it's questionable..

 Some things are probably not worth celebrating or even mentioning yet here I am telling you that today is National Hairball Awareness Day.  And in honor, here's a riddle: "You know why cats like hairballs?  They like a good gag."  As a former cat owner (although owner is questionable when it comes to cats) I have been made aware of hairballs many times.  Cats are seldom discrete about hacking up hair balls.  They'll do it any time in front of anyone, family, friends, dinner party attendees, it doesn't matter.  But the worst, the absolute worst way to become aware of a hairball is to step bare footed on to one in the middle of the night.  Don't ask me how I know.  

a star is born

 Well, not really. Tonight was our first performance in front of a real live audience.  And, all in all, it went very well.  People laughed at my lines where they were supposed to and I actually sang on stage.  Well singing might be a slight, or great, exaggeration, but I moved around on stage and belted out the lyrics to a bawdy limerick, and people laughed.  It may have been pity laughter or they may have really thought I was funny.  Either way, it was fun.  

chocolate again

 Today is World Tapir Day.  I must admit this doesn't excite me much.  I have never heard anyone say that the tapir is their favorite animal.  They are not cute or cuddly, and are too big to be pigs, but never quite made it as elephants.  On the other hand, today is also National Devil Dog Day and that is worth celebrating on two counts.  First, Devil Dogs is a nickname for US Marines, apparently stemming from WWI, so salute to the Devil Dogs.  Devil Dog is also the name of a chocolate treat.  You knew we were due for another something chocolate. It's been at least a week.  I've never had a devil dog but they sound delicious - sweet whipped cream sandwiched between two small oblong devils food cakes. Yummy!  

bravery...

 Today is School Bus Drivers Day and if ever a special group of brave men and women deserved a day of tribute, it's school bus drivers.  I was a teacher and over the years taught, at one time or another, every age from kindergarten through college and adults.  No problems there, well not many anyway.  But I would never, ever have the courage to turn my back on 48 to 60 raucous children and drive them anywhere.  When my grandchildren were very young I would sometimes have all four of them in the car with me.  I had a nifty SUV at the time with a third row of seats, and that is as close as I ever want to come to driving a school bus, thank you very much.  So when you're stuck behind a school bus letting children on or off, don't be impatient.  Just take a deep breath and think "Glad it's not me."

 

Tea time.

 Question from my daily trivia calendar "What country consumes the most tea per person per year?"  I guessed India, or maybe England (you can always get tea in England) or New Zealand.  But I was wrong on all counts.  It's Turkey.  the Turkish people consume about seven pounds of tea per person per year.  Second place goes to Ireland at five pounds of tea per person per year.  Obviously, they are weighing the tea leaves when they are dry little crumbles.  Once they are all soggy they weigh a good deal more.  Last week a friend and I met at a local Turkish restaurant for a late lunch.  The Baba Ghanoush was delicious.  I also had the Turkish Coffee, or what was supposed to be Turkish coffee.  It was just coffee, although they did serve it in a little tiny cup; I make stronger coffee myself.  Now I'm wishing I had ordered the Turkish tea, since it appears they know how to make tea.  Maybe next time.  The restaurant is called Deema, in case you're interested.  

my kind of techie...

 Today was tech day at the theater.  We started at 2:00pm and were finished by 5:45pm.  This was almost miraculous and may have actually been a minor miracle.  I've know tech Sundays (and it's always a Sunday afternoon) to run 'til 9:00pm and later.  It's really interesting.  This was our first time to rehearse on the actual stage and to hear and see all the special effects.  While we in the cast have been rehearsing in a large room near the stage, technical gurus have been designing, building and painting the set, figuring out the correct lighting and light changes thru the whole show, and putting the sound effects in all the right places.  The sound effects are particularly fun in this show because there are some scenes where lots of fireworks are going off out of sight.  Happily, in one scene, the sounds of explosions pretty much drown out my solo.  This is a good thing.  

a great combination...

