FIfties fashion

We have been in school fifty student days. Wow, that went fast. It's all going fast. Anyway, to celebrate on Friday we dressed up like we were in the 50s. I wore a long cardigan, jeans, my hair back in a headband, a chiffon scarf and large hoop earrings.

I have never worn that cardigan before, I never wear earrings to school, and I never have worn a headband.

Those are the facts. Kids are brutally honest, that is also a fact.

I got two comments on my getup.

#1: I like your new fashion, Mrs Prata!

And just in case I settle too deeply into a comfortable self-esteem,

#2: You look SILLY!

LOL!

And Johnny, how was *your* weekend?

On Mondays I enjoy sitting my students around the table and we talk about our weekend. In that exercise I am subtly teaching them to listen to each other, take turns, and be patient. As I went around to each of the kids, I realized that they were all describing a better weekend than I'd had, lol. They went to a haunted house (crying ensued), a movie, played football with brother, went to an auction, caught chickens (and showed the injury that proved it), played golf with brother, goofed around on the iPhone gaming apps, and in a hilarious turn of events,

"My turtle was chasing me."

Well, they are five years old.

I'm wearing socks. Fall is here

I've had a difficult week but it all turned out all right. Last night I enjoyed a wonderful evening. After a quick trip to the Dollar Store for kitty litter, (thanks, Mom, said the kittens), I came home to eat spinach quiche, chunky mashed russet potato and baby asparagus with lemon butter. I listened to a good sermon and then laid on the couch to watch Master Chef Junior.

LOL, I dozed during the last 15 minutes, awakening at the end to see the two losing child contestants walking off stage. Those kids can sure cook (and bake). Given a box full of gross things like snails, kidneys and liver, they made wonderful food out of them. One young boy tentatively tested the kidney he'd cooked, and says "Hey! It's good!" I am not even that mature. If I see anything gross I avoid it like the plague. And I sure cannot cook anything deletable looking and apparently great tasting things like snail chowder with fried eggplant skin chips.

After a warm beginning of the month, it has now turned cool here in the blessed United States south. It's rainy this morning, and I love it. It's Fall. How do I know? I put away my table fan and put on socks. One thing I love about Georgia is the long, gentle fall. Fall comes overnight in Maine. It happens on the Sunday of Columbus Day. The foliage bursts on the scene suddenly for a couple of weeks, and almost always, on the long holiday weekend the second weekend of October, we'd get rain and wind and all the leaves fell down. It turned gloomy and stayed that way until May.

However, the New England foliage could not be beat. It was bright and vivid. This was a scene in one October at my old house in Maine. We lived on a lake. Notice the sky behind the brightly sunlit trees- so blue and gray.

 

Fall berry in Comer GA

Fall foliage on a sunny day in Toccoa GA

Boy choosing pumpkin at Thompson's Orchard, New Gloucester Maine

 Harvested pumpkins, Intervale Farm, New Gloucester Maine

I love Macintosh apples, which are too hard to find in GA. These are pecks of Macs at a farm stand in North Yarmouth ME. In this photo, I liked the bags of apples, the harvest corn decoration, and the New England colonial home behind.

Today's weather might be a little drab and colorless, but it's Fall at home!

Flat tires and Secret Santas

Last week as I was tootling down the road, my tire exploded. I didn't know what it was, of course, only that a HUGE noise had occurred and my car wobbled, swerved, and there was now a larger noise happening and some sort of disaster was in the making.

Driving down the road I always used to wonder when I saw pieces of a tire and how they came to be there. I used to worry for the drivers of those tire-pieces ... those ex-tires. Now I know.

I've always been afraid of explosions. It's the Asperger's and the fear and hatred of loud noises and the fear and hatred of sudden noises. Sudden, loud noises are the worst. Phones ringing. (I turn mine off). Jiffy Pop (I use microwave popcorn). Balloons bursting. (I leave any room that has balloons in them, immediately.) Once while I was in high school, I used a tire pump to inflate my bicycle tire, and it exploded. It was many years before I'd ride a bike again. I do Lamaze breathing exercises before a planned school fire drill. Not really. But almost.

So this explosion under my seat was startling to say the least. And I was in a remote and rural part of the county and the only driveway in sight had three faded NO TRESPASSING! signs. The owner of the property turned out to be very nice and so was his wife, and they got my spare on there and I was on my way again. They'd put the signs up because of thieves stealing their tools from the shed and copper wire from the chicken houses.

