A tale of two Mustangs

 Episode 1:  "My First Parking Ticket"  It was the summer of 1966.  My roommate for my first two years of teaching and I decided to take a driving trip out west.  We borrowed my future first spouse's little green puptent, packed everything in her new bright red Mustang and headed west.  We camped in Yellowstone, saw the Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Cavern, and so much more, then stayed for a week at a dude ranch in Colorado where I rode 'Old Matt,' the slowest horse in the west. Finally we headed back to Indiana. It was my turn to drive. We were cruising along an Interstate in Illinois keeping up with traffic when my copilot said to me "I hope you're not speeding.  I think that was a police car back there."  Sure enough, as we came over a rise we saw the trap.  There was a police car with flashing lights parked along the side of the road and a busy policeman flagging down everyone who came over the rise.  As I recall, he had 27 cars lined up, including ours and was writing tickets as fast as he could.  We and all of the others who were not Illinois residents were immediately led off to court.  Our fine was $86, quite a bit of money in 1966.  We did manages to find the money between the two of us, luckily had put gas in the car a few miles back, and made it home with $2 to our names.  And that's the story of my first speeding ticket.

Episode 2 "The Only One Available"  Many years later, single again after my first husband's death a girlfriend and I decided to go to Hawaii for a week.  She had a 'time share' where we would stay so I agreed to take care of the car rental.  We met in the Honolulu airport, having flown from different cities, and proceeded to the car rental place.  It was late evening when we got there and we were told that the only car available was a blue Mustang convertible.  Aw, so sad.  We decided that it was acceptable and had a wonderful time driving around Oahu, seeing different sights every day.  Since my name was on the rental contract I did all the driving.  So much fun and no traffic tickets this time.  

a slight delay

 I must postpone writing about  my history with zippy little sports cars until tomorrow because today was a very important race of another kind.  Every year as part of German Fest here in Fort Wayne the National Weiner Dog Race is held.  I have a great interest in this because, when my children were young, we had two miniature dachshunds. They were good runners but only when chasing squirrels.  But enough about Remington and Heidi.  Two by two, today's little dachshunds (a very German dog) made their way down the track (a two lane straight run about 100 feet long) enticed by treats or toys held by one of their owners, while someone else holds the dog at the starting line until the MC shouts ready, set, go!  Some run their little legs off, ears flapping wildly while others merely saunter down the track, and others have no interest in running whatsoever.  By the end of the preliminary elimination the competitors who are left, first the final eight then the final four and last, the two top dogs, are really racing, and it's a joy to behold.  In case you're wondering if size matters, it's all about speed.  The final winner was actually one of the smallest dogs in the competition. If you haven't ever attended this event you really should.  Having a beer and brats at the food pavilion before hand probably improves the enjoyment.

I got a picture of this cute little miss after the race.

Waiting a the starting line, giving their dogs pep talks.

As you can see, there was a large crowd to cheer the wiener dogs on.

We're back...

 My husband and I just got back from a three day trip to Wisconsin for his 14 year old grandson's eight grade graduation.  We had a wonderful family visit with so much great food that I still feel happily satiated.  The ceremony itself was very well done.  There were 94 students in the class and I was impressed with the organization and presentation of the ceremony.  With all of the speeches, music performed by the band and the choir, and certificates awarded, the whole event was over in 45 minutes.  Well done everyone.  Then dinner at the country club which was elegant and delicious.  I must tell you here that my daughter-in-law is a masterful organizer and hostess. Her table settings, at home and at the country club, were a joy to behold, even before the food was served.  On a purely selfish note, one of the highlights of yesterday morning was a driving tour of downtown and suburban Milwaukee that my spouse's  son took us on. That may not seem like much of a treat until I tell you that it was a glorious warm sunny day and he drove us around in their 1966 cherry red Mustang convertible with the top down.  It was bliss.  It also brought back some memories such as the fact that I got my first ever speeding ticket while driving a 1966 red Mustang.  I will tell you that story in tomorrow's blog.

One of the beautiful old buildings in downtown Milwaukee, as seen from the Mustang.

What we were really there for.  Here's the best shot I could get of our grandson walking across the stage after receiving his certificate.  Congratulations!!!

Down memory lane...

