say hello...

Today is World Parrot Day and also Speak in Complete Sentences Day.  In honor of these two days, my west coast brother has challenged me to teach a parrot to speak in complete sentences.  Now I don't happen to own a parrot but if I did I'd teach it to say "Hello." which, if I remember my high school grammar classes correctly, is a complete sentence.  The fact that I remember any grammar is pretty surprising, considering that it was probably during a grammar class that I made my ultimate career decision.  For the first three years of high school, I debated with myself whether I would be a math teacher or an English teacher.  As far back as I could remember, I had always wanted to be a teacher, and, at 5'10" I considered myself too tall to teach elementary school.  Too much bending over little bitty desks.  I was pretty good at Math and English but, after an abysmal year of chemistry (which I readily admit might have been fascinating in the hands of a different teacher) I took one side step off the academic track my senior year, and took two semesters of art instead.  That was when I decided that teaching art would be way more fun that teaching grammar or calculus.  And I was right.  But back to that parrot.  I don't own a parrot but my next floor neighbor does.  In addition to "Hello" it can also say "Shut the door." and "Feed the dog."  But best of all it can exactly mimic the ringing of her cell phone.  Such a clever bird.

driving through the night

 A friend of mine and his son are driving to Florida to attend a family memorial service.  They left this evening and will be taking turns and driving through the night.  That caught my attention because my husband was a great believer in driving through the night and I have many memories of those drives.  Most of these drives took place when we were young and so were our children. We were traveling in our VW bus camper conversion in those days.  We traveled in that van for 13 years, and many many miles, eventually visiting every state in the contiguous states.  Often our motivation for driving through the night was to leave as soon as my husband got off work in the evening in order to get every minute possible out of our two week and later three week vacations.  Usually our night drives were heading west and driving through the flat states.  Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas (depending on if we were heading north west or south west) were states that we could drive through in the dark without feeling like we were missing too many stretches of fabulous scenery.  Since we were from northern Indiana where we do flat very well, we were anxious to put flat miles behind us and get to the mountains.  I do remember a couple of interesting incidents during those drives.  Once, on a perfectly straight, innocent looking stretch of interstate, when I was driving, something, I think it was a wild hubcap, flew up from the side of the road and broke our right headlight.  I am proud to say that I did not loose control of the car although I was startled, but we did waste part of the following day getting the headlight replaced.  The other incident that I remember clearly was coming to a ford over a river (I believe my husband, who was driving, had decided to take a short cut) only to discover that the ferry was closed for the night.  Since we were in our camper it wasn't a hardship to sleep there for the rest of the night, and I didn't mind it at all.  Drive carefully, all you night drivers.  

Good eating...

 Today is "National Biscuit Day."  As it happens, I'm very fond of biscuits, especially when they are covered with a good sausage gravy and topped with an egg over easy.  I always order my egg 'over easy' when I'm eating in a restaurant because I never seem to accomplish that feat when cooking my own eggs at home. I can scramble eggs, also fry (with a hard center) and hard boil, super easy.  But I never seem to accomplish an egg over easy with a nice gooey center. Either the yolk breaks or the yolk cooks until it's too hard, perfectly edible, but not quite as good as over easy.  In case you're interested (and you might be if you are also a fan of biscuits and gravy) I have recently had biscuits and gravy at Junk Ditch, the Blue Bird Cafe, Divine Encounter Cafe, Joanna's Family Restaurant and Bob Evan's.  All very good but it's hard to beat Bob Evan's.  Is it breakfast time yet?

good eating..

 My west coast brother has informed me that today is International Hamburger Day and also National Brisket Day, so if you are still trying to decide what to have for supper there are a couple of ideas.  I, on the other hand, had a lovely lunch today featuring Colombian and Mexican food (including rice pudding which I hadn't had for years).  The lunch was served after our annual worship service in which all of the Presbyterians in the area gather to worship together, outside, in celebration of Memorial Day, and this year also Pentecost.  The location varies; this year we were at Amistad Presbyterian, our Hispanic congregation.  The Korean Presbyterians and the English speaking congregations were also well represented.  The Burmese Presbyterians were not able to join us because of a scheduling conflict, so I only had to listen to three different languages.  Not surprisingly, in addition to the obvious English, I understood a few words in Spanish, but nothing in Korean.  Interestingly though, everyone seemed to understand the invitation to join the host church members in their dining hall to eat Colombian and Mexican food after the service.  They almost ran out.  Which is a good problem to have when you've spent hours cooking really delicious food.  Just to finish off my multicultural day, this evening I ate Italian pasta left over from a recent visit to Casa's.  Such a delicious day with not a burger or brisket in sight.

happy birthday...

