Choices
By admin | April 5, 2009
Love, whether of your children, grandchildren, or spouse is…painful. I started to write “extraordinarily painful”, but it seems that the pain is quite ordinary. So many people have pain related to who or what they love. For example, a woman I know told me the other day that she has two children…one living and one dead. I knew the story, so I wasn’t shocked, although others probably were. Her adult son died as a result of a car crash involving another driver who was under the influence of alcohol. It has been a few years but it hurts her every day. It also hurts my friend, her husband, although he doesn’t talk about it much.
I know a father who is almost totally estranged from his two adult children, and therefore from his grandchildren as well. How he became estranged relates to a divorce, his ex’s personality, his personality, the children’s personality and more. It’s not for me to judge so I don’t. I know that it hurts him, though. I don’t know them, but it probably hurts them as well.
I was married before and I loved the woman I was married to. I’m married now and I love the woman I’m married to now. Oddly, I also still love the woman I married the first time, but it just got too painful to me to continue to live with her. That was thirty two years ago, but thoughts of her still come to mind a few times a year. Thank you God that we didn’t have any children to be damaged by our craziness.
I’m not a great believer in “purpose” as in “God has a purpose for us all.” God may have a purpose for us, but she ain’t sharin’ it with me. Still, I’m aware that the choices I make from moment to moment and from month to month are what have led me to where I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually. For example, if my ex-wife had chosen a different law school in a different city we wouldn’t have made the move to Phoenix and I would never have met my present wife nor had my present son. It’s not a spiritual thing for me, just something of intellectual interest. I don’t look back much, though. I just try to make choices that are kind and correct today so that 10 years from now I don’t feel called upon to say “If only I had done this instead of that in 2009.” I don’t always succeed in making those kinds of choices, but that’s my plan.
My son is the father to my grandchildren (duh!) That has to do with a series of choices I made with his mother and then choices I made in growing up with him. In order for my lovely, delightful, bright, healthy grandsons to be in my life he had to be there first. I remember much of my relationship with my son as being painful. Lots of wonderful things happened too, but today I’m recalling the painful ones. If my relationship with my son after he was fourteen were a pick-up truck, ‘most everything in the bed of the truck would have bounced out by now because the road we’ve been on has been so rocky.
“Bounce!” The box that held my hopes for him to be a scholar hits a rock on the side of the trail and smashes. He’ll pursue his own mode of scholarship.
“Crunch!” The bedroll that represents my comfort in my own possessions flies into the desert where it blows open and is snagged on one of the Joshua trees he drove past in taking my car to California without my permission.
“Bang!” We hit a bump so big it breaks a spring and throws out the telephone we’d packed in the back. Communication will be a sometime thing with him and often it will be me who makes it difficult.
Why don’t I get off this bumpy road? Why did I go down the road in the first place? It’s two of those love things. Once Son and I met (he was only an infant, of course) I loved him. Decisions and actions (his, mine, his mother’s, his wife’s) deepened and widened that love. The road was paved when we took the turn, but sometimes the pavement runs out. Still, I’m committed to remaining in the truck with him.
The second love thing is the love for Daughter-in-Law and the grandchildren. Those boys weren’t my choice but now that they’re here, it is my choice to know them and love them and spend time with them. When I hear “Poppa! Look how high I can swing!” I have to fight with my emotions to keep from being overwhelmed. I know too that my son and my daughter-in-law are committed to them. Overwhelming again is the thought of pain they will suffer in getting the boys raised.
Is there a moral to this story? OK. Here goes: The choices you make today are the only way you have to change the future. There is no way to change the past. Who am I, Aesop?! I didn’t say it would be good, but it’s my lesson and I’m stickin’ to it.
Topics: musing, relationships | No Comments »
“GREEN” PLASTIC BAGS
By admin | March 21, 2009
“GREEN“PLASTIC BAGS
When we stopped in the shade of some big creosote bushes, my grandchildren were clamoring for something to eat. Fortunately, Poppa was ready to provide. In addition to water for this desert hike, I was carrying packets of string cheese (mozzarella formed into sticks), packets of fruit leather and packets of granola bars. If fruit “leather” doesn’t sound appetizing, think “fruit roll-ups” or “Gummy <whatever>”. In this case it was gummy sharks and gummy veggie-tales characters. It is fruit juice dried and compressed. It still doesn’t sound appetizing to me, but the kids like it.
