Gloves in August and other trivia...

 August 31, 2022

I used to keep a pair of gloves on the microwave, in my kitchen. These are the kind of gloves that you can purchase at the dollar store, just simple cloth gloves one would wear in winter. And I kept them there because if I needed to dig through my freezer for something, which is also in my kitchen, I could use those gloves and save my hands from the cold.

And whenever my daughter would do a deep clean of the kitchen, she would put those gloves…. Somewhere else. Even after I explained to her there was a really good reason for them to be there, and that I wasn’t just an old woman on the road to dementia. And, yes that was a little passive aggressive, I admit it. Anyway, when I looked last Saturday morning, there once more were no gloves on the microwave. Which was why, on this past weekend, the part of the task called “reorganizing the freezer” that took the longest to perform was finding a pair of gloves to wear in August.

In the days when I had two of my grandchildren early morning a lot of days before school, I used to keep a plethora of these gloves. I kept them in a bag that hung from the coat hooks in my entrance hall. Those two grandkids were forever losing their gloves, and so in September, as soon as those gloves became available at the dollar store, I would purchase a dozen pairs….and would likely have to get more just after Christmas, too. But this was at the dollar store so not a great expense.

Also generally stocked in that area of my entrance hallway: umbrellas. Yup, they’d take them to school, and then home again, but those bumbershoots never generally found their way back here. But I digress.

I finally checked one of my coat pockets, and really, that should have been the first place I looked. Ah, getting older. The mind doesn’t always work as consistently well as one would like.

Monday night gave us a fierce if short thunderstorm. A close lightning strike reset our television, something that would have been a cause for concern before this whole TV via the internet system we have now. I knew that even if my television was out due to the storm and stayed out, the program I wanted to watch would still be recorded. Life is so much better when you don’t sweat the small stuff.

Time moves so quickly. Some days can seem long, but the weeks just zoom past. Here we are, the last day of August already! And yet, it has seemed like a very long summer. I think having so many days that were hot and muggy added to that impression. When you spend your time annoyed with how things are, they seem to stick around longer.

Another digression: I’ve also discovered that’s how pain works, too. The more I focus on it, the worse it seems. Keeping my mind active and busy with other things is one of the most important analgesics out there. And you don’t need a prescription, or the attendant nosy pharmacist, which is bonus.

Next week the school buses return to our neighborhood. Our house is on a corner, so it’s no surprise that we have a school bus stop close by. My daughter’s bigger dogs—if I’ve neglected to ease that one recliner back a bit from the window—bark like crazy when they get up on the back of that chair, nose that curtain aside, and see the group of children gathering there each day. Because let’s be honest. Even those chihuahuas of hers know that so many kids in one place can’t possibly be good.

Next weekend our daughter and I are going to go shopping to pick up a few school supplies for her grandchildren, and to acquire a few more items on our preparedness list. Most often, if two people leave this house to go out, it’s daddy and daughter. They like to seek out garage sales, or visit different stores, and of course, have breakfast out. I don’t often feel left out when these outings occur. Nine times out of ten will I choose to be home, rather than to go out. But, ah, there is that tenth time!

I would rather not have the constant serenading of dogs when daddy and daughter sojourn forth, however. Aside from preferring to be home, I have also always maintained that silence truly is golden.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Waste not, want not....

 August 24, 2022

I’m more relieved than I can say that the exceptional heat and humidity of just a week or so ago appear to be gone. Although the humidity can still be a factor, at times. Especially if it’s about to or has just rained. Only last Friday David commented that everywhere he stepped on the grass, he could feel a kind of muted crunch. He concluded with the observation that we really did need some rain. He’s right about that. And yes, a bit of humidity is a small price to pay for that.

We got some rain on Sunday, and again on Monday. Yesterday was dry, but the forecast calls for rain with thunderstorms later today, and possibly on and into Friday. The crops should be happy, but seriously, there is so much drought around the world right now. It truly is a cause for concern.

The drought, along with the facts that other areas on this continent are having floods, and the problems rampant with shipping grain out of the Ukraine, all combined means that there is possibly going to be a world-wide food shortage, and one that will begin in the very near future.