As I went to the mechanic the next day to inflate the spare a bit, he informed me it was full of dry cracks from being under the chassis for 20 years and it would eventually go flat. The mechanic's idea of 'eventually' and my idea of 'eventually' apparently differed. I thought it would eventually go flat after October 29 when I got paid. However, the tire didn't wait for payday and Wednesday night I tried to go to church it was thump-thump-thump dead flat. Eventually had arrived.

So I did what any self-respecting, adult woman, living alone would do. I stared at the tire a while, I went into my apartment, cried for 10 minutes and then went to bed. It was 7:30 pm.

I thought, hey, maybe it would magically re-inflate overnight. Yes, I do think like that. Sometimes it is very helpful to mentally insist on a fantasy world where the laws of physics do not apply. It makes life less stressful and a lot more interesting. At the very least the intervening 8 hours would give me some lead time on thinking about how to solve the problem.

And that is what I do best, think. And what I do second best is problem-solve. First I thought about having AAA come and re-inflating the tire and driving like mad to the mechanic (who is near my school) and leaving it with him and walk to school. But that is dangerous for me and other drivers, so I dispensed with that idea quickly. Plus, I had morning duty and I didn't want to be late. So I decided the prudent thing would be to leave the car with its woeful flat tire in the driveway, ask for a ride on Facebook which is the public village of the new millennium, and purchase a new tire by phone.

And I'm not living alone. Of course my friends know that I know Jesus is with me. And my friends are with me. Several of them gave me rides to and from school these two days. That is SO nice. And the tire is coming in tonight and after school I'll pick it up and my friend will take me and the new tire home. I'll call someone and he will come and fix my flat. I should be good to go by this evening and all set for the weekend.

Most amazing of all, someone helped me with a surprise Secret Santa envelope they left on my desk at school, so the tire is paid for. I was blown away by that.

I can't say enough about my life here and how wonderful it is. The friendliness and helpfulness and generosity of my friends is absolutely amazing. I hope I am as good a friend to them as they are to me. I know I fail in that sometimes, but I can keep trying. I have many good examples of how to be a friend all around me.

Shelob lives

Shelob was the huge spider that lived in fictional Middle Earth. Wikipedia: "Shelob is a fictional giant spider from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. She appears at the end of the fourth book, second volume (The Two Towers), of The Lord of the Rings. Her lair lay in Cirith Ungol ("the pass of the spider") leading into Mordor. Gollum deliberately led Frodo Baggins there in hopes of recovering the One Ring when Shelob attacked Frodo. The plan was foiled when Samwise Gamgee defeated Shelob with Frodo's elvish light and sword. ... Gollum led the Hobbits into her lair so that he could get the One Ring after she consumed them, as she had no use for it. After losing track of Gollum, the Hobbits realized that the tunnel was blocked by her webs."

My yard is blocked by the children of Shelob's webs.

With all the rain this summer, folks say they have never seen so many spiders. In my 7 years here I've never seen so many spiders either. The legend of Shelob ends this way:

"Shelob fled into her lair, significantly wounded. Her final fate, according to the text, will remain unknown to the people of Middle-earth."

I know what happened to her. She survived and bore generations of evil spawn who continue to build large webs in my yard. Reason #2,347 not to go outside. Inside is better.

Ingenuity and working with what you have

I have a small kitchen and not a lot of convenient places to put stove mitts. And I need them close because I am ridiculously stupid when it comes to cooking and I'm wont to open the oven and grab the pan with my hands. I had them on the stove fan hood for a long time but was frustrated with them sliding off into my pot of soup or pan of eggs. I'm live a lifestyle of "working with what ya got" so I looked around for a fast and free solution. This was it. Magnets placed just so and voila, pot-holder no more drop into pot.

The one on the left was a hand-print of a kindergarten student that her mom made and shrunk onto a magnet and given to me for a Christmas gift. The one in the middle was one I'd made because it was how I was feeling during that era. And the one on the right was made for me and it says "Attenti Al Gato" meaning beware of the cat. I had a bad cat at the time, lol. Abby The Psycho Kitty, RIP.

Bountiful Basket Day

My Bountiful Basket today: a dozen small green apples, 5 red pears, 2 Asian pears, huge bunch bananas, ruby red grapefruit. Veggies: 3 large green peppers, two bunches celery, three bunches scallions, packet cherry tomatoes, bag russet potatoes, large Romaine lettuce, and a large bundle of baby asparagus!! The produce LOOKS great, and TASTES great (I already ate some celery). Cost benefit analysis: in looking at today's weekly ads from my 2 local supermarkets, plus estimating closely where produce is not featured in the ad, the cost for what I received today would have been $32.20. The total cost to me at BB was 21.50, saving me over $10. Thank you BB!