 Today we celebrated my oldest granddaughter's 21st birthday.  Her birthday is actually not until next week but she will be leaving for her summer job, an eight hour drive away, on Monday.  Even though it was a few days early her other grandma had provided some wine for the occasion.  This wasn't quite the thrill it might have been, since my granddaughter has just come home from a semester studying international business in France.  As she reminded us several time, it had been legal for her to drink in France.  I haven't heard all the details but I do believe she had a very good time in Europe.  And it wasn't all spent studying.  Since  she is very fluent in French, she was able to travel easily, and she and friends spent weekends on the Riviera and in Florence among other places.  I am a little envious.  The furthest I travelled when I was 20, going on 21, was to Mishawaka, with side trips to South Bend, for my first teaching job.  Ah well, we always want more for our children and grandchildren than for ourselves.  

ready for camp

 Week after next our church will hold our MAD2 Camp, for the third year.  I haven't heard the enrollment numbers yet but we cap it at 100, and the last two years were full.  MAD2 stands for music, art, dance and drama, and the kids seem to have a really good time with it.  The reason this is on my mind is because I took some refresher training in my part of the camp.  Reminding me which switches are which.  I think I have the very best job.  I don't shepherd children from class to class, nor do I lead any classes or prep snacks or sign people in and out.  All of these are great and necessary jobs but mine is the best.  I got assigned this job three years ago almost by accident because people thought I knew a little bit about the theater.  My job is to open up the theater, turn on the lights, turn on the sound, set up the microphones and be sure their batteries are charged.  Then I sit at the large desk with all the controls (it looks really impressive to the little kids) keep an eye on everything and enjoy watching the classes learn their dances and songs.  Yay, camp.  

sing on Willie...

Just got home from a Willie Nelson concert at the Foellinger Theatre.  We would have been home an hour ago but it was a sold out crowd and we ended up parked way out in the grass beyond the gravel.  Needless to say, it took us a while to get out of the parking lot.  But it was worth it.  Willie did not disappoint.  He's 90 now and sat down for the whole show, but I totally understood that.  Among my favorites were "You Were Always on My Mind" and "On the Road Again."  

Not a great picture but it proves I was there.

trying again...

 Yesterday I blogged in the morning, having missed the evening before.  I decided I should try blogging in the daytime instead of my usual late night blogs.  So here it is 9:30pm and I'm finally getting around to it.  So much for good intentions,  I used to have a 'round tuit' about an inch across and made of wood, like a wooden coin, but I've lost it.  Where is a round tuit when you need it?  But I digress.  Today, according to my west coast brother, is Brother's Day.  It's also National Escargot Day.  And while my brother is all grown up these days, and I do love him dearly, the combination of escargot (which is delicious) and brothers reminds me of the old nursery rhyme "Snakes and snails (aka escargot) and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of."  Of course little boys grow up and out of such habits.  As adults and brothers they stop playing pranks, and instead provide their sisters with jokes such as "70 percent of the earth's surface is covered in un-carbonated water, proving that the earth is flat." You can groan now.

posting in the morning

 I usually write these blog entries in the evening, sometimes very late, depending on the day I've had but last night, after a busy weekend with company and a busy day. I went to bed early and forgot to blog.  I also realized this morning that I had only had one cup of tea  all day yesterday, which is not nearly my full quota of caffeine for a day.  This may also explain my forgetfulness.  However, since I am blogging in the morning I can let you know what special day this is, allowing you plenty of time to celebrate.  So here we go - today is National Library Workers Day, National Lucky Penny Day and  World Turtle Day.  Also, we should never forget that May is Better Sleep Month.  So go to the library, give your favorite librarian a shiny penny, pat a turtle and take a nap.

a double feature...