Now, I only have one daypack and it’s the one I use for my gym clothes, for an extra sweater when I’m snowshoeing and so on. I wouldn’t want to eat directly out of it, and I wouldn’t inflict that on my grandkids. In addition, I didn’t want all these packets of foodstuffs all over my pack, so I put them in separate plastic “zip-lock” bags. If Mikey-moo said he wanted a granola bar, I could pull out that bag and give him one. If Jo-Jo wanted, instead, a string cheese, I could pull out that bag. Elijah, being older, could even get his own. It certainly simplified the moveable feast.
In my household, we have many uses for plastic bags. My wife grates Italian cheese and puts it into bags. Homemade bread will stay moist and “fresh” in a zipped up bag. There are lots of things to do with them. If you’re careful, you can even use them to freeze liquids. That’s risky, though, because it relies a bit too much on the zipper.
So, you may ask, where are the green bags? It was a come-on. It was a leader when I said I was going to talk about green bags. These are “green” in the sense that you can reduce your carbon footprint (not to mention your zip-lock bag bill) by re-using these handy sacks. The three zip-lock bags I used for feeding my babies…OK, my big-boys…were all recycled. If I’d wanted to carry something that would come directly in contact with the bag, like real fruit slices, I’d have used a new bag.
When I got home, I emptied my backpack, putting the food bags on the kitchen counter. I threw away the waste and stored the un-opened food packets. The bags themselves went in my little dishpan to await cleaning. When I was ready, I filled the dishpan with hot soapy water. I immersed the bags in the water, making sure that each bag got filled with hot-soapy. At that point, I made like a washing machine…I agitated the bags in the hot soapy water until I thought the inside and outside were probably clean. Then I carefully used clean water to rinse the bags, taking special care with the insides. I put them mouth down in the drainer. The next morning, they were mostly dry on the outside, so I dried the inside by enclosing my hand in a clean unused dish towel. I marked the bags as “used” and put them in the drawer for re-re-use.
That worked well, because these bags only had dry, packaged food in them. Sometimes when moist food has been in a new bag, I need to be very careful to get all of the oils and particles of food out of the bag before rinsing, drying, and marking it. I use a clean dish rag to wash out the inside of these; and I inspect them carefully before, during and after rinsing and drying them.
Here’s my question. I labeled this entry “Green Plastic Bags”. Am I using too much water and energy cleaning these bags? Although the bags are plastic and therefore petroleum based, at what point am I doing more harm than good by re-using them? I tend to discount my personal time and energy because 1) I don’t use much time and energy and 2) I’m retired so I have some personal time and energy to spare. Still, there’s the hot soapy water to wash them in, as well as the hot water to rinse them in. Am I being green or simply fooling myself?
Topics: household | 1 Comment »
FIRE FIGHTER EMT’S
By admin | March 12, 2009
The four of us hadn’t gone far up the camel’s tail when Paul started to feel ill. The “Camel’s Tail” is the common parlance for the trail on the east end of Camelback Mountain between Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona, the city calls it the Cholla Trail. We’d gone about 200 yards up the steep, rocky trail when Paul (as I’ll be calling him) explained to us that he was having “indigestion”. He found a boulder that he could hide behind while he experienced diarrhea. He said he felt better and we continued up the trail.
Only 50 yards more up the trail, we came to a flat spot offering a view of the luxurious Phoenix/Scottsdale resort area and we stopped to look. Paul rested on a rock. As three of us talked, we glanced at Paul and noticed that he was holding his head in his hands and that he was sagging forward. Moving to his side, Gerry asked if he was OK, but Paul began slowly to fall to the side…we knew that he wasn’t OK We helped him to the ground so that he wouldn’t hurt himself by falling and I called 911 on my cell. Since we were only a few hundred yards above the city streets, there was no problem with reception.
The 911 operator inquired as to where we were. We were able to identify the trail and approximately where we were on it. She told us that units had been dispatched and then continued to gather more information such as Paul’s age (79) and whether he was alert and coherent (he was, mostly). One of the operator’s questions was whether Paul was in the shade. He wasn’t, but we moved him into the small shade of a manzanita bush and then one of us stood between him and the sun. The early March day was pleasantly cool, but the sun was bright so he seemed to appreciate the shade.
What happened next was truly amazing to me: Fire Fighter EMT’S started to arrive. One seemed to simply appear, with a huge red backpack full of medical supplies. I didn’t see him come but he went directly to his patient and began asking questions. I saw the second one arrive. He ran around the corner of the trail, having apparently run the whole distance from the bottom of the hill. He joined his colleague, bringing more equipment, this time in a blue backpack. Eventually there were eight fire fighters from Phoenix Fire Dept and Tempe Fire Dept on scene.