 Once again my west coast brother comes through.  Today is English Language Day and German Beer Day.  Seems like a great combination.  Much easier for me to handle than German Language Day and English Beer Day.  Although my heritage is almost pure German, I am a fourth generation American and do not speak German.  Nothing against English Beer, but I must say my German heritage does shine through when it comes to beer.  I do like a good dark German beer.  I usually manage to have two, maybe three beers a year.  The best is always the beer I have at Germanfest.  And speaking of Germanfest, it's going to be back this year after two long years of Covid caused abstinence.  Let's hear it for dark beer, polka music and, of course, the thrilling Weiner Dog races.  Start planning now.  June 8-12 will be here before you know it.

more bridge work

 Here's a picture I took today showing the progress of the bridge destruction.  If you look in the upper left corner you'll see the stretch of bridge where the deck? road way? is gone, showing the steel girders underneath.  If you look closely under the bridge and in the middle of the span, they have put out floats and buoys to mark, I suppose, a safe shipping (canoeing? kayaking?) lane.  The only things I see floating on the river these days are geese.  I haven't had a chance yet to see if they are staying within the designated area.  I hope so. I wouldn't want any concrete chunks clunking them on their little heads.

Once again....

 Today is National Chocolate Covered Cashews Day, yet another day celebrating chocolate.  And that's fine, chocolate is always worth celebrating.  It is, after all, a basic food group, and cashews are good for you so this is an excellent day.  But today is also Big Word Day.  Now I don't know if this means long words like 'prestidigitation' or big words like BIG.  Since I have nothing else to write about this evening, I think I will make this a combined celebration, so enjoy your CHOCOLATE & CASHEWS!

peach pie

 Everybody knows about Girl Scout cookies, but did you know that Boy Scouts sell pies?  I'm not sure if this is a national fundraiser or just something the local troop is doing, but since it was a nice young man in our congregation who was selling the pies I decided it would be the kind thing to do to buy a pie, or two.  You know, purely for altruistic reasons.  I bought one blueberry and one peach.  They came frozen with careful instructions on how to bake - basically one hour in a 400 degree oven.  I picked up my pie order on Monday and when I got the pies home realized that I only had room for one in my little top of the refrigerator freezer,  So what could I do?  I obviously had to bake one of them.  I picked peach.  And then I had to eat some of it.  Pies don't keep forever.  I am limiting myself to one piece a day, and I must say, this is one of the best peach pies I have ever eaten.  I hope this becomes a Boy Scout tradition.  

a

Turn it down!

 I'm really excited about the new bridge that's going to be built across the St. Mary's River, and I am surprised and pleased at how quickly they have gotten started on this project.  I've even adjusted to the limited access in and out of our parking lot.  From the pictures I've seen, it's really going to be a beautiful and safe bridge.  What wasn't mentioned in the news reports I saw was the noise involved in bridge construction.  Actually the noise seems to be part of the old bridge destruction part of the project.  I can testify that noise is amplified when traveling over water.  This morning, for example, I was rudely awakened at 7:00am by ten burly policemen trying to beat down my door, or my neighbor's door, it was hard to tell.  At least that's what it sounded like.  I finally woke up enough to realize that the noise was coming from somewhere outside.  And it went on and on, in various iterations all morning long.  I had an appointment at 11am and really didn't mind leaving at all.  As I drove across what's left of the bridge (they have promised there will always be one lane open to traffic) I could see to my left great gaps where much of the concrete railing on that side was gone.  It must have been jackhammers I heard this morning.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring? 

Watch out...

Today is National Velociraptor Awareness Day.  I thought I saw some flying over me earlier today but they were just giant snowflakes - equally scary in their own way.  My husband used to say that velociraptors were just giant chickens. Or chickens are just miniature velociraptors, still running around on this earth. He was not fond of chickens.  Sadly, my husband didn't live to see his theory proved.  He died in 2006.  In 2007 scientists published an article about the discovery of velociraptor remains with quill knobs (bumps along its forearm) that would have anchored feather quills to the bone, and are common in modern birds.  Chickens are modern birds, so he was right.  

Easter 2022 continued...

 Easter Day went much as I predicted yesterday and I'm pleased to report that the peanut butter cookies were delicious.  So was everything else.  But Easter wasn't finished for me when we all went our separated ways this afternoon.  I had promised, some time ago, to help serve the Rescue Mission supper today.  And so I strolled over there.  Their new location is only four blocks from my apartment, which is kind of reassuring in case I ever fall on hard times.  I do find it amusing that they built their new, large and very nice, building right across the street from a liquor store.  I also found it interesting that the meal we had cooked yesterday and delivered earlier today wasn't what we served.  I'm not really surprised.  Today was the day they passed out a couple thousand carry-out Easter dinners from noon to three.  The leftover ham, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy and green beans were what we served this evening.  I'm assuming they will use our dinner sometime later this week.  Anyway, there were four of us from First Pres serving the supper and my job was to fill the glasses with liquid refreshment.  I didn't taste it but I was told it was either cool aid or grapefruit juice with sugar added.  The whole serving experience was very pleasant with plenty of thank you and Happy Easter greetings.  I did not come away feeling particularly uplifted or virtuous but it was fun and I will probably do it again sometime.  Since various committees of the church are required to take a turn at least once a year, I'm pretty certain I will be serving again sometime.  Happy Easter everyone. 