 I have an out of town guest this weekend and she and I and another friend saw two excellent shows this afternoon.  First, at 2:00pm, we saw the final performance of "Clybourne Park" at First Presbyterian Theater.  It was an excellent play, dealing with racism and gentrification with humor and some very telling dialogue.  After that show we headed west to Jefferson Point to see the movie "Book Club 2" starring four well known actors, all in their late 70s or early 80s. It was a delightful story of love and marriage and love and no marriage between people in their 70s.  A geriatric chick flick.  While I thoroughly enjoyed the story line, I was also entranced by the scenery,  Most of the movie took place in Italy with wonderful scenes from Rome, Venice and Tuscany.  It really got me in the mood for a trip to Italy that a friend and I are taking in September.  Even if you're not heading for Italy any time soon. I do recommend the movie, especially if you are a woman of a certain age.

Curses, foiled again!

That's what I suspect the parents who objected to the play "Marian or, The True Tale of Robin Hood" are saying now.  Rather than cause the  cancellation, after it had been approved and cast, of a play that they felt had too much LGBTQ+ content, they provided the impetus for nation wide coverage of the story of how the students produced this play, and the presentation of the play to a huge audience at Foellinger Theater, much larger than if they had just put it on as a Carroll High School production.  The play itself was a delight.  Think Shakespeare with women disguised as men and misidentifications (a frequent theme) and you get the feel of it.  In my opinion the wicked King John stole the show but every actor did an excellent job.  Kudos also to the creators of the stage set and everyone involved in the scene changes.  As far as the LGBTQ+ content there may have been innuendos all through the play that I didn't pick up on but only one scene contained overt gay material.  Two women admitted to being in love with each other and one woman admitted to feeling like not a man, not a woman, but just a person.  I thought the scene was endearing.  And there were several heterosexual romances going on throughout the play. To top off a perfect evening, it was announced at the end of the play that enough money had been raised to put on this play that each of the 28 students involved in the production would receive a $1,000 scholarship. 

ride on...

 Today is National Bike to Work Day.  My west coast brother, who lives many miles of hills and dips away from his work place, was glad to tell me that he had the day off today.  I was pleased for him.  My other brother, two years younger than me, and I got our first real bikes when our family moved out to our country property.  He was 8 and I was 10.  Since our mom was firmly against us riding along the busy road in front of our house, we spent a lot of time riding up and down our driveway and along the path to the barn.  It was slow going but we did learn.  Another glitch was that my brother's legs weren't long enough to reach the pedals on the red boy's bike so I rode that one while he learned on my lovely blue girl's bike.  Since we were pretty isolated where we lived, it wasn't as embarrassing as it might have been.  Eventually we learned, and he grew into the boy's bike, and we were allowed to ride to neighbors' houses and the ditch and woods where we liked to play.  Such freedom.  Since I became an adult most of my bike riding has been done on stationary bikes.  I bought one during the pandemic and assembled it in my bedroom.  I rode a lot of miles on that bike during the most restrictive times of the pandemic, and while I can't claim that it was the only thing that saved my sanity, it certainly helped.  These days, near where I live downtown, there are bikes available to rent and also zippy little scooters.  I have been tempted to try both of these but common sense, and a healthy fear of breaking something, has held me back.  If I ever do try riding a bike again (somewhere very private with no one watching) it will have to be on a bike with no gears, that stops when I back pedal.  Unlike with cars, where I gladly went from standard to automatic transmission, I have never wanted gears or hand breaks on my bike.  

eating well....

 Well, at least eating deliciously.  A friend and I decided to go to Coney Island for supper before we headed to an evening meeting.  Now, I like to eat good nutritious food, and I'm pretty sure Coney Island chili dogs qualify.  I mean they include a vegetable, chopped onions. meat, bread, spices, all the basic food groups, right?  Having eaten so nutritiously (two hot dogs each) and having a little time to spare, we then walked over to Kilwin's ice cream and candy shop on Main Street.  If you haven't tried it you really should.  There we sampled the fudge, delicious, and enjoyed candy and decaf coffee for dessert.  I'm sure there were plenty of natural ingredients used so it was all good, right?  Well, maybe not, but it's really good to indulge every once in a while. 