So, to recap, we were on a trail in an urban park when our friend was stricken. Who knew that there were mountain rescue personnel available at the drop of a hat to come to our aid? These troops were Phoenix and Tempe Mountain Rescue. Once on scene, the EMT’S were able to hang an IV of fluid, take Paul’s blood pressure, and attach leads for an EKG…yes, they hauled a portable EKG machine about the size of a home computer printer up the hill. To me, it was astonishing.
I said “Who knew?” Well, it’s one of those things. I knew. I’d seen guys on TV making rescues from some of the rougher trails in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. Sometimes these guys rappel off big cliffs onto smaller cliffs to assist people who get into trouble. Seeing them on TV and then seeing them in person are two entirely different things, however. It was an epiphany to me when I realized the level of physical stamina paired with the level of medical expertise that these guys possess. The speed with which they responded was also unexpected. From the time I called 911 until the first EMT arrived was probably less than 10 minutes, including climbing 200-300 yards up a steep rocky trail to get to us.
Oh, Paul. One of the groups of Fire Department personnel who responded to our call brought a big wheeled stretcher with them. It was one big all-terrain wheel under a lightweight metal stretcher. Once Paul was stabilized with IV fluids and they were sure he wasn’t going to die on the way down, they strapped him to the stretcher and rolled/carried him down the rocky slopes and tall steps that form this part of the trail. As the group trundled him down the hill we could hear murmuring then laughter from the firefighters, then more murmuring and more laughter. Paul was apparently telling jokes as they brought him down!
He went with them to the ER in Scottsdale where he got more fluids and had some blood drawn. He was released to his wife late in the afternoon. No one really knows why it all happened, but they think it was dehydration based on the diarrhea he experienced. He was in good health and was feeling fine when we left the car to walk to the trailhead. He did nothing wrong. But he got sick nevertheless.
The fire fighters? They went back to work. During the course of taking care of our friend they told us that they respond to a mountain rescue call like this about every other day. The rest of the time, I presume they do what other fire fighters do with their time. They respond to house fires, car fires, medical emergencies and so on. It’s all in a day’s work for them. In the midst of that, they put up with people passing by on the trail, people like us looking over their shoulders and asking inane questions and probably they politely put up with much worse questions from people who are even more emotionally involved with a victim. I suppose it’s corny, but I salute these guys. (All the ones we saw were guys.) I think they’re heroes every day.
Topics: musing, relationships | No Comments »
Dishwashing: Theory and Practice, II
By admin | February 18, 2009
DISHWASHING: Theory and Practice: II
The sink is full of dirty dishes after a delicious supper. Plates that had held spare ribs and baked potatoes, bowls that had held salads, glasses that had held red wine all are there needing to be cleaned. I quickly realize that the dishwasher is only going to hold the salad bowls and the silverware. Plates, pans, glasses and serving stuff are going to have to be washed by hand. This didn’t bother me, though, because I typically wash the pans by hand as well as the wine glasses. Stemware, even the fifty cent a glass stuff we use tends to get broken in the violent sloshing of the dishwasher.
In order of process, then, I put a small amount of water in the bottom of stainless steel pans and put a snug lid on them. Snug lids are called for in many recipes so finding a lid for pans shouldn’t be a problem…they come that way. The reason for the water is to create a moist environment inside the pot which will help with softening whatever might be baked, boiled or fried onto the pan. This process is OK for Teflon, though not really necessary but it shouldn’t be used for either cast iron or cast steel. More on this in another paragraph. Once you have water and a lid on the pans, leave ‘em while you go do the rest of the dishes.
I use a small, separate dishpan filled with hot soapy water for washing.
I have double sinks, but if I use a separate dishpan, I can still use the drain in the sink. I try to be sparing on the dishpan soap, a little goes a long way. If I’m washing silverware, not sharp knives, I put them in the dishpan first, so they can soak off whatever crud they’ve acquired.
While the water is still quite clean I wash those things that tend to get a greasy film if you’re not careful. In order, that’s glasses, cups and dishes. I also wash the sharp knives without putting them in the dishpan. I rinse all of it in running water, but that’s probably wasteful. I know that some people rinse in another dishpan and they seem to do just fine. At the church, they rinse in a basin of hot water and then again in a basin of hot water with bleach. To each his own.