The green apples will become apple crumble for church Homecoming tomorrow. I will grill the scallions on the George Foreman grill, or roast them in the oven. They are very sweet that way. The cherry tomatoes will be used in salads and also cooked in a ratatouille with the green peppers and onions. Celery will be cream of celery soup. The rest of the fruit will be eaten raw with my lunch every day. The potatoes are usually turned into home fries and also will be used in black bean soup in a week after the celery soup gets eaten.

I love produce day. It only takes me ten minutes to drive there and ten minutes picking it up. The produce is already put together for me so it saves me time lingering and shopping in the grocery store. I hate stores. The produce is very good.

TV before computers

I am watching television shows from the 1970s. Mary Tyler Moore, Rockford Files, Columbo, and now, Lou Grant.

I loved Lou Grant when it was broadcast between 1977 and 1982. The show won 13 Emmy Awards during its run. Now that I'm watching it as an older person, I can absolutely see why.

It's so well written, the characters are distinct, the players are good actors, and the themes are relevant today thirty years later.

That it deals with newspaper publication is a bonus, as I used to be a newspaper publisher and grappled with all the issues presented on the show. News gathering is a wonderful thing- when done right.

I published a weekly paper in the internet era. Lou Grant gathered (fictional) news before computers. On the 70s shows, there are no computers! Mary Tyler Moore's broadcast news desk has manila folders and a typewriter. Jim Rockford has the latest new machine all right: a telephone answering machine (for which he makes monthly payments). Even City Editor Lou Grant's desk has only a phone and Rolodex. The reporters clack away on typewriters. They all run to the phone when on the beat, clamoring to be the first one to phone in the story to the waiting reporters who have their fingers poised over the keys.

Several Lou Grant episodes have talked about phone tricks. If the reporters were in a house or business, the first reporters arriving at the scene hide phones so they know which one to run to when the story breaks. Joe Rossi gave his aunt a pocket full of dimes when they were at the airport so she could call the news room and keep the line open for when he needed to retell the story over the phone wires to the typist.

On his first day on the job, Lou Grant passes by a VDT, video display terminal, and asks what it is. His boss explained, but I don't get it. It displays text only, and it doesn't save when turned off. Something of a primitive word processor connected to a bigger computer somewhere. It doesn't generate text, only displays it. And it's huge. To me it looks clunky and ancient (as I type this on my slim laptop with high resolution, graphics and mega-memory) but to 1978 eyes it looks newfangled.

You know, even though I LOVE computers, and I LOVE the internet, there is something appealing about a desk without the hulking, looming, slightly insidious monitor squatting like Jabba the Hut on my table. Everything looks simpler, streamlined, and cleaner. Was that era really simpler? Maybe, maybe not. Has the internet been a boon to this generation? Maybe, maybe not.

Sue Grafton is the author of the Alphabet detective series, you know, "A is for Alibi", etc. She said in an interview once that she deliberately set the novels in an era prior to the computer era (70's and early 80s) because she wanted her detective to solve mysteries on the beat like the old gumshoes, with wit and intelligence and cunning. I like that.

You see the tv ad of Paul Revere playing charades by firelight with friends, and he sees the light come on in the old North Church, and he takes a cell phone out of his pocket to say "The British are coming". He pops it back into his pocket and continues with the game. There's something compelling and daring about being in the world doing exploits, riding a foamy horse through the darkling night, shouting THE BRITISH ARE COMING" that texting on a cell phone just doesn't have. 

Aw, snap, I've turned into an old lady, musing about "the way it was."

I can have it both ways, though. I can listen live stream to a sermon in CA, watch a Syrian conflict unfold as it happens, see the dust still flying during an earthquake in New Zealand, attend Khan Academy to learn physics, and still have my old fictional friends Mary, Lou, Columbo and Rockford running around gathering news and solving crimes the old fashioned way. And that seems pretty good to me.

Using the Bountiful Basket produce

I mentioned a couple of times that I have been buying the Bountiful Basket co-op basket of produce. It is a huge bunch of quality produce, half veggies and half fruit. The price has gone up from $15.50 to $20.50 but it is still a good deal.

You pay online and show up every other Saturday to pick up whatever the co-op folks have found for quality veggies and fruits. Last time we got two bunches celery, green beans, English cuke, cauliflower, pack of mushrooms, a pineapple, huge bunch bananas, Hatch chiles, two yellow squash, and a head of Romaine lettuce. The quality is outstanding.

