things to consider

 Today, according to my west coast brother is "International Coq Au Vin Day."  This does sound delicious.  Who doesn't love chicken pieces and vegetables stewed in a wine sauce?  My spouse, that's who. He is not a chicken eater so I won't be whipping up Coq Au Vin for dinner.  

What my WCB forgot to mention is that today is also "National Biscuit Day."  My spouse will definitely eat biscuits, especially with butter and honey.  It's also "Paperclip Day" and "Learn About Composting Day."

I think we have some inadvertent composting going on right now in our back yard.  An amazing amount of seed shells and other debris is accumulating under our bird feeder.  Based on observation, I blame most of it on the Blue Jay.  He is beautiful but he is not neat.

I am happy to learn that it's "Paperclip Day."  I have a great fondness for paperclips and they should be celebrated.  Ever since I've had desks, and I have had them since childhood, I have had an ample supply of paperclips.  I admit that I am a bit of a paperclip hoarder.  I will pick them up off the floor anywhere I happen to be.  Some people pick up coins, I pick up paperclips.  I do not, however, make paperclip chains.  I like them individually, not in tangled clumps. 

But seriously, today should be "Samuel B. Fay Day." He invented the paper clip in 1867.  Sadly, unlike coins, paperclips aren't dated, so I have no way of knowing if I have any valuable antique paperclips in my collection.  

keeping busy...

 My west coast brother (my baby brother) will be retiring in 64 days.   I have assured him that he will have plenty to keep him busy once he is retired.  In his case he and his wife live on a small ranch with chickens, goats and other animals to care for so it won't be all fun and games.  

My spouse and I sometimes wonder, only half jokingly, how we ever got everything done when we were working full time.  I was thinking about that today.  We both keep busy now with a variety of volunteer work, most of it involving desk time at our computers for some part of every day.  

But here's the big difference with being retired.  There is usually no rush.  After we complete our morning exercise routine (today is "Senior Health and Fitness Day" by the way) we can linger over breakfast and coffee for as long as we want to.  We've been lingering even longer recently to watch the birds.  We now have some regulars at our bird feeder, one stunning Blue Jay and a pair of House Finches. The male has a red head and breast while the female is a blonde beauty.  

That's just one example of the joys of retirement.  There are others like being able to pick up and go when we feel like it, whether it's out to dinner, a weekend with family, or an ocean cruise.  Or, and I have no idea how we got ourselves into this one, having time to work on a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle. 

I'm sure my brother will soon agree with me that life is fine and fun when you're retired.  

PS Today is also "The Slugs Return from Capistrano Day."  I'm not sure where the slugs are returning to but, if you're retired and they're coming your way, enjoy the slow migration.  

Drive on...

 It's so satisfying to have your doctor or NP or PA give you or some one you love the news that everything is fine.  You have a clean bill of health.  Personally, the older I get, the more important this is to me. 

Possibly the next best thing is to take your car in for a simple oil change and get the same good news.  The time had come for my car's oil change, according to the little sticker on the upper left corner of my windshield, so today I drove it to my dealership, the one with the big flag out front, to get it done.  I'm always a little bit afraid that the time will come when they say "Sorry but we don't service your kind of car anymore."

This particular dealership sells Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Ram vehicles but eleven years ago it also sold Fiats.  They don't sell Fiats anymore, but they do still service them, at least for today.  I have a great fondness for my 2015 blue Fiat 500L. It has served me very well for over ten years and I hope to keep it for another ten or until I know it's time to hang up my car keys.  Because almost all of my driving is just around town I have only driven it 36,000 miles.  But back to that clean bill of health.  When the very friendly clerk came to find me in the waiting room when my car was ready to go, she quickly started listing all the good points about my car - great brakes, no wear on them, tires are fine with more than half their life left, lights, ac, and everything else is working just fine, and by the way my next oil change will be free. What a great check-up.