 According to my west coast brother today is the "International Day of Light."  When I read this in his text, I assumed it had something to do with this time of year when days in the northern hemisphere contain more hours of light than darkness.  But when I checked my assumption by doing some Google research, I discovered that the day commemorates a very different kind of light.  This date commemorates the anniversary of physicist and engineer Theodore Maiman's first successful laser operation in1960.  It didn't say but I'm guessing it was a surgery involving an eye.  More broadly, this holiday celebrates innovative solutions to international problems.  My only personal involvement with lasers includes using a laser pointer when making a power point presentation and teasing my cat with the moving red dot.  Neither use was remotely as important as laser surgery but giving the cat something to chase was a lot of fun.  However, I was told recently that I shouldn't have teased my cats that way because it frustrates them when they can't catch the dot.  I will never do it again - an easy promise since I don't have a cat.

cookie time

Today is "National Chocolate Chip Day" which seems to me to be a very fine day to celebrate.  We were reminded at exercise class today that dark chocolate is actually good for you, in moderation, so maybe it should be National Dark Chocolate Chip Day.  But, no matter your preference, dark or milk, I think you will agree that they are delicious stirred into cookie batter, and baked of course.  You shouldn't eat raw cookie dough, although I personally think licking the spoon must be allowed.  

Many years ago, when I was selling real estate, I went on an afternoon appointment to list a home for sale.  When I got to the house, the homeowner invited me in and asked if I would like refreshments.  I generally refused food when on an appointment, keeping things professional you know, (and less chance to spill anything) but I had noticed a delicious scent when I entered the house (this seller had been through this before). When she said "I have milk and chocolate chip cookies." I accepted graciously.  I mean, I don't care how old you get, or how far removed from your school days, who can refuse milk and cookies at 3:00 in the afternoon?

Dance on.

 Happy Mothers Day to all you moms out there, and, in celebration I guess, today is, according to my west coast brother, "Dance Like a Chicken Day."  Now, I'm not sure if it's the same, but the only dancing like a chicken I have ever done is at weddings.  It was called the Chicken Dance and was a quite exuberant dance, not graceful or beautiful, just silly actually.  On a different matter, but still chicken related, some of my family and I had a delightful lunch to celebrate the day, and ended up playing some card games.  One of my granddaughters, who has just finished her freshman year in college (straight As, thank you very much), had brought along a regular deck of cards with a silly chicken pictured on the back of the cards.  She wanted me to teach her Gin Rummy, which I have recently learned, until I explained that it does not involve drinking gin. So we moved on to other games.  There were six of us playing and we started with a game of Sevens which the other grandma and I won handily.  Then we moved on to Go Fish which we renamed Go Chicken in honor of the cards and, as it turned out, this Dance Like a Chicken Day.  All in all a delightful day full of good food, good conversation, and lots of laughs.  I hope you all enjoyed the same.  

my flock

 

Today is "World Migratory Bird Day."  Happily I have my own flock of migratory birds.  Well, not really my own, but they do live in and around the river I see from my balcony.  Over the years that I've lived here I've seen many interesting shows put on by my Canadian Geese, or more correctly Canada Geese (you can Google the explanation for the name difference).  I saw a rather loud and violent territorial dispute between two ganders, on land and in the water for more than ten minutes.  Then they flew off.  I w ill never know who won.  Of course there are always the loud honking, barking  conversations that they seem to like to hold during the night, but my favorite scene happened one sunny morning.  I walked out on my balcony with my morning tea in time to see a large mama goose swimming upriver with fluffy little chicks behind her.  There seemed to be quite a few chicks so I started counting.  There were 21 chicks, all in a perfectly straight line, evidently playing follow the leader.  Maybe it was early training for flying in formation or maybe the lead goose was running an avian pre-school. This procession was followed by three adult geese swimming beside and behind the last of the chicks.  It was a beautiful thing to watch.  

poetry

 My west coast brother has informed me that today is National Nutty Fudge Day and Limericks Day.  Now I do not make fudge but I know someone who does so I will leave the nutty fudge creation to him.  On the other hand I can share with you a limerick that I sang (and I do use the term very loosely) on stage at Arena Dinner Theater last year.  Please bear in mind that the role I was playing was that of a drunken, over the hill actress.  Here's the limerick:

                    There was a young lady from Wheeling

                    Who had a remarkable feeling.

                     She wasn't quite sure his intentions were pure,

                    As she lay gazing up at the ceiling.

Eat up..

