I'm writing this blog while waiting for little goblins and princesses to come to our door. This is a short experimental blog to make sure I can blog while we are on our trip.
I'm told I won't be able to blog every day but that's ok. If I can touch base every once in a while and maybe send pictures of camels or pyramids I'll be satisfied.
Meanwhile, happy Halloween everyone.
My west coast brother has informed me that today is "Checklist Day," "Buy a Donut Day," "Pumpkin Bread Day," "National Candy Corn Day" and, last but nor least, "Sugar Addiction Awareness Day." You will notice that the middle three 'days' listed all involve some amount of sugar ingestion, which makes me think that perhaps SAAD should come well before the Halloween candy eating spree begins, or after, to allow us to kick the habit.
My spouse and I have quite a bit of self control but we both admit to having snitched a few little candy bars from the Halloween bucket in the foyer. Thank goodness it will all be gone by tomorrow evening.
On the other hand "Checklist Day" is very appropriate since we have spent almost all day packing and checking things off our lists in preparation for our trip. We did take a little time out to get our RSV shots. One thing off our list.
But while it works for me, I am also wondering about the timing of this special day. We all know who 'makes a list and checks it twice' so why aren't we celebrating "Checklist Day" in December?
Although now that I think about it, I have recently seen Christmas decorations in some local stores.
Start making your lists.
My spouse and I have been working hard to have everything packed, and all necessary tasks done before we leave on our vacation next Monday. We don't want to put anything off until the last minute.
We have made our lists, decided what goes in which suitcases, tried to focus on things that really need to be done. As mentioned yesterday, we have all the money issues figured out. The laundry is done. We have had our flu shots and tomorrow we are getting our RSV shots. I have finished paperwork for a church committee and will sign a related paper on Sunday. We are both getting haircuts tomorrow and I have a mani/pedi scheduled for Friday.
We have made arrangements for my daughter to take us to the airport for our departing flight and for my son to pick us up when we return. My wonder spouse has spent lots and lots of computer time making sure our tickets and other paperwork is in order.
I wish I could wiggle my nose like Samantha the witch and all of my clothes would fold themselves and hop into the suitcase. Alas, I don't have that power, but slowly and surely, the clothes I plan to take are getting into the suitcase. The same for my spouse's packing.
And, possibly most important for our peace of mind we have, by working on it every day for an hour or so, finished the worst, most fiendish puzzle ever, with vast numbers of similarly colored and shaped pieces that almost but not quite fit.
Have you ever gone shopping for money? My spouse and I did just that this morning.
First the reason - we are leaving soon for a trip to Egypt. We are very excited about this, and really looking forward to it. It will be a Viking trip so we know it will be well managed. We will be staying in nice hotels for part of the time and cruising on the Nile for the rest of it. Doesn't that sound exotic?
In carefully reading and rereading all the pre-trip information provided we discovered that we will need visas to enter Egypt. But no problem, Viking associates will be at the Cairo airport to meet us and take us through the process. We can get our visas right there at the airport. However, the visas will cost us $25 each (a reasonable amount) and it must be paid in cash with US money no older than five years old. That means the bills must be marked Series 2021 (the most recent series number on US bills).
So today we went money shopping. Happily, there was no line at our branch bank and we had two tellers involved in the search for new money. They did have a lot of old money on hand, but very little new. Obviously, we were taking out more than $50 for the trip, but we really needed $50 in new money. We finally ended up getting it all in fives, but they are new fives, so the Egyptian authorities should be satisfied.
We have, wisely I think, set aside that $50 in an envelope so we don't accidentally spend any of it. More on this story when we get home.
Today is "National Black Cat Day." I discovered this for myself. I think my west coast brother failed to mention this special day to me for fear it would make his cat Ace, who is not black, jealous. That's ok Ace. You get all the other special cat days.
I'm wondering if Black Cats are celebrated five days before Halloween so they feel more special? Halloween itself is too crowded, but black cats are certainly an integral part of the festivities. I think that every Halloween card I sent out this year had a black cat on it somewhere.
My spouse and I have a black cat. Well, it's not actually our cat, but it certainly is black, and makes itself at home in our back yard frequently (almost daily). It likes to hide under the big evergreen and watch the birds at the bird feeders. It never actually goes after the birds, just watches. It appears to be extremely well fed so we don't feel any compulsion to feed it.
