the coliseum during hockey season.  I liked skating at the coliseum because I didn't even have to turn, just keep skating in a big endless loop.  On the other hand, the downhill skiing competition reminds me of my one and only try at downhill skiing.  I never made it off the bunny slope, which wouldn't have been so embarrassing if I hadn't been 22 years old.  

They're at it again.

 I do enjoy the Olympics, summer and winter, but I wonder some times at the lengths and heights to which the athletes will go.  I've watched some pretty amazing ski jumps and luge slides this evening but my first love is still the figure skating.  The ladies are doing that spinning thing again and somehow manage, as they spin, to lift one leg and both arms way up over their heads so they look like a tulip.  I can't even imagine getting one leg up that high, let alone spinning around on ice while I do it.  And then there are the spinning jumps.  And. almost always, landing on their feet and skating right in to the next part of their routine.  I feel so bad when a skater falls down after one of those jumps.  How frustrating to have practiced for so many years and done the jumps correctly over and over again (although I imagine there were many falls along the way) and then to fall during the Olympic competition.  But what I most admire is that they just get up, gracefully, and go on.  I think there's a life lesson there somewhere.

Such choices

 According to my list of special days today is 'Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day,' 'National Weatherman's Day,' and 'Take a Shower with a Friend Day.'  I'm fine with eating ice cream and I think it's only fair that weathermen, or should it be weather persons, get a day, since the groundhog got one. However, I'm pretty sure my days of showering with a friend are far behind me.  Ah well, I guess I can't celebrate everything.  Is it breakfast time yet? 

so now I know.

 Thank you to my west coast brother who answered my question posed yesterday.  He says those skaters can keep spinning faster and faster because of something called conservation of momentum.  Evidently, the closer the mass gets to the axis the faster it spins.  So now we know.  Ok, maybe you already knew.  So now I know.  Still no explanation as to why they don't get dizzy and fall down.  I shall continue watching, thinking 'conservation of momentum' and trying to figure out the rest.  Maybe, if you spin really, really fast you don't get dizzy?  I will not be experimenting to find out, even though there is a skating rink right across the street.  

how do they do that?

I'm watching figure skaters this evening. First rounds of the Olympic competitions I think.  Figure skating is one of my favorite events to watch, even though I'm pretty sure they use magic.  I understand the leaps up into the air and the quick spins before they land (almost always on their feet) and how they skate zippy quick from one end of the rink to the other.  What I don't understand is the spinning. How do they start spinning, in one spot, and keep spinning faster and faster, part of the time on one skate, and, at least with women skaters, one leg held straight up in the air.  And, and here's where the magic comes in I think, how to they come out of that spin and just keep skating.  Why don't they get dizzy?  Magic, right? 

GHD

Today is 2-2-22, a date that won't come around again for a long time.  It's also Groundhogs Day, and evidently Punxsutawney Phil did see his shadow, so plan for six more weeks of winter.  No surprise today, but here's a fun fact, thanks to my trivia calendar.  Do you know why some male groundhogs come out of their dens in early February?  It's not to check the weather.  Evidently they go looking for burrows where female groundhogs are still hibernating.  Not to mate, yet, but to get to know each other before mating season starts in the spring.  So I guess they just have the urge to snuggle, which I can understand in February.  But now I'm wondering, if that groundhog comes scurrying back to his den and it's not because he's afraid of his shadow, is it because he is afraid of his hoped for lady love who is just not ready to wake up and really doesn't want his cold feet in her bed?  Groundhogs can get grumpy.

What goes around???

 I had a funny thought on the way home from rehearsal this evening. First, I'm happy to report, it had just started to drizzle when I got home at 10:30pm so I'm home safely before the big snow hits.  But back to the thought - funny or curious??  As I turned on to Lafayette Street (my apartment is on the corner of Lafayette and Superior) I remembered that when my parents and I (I was a baby of course) moved back to Fort Wayne after WWII, our first home was an upstairs apartment in a big house on Lafayette Street.  Now, I have lived several places over the last many years and traveled to many others, but isn't it interesting that, after all these years, here I am back on Lafayette Street?  There's no real point to this reflection, it's just one of those things that makes me say "hmmmm??"