Glasses, plates, bowls, knives, etc go in the draining basket to dry. Mine is in the second sink, although some people keep them on the sideboard. However you do it, make sure the water has a way to get into the sink drain without messing up your counter. In the basket, the dishes dry quickly so I don’t have to use a dishtowel. Within ten minutes, I can put them away to make room for the pans. (The usual disclaimer: I’m in the desert, if you’re where it’s humid, you may have to dry your dishes with a dishtowel.)
There are three basic kinds of pans: stainless steel, Teflon coated (usually aluminum) and cast iron. Recently I learned that there’s also cast steel but unless you live in my house (which you don’t) or your partner thinks he’s a professional cook, you probably won’t have those. Even baking pans are made of those metals, and the information to come applies to them as well. Stainless steel and bare aluminum (as in some baking pans) can be scrubbed with impunity by whatever you have. I’ve used stainless steel sponges, steel wool pads (SOS) and the yellow and green pads that 3-M makes. It’s just a matter of rubbing until you get the crusted food off and then rinsing. Make sure you wash the outside and the handle as well. Then it goes in the drainer.
I wash pans with any sort of Teflon-type surface using only a soft scrubber. 3-M makes blue scrubbers which have sponge on one side and scrubber on the other. There are also plastic scrubbers. You just have to be careful not to scratch off the Teflon-type surface which is much softer than metal. Frequently, because these pans are designed so that stuff won’t cling to them, you can just swish them with the dishrag before rinsing. (I wonder how they get the stuff to stick to the metal in the first place.)
You well might have cast-iron pans…they’re dark gray brown and they’re heavy. CAST IRON SHOULD NOT BE CLEANED WITH WATER. Use salt and a paper towel with a little cooking oil to scrub them out. The food should come off and you can get the remnant salt out with another paper towel. (The salt provides grit in this scenario.) If you find you must use water, you’ll have to re-season the clean pan by heating it in the oven after wiping it down with cooking oil. If you don’t follow this process with your cast iron, your food will taste like rust. Rust is not a good taste.
As I said above, cast steel is unusual in most homes. After use, it’ll look about like cast iron, and while it is cleaned with water, it must be dried immediately and smeared with cooking oil. For this material, I suggest you actually read and follow the directions for cleaning and seasoning the pans. I know that real men don’t need written instructions, but since these pans are expensive and can be ruined, please use them in this case.
I’m not going to say anything about putting the dishes away except to say “I HATE IT!” Still, if you don’t empty the dishwasher and/or your drain basket it looks nasty and gets in the way when you have more dirty dishes. Just do it.
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By admin | February 17, 2009
DISHWASHING: Theory and Practice: I
Most American homes have a dishwasher. Even Habitat for Humanity homes I’ve helped build for people who can’t otherwise qualify as homeowners, have dishwashers. For that reason, when I talk about washing dishes, I’m going to start with using the dishwasher. Some people can’t, some people won’t, and for some people it’s inconvenient, so I’ll also talk about manual washing.
I load my dishwasher about the same way each time. Plates, the largest pieces I put in there, go on the bottom to the right (as I look at the dishwasher). Cups and glasses go in the perimeter of the top basket until that gets filled and then they go on the left side of the bottom basket. Tall or broad glasses go on the bottom at the beginning because they don’t fit on top.
There’s a back row on the bottom and a middle row on the top left to fill. On the bottom, I put luncheon plates (big saucers) and flat-ish bowls that won’t interfere with the plates up front. The middle of the top basket is ideally suited for bowls and small saucers.
Before I put dishes in the dishwasher, I rinse them. Yes, I’m a rinser. I get the major food off the dishes before I put them in. Sometimes food is stuck to the dishes and I try to give the dishwasher a start by scrubbing or scraping. In my dishwasher, if I don’t do this, my dishes have stuff still stuck on them when they’re through. If your dishwasher does a better job of scrubbing this stuff off, feel free to skip rinsing.
Silverware has its own basket in front of the plates on the bottom. Knives, forks, spoons, etc all have their place. Other dishwasher-safe things like mixing spoons, serving spoons, spatulas, etc either find a place in the silverware basket or I lay them out flat where ever I can find a long narrow space that’s not covered (or going to be covered) by dishes.
There are some things that I don’t put in the dishwasher and there are reasons that I don’t. In the prior post on knives, I mentioned that good knives never go in the dishwasher because the hot water and strong soap tends to screw up the edge. We still have some cheap, crappy knives that I don’t care much about and they go in the washer. Pots and pans don’t go in because they take up lots of space and keep the water from spraying up on other things. Occasionally, I put baking pans in, if I can stand them on edge near the side of the bottom basket.