When I was a child I had a black cat. I named her Midnight. That was when we lived in the country and had a multiplicity of barn cats to tame and play with. Since then I've had several other cats in my life but Midnight was the only all black one. I think if I ever had another black cat I would name her Licorice. Happy day, all you black cats out there.
Over the years I have purchased many, many things to help support various schools. Fundraisers selling candy bars, popcorn, cookies and wrapping paper come to mind. One of the most memorable items I ever purchased was detergent. When my grandson was in high school marching band they sold detergent as a money maker. Not just little squeeze bottles of dish soap, mind you. What they were selling were 10 gallon tubs of detergent, two types, laundry and dishes.
At the time of the sale I was living in a tenth floor apartment. We had elevators of course, but I made sure that my grandson understood that he, or his dad, would have to lug those huge heavy tubs up to my apartment and into a storage closet. They did.
During the time that I lived in the apartment (8 years) I used up all of the laundry detergent but the dish soap tub (for hand washing dishes) came with me when I moved in with my wonder spouse two years ago. We are still pumping liquid soap out of that tub to refill our bathroom and kitchen soap dispensers.
In short, those tubs of detergent were a very good purchase.
Now, about a more recent purchase. A few weeks ago during our after church coffee hour I happened to sit down at a table with a young mother and her nine year old son named Teddy. He had with him a catalog of goodies and an order form for his school's fund raiser. I wanted to order something but the cookies didn't look very appealing to me. Toward the last pages of the brochure I found pretzels for sale. I thought they wouldn't be too fattening so I ordered one box of pretzel nuggets and one box of large traditional pretzels. Teddy and his mom brought the pretzels to church today. She had emailed me ahead of time so I had my check ready. I hadn't realized when I placed my order that the pretzels would come partially cooked and frozen.
This evening, following the directions on the box, my spouse heated four large pretzels (two for each of us) in our convection oven. He brushed melted butter on them, as directed. Then, after they were heated through, we sprinkled two of them with sea salt, included in the packages, and two with cinnamon sugar, also included.
We each enjoyed one salty and one sweet treat and they were delicious. This may be my favorite school fund raiser purchase ever. Maybe not as economical as the detergent but much tastier. I hope little Teddy is selling pretzels again next year. Everyone knows that calories consumed while eating for a good cause don't count.
My west coast brother tells me that today is "Hug a Sheep Day." Since he and his spouse raise sheep as well as goats, that's really not a difficulty for them. Of course getting sheep to stand still long enough to be hugged might be a bit of a problem. Lucky for all involved today is also "World Pasta Day."
If luring them to your side with pasta doesn't work, but I can't imagine that it wouldn't, it's also "National Greasy Food Day." I really don't know if sheep like greasy food but their wool is oily to the touch because of the lanolin so I would think they do like greasy food. Maybe I could ask my brother to test them with bacon or sausage.
One more thought about sheep. When I was a toddler the first stuffed toy I remember having was a stuffed sheep called Lambkins. Interestingly, it was covered in light blue leather, not wooly at all. That is the only sheep I have ever hugged or ever plan to.
But I am planning to eat some greasy pizza for supper. I like mine made with olive oil instead of tomato paste. Slippery but delicious.
My west coast brother told me that today is "Crazy Day." to celebrate my spouse and I went a little crazy with donuts. We do not typically eat donuts or other super sweet treats. We like apple bread and cinnamon bread, neither of which is very sweet.
Today was different. Maybe 'crazy' was in the air. As my spouse was leaving the house this morning for an appointment with his chiropractor, I casually mentioned that if he was passing anywhere near a donut shop on his way home I was in the mood for an apple fritter.
I don't remember twisting his arm very hard, but he did arrive home a couple of hours later with a bright red box from Tim Horton's. Inside were two apple fritters and two crullers.
We ate the apple fritters for lunch (so good) and had the crullers for a bed time snack (also delicious).
It is probably a really good thing that that donut shop is way across town. Temptation at a distance is a little easier to avoid.
Several days ago my spouse and I agreed that it was time to start putting together another jigsaw puzzle. This was a few days after we had agreed to wait to puzzle again until after our trip to Egypt which is coming up in 12 days.