 Or in this case, memory corner.  At 12:15pm today my husband and I attended a short organ concert at Trinity English Lutheran Church in down town Fort Wayne. This was part of German Fest.  The organist was Bob Hobby, an excellent musician.  A lovely start to German Fest.  After the concert we decided to drive out east of town to our favorite Amish bakery to buy some apple bread as a hostess gift for our daughter-in-law. We are driving to Wisconsin tomorrow to attend a grandson's eighth grade graduation.  I'm excited to be going, but won't be able to blog for a couple of nights.  My spouse decided that, instead of driving through town as we would on our usual way home and further east he would drive out toward New Haven, then north on I469 to  get to the country area NE of Fort Wayne where the bakery is located.  "Longer but faster." was his reasoning.  Sadly, this plan was foiled by a massive traffic back up on the interstate.  Happily, we could see the problem before we got on and were able to turn back and go through New Haven.  Sadly, there was road construction in New Haven which caused us to take some less used streets.  Happily, this took us past the corner of Green and Summit streets, and there, right where I remembered it, was the little building that I blogged about recently in my blog about penny candy.  Unhappily, it's not a candy store any more.  Instead it's a spa/beauty shop.  Still it was fun to see that the little building was still standing.  Sweet memories.  In case you're wondering, we did, finally make it to the bakery.  

it's a matter of taste....

 Today my spouse and I got into a long discussion about buttermilk. As you may surmise, I'm not the only one in this family who is easily entertained.  I don't remember exactly how the conversation started.  It may have had something to do with the sour milk we had to throw away before he fixed our refrigerator.  However it started, I was surprised to learn that he has never tasted buttermilk.  As far as I can tell, he doesn't plan to start now.  I assured him that it's a very good, refreshing summer drink.  Of course he started researching it on his laptop as we talked.  To make buttermilk (it's helpful if you have a cow for this part) you take very rich creamy whole milk and churn it until a big lump of butter forms.  The liquid that is left is buttermilk, hence the name.  It's basically skim milk with a bit of a tang.  As the research continued, we came upon lots of recipes using buttermilk and a tip on how to create "buttermilk" for cooking by mixing a little vinegar with milk.  I actually remembered that tip from my 4H baking days.  The mouth watering recipes included many variations on buttermilk biscuits, waffles and pancakes.  I can't wait for him to whip up some bacon cheddar buttermilk biscuits.  Yum!!  I promise to drink the left over buttermilk.   

Fudge?

 My west coast brother informed me that today is "Yell FUDGE at the Cobras in North America Day."  Sadly for me, I didn't receive his post until 12:30pm and the yelling was supposed to be done at noon.  Of course he's in a different time zone so he probably got to yell, if he wasn't still in church.  Unless you put it in the bulletin, it would be hard to get the whole congregation involved. Naturally I had to look into this.  Here's what I learned when I Googled 'yell fudge.'.  If you are in North America on June 2, go outside when it is noon, face south and yell FUDGE.  You will be doing your part to make sure that Cobras do not advance and take over North America. Any cobras that have already made it to North America will turn around and go home.  Obviously, it's too late for this year (I hate to think how many cobras may have snuck in) but mark your calendar now for noon on June 2, 2025 when we can all yell FUDGE in unison.  North America is depending on you.

Mr. Fix It...

 My Wonder Spouse is great at fixing and assembling and installing things around the house, especially things electrical like televisions and soundbars.  He is an Electrical Engineer after all.  Today he rose to the occasion once again.  For the last few weeks we've noticed that the refrigerator was not keeping food as cold as it should be.  After several adjustments to the thermostat and having two different gallons of milk go bad well before their expiration dates, he decided it was time to look into the problem more deeply and that today was the day to tackle the job.  The refrigerator is only eight years old so he assumed it was fixable. First he did his internet research, printed out everything he needed to know for trouble shooting, then went to work.  I wisely stayed out of his way.  He pulled a grill off the bottom of the refrigerator, cleaned and vacuumed it and found a copy of the same information that he had downloaded sealed in a zip lock bag behind the grill. and, now armed with two copies of the same information, got to work on the trouble shooting.  He followed the directions carefully for the nine steps involved.  As he carefully looked at every suggested trouble spot he finally discovered that the vent that allowed cold air to come into the refrigerator from the evaporator coil was blocked.  As soon as he removed the offending bag of almond flour that had gotten shoved up into that corner the problem was solved.  Hooray for my WSEE.