Our daughter and I are planning to reorganize our freezer next weekend. We need to take an extensive inventory, both of the contents of the freezer and our food cupboards and see what we have on hand. And we want to make room so that, within the next month, we can head to a local market and begin to purchase a few bushels of veggies. These, we plan to freeze. We also intend to buy a few extra pieces of canned goods each time we shop, going forward, to build up our stores. Not a lot, we’re not going to hoard. But we do want to have at least a three-month supply on hand, going forward.

I encourage any of you who are able, to do the same. Canned goods last a long time. It doesn’t hurt to have a few things on the shelves in reserve. With canned goods, it’s easy enough to organize them by “best before” dates, so that nothing goes to waste. And, here, I would remind you that “best before” doesn’t necessarily mean “rotten after”. I suggest you ask Mr./Ms. Google how long canned goods are good for past the expiration date. My friends, you will be shocked!

We’re also practicing making smaller meals, mostly because none of us have the appetites we did in years past. Making smaller meals means that we have fewer leftovers. And since we tend to eat our leftovers, that’s all just good. There’s an old saying, “waste not, want not”, and it’s one that especially during these somewhat uncertain times, we’ve decided to follow.

We do use less meat these days, of course, since our daughter has been a vegetarian for more than a year and a half. She does not eat meat or fish. She started out vegan, but she does love her eggs, and ended up only denying herself those for about two weeks. I supposed if David and I had to get to the point where we don’t eat a lot of meat, this is a really good time to have done so. A pound of hamburger used to do us nicely for one meal; now I freeze the hamburger in half-pound amounts.

The only exception to that is our “Nanny Tuesdays” that are pasta days, when our daughter’s grandkids are here. One of them likes Alfredo and one of them likes spaghetti. The one who likes Alfredo prefers chicken; the spaghetti man likes his meatballs.

Pasta Day means I make both, and we eat pasta leftovers for two days. But the kids are happy and that, my friends, truly is priceless.

One of the other things that our daughter particularly wanted to avoid, going forward, was indulging in too many processed foods. I believe we’ve succeeded in keeping that down to a low level. We generally eat only fresh and frozen veggies, but since she and her dad like creamed corn, we stock that. I’d prefer to make my own scalloped potatoes from scratch, too, rather than to use a boxed mix. We do, however, have a few boxes of mac and cheese on hand, as well as some “instant oatmeal” and other breakfast cereals.

So, we’ll reorganize our freezer, and make plans for stocking up, moderately, as a way to protect ourselves as much as is reasonable against the possibility of lean days ahead. This isn’t a case of doing something new, either, but rather reverting back to the way things used to be. This plan is really nothing more than what we used to practice when our own kids were younger and our money very tight.

In those days, I used to keep supplies on hand because if there was a financial emergency that would pop up—and there always were a few each year—then we were ok not buying groceries on any given payday, so that we could cover the unexpected, instead.

We can’t any of us know the future. But we can, if we’re observant, know what a few of the possibilities may be, and then prepare for them as best we can.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Zero Sum? Not in this life....

 August 17, 2022

There is no such thing as life without trials. Sometimes, when we’re feeling wounded by the very act of living, we look around us and imagine that some of the people we see have an “easy” time of it. They look good and smell good, and have those nice smiles, and we imagine all that means they are so lucky and have it so much better than we, struggling under our current burdens, whatever those may be.

But of course, that’s not true. What you’re seeing are others who know who to put on a good face, how to not let their burden-wrestling show. Because there really is no such thing as a problem-free life.

We don’t always face the same challenges as our neighbors or our friends. And really, I don’t think you can truly compare what you’re going through to what someone else is going through. A trial is a trial, and the challenge of tough times is a challenge for us all, regardless of the minutia of the situations we face.

One more thing life isn’t, is a “zero-sum game”. I know that as true deep down to the very base of my soul.

I asked Ms./Mr. Google, and she/he told me that that expression, “zero sum game” originates from the 1940s in the field of game theory. That surprised me because when I first understood what it meant, I immediately thought of the field of accounting. Anyone who has worked in that field understands that a company’s balance sheet is balanced when the credits and the debits are the same.