We do enjoy working together on puzzles. It's a very companiable activity. However, we should have chosen our puzzle more carefully. We had a choice of two, one was very colorful but had 2000 pieces. The other was only 1000 pieces but is a picture of an M. C. Escher painting called Belvedere painted in 1958. I will show you a picture of it when we finish but if you can't wait, you can Google the artist and find the picture. You will see that the whole painting is done in shades of gray, not at all helpful for puzzling. The puzzle is as fiendish as the pictures with many many pieces that almost but don't quite fit.
In hind sight we should have said no to both of these, re-gifted them to someone at Christmas, and bought one we both liked at Hallmark. But it's too late now. We are approximately two fifths of the way through the puzzle, just too far along to quit. So we will continue working on this puzzle and we feel confident that we will finish it (before or after the trip).
Now that I think about it, a couple of 'fifths' of another kind might not speed things along, but could make the process more enjoyable.
My west coast brother has informed me that today is "Back to the Future Day." In case you've never seen them, the Back to the Future trilogy is a classic series of movies, in one of which there are flying cars.
My brother mentioned this to me and it made me think (or maybe daydream is more accurate). I would really like to have a flying car.
I'm not a speed demon but I do keep up with the flow of traffic. I'm not a pokey old lady driver. But some times I do feel like I'm driving an invisible car. "Cut Luci off at the corner." seems to be a new sport in this town. I never realized that it was ok to turn left from the right thru lane on the red light on dual lane highways but at least two people in the last month seemed to think that's ok now.
I really think a flying car would solve my problems and I could make it work. There are plenty of one way streets in down town Fort Wayne that would give me space for take offs and landings. Wayne Street, for instance, is never very busy. And to take off from home I've got both lengths of the cul de sac.
There has been much talk about electric cars and self driving cars recently. Can flying cars be far behind?
Add me to the list of buyers. As long as I watch out for drones and geese I should be able to handle this.
Today is "National Chicken and Waffles Day" according to my west coast brother who knows these things. Sadly, he refused to make waffles for his chickens. I bet they would have really liked some waffles. I like chicken and waffles (usually just one waffle) but today I enjoyed other good food.
For my spouse and me this was our first day of tutoring for this school year. It was wonderful to see our students from last year and resume our one on one sessions.
After we finished tutoring we went to Jefferson Point where my spouse needed to do some shopping. Sadly, the shop he wanted to buy some vitamins from was closed. Happily, we decided that, since we were in the area anyway we would go to Biaggi's for supper.
My spouse had his very favorite Fettuccine Alfredo, while I tried their special of the day. It was huge slices of mushroom (about the size of chicken tenders) deep fried in an excellent crunchy seasoned breading and served with two dipping sauces - marinara and white cheese. Soooo good. And of course we had their signature bread with olive oil, parmesan and pepper for dipping. Everything was delicious and I'm still feeling blissfully full.
It's a good thing we live way across town from Biaggi's. I would be tempted to eat there at least two or three times a week if we were closer. That would soon necessitate buying a whole new wardrobe and you know how inconvenient that would be.
On the other hand, Chico's and Von Maur are right there in the same shopping center.
Today was the big day! My spouse and I attended a reveal party to learn the gender of our upcoming great grandchild. I'm happy to report that my fruit salad was very well received. Guests from all sides of the family also enjoyed the apple pie we provided.
We didn't play any games, that will come later at the shower, but we were each given a frosted cake lollypop to bite into at the given time.
Before that, when we first came into the dining area, we were instructed to take and wear a beaded necklace, either pink or blue, to show our guess. The necklaces were pretty evenly divided. I chose blue.
I was surprised to learn that my grandson and his wife also didn't know the answer to the big question. When they had their most recent sonogram two days ago, they had deliberately asked the tech to write the gender down, put it in an envelope, which they then gave to a friend so the friend could create the cake lollypops with the correct cake color.
The cake was blue so now we all know....it's a BOY. I'm not sure if I like knowing the gender before the birth. Call me old fashioned, I rather liked being surprised. But it will make gift shopping easier. When asked where they are registered the answer was Amazon. My spouse was very pleased. He loves ordering things on line.
They have already named their son, his initials will be M. J. I'm not too crazy about the first name they have chosen so I may always call him M. J. He isn't due until March 10. They have plenty of time to think about names, but I will love him no matter what.
This evening my spouse and I went to Arena Dinner Theater and saw "The Mousetrap" by Agatha Christie.