Easter 2022

 I'm looking forward to Easter tomorrow.  Of course I'm looking forward to the church service with the glorious music and stirring sermon. But I'm also looking forward to our Easter family dinner.  I'll admit that part of my eager anticipation is because I'm not hosting dinner this year.  My daughter-in-law's mother is hosting and it will be a lunchtime meal.  It will also be a non-traditional Easter dinner.  Instead of ham we're having chicken lasagna.  Instead of sweet potatoes I'm taking chilled asparagus.  Instead of cake or pie for dessert, my daughter has informed me that she will be bringing peanut butter cookies.  Sounds good to me.  Have a blessed and happy Easter everyone.  

Just in time.

 Just when I don't know what I should blog about something shows up.  Today it was a new copy of my favorite catalog called Catalog Favorites.  It's full of fun clothes I would never buy like the pajamas printed with a hedgehog pattern.  I will admit the dachshund printed sneakers are tempting but I digress.  This is the catalog that has many, many sweatshirts and t-shirts with humorous sayings so here are my favorites for this time around: "I think I may need professional help.  A chef, a butler and a maid should do it." "I've reached the age where my train of thought often leaves the station without me." and finally "I may be old but...what was I saying?"  

Look up.

 Today is Look Up at the Sky Day.  Doesn't that sound like a wonderful day?  I actually look up at the sky every day, or technically every night.  Unless it's subzero out, I go out on my balcony before I go to bed to look at the sky, and the river and the city lights.  I find it frustrating but also very calming.  Frustrating because the ambient light from all those city lights makes it almost impossible to see stars.  On a really good clear night I'm lucky if I see three stars.  On the other hand I see some really fascinating cloud shows after dark; big puffy white clouds scudding across the sky.  And interesting colors.  Some nights the clouds look white against an indigo backdrop.  Other nights the whole cloud filled sky looks lavender.  It's all so beautiful, so celebrate Look Up at the Sky Day (or night) with me.  

You can relax.

 According to my daily trivia calendar, on April 13, 2029 (just seven years from now) the asteroid know as Apophis will pass within 19,000 miles of earth's surface and will be visible to about 2 billion people on the planet.  But don't panic.  Scientists were once concerned that Apophis might strike Earth but now they are sure that it will simply soar on by.  I know you are as relieved by this information as I am.  Now if we can arrange for a cloudless, rain free April night.  Maybe the scientists should get to work on that.  

Things that go together

 Today is National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day and also Drop Everything and Read Day.  Seems like two things that should go really well together.  I actually celebrate Drop Everything and Read every day, every chance I get.  And snacking while I read has always seemed like a really good idea.  However, I haven't always loved grilled cheese, or as we called them where I grew up, toasted cheese sandwiches.  It goes back to elementary school.  We actually had very good school cooks in our little Lutheran school but they took a very Catholic approach to Friday lunches.  That meant that lunch on Fridays was often toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup (no meat).  Sadly, tomato soup is the only food I really, really dislike.  Not eating the school soup was not an option so I choked it down, but in my mind tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches were linked in my loathing.  When I got married I discovered that my husband loved toasted cheese sandwiches, so, being a loving newly wed, I made them, and discovered that they don't have to be served with tomato soup.  Such a liberating discovery.  

a new bridge

I'm getting a new bridge!  Well, it won't be just mine.  The entire population of Fort Wayne and anyone else driving through will be able to use it, but I'm still going to consider it mine.  Ever since I moved downtown I've wished that the bridge across the St. Mary's, which I live very near and have to walk across to get to the Old Fort if I want to walk that way, was more like the MLK bridge.  The MLK bridge not only has beautiful lights at night but also wide sidewalks on either side with a wall between sidewalk and street so pedestrians can cross safely.  They broke ground today but I have a sneaky suspicion this won't be a fast project.  I also learned today that bridge construction will close the exit from my parking lot to Spy Run and Superior.  Luckily we do have another exit.  This means that I will have to find some other routes to get around town and get out of town.  I'm sure I can do this (I'm not too old to learn new tricks) but it's going to take some thought.  Ah well, flexibility is good, right?  And, when it's all over, I'll have a beautiful new bridge.  I believe it's going to be called the Veterans Memorial Bridge, which is fine. I have lots of veterans, past and present, in my family.  