It takes time for me to fill the dishwasher since there’s typically only me and my wife using the dishes. Wife does her part, cooking up a storm when she has time, but it still takes two or three days to fill the dishwasher. That’s important, because I don’t like to wash a partial load. It takes about the same amount of water (expensive) and the same amount of electricity (expensive) to run a partial load as it does to run a full load. I can’t remember when I’ve run the dishwasher ½ full (that’s the same as ½ empty for you pessimists)
Sometimes while I’m trying to get a full load of dishes, we may run out of something. For example, the other day, My wife reached for a plate only to find they were all in the dishwasher awaiting friends to fill the bus. Teaspoons are another item that we tend to run short of. On those occasions we simply take one or two of the shortage items out, wash them by hand, use them, then put them back to be washed.
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Knives
By admin | January 25, 2009
The gal on the elliptical machine in front of my treadmill at the gym was wearing snug fitting black sweats and a black sports bra. Lots of skin was showing between the top of the pants and the bottom of the bra. My wife was two machines over from me, though, and the track of the treadmill gets slippery when I drool; so I decided I needed to cut off this line of fantasy.
Knives, yeah, that’s the ticket.
Many years ago my wife (or me, I don’t remember) purchased Chicago Cutlery kitchen knives. They worked well and were attractive. They have walnut handles (AKA scales), carbon steel blades, and brass rivets holding the walnut to the steel.
Carbon steel takes a good edge and holds it pretty well. It is easy to re-sharpen too when the edge is gone. We were happy. I would still be happy, but Son, a few years ago, took a job in a knife shop and gave his mother a very nice chef’s knife for Christmas one year.
The Messermeister he gave her had a forged blade rather than the stamped ones she’d been used to. It was made of high carbon stainless steel. Stainless rivets hold the black composite scales to the tang.
High carbon stainless takes a good edge and holds it for a long time. It’s somewhat harder metal and so is somewhat harder to re-sharpen but that hasn’t been necessary yet. In all fairness and honesty I should note that Chicago Cutlery also makes forged high carbon stainless cutlery.
Are you at the point where you need some definition? What am I, Wikepedia? They do a great job of talking about this stuff. Let’s just say that high carbon stainless steel is superior to carbon steel for kitchen knives. It holds an edge better, it rusts less (yes, stainless will rust if you’re careless with it) and it’s pretty in the same way that Mohammed Ali was pretty: sleek and intimidating. Forged blades are better because they tend to be a bit thicker and thus they feel better in the hand. Wife says the sensory experience of how the knife feels is the most important difference. Important to me is the fact that forged knives are pounded out of a billet. Ain’t that manly? Stamped blades are cut out of sheet steel, then sharpened. No billet.
I have a habitual way of caring for our sharp knives. Wife bought and was given more of the nice, forged ones and we still have a few of the not-quite-as-nice stamped ones. We never put any of these blades in the dishwasher. Between the power of the dishwasher detergent and the heat of the water and drying, they rust and lose some of their sharpness. I know this because I’ve slipped up a time or two. I wash them in hot soapy being careful not to cut the sponge with the edge of the blade. I also carefully wash the handle scales. CSI’s would have a problem with my knives. I allow them to drip dry in the cutlery cup of my drying basket.
If I’m in a hurry, I just don’t put the knives away in the knife block. When I’m ready and they’re dry, I hone them with the steel that’s always in my knife block.
A steel is a round, ten inch long implement designed to hone knives. It doesn’t sharpen;it doesn’t take any metal off the blade of the knife, but only straightens out the edge that’s already there. You’ve seen it used on TV, probably, if not in person. I hold the steel upright in my left hand. I draw the blade of the knife over the steel as though I’m intending to cut off a narrow slice of the metal.
I’ve noticed that some people use the hone with the edge of the knife coming toward the handle and some people with the edge going away, as in whittling. I hone toward the handle (and my own left hand) so I am careful to keep my thumb out of the way and below the guard. It’s probably a bit safer to do it the other way but I learned it my way. Have you ever tried folding your arms opposite the way you learned it?
My assumption is that if I hone the blades every time I slide them into the block, they will always be sharp when Wife wants to use them and I won’t get called away from whatever important TV show I’m watching. We also have a “Two Stage Knife Sharpener” which does the same job, but I seldom use it. It’s not, technically, a sharpener either, but most people wouldn’t understand if the label said “Two Stage Knife Hone”. It has two round steel pieces mounted in a V shape and two round ceramic pieces similarly mounted. The V shape gives the “correct” angle for honing the knife. It works…but it doesn’t fit into the knife block. I’d have to go to the cupboard to get it and that is just too much trouble when the honing steel is right there.