Did you know that the play was first written as a short radio play for Queen Mary's 80th birthday, it was then rewritten as a short story and then as the play we know now.
The play has been performed in London's West End since 1952 (with a short pandemic pause). It is the longest running stage production, with over 30,000 performances in 73 years.
With all of that history, this evening was actually the first time I had seen the play. There are eight characters in the play, any one of which seemed capable of murder to me, but in the time honored tradition of this play, at the end of the performance, we were all asked to promise not to tell who the killer was.
So if you want to know 'Who dun it?' you will have to see the show. It's on through November 1.
My west coast brother informs me that today is "Edge Day." He also shared with me his favorite bit of edge humor - "They're edgy, like a pizza cutter, all edge, no point." I guess edge humor isn't abundant.
But thinking about edges, and I guess this is the day to do that, I've heard some sad stories about edges. The saddest of those involve people taking selfies while standing too close to an edge of the Grand Canyon. There are no good results when you plunge over one of those edges.
Actually, I think that cell phones are much more to blame than cliffs, wherever they are located. It may have happened but I really don't remember people standing at the edge of a cliff trying to take a selfie with a traditional camera.
But there are other kinds of edges. Have you ever had a paper cut? From the edge of a piece of paper, right? Knife edges can inflict the same sort of damage or worse. The more I think about it the more I realize that many edges aren't really great things.
So why exactly is today "Edge Day?" I don't know. Perhaps it's a cautionary day, not a celebratory day.
My west coast brother tells me that today is "National Learn a Word Day." It's also "National Dictionary Day." So I thought that I would flip through my dictionary, or better yet my Official Scrabble Dictionary and find an interesting new word to share with you.
Over the last ten years I've downsized and moved and got rid of many, many books. Evidently my dictionary and my Scrabble dictionary went into one of the donation bins. Not to mention a set of encyclopedias. When I moved out of my house I donated or sold shelves and shelves of books. Hyde Brothers' Books on Wells Street was my best friend. I eventually accumulated over $300 plus enough gift certificates for many Christmas stockings.
What I find interesting is that in the same ten years I have substituted Wikipedia and Google searches for dictionary and encyclopedia page flipping. As long as my cell phone is charged I have the world at my fingertips.
For example when I googled new words in 2025 I was given this list - skibidi, mousejiggler, delulu, doomscroll and touchgrass. I will leave it to you to find the definitions. Happy 'learn a word' day.
Today, according to my west coast brother, is a national day of celebration in the US for cheese curds, chicken cacciatore, lemon bars, mushrooms, roast pheasant, real sugar and red wine. Everything on the list sounds good to me but if nothing there appeals to you, in Canada it's National Shawarma Day and I don't think they will mind if we celebrate by eating shawarma with them.
I looked up shawarma because I had never heard of it. It is evidently a spicy chicken dish, readily available in the US as well as Canada. I guess we just don't celebrate it here. Further searching informed me that it's not only made with chicken. My spouse will be relieved to know this because he does not eat chicken. I have also found out that it's a middle eastern meat sandwich (lamb, beef, goat or chicken) and a lot like a gyro. It is evidently served in at least ten restaurants in and around Fort Wayne. Who knew?
If all of this talk of food is not thrilling your taste buds, it's ok. There are other things to celebrate today. If watching reruns on "I Love Lucy Day" doesn't make you smile, then perhaps "National Grouch Day" will suit you. Oscar is waiting for you on Sesame Street.
One way or another, there really is something for everyone today. My west coast sister-in-law is even celebrating the "International Day of Rural Women." I don't know if she celebrated by eating shawarma but they do raise chickens, goats and sheep so maybe???
I will check with them tomorrow.
My west coast brother tells me that today is "Be Bald and Be Free Day." Since he is bald he figures this is his day for sure. It's also "National Chocolate Covered Insects Day" but I would rather not dwell on that except to say "What a waste of good chocolate."
So let's consider baldness. I do think that being bald seems much more acceptable to most men than it did in years past. You don't see many men with comb-overs these days. Thank goodness. In fact many men, including my son, shave their heads regularly to keep the 'bald is beautiful' look.
I have one woman friend who deliberately shaves her head and on her bald looks good.
Of course sometimes baldness is the result of cancer treatments and that is nothing to make light of. However I do have two good friends who are in that situation and handle it beautifully. One of these friends showed up in church some months ago wearing a nicely styled purple wig. Everybody loved it. Another friend who has lost her hair wears attractive turbans that match her outfits.