I am a vegetarian so I love pretty much everything that comes in the basket. See, you don't pick what you want. You don't know what you get until you pick it up. It just comes and whatever is in the basket, you eat.

I grilled the chiles on my George Foreman grill, and then popped them into a plastic bag to seat them. This helps separate the skin from the flesh, and I scraped it off. Cut open and scrape out seeds. They are mild and sweet. I used them in a black bean soup into which I put potato, a roasted on on the cob corn, onion. And also this way: flour tortillas, whipped cream cheese, and Hatch chile, roll up for pinwheels or fold into sandwich. Yum!

The mushrooms and squash (plus a zucchini from last Basket) became ratatouille, along with a tomato. Into this I put black olives and feta cheese. Also can put quinoa, or spaghetti, or just eat plain.

The celery became cream of celery soup.

The pears we got two weeks ago we were told were pears but looked in the shape of an apple. I found them to be hard and sour. They've been sitting in the fridge. Today I peeled and chopped them, and baked them with a bit of butter and brown sugar. Pear crumble.

My approach to groceries and food is: I eat whatever is on sale at the grocery store. Now that I do the basket I am making a commitment to whatever is in there. I always use it in some way and eat it all within the two weeks before the next Basket comes around.

I encourage you, if you live in an area that has Bountiful Baskets, to try it. Committing to the Basket means you take a different approach to groceries. You get what you get and you don't pitch a fit, lol. It does take time and commitment t make sure you use the food in a way that means it will be eaten, and sometimes searching the internet for recipes, but it is worth it. I especially love not eating any processed foods.

Morning commute

My morning commute is only 10 minutes. It's a straight shot up one road and then I veer off a bit to the school road. I go by pastures and a few homes and trees and ponds and cows. I love the moon in the  morning and the when I pass the open fields I can see it very well as it sets.

This time of year, the drive starts out dark. (7:00 AM)

The hay is in!

I think about what's ahead. Usually I think about all I have to do and the little time I have to do it in. But I try to focus on the kids as I drive. I think about the funny things they say and do. For example, I overheard this yesterday:

When the day begins at school, kids enter the building and some go to the cafeteria for breakfast and some go to the gym and wait for the first bell. When the bell rings, there is a lot of traffic in and out of the gym.

The kids don't naturally align themselves into the proper traffic pattern of entering or exiting on the right side and the left side. This year we put little P.E. cones on the floor to direct them in, and out. Otherwise a lot of kindergarteners get bumped into by fifth graders trotting off to breakfast. However, some kids still cut the last cone going in and go across the threshold in the wrong direction.

There is a decorative cone-shaped neck-high plastic tree in the hall. I took it and put it in the spot where the kids tend to cut across.

Two of the fifth-graders came out of the gym. They spotted the tree.

The girl said, "That's a nice touch!"
The boy said, "I think it's going overboard."

LOL!

The day brightens fast around here. I took this picture while driving, putting up the camera, and aimlessly shooting the road ahead as I went tootling down the highway. I'd stop, but as you can see, there is no shoulder.

Today a kindergarten boy cracked me up. He's all boy, plain spoken, down to earth, loves his four-wheeler and says what's on his mind. I love him.

He had to choose 6 books for his book basket. He wanted books about puppies and snakes. We looked through all the puppy and snake baskets and he found five books he was interested in. We went through every other basket but nothing else appealed. We started to go through the baskets a second time.

Pink sky, moon set, cows wake up. (The blobs are cows)

I was started to get a little desperate. I had other kids to work with and he was taking a lot of time...and he was starting to lose his focus. I held up a book I knew other kids enjoyed, it was hilarious. But the cover featured a granny looking women scrubbing the floor. I said "Hey! This one's funny! You will like it!" he looked profoundly skeptical. I opened to the hilarious page, and showed it. "Look, she hung the Meanies on the line."

Glanced at the page, looked at me, waited a second, shrugged and said, "I ain't laughin'".

He had a point. Okey dokey then. Back to the book search!

I love morning ground fog.

It's full day when I arrive. There are a few cars lined up by the front door with puffs of air coming out the tailpipe, these are parents in idling cars with kids waiting for the opening bell so the kids can exit the car and enter their school day. I walk across the parking lot and think about all the important things I have to do. And those are: for the 2000th time, listen to the story of how the tooth fell out, ask how old they are when they tell me "It's my birthday!", say "Yes!" when asked "Do you like my dress/shirt/hair? And all in all, love on some kids.

The day has begun.