Briefly, there’s the issue of how to know when the knife blade is sharp. I’ve honed enough knives so that I can touch the tip of my thumb to the edge of the knife and feel whether the edge is what I want. (without cutting myself) The other day I had to actually sharpen one of the stamped steel knives to get the edge I wanted. That is I had to use a stone and grind away a little metal to get the edge to where the hone would bring it to sharpness. The only other way I know to decide whether a knife is sharp or not is to actually cut with it. Pulling the knife across the skin of a tomato using only the weight of the knife should be sufficient to slice through the skin and into the fruit, for example. Other people have other methods which involve paper strips, human hair, etc. You do whatever was traditional in your family.
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Should I be committed?
By admin | January 23, 2009
My POS vacuum cleaner was loud. The plastic hard-floor attachment clacked against the tiles and against the furniture as I swept the floor. My Kirby is a POS because it has plastic wands and attachments and, since they’re kept together by friction only, they keep falling apart. In addition, since the Kirby is extremely sturdy and has a lifetime guarantee, I can’t get rid of the damn thing.
Lately, I’ve had enough to do that I’ve been fitting my housework in between other things. On Monday for example, there was a memorial service (not a funeral, no body was present) and I sang in the choir for that service. After the service, I’d agreed to help out with serving food to the family and other mourners. That evening, I had my HOA meeting, which I chair. I know that in the recent past I’ve warned the readers of this blog about over-committing or volunteering for too much outside effort. Still, that’s what I seem to have done here, at least for awhile.
My adult son mentioned to me the other day that when he was growing up he saw me being committed to lots of things. He says “You’d work hard at the office every day and then come home in the evening and do other things you were committed to.” At that time in my life, the extra things I did mostly had to do with him. I worked with the T-ball team, the Cub Scouts, and the Boy Scouts among others. At work I got involved in training and learning how to train others, in addition to just doing my day-to-day work.
In thinking about what my Son said, I was saddened. I wondered whether he felt neglected, but that seemed unlikely since I was involved with his stuff. It’s more likely that he felt smothered, if anything. I can’t change what I did, though, so I’m mostly saddened because he says my example motivated him to avoid committing to things, where my own father’s example had the opposite effect on me. My dad was involved in things in the community and at work because he felt it was unfair to ask others to do stuff unpaid if he didn’t do some of it himself. I feel the same way.
So I continue to work at it. There’s the housework, the dread yard-work, staying in touch with friends, taking the time to do whatever I’ve volunteered for and writing this blog…and my daily nap. If there’s time left over after all that, I’ve got lots of other things that don’t otherwise get done. At least I’m not one of those retirees who rattles around the house wondering what to do with himself.
I’m completely puzzled by people who have time to read books, play video games or even read the newspapers. I can’t tell you how many of my friends read the obituaries. They have done for years…even before we were all getting old. When I’ve asked why, they tell me that they started when Phoenix still had a small town feel and they’ve just continued. Others ask me if I’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s latest tome, or whether I keep up with Ray Kurtzweill’s web-site. How do they do all that stuff? My den, where I sit writing this, is still a mess from the last time the grandkids were here…two weeks ago!
Topics: musing, relationships | No Comments »
Bike Accident/Opportunity
By admin | January 15, 2009
I stood cautiously, moving my limbs and mentally examining my body. There didn’t seem to be anything broken.
“You about my age? How old are you?” asked the gentleman who’d stopped between me and the corner.
“’bout your age…I’m 61.”
“I’m older than you! You shouldn’t be ridin’ a bicycle!” he said aloud and his implication was “This sort of thing is bound to happen to you.”
“Nonsense!” said the young woman who’d stopped behind me and was blocking traffic with her vehicle. “Now’s the time he should be riding…to stay in shape.” Then, turning to me she said “Are you OK? What happened?”
“I seem to be OK. Nothing seems to be broken. I was on the sidewalk and brushed that bush over there. I lost balance and spilled out into the street.”
I knocked dirt and pebbles off myself and stood my bike on its stand to look it over. Meanwhile the two unrelated people who’d stopped to be Good Samaritans continued to question me until they were satisfied that I was OK. I was bleeding from some road rash on my arms and hands. Later I realized that my legs were also scratched and bruised.