My advice, enjoy your hair while you have it, but don't worry if it disappears. You know the old saying "Hair today and gone tomorrow."
My west coast brother informed me that today is "Columbus Day" and "Indigenous Peoples Day" which you probably knew and have already celebrated in your own ways. What you might not have known is that today is also "National M&M Day" and "Silly Sayings Day."
I'm not sure why it's M&M Day, singular, when I've never know anyone to eat only one. Maybe you're supposed to focus on your favorite color of candy shell coating. I like blue.
I decided, after some consideration, that I would focus this blog on silly sayings instead of candy - fewer calories. So here are some of my favorites. You may notice that several of these have farm themes. I readily admit that I grew up in the country.
..;..slow as molasses in January...
....like herding cats...
or one I just heard ..... like wrangling cats in a rat convention...
....wait 'til the cows come home...
.....when pigs fly....
.....when your chickens come home to roost....
Have an M&M...
...famous last words...
This looks like it should be easy.
In this morning's sermon our pastor stressed the importance of Sabbath, not the going to church Sunday morning activity that many of us think of as 'remembering the Sabbath' but the 'even God rested on the seventh day' kind of Sabbath.
By definition, Sabbath is a time of rest and renewal. Our pastor was stressing that we all should make time in our busy lives to take time for real rest (naps for instance).
I thought about this as I was driving home and realized something. Since I am 80+ and retired I do a little bit of volunteer work, but some parts of every day are available to me to do as I wish. Reading, weaving and spending time with my spouse are among my favorite pastimes.
I do believe I've entered the Sabbath of my life.
My wonder spouse and I are getting ready to leave for a trip to Egypt in a few weeks. Recently we received the expected information about what to pack, when we can get our visas, and guidelines about tipping, which we can do in US money.
We will get our visas when we arrive at the Cairo airport. The visas will cost $25 American each, cash only, (no problem there) and the bills can't be over four years old. In fact all of the US money we bring to Egypt can't be over four years old.
So our question is how do we know if our paper money isn't over four years old. I happen to have some crispy $10 bills in my possession because I'm getting ready to send Halloween cards to my nieces and nephews, and cash is so much easier to mail across the country than candy.
But I have carefully examined every inch of both sides of one of those crispy ten dollar bills and I can't find a date on it anywhere. In teeny tiny print it says 'series 2017a'. Does that mean the bill was printed in 2017? It certainly seems newer than that. But just now my spouse discovered that he has one that says series 2021. New Secretary of the Treasury, new series???
I guess when I go to my credit union sometime this week to get some traveling money I will ask the, hopefully very friendly and not too busy, cashier to give me only bills that are series 2021 or newer. But first I will confirm with him or her that the series number really does have something to do with the year it was printed.
I suppose I could Google this information but I think I'll choose to be educated in person for a change.
From time to time I write about good restaurants or special dishes I enjoy when eating out but this evening I must share one of my favorite home cooked meals.
People who know us know that my wonder spouse does a lot of the cooking. There's a reason for that - he's a really good cook.
This evening he prepared his world famous (or at least they should be) toasted cheese sandwiches. I serve as his sous chef, assembling all the ingredients for him.
It's a pleasure to watch him work. First he lightly toasts four slices of oatmeal walnut bread. Then he spreads Dukes mayonnaise on each slice of bread. Meanwhile the electric frying pan is preheating.
On two pieces he piles very thin slices of Cheddar, Swiss, Colby Jack and any other cheese we may have on hand. Then he sprinkles on real bacon bits, and on his sandwich chopped onion. After he puts on the other mayonnaise slathered pieces of bread, he coats the outside of the sandwiches with mayonnaise, pops them into the frying pan and gently fries them, first on one side, then the other, until the bread is golden brown and the cheese is melted and gently oozing out of sandwiches.
You notice I am not discussing potential weight gain or how many calories each sandwich contains. Great food must not be over-analyzed, simply enjoyed.
My west coast brother has told me that today is "National Sneakers Day." I'm not sure if this refers to sneaky people or comfy shoes. For the sake of keeping this a happy blog I'll focus on comfy shoes.
And I do know about comfy shoes. The shoes that I wear almost every day are Easy Spirit slip-ons or step-ins or whatever you want to call shoes that are easy on and off. But I'm not sure if they qualify as sneakers. They are great for walking but not at all good for running. Wikipedia says that sneakers are primarily designed for sports and other physical activities.