 According to my west coast brother, today is "Eat What You Want Day" and also "Hostess Cupcake Day." Which may give you an idea of something you might want to eat.  Actually it's been a delicious day for me, which started even before I knew what a special day this is.  A friend and I had brunch this morning at a little coffee shop called A Divine Encounter Cafe, on Coliseum Blvd.  I had never been there before.  'Biscuits and gravy' is one of my favorite brunch dishes so I like to try it out at new places.  The Divine Encounter biscuits and gravy were excellent with fluffy biscuits, really good sausage gravy and an over-easy egg on top.  I will go back and order it again.  Then in keeping with the theme of eat what you want, I went to Culvers for ice cream later today.  I had their Turtle Sundae, yummy.  So I have done my best to celebrate this truly worthwhile day.  

ah technology...

 "Bring your laptop." they said, "and bring your phones." And so I did as requested and brought my laptop and phone to the meeting this evening to be trained on a new-to-us church record keeping system.  Sadly, although I'm sure it is a good system, only about half of us in the room were able to log on to the parts of the program we were supposed to be learning about.  After some frustration and lots of one on one assistance, the program still wasn't working for many of us.  The projection on the big screen really wasn't easy to read and finally the person presenting the info told us that he will record a video and send it to us so we can work on this at home and take all the time we need.  I felt a great deal of sympathy for our presenter, largely of the 'been there, done that' kind.  Back in the olden days when I was training new classes of real estate agent as they joined our company, I could just about plan on some glitch.  Projecting forms, no problem; showing educational videos, piece of cake; but when it came to projecting and demonstrating the ins and outs of the computerized listing system (which was, admittedly, still rather new) even though I used the program every day, I could just about depend on something going wrong with a live presentation.  So, as I said, I felt a great deal of sympathy for out presenter this evening.  It was frustrating not to get the training we had come for, but getting out of the meeting 45 minutes early did help ease the pain.  

woops!

 I forgot to blog last night. Put it down to a senior moment, but sadly, a missed opportunity to blog about Great Lakes Awareness Day, National Coconut Cream Pie Day, and even National Give Someone a Cupcake Day.  Such great days, I'm sorry I missed them.  However today is National Teacher Day, Hooray for Buttons Day, Lost Sock Memorial Day and Tear the Tags off the Mattress Day.  I'm not sure about that last one; I'm pretty sure that tearing those tags off is a jailable offence. I have many friends and family members who are or were teachers and I salute them all. Buttons are very handy so it seems ok to celebrate buttons.  But the saddest thing is to remember lost socks.  We have all experienced this kind of jarring loss.  24 socks go into the washer and dryer and 23 come out.  It is a mystery.  As one of my all time favorite authors, Erma Bombeck once noted "It is a sad but true fact that socks do not mate for life."

another review

 A friend and I saw a fun play at Arena Dinner Theater this afternoon.  It was their matinee performance with dinner which is always a good time.  The play was "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie.  I am pretty sure the novel on which it is based was first titled "10 Little Indians" but the title had been changed several years ago.  It is the story of ten people invited to a weekend party at a fine house on an island.  By the time they discover that they are trapped there, they start to die mysteriously, one by one.  I thought I had figured out who the killer was until he was the 7th to die.  The play got a little wordy at times, but all in all a very pleasant experience.  

enjoy your food...

 According to my west coast brother today is International No Diet Day and also, for the younger set, No Homework Day.  On the other hand, if by homework they actually mean housework I can celebrate that.  So I have spent the whole day assiduously avoiding dieting and housework and instead have entertained myself with the coronation of the new king of England and the Kentucky Derby and the several races leading up to it.  My horse did not win, but, since I had not bet any money on it I was not too upset.  I only picked it because I liked its lovely gray color.  So no dieting and no cleaning, a practically perfect Saturday.

It's rhubarb time.