My old Huffy cruiser, though, was much worse for the wear. The handlebar and the front tire weren’t tracking in the same direction, the front fork was bent and there was a big rip on the side of the seat. The next day I went to a bike store to get some professional advice and realized that the parts I would need would cost about the same as I paid for the bike originally. It’s definitely time for a new bicycle…but they’ve gone up in price significantly in the past 15 years.
I was on the sidewalk because at that point on 15th Avenue the bike path evaporates for a couple of hundred yards. The traffic engineers, in their wisdom, decided they wanted two lanes for auto traffic at the intersection with the big street so they simply ended the bike path for awhile. A homeowner had planted a pyrocantha bush that overhung the narrow sidewalk by a few inches…not his fault, he can’t trim it daily. I brushed it trying to avoid the curb and that’s what threw me off balance.
It was one of those slow-motion things you hear about. I can remember every detail including the thought that I needed to get up to avoid being run over by the approaching traffic. I wouldn’t have made it, though, because my bike was on top of me and it felt like trying to kick out from under a horse. (Think John Wayne in True Grit.) If the mother of the child in the car seat hadn’t stopped to block traffic it might have been much worse. As it was, although the she offered me a ride; I declined and pushed my busted ride the half mile to my home. I enlisted my wife to help me cover the worst scratches so they wouldn’t bleed all over my clothing. Blood is so hard to wash out, don’t you find?
If you are reading this on the “Bicycle” sub-Reddit, or even if you’re not, my question is “What do I buy next?”. I’ve got an opportunity here to get a new bike and I don’t want to blow it. I want another cruiser with 26 inch wheels. I don’t want derailleurs although if anyone is still making a 3 speed hub I wouldn’t mind that. I’m used to coaster brakes, but I suppose I could become accustomed to hand brakes. Is Schwinn the only way to go? Are there other reliable coaster bikes out there? Price is a factor. I’d like to stay under $350 if possible.
Topics: household | 2 Comments »
ANOTHER TRIP
By admin | January 1, 2009
“They’re like clown shoes!”, cried my companion.
“They are not bright red, and they do not have bulbous toes; they’re only clown-like in that they’re a yard long.”
She continued to attach them to her hiking shoes, already on her feet. “Grumble, grumble”
The day was crisp and cold but sunny, perfect for winter sports. The field in front of the tent where we’d rented the snowshoes was pristine white though crisscrossed with ski trails. It had snowed in and around Flagstaff several times in the week prior to our trip and there was still 18 inches on the ground here at 8000 feet. The only bad thing was that we had barely an hour to hike prior to needing to return the snowshoes to the rental yurt. (A big, round tent of Mongolian design).
After some minor adjustments necessitated when the snowshoes fell off her feet, we skimmed along the groomed trail. My partner was surprised (?) that there was no “glide” portion to the snowshoe rhythm but she got over that. The dark Ponderosa pine and the black and white Aspen formed a good contrast to the snow. Snags and stumps gave enough variety to the landscape to make it truly beautiful. Too soon we had to return to the lodge.
As I pointed out when talking about our Christmas Tree trip, one must go far from Phoenix to find pine trees and, in this case, snow. I’m a coot, so it’s a three hour drive from Phoenix to Flagstaff. Others who are not as old can make it in 2 ½ hours. But, while an hour of snowshoeing didn’t seem like much in the face of this drive, we both knew that tomorrow was another day and we could return to the Nordic Center for more. We headed for the cabin we’d been loaned by our son (who’d been loaned it by his Mother-in-law)
Flagstaff is a city of perhaps 50,000. You wouldn’t think that there’d be much of a rush hour, but all those Phoenix downhill skiers, sledders and snowballers were competing with us snowshoers and Nordic skiers for space on the only road over the river and through the woods. OK, there’s no river to be crossed, but the point remains the same. The trip of 30 miles back to the loaner cabin took an hour and a half. Add to that the other hour and a half of trying to clear snow, light the water heater pilot, turn on the water supply and make four phone calls to Phoenix concerning these activities; and the evening was pretty much shot. We went down the road for pizza and salad then spent the remainder of the evening in companionable silence reading. Then we turned off the water supply to avoid frozen pipes (we’d never managed to get the hot water pilot lit) and we retired.
Perhaps I should say “comparative” silence. Coughing, sneezing and nose blowing were a constant counterpoint to page turning. Both of us felt cruddy. Neither of us slept well. I dreamt bizarre dreams which had me asking celebrities to cough. I think I coughed in sympathy with each of these famous folk thus waking myself up again and again. My wife finally ended up tossing and turning on the couch rather than trying to sleep through this bedlam.