But why are they called sneakers? Why not trainers like in the UK?
Again according to Wikipedia, sneakers (rubber soled shoes) were first introduced in England in 1860 and where they were called plimsolls. Eventually they were introduce in the US where boys started calling them sneakers because the rubber soles were so much quieter to walk in than the traditional leather soled shoes.
I know this is true. We have a slate floor in my church and when I wear leather soled shoes I'm always surprised at how noisy they are.
I think that the next time I go to my favorite shoe store I'll ask if they have any plimsolls. It seems like a friendlier sounding name for shoes than sneakers. There is one clerk there who will probably know what I'm talking about. She looks to be about my age.
My west coast brother has informed me that today is "World Octopus Day." I like octopus or calamari as it's also called. Actually I just checked with Google and it turns out that calamari is from squid while octopus is from octopus.
So you may be saying "What's the difference?" Well, it seems that squids have ten appendages (eight arms and two longer tentacles) and a triangular head/body while octopuses have a round head and eight arms covered in suckers along their entire length.
As far as eating goes, I have had squid (calamari) and octopus and both are very good, but my favorite calamari related memory is from Spain. I was with a tour group traveling through Spain and Portugal. On one particular day we were having lunch at an outdoor restaurant on one side of a large open square with shops and restaurants along all four sides.
While I sat with friends enjoying the shade, the cool breeze, and a delicious calamari salad, I looked across the square and saw a hat hanging on display in a booth and decided I had to have it. So I finished my salad and bought the hat. It fit perfectly! It has traveled with me ever since.
During the last several months my spouse and I have done, or hired done, a lot of spiffing up of our house. It started with the new kitchen back in February and finished most recently with the painting of all the interior woodwork. It was already white but now it's shiny clean white.
But today we did what I consider the real finishing touch. We had new shades installed in our breakfast nook windows. Our main reason for this improvement was to be able to block out some of the glaring early morning sunshine which comes in our east facing window. Of course today was a cloudy, rainy day so we haven't appreciated the full effect yet. Here are a couple of pictures.
Today two friends and I met for lunch. Lunching with friends is always fun but it's even better when you also love the food.
I do love Thai food and we went to my favorite Thai restaurant "Spice and Herb." It's on Coldwater Road in case you're ever in the area.
Before I get to the food I should mention the Thai iced tea - rich dark semi-sweet tea with ice and two inches of heavy cream floating on top. So delicious!
I would never ever complain about their food but I do have a tiny concern about their portion sizes. I had my usual, and favorite, Pad Thai medium spicy today and it was as tasty as ever. However, after I had eaten all I could and boxed the rest, I brought home enough for my spouse and me to share for supper (I have no problem eating Pad Thai twice in one day). After we each ate our fill we still had enough left over for one lunch tomorrow. We may toss a coin for that. If you're keeping count that means that my one order of Pad Thai will have provided four filling meals.
As I said I'm not complaining, just applauding their generosity.
Night after night I write my blog, coming up with different topics every evening, some humorous, some a little more serious, but always something to write about, but tonight - nothing. It's not that I had a bad day. I've actually had a very good day.
We had a very interesting discussion in our Sunday school class. The curriculum we use is called Wired Word and I highly recommend it. Our discussion today was about how long the brain stays active after someone is declared physically dead. As I said it was an interesting discussion.
We celebrated World Communion Sunday in a combined service with our English speaking and Korean speaking members, very moving.
After church I visited with my cousin who celebrated her 90th birthday a few weeks ago. Our discussion topics ranged far and wide but, among other things, she told me she would like to get married again. I don't know if she has someone specific in mind but she might have.
After I got home with my visit with my cousin, my spouse and I went to Guadalupe's for a Mexican late lunch / early supper. Delicious! While I enjoy the food, my favorite part of eating there is their home made pineapple water. It's delicious.
The rest of the day included the obligatory Sunday afternoon nap, a rousing game of Mexican Train (he won) and some TV.
So there you have it, just an ordinary day, really not worth blogging about so I'll just go to bed.
From the opening chord of the "Star Spangled Banner" to the closing notes of the guest violinist's encore, this opening night did not disappoint. In fact, this first of the season Masterworks presentation by the Fort Wayne Philharmonic was awesome. I know that's an over used word but it really was.