 On Thursday a friend and I went shopping at an Amish bakery (needless to say I bought some goodies there) and then at an Amish market.  I bought more goodies at the market including some really excellent apple butter.  On the plus side I zipped right through the candy aisle without picking anything up.  But as I examined the fresh produce, I found rhubarb, lovely long fresh stalks of it.  I quickly gathered up five stalks to take home.  Now I knew, deep in my heart, that I would probably not get around to making that rhubarb into pie, but sweet memories won out over common sense.  Just looking at that rhubarb reminded me of going out into the garden with my brother and a salt shaker, snapping off stalks of rhubarb, sprinkling it with salt and eating it raw.  It was delicious. A true taste of spring.  I also remember a visit with my west coast brother and sister-in-law, when she cut one very tall stalk of rhubarb from an old growth bunch and made a truly delicious pie.  And of course there was my step-mom's strawberry rhubarb pie - outstanding.  But as I said, I knew deep down that i really wouldn't be making a pie so today I searched Google for rhubarb recipes and found a super easy recipe for rhubarb sauce.  Basically, bring chopped up rhubarb and pure maple syrup to a boil for two minutes, turn off the heat, let cool, refrigerate or freeze.  I knew immediately that this was my kind of recipe.  The directions said that this sauce is good with granola and yoghurt.  I'm sure it will be, but since I didn't have those items on hand, and in the interest of fair reporting I am eating it now on vanilla ice cream.  It is really good and I'm feeling rather virtuous because I found a use for that rhubarb.  And oh, by the way, I did hold back a piece of one stalk to eat raw with salt. Just as good as I remembered.

May 4th

 May the Force be with you.  Or, as it's celebrated today, May the 4th be with you.  Star Wars geeks, and I proudly count myself among them, consider this to be a very special day.  My love of Star Wars goes all the way back to the very first movie in the series which was Episode 4, still the very best in the series in my opinion.  When the movie came out, my husband and I took our son, age 5, and our daughter, age 3 and went to the movie.  My daughter settled down on my lap and slept through the whole show.  On the other hand, our son quite literally sat on the edge of his seat, and watched the whole thing, completely enraptured.  It was as much fun watching him enjoying it as it was to watch the movie itself.  It was the beginning of his life long love affair with all things space related.  Several years of Space Camp sealed the deal and he has spent much of his adult life working at space centers and in other related fields.  I am happy to report that whenever a new Star Wars movie comes to a theater he and I make it a point to see it together,  Sweet memories.  

A day for emotions

Today is The Great American Grump Out, obviously a day to moan and groan about anything you want to.  Either out loud or to yourself. You could even make a list (I'm a list maker by nature) of everything you can think of to complain about.  Then take that list, crumple it up, toss it, and go outside and enjoy Garden Meditation Day. In case you're reading this in the morning, tomorrow is not too late to meditate, and it may be even warmer for meditating than it was today.  If your meditating leads to a little weeding, that's ok too.  Weeding is great therapy for getting the grump out.  Enjoy the sunshine or the moonlight.

love those sibs

Today is Brothers and Sisters Day, also know as Sibling Appreciation Day.  I really do appreciate my brother/sibling.  Through the years he has done many great things for and with me.  Sending me notice of special days is just one example.  We attended The Sound of Music together when it first came out, and we both cried when we got to the end of Lassie Come Home when I read it to him.  And of course I've had many wonderful visits with him and my sister/sibling-in-law who I really do appreciate.  He chose very wisely when he married her.  I never feel more 'at home' that at their home.  The only thing that comes to mind that I really didn't appreciate was the day he wrapped a dead snake around the gas pedal in my car; but then, some years later, after a delicious Mexican dinner, my one-year-old daughter had a diaper explosion all over him. so we're probably even.

one more report

 This will be my last report on the first grader I tutor.  Next week will be our last class until next fall, and it will be party time.  I do hope I will work with him again next year.  It often works out that way.  Today we did the usual reading and some coloring and some work with numbers.  I had him read the number chart 1-100 just as a review and was so pleased when he read it straight through.  At the beginning of the year he only recognized his numbers to 15.  Two things happened in our time together today that I think are worth mentioning.  First, soon after he came in the room, he told me he thought he didn't want to go to college anymore.  I agreed that he didn't have to go to college, and told him about my grandson who didn't go to college and has a good job where he gets to drive trucks around.  My little guy thought that sounded ok but then he asked me very seriously "If I don't go to college will I still grow up?"  I assured him he would.  Then, a little later I watched him print his name.  When we started the year he, being left handed, would write his name mirror image, right to left, with all letters reversed.  Through the year he has learned to write it correctly, left to right. Today, as I watched, he wrote his name right to left, but with the letters correctly printed in reverse order so when he finished it was correct.  Very tricky.