Palm Sunday

 Well it was a lovely Palm Sunday, with palms waving and children's choir singing,   And all helped along by brilliant sunshine.  With snow and rain yesterday I really appreciated the sunshine.  A rerun for Easter would be much appreciated.  In addition to Palm Sunday today is also Siblings Day, a day to appreciated all your brothers and sisters.  Since my brother lives over 1600 miles away (1900 driving miles) we had to make do with texts and virtual hugs.  I wonder if today is Siblings Day because children don't typically fight too much over palms, while fights over who found the eggs in the Easter egg hunt or who got the most candy can get pretty fierce.  Of course the worst cause of Easter fights is "Who bit the ears off my chocolate bunny?" I did see a couple of five year olds dueling with their palm branches, as if they were light sabers, while we were gathering in the courtyard, but they didn't seem too serious.  Palms and peace ruled the day.

The philharmonic again

 Today, according to my west coast brother is Cherish an Antique Day.  He tells me his wife celebrated by cherishing him.  I celebrated by going to the Philharmonic and hearing Tchaikovsky's 5th.  I also heard Tan Dun's "Crouching Tiger" Concerto for Cello and Orchestra.  It was interesting, and the Cellist quite good, but certainly not antique.  All in all a lovely evening.

note to skeptic

 You have increased my interest in Benjamin Franklin and I shall check out his autobiography.

I'm confused...

 Today is Step Into the Spotlight Day and also Poet in a Cupcake Day.  Now I understand about stepping into the spotlight.  If you get yelled at often enough you remember that you need to be in your spotlight so the audience can see you.  But the idea of poets in cupcakes forced me to do some serious research.  Or actually just a little search on Google.  It turns out that April is National Poetry Month and the first full week in April is Take Your Poet to School Week.  Poet in a Cupcake Day is always the Friday of Take Your Poet to School Week.  The website I found suggested theme cupcakes such as a black frosted Raven cupcake for Edgar Allen Poe.  I think a cupcake shaped hand puppet that spouts poetry might be fun.  In the meantime, I happen to have a chocolate cupcake in my refrigerator.  Perhaps I should eat it for inspiration.  Yes, I think that's a good idea.  

salute!

 Today, according to my west coast brother, is Global Day of the Engineer in the middle of Engineers Week.  So I salute all of you hard-working, or retired, engineers of every kind.  Some of my best friends are engineers, not to mention my husband.  Although he always insisted he was a mathematician.  I asked my brother what kind of engineer he is.  He has worked at a TV station, behind the cameras for many, many years.  His response was that he plays an engineer on TV.  But, although I thought this response was funny, I wasn't quite satisfied with it.  So I Googled him.  Evidently he is a Broadcast Engineer.  So now I know, and he knows that I can track down his information.  Kind of spooky, isn't it?  Big sister is watching you!

It's back!

 Well, maybe it's back.  Some of you will remember a couple of years ago when I was tracking a white plastic grocery bag caught in the thorny branch of a locust tree along the river and visible from my balcony.  I reported on its status several times over the many, many  months that it clung to that branch.  Finally, finally after it had become somewhat shredded, a giant wind blew it away.  Never to be seen again?? Well maybe.  But last week I discovered a very familiar looking white plastic bag clinging to a locust tree branch along the river.  Now I'm not really saying that last year's bag has made it all around the world and back again.  This bag looks a little too fresh and clean.  But isn't it fun to imagine the trip it might have taken?  After all, those little bags are virtually indestructible.

What a man

 I just finished watching the first two hours of the new PBS program about Benjamin Franklin.  From what I've seen so far it seems he was brilliant, interested in everything, and an inventor.  Most of that was probably in our high school history books.  I knew he had played around with a kite in a lightening storm but I didn't remember that his experiments led to the invention of the lightening rod which saved a lot of churches and barns from burning down.  I did not know that he had only two years of school.  He went to work in his father's candle factory when he was 10.  Definitely a rags to riches story.  These two hours got us to 1775.  What I found most interesting was that he was sort of an unintentional rebel.  He had spent years in London trying to make the relationship of the colonies to England more equitable.  It reminded me of Martin Luther, who didn't set out to break away from the Catholic church; an unintentional protestant.  Stay tuned.  Next week, the American Revolution.