remembering

 Happy Memorial Day and thank you to all of you who have served in the military.  Today I am going to pay my respects to my family members who have served, blessedly none of whom were injured or killed in battle:

Daughter Beth, Army and Air National Guard, Iraq, Saudi Arabia

Son-in-law John, Air National Guard, Iraq, Afghanistan

Brother Tom, Air Force, peacetime 

Brother John, Army, Viet Nam

First husband, Tom, Army, Korean Occupation

Father, Fred, Army, World War II

Father-in-law, Clarence, Army, World War I

I honor them all.

the 500

 Today was race day and in Indiana that means the Indianapolis 500.  It was a great day to be at the race as a spectator, cloudy and cool, but not so great if you were driving one of the cars.  Evidently the surface of the track was cooler than usual and this caused some problems early on in the race.  My spouse and I were not there in person, but we did watch it on TV.  We actually worked on a jigsaw puzzle as we watched; a very pleasant way to spend a holiday afternoon.  

Pleasant for us, not so much for the drivers.  The first accident happened while the drivers were taking their slow laps before the race even started.  And they went on from there.  Nothing terrible enough to cause injury, thank goodness, but definitely enough to put some cars out of commission.  I think there were three cars out by the end of the third lap of the actual race.  A lot of driving went on under the yellow flag.  

By the second half most of the kinks were worked out and it turned into a very exiting race.  Alex Palou was the final winner.  He drank the traditional milk and said it was the best milk he had ever tasted.  Alex Palou Montalbo (full name) is the first driver from Spain to ever win the race.  He is from Barcelona, my very favorite Spanish city, so that makes me doubly glad that he won.  What a great race.  

PS The puzzle we are putting together has 2000 pieces.  At the rate we're going we may still be working on it next year at this time.  

delicious

 Today, according to my west coast brother, is "National Escargot Day."  It seems like it should be international because it's a French delicacy also served in the United States and, I'm sure, in other countries as well.  

My one and only experience with eating escargot (tiny edible land snails) was almost 50 years ago.  At that time the most elegant restaurant in Fort Wayne was Cafe Johnell's.  They specialized in French cuisine and their food was excellent.  Also expensive, which is why it was the place to go for special occasions if you were young married couples on a budget.  

My best friend and I, and our husbands went there, as I said, about fifty years ago, to celebrate our anniversaries.  They were married in August, my first husband and I were married in July.  Close enough to celebrate together.  As I remember the restaurant, there was lots of red velvet and gold accents, all very elegant.  

I think that I was the only one of our party who tried the escargot.  I probably had first learned about the dish in high school French and thought it sounded interesting.  Each tiny snail, smothered in garlic butter and herbs, was served in its own little shell, with snail tongs to hold the shell and a little two tined snail fork to pick out the snail.  It was delicious but I've never had it since.  It isn't on the menu of the restaurants we frequent most often.  Out of curiosity, I just Googled escargot in Fort Wayne and it appears that there are at least two restaurants that serve it.  Maybe my wonder spouse and I will get adventurous one of these evenings. 

See a penny...

 Today, according to my west coast brother, is "Lucky Penny Day."  I'm not sure how lucky pennies can be these days, since I hear that the government has decided to stop producing them. As I understand it, pennies, and even nickels, cost more to make than they are worth.  Learning this made me curious so I checked out the cost of other coins.  Pennies cost 3.69 cents a piece to make and distribute; nickels cost 13.8 cents to make and distribute; dimes cost 5.76 cents to make and distribute; quarters cost 12.3 cents to distribute; half dollars cost 34 cents to make and distribute.  Interestingly, half dollars aren't made in large quantities while quarters are the most commonly used coins.  In doing this probably foolish research I learned a new word - 'seigniorage' is the loss differential between the cost to produce and the face value of a coin.  Maybe this will become your word of the day.  I know it's mine.  

But back to the penny, the wise old saying "See a penny, pick it up. All that day you'll have good luck." may become truer than it ever was as pennies become rarer and rarer.   Keep looking down and good luck!