In the morning we were both more ill than before. What had begun for both of us as nasal allergies from the leaf mold and fireplace smoke of Phoenix, had developed into full-blown sinus infections. Leaving out the gruesome details, we decided to return home rather than returning to the Flagstaff Nordic Center. We called our physician and both of us were prescribed antibiotics to knock back the gunky brown goo.
Last year (early 2008) there was plenty of snow at the Nordic Center. I went twice with buddies. In 2006/2007, I couldn’t go, but it didn’t matter because there was NO snow. In fact, Arizona has been in a drought for six or seven years and we’re not sure even now whether it has broken. In a few weeks, we’ll either go north again to play in the snow or we’ll go west to gaze at wildlife in the ocean. San Diego is only 2-3 hours further than Flagstaff. Either way, we’re lucky, right?
Topics: relationships | No Comments »
Christmas Tree Trip
By admin | December 25, 2008
The needles were long; one branch stood out pointing to the left and two more, lower, pointed to the right and the back. I said to my daughter-in-law “Do you remember Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree?” and she burst out laughing. This tree was it! I wanted to take it, just for fun, but we only had one permit for each nuclear family so it still stands in the forest.
In Phoenix, AZ, one doesn’t go just outside of town to hunt for a Christmas tree. The closest evergreen trees useable for Christmas are 80-90 miles away and are in one of several National Forests. You have to know by September of the year that you’re going to want to cut your tree in December. This year, you could simply go to a local sporting goods chain store and buy a permit. In prior years one had to apply directly to the Tonto National Forest headquarters, but still the sporting goods stores had only a limited number for each Forest such as Tonto, Coconino, Apache-Sitgreaves, and Prescott. I suppose they don’t want several million people from Phoenix to go denude the forests of all the small, well-shaped conifers.
It’s been our family tradition to go to the forest to cut our Christmas tree since our son was 6 months old. It’s a whole production. This year we loaded up the three grandkids, my son and daughter-in-law and me and my wife for the trip east to the Apache National Forest above Payson, Arizona. Mary had spent the prior night preparing food, although we told our children we’d just bring snacks. We had turkey sandwiches customized for each person (some like onion, some like lettuce, etc). We had several kinds of cheese chunked up and put into a container with several kinds of preserved meats. We had thermoses of hot chocolate and we had a few different kinds of chips (with dips, of course).
I’d packed a case of bottled water and all of the spare blankets and throws we have along with all the warm clothes I and she own. You never know when you’re going to get stuck in the woods…. We had gloves aplenty for everyone…and snow chains…you just never know.
We had Bungee (or equivalent) enough to anchor the anticipated, perfectly-shaped, blue spruce trees. We didn’t have a saw.
Fortunately, there is a Wal-Mart in Payson where we purchased a saw, some rope (just in case the bungee gave out?) and, of course, additional cookies. I sniggered at my wife for buying the cookies but I admit that I’d eaten several by the time we reached the happy (tree) hunting grounds.
The grandkids (and my daughter-in-law) looked a bit like the Sta-puft Marshmallow Man from the Ghost Busters movie by the time we got bundled up for the march into the woods. Still, they were able to waddle up the slopes and pass judgment on various candidates for Yule fame. “Not tall enough.”, “Too tall.”, “Looks great from here.” but “It only has branches on one side!” The worst prejudice of all pronounced on these Ponderosa pine trees was by my son: “The needles are too long!” What, like the trees have a choice!? How must they feel when they hear a statement like that?
My wife and I found a charming tree, not too tall or too short, full enough but not too full and with sufficient trunk to allow for the eventual tree-stand to be attached in our living room. I knelt down, praised the Druid gods and sawed it off using my Wal-mart/Stanley Tools special. We carried it, lovingly, back to the vehicle where it was pronounced scrawny and difficult by our as-yet treeless son and daughter-in-law.
The Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest pretty much joins up with the Coconino National Forest further north. To say that there are millions of trees would not be an overstatement. We saw one (1) blue spruce and it was 50 feet tall. Even so, I think my son would have topped it if he could have figured out a safe way to climb it.
As it was, after lunch, the two young adults left us with the children while they went back out searching. They returned with a lovely fir tree. Nicely shaped, very full, altogether a lovely tree. It shall be their story to tell why the tree is planted (?) in their Phoenix backyard instead of standing in their living room decorated. It shall be their story to tell of the tree-stand broken in frustration when it didn’t fit this wonder-tree. Suffice it to say that we made it safely back home with no seriously injured children or adults and no new dents in the vehicle’s top or bottom.
Topics: household, musing, relationships | No Comments »
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