Communion Covid style

 I assisted in serving Communion today for the first time in about three years.  But what a difference those years have made.  Years ago, when I helped serve Communion in our little chapel I carried the trays containing the delicately balanced tiny little chalices and practically held my breath the whole way for fear of spilling a full tray of juice.  Then came a time of going up front for Communion, intinction style.  When I served, I merely stood holding a chalice (full size) while people took a chunk of bread and dipped it into the grape juice.  The trickiest part was making sure people didn't get their fingers in the juice, or try to drink out of the chalice.  I only had one person try that.  Then came pandemic style Communion, do it yourself during couch church.  I liked it this way because at home I could have wine for Communion.  I guess there is that little bit of Lutheran still in me.  These days we are back to having Communion together in the sanctuary, but in the post-pandemic style, which is actually a throw back to the old Presbyterian style, the congregation stay seated in their pews and we who serve bring the elements to them.  But what made serving today so nice is that, instead of a tray of little glasses full of juice and another tray of bread chunks (we don't do wafers), I only had to carry one light tray containing lightweight plastic cups containing a chunk of bread (gluten free option in the middle) with a little juice dropped onto it.  So easy, no fuss, no muss.  I may volunteer to do it again some time???

It seemed like a good idea

 A local dry cleaning company has offered a pick up and delivery service for several years, where I live, but lately they have improved the service by making it door to door, for the same price as if you took clothes to one of their stores.  I had been meaning to take advantage of this service for a couple of weeks since I met their delivery person in the elevator.  On Tuesday, I met her in the elevator again, and deciding to take advantage of the situation, asked her to come to my apartment to pick up my dry cleaning.  She came, I handed over two blazers and a sweater, gave her my credit card info, and off she went, promising that the clothes would be returned clean by Friday.  I told her I would be gone most of the day on Friday and she assured me that was no problem, she would leave the garments hanging on my door.  The door knocker is a handy place to hang something.  She said she did it all the time and never had a problem. I believed her because I think my neighbors are honest and I can't imagine why they would want my clothes.  A note here, when I was selling real estate and someone said there would be "no problem" there always was.  Sure enough, Friday came and went and no clean garments showed up on my door knocker.  This morning I called the delivery lady (DL) and asked, nicely, where my dry cleaning was?  She said she had delivered it yesterday as promised.  I said it wasn't here.  All of this by texts of course.  I called the office here to see if it had been delivered to the wrong door and turned in at the office.  No such luck.  Then I heard back from my DL.  She had indeed delivered it to the wrong door, actually the right door but in the wrong building.  I called the office again, to let them know the lost had been located, and before I could head over to the other building, our helpful assistant manager showed up at my door with the clothes.  So all is well. But later today I received a survey request from the dry cleaners, asking me to rate their service.  Maybe I'll just ignore it, or maybe I'll suggest they read my blog.  

a very strange musical

 I think it was allergies.  I took Claritin and that has helped a lot.  I'm improved enough that I was able to go with a friend to a very funny show at the Civic this evening.  It was a musical called Forbidden Broadway and consisted of many familiar musical tunes with brand new lyrics.  Two of my favorites were "Ambition" to the tune of the song "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof and "Tomorrow" from Annie, sung by a 30 year old cigarette smoking Annie bemoaning the fact that she hadn't had a starring role or any role since she was ten years old.  She was still wearing her Annie dress.  All in all a very funny show.  There was one small problem, but not with the show.  The programs were available as a paper copy or you could scan the QR code (I think that's what those little squares are called) and read it on your phone.  Not thinking of the consequences I let the lady beside me scan the code from my program.  Then she kept her phone on during the whole first act.  My eyes are pretty light sensitive and it was really bothering me.  So, at intermission, I very nicely asked her to turn off her phone or turn it at a different angle.  I figured the worse she could do is say no, but she was very nice and turned off her phone.  In return, I gave her my paper program which I should have done in the first place.  But I was able to enjoy the second act without that glare in my eyes.  Since theaters always ask the audience to turn off their phones they might want to reconsider encouraging people to download the programs on their phones.  Just a thought.