The first piece, Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" was lovely and lyrical and quickly overshadowed by the second piece, Bartok's "Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin." This was a jangling, jarring, exciting, totally captivating piece which I enjoyed but don't care if I never hear again.
Finally, after the intermission came the piece I'd been waiting for - Brahms' "Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77." It was no lullaby but it was an amazing listening experience thanks to the guest violin soloist James Ennes playing the "Marsick" Stradivarius of 1715.
He began studying violin at the age of five, has received numerous awards and accolades, and since 2024, has been a professor of violin at Indiana University. I truly hope you have a chance to hear him play. He was phenomenal.
When I was dressing to go out to dinner with friends this evening (not a very dressy occasion but I wanted to look nice) I decided that gold colored jewelry would look fallish, appropriate for October, even though the high today was 86 degrees.
It was only after I clipped on my earrings and hung a gold chain with a topaz pendant around my neck that I realized each piece of jewelry I was wearing had a story attached.
The story of my gold wedding ring is obvious, although not everyone who sees it realizes that I've been married less that two years this time around. My wedding ring is practically brand new.
My gold earrings, beautifully made with posts and clips for security, are from the Gold Corner in Florence, Italy. I bought them when I was there in 2023. My first husband bought the gold chain for me for Christmas one year and the glorious topaz mounted in the pendant was one my father brought home from Brazil where he was stationed during WWII.
I am not a collector of antiques for antiques sake but I do like things that tell a story.
Our daughter-in-law shared some pictures today of her daughter (our youngest grandchild) who was on a third grade field trip to a farm where they had a corn maze.
They were cute pictures but they reminded me of an incident in my childhood that wasn't so much fun. I think I was about ten, we were living on our country five acres and three of those acres were planted in corn that year. It was late summer so the corn was taller than me. For some reason I went into the cornfield. I think I might have been following a cat; we always had several of them around.
Anyway, I went into the corn field and once in got turned around and couldn't find my way out. I did know that if I kept walking between two rows I would eventually come to the end of a row and see my way out of the field. I walked for what seemed like a long time and finally came out at the road on the far edge of our property. From there, of course, I could find my way home. It was another long walk but I made it.
In later years my brother would work for farmers walking through corn fields with other tall enough kids detasseling the corn. He got paid pretty well for this but I was not tempted, not even a little bit.
Lucky for me this incident did not in any way affect my love of corn on the cob. Please pass the butter.
My west coast brother informed me that today is "International Coffee Day" and also "International Day of Older Persons." Since we qualify on both counts and were out and about taking me to a doctor's appointment (something older persons do) my spouse and I celebrated with drinks from Biggby's. My spouse had his usual large black coffee - Biggby's best, while I had a frozen chai tea latte - so good.
My brother also informed me that today is "International Raccoon Appreciation Day." I don't know that I've ever met an international raccoon, and appreciation may be too strong a word, but there was one fearless raccoon that I admired a little.
It was in the summer of 2010 and I was still living in my 'country house' on one acre on Tonkel Road. I discovered that their was a ground hog living under my deck at the point where there was only about three feet of space between the deck and the ground. I knew it was a groundhog, because a few times I found it sunning itself on my deck. A few other times it left little 'gifts' to let me know it had been there. I was concerned that the groundhog might start gnawing on wrapped electrical cords that ran under the deck so I hired a man to trap her and set her loose in the woods somewhere far far away from my house. I think he was a 'pest control specialist' but I thought of him as the trapper.
The deal was he would trap it in a "live trap" that wouldn't hurt, and then haul it away. The first evening he set the trap with an apple as bait. In the morning there was a very contented looking raccoon sitting in the trap, not looking very distressed at all, just ready to be let out. The apple was gone of course. Since raccoons didn't usually come near the house I thought it was funny and wasn't too concerned. I let the raccoon out, the trapper came back and reset the trap for the next night. The next morning, you guessed it, the raccoon was back in the trap.
By the way, every time the trapper came back I owed him more money so he really didn't care if he was catching raccoons or groundhogs. Finally, finally, after about five nights, we caught the groundhog. The trapper assured me that he would let it go in a safe place far, far away, and I guess he did. I never had a problem with groundhogs again.
Frankly, by that point, I wouldn't have cared if he told me he planned to take it home and eat it.