But that wasn’t it at all. It was the field of game theory. And I for one object to the use of the term being taken out of its original context and applied to life—especially the way it’s applied today.

Used today, this theory sets different ideas, collectives, and people on a grid in complete opposition one to the other. Basically, their mantra would seem to be, “I can only win if you lose.”  And while that might be true in a game of chess, or playing poker, or in a race, it’s not true in life. It just isn’t. I can win and you can win. Or we both can lose. I can get ahead, and so can you. In fact, I’ll go one further. Because I see you get ahead, I know that I can, too. It’s possible.  If I have a bag of candy, you can have one too.

Before the 1952 Olympics, no one had run a mile in under 4 minutes. And then one person did. And after one person did that, others followed. One person’s achievement shows that the achievement is possible. And if it is possible, then anyone can aspire to it.

I think the problem we face today with all this tribalism arises when there are people behaving in bad faith, who use another’s loss/defeat/meeting with disaster, to define their own “getting ahead” or winning. Just think about that for a moment. There are people in this world who are not happy, who do not feel justified, who do not feel “good”, unless others are suffering.

Can you think of a more relevant definition of selfishness? Can you think of a more relevant definition of evil?

The good news is that I believe that on the whole, there are fewer of that sort than there are those who want good things for their fellow human beings. I really do.

Therefore, it is up to you and me to live our lives in good faith. To do as much good as we can for as many people as we can. It is up to us to “let our light” shine; and when you think about it, that’s nothing new. It’s a concept as old as time. It’s how I was raised, and I know I’m not alone in that.

It’s not always easy, but in my opinion, it does get easier with practice. And sometimes a little judicious “selective hearing” can go a long way toward keeping your heart calm and helping you in accomplishing your goal.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Summer days and green beans...

 August 10, 2022

Yesterday, after nearly two weeks of ick, the humidity finally broke here, thank goodness. Monday, late afternoon, it teemed outside briefly turning our street into a river. But instead of making things cooler, they just got exponentially more humid—to the point that David couldn’t really sit out on the porch for long, because it was too hard for him to breathe. It even rained again while he was out there. Our porch has a roof over it and we’ve been known to sit out in a torrential downpour, provided the wind doesn’t blow the wet onto us. So we tend to indulge ourselves, except on days that are so thick, the oxygen seems to hide.

Then, yesterday morning, it was cooler. David went out first thing in his shorts, and then came back into the house to put long pants and socks on. He said after the extreme heat of the last week or so, the 68 degrees Fahrenheit that felt like 70 was too cool for just sitting around in.

We had a good weekend, and on Sunday hosted David’s friend who came down from up north, to visit not only us, but others in the general area that he knows. He’d grown up in this part of the province and still has ties here. He and his son came for supper, and our daughter graciously grilled steaks and shrimps and foil wrapped potatoes. When the feast was done, all had happy tummies.

Because it was such a hot day on Sunday, we only had one item that we cooked in the house, and that was the fresh corn we got from our usual source, a farm about three miles north of town. And since we only let the vegetable dance in the boiling water for a very few minutes, the house didn’t get overly heated.

I do love summer, and I like “usual” hot days – into the eighties or nineties. Of course, lately the thermometer reaches much higher. Still, it really is the humidity that does one in. It causes difficulties in breathing for some, and swollen feet in others. About the only good thing I can say about this heat is that if I begin to feel too warm here inside my central-air-conditioned home, I can step outside, out the back door or the front, for just a few minutes. And when I come inside again, ahh, the cool is once again noticeable!

Our gardens, full of beans (green and yellow) and tomatoes, are doing very well. There are some large tomatoes growing, and they will be ripening soon. I don’t think there’s anything better than a tomato that you pluck from your own garden about two minutes before consuming it. I like both a toasted tomato sandwich, and one on bread with lettuce and salad dressing.

As with every growing season, we constantly observe and review and make notes for improvement for the next season. This year’s list of “adjustments” includes one thing my daughter has been promoting for a couple of years, and one born out of necessity this year. And why in regard to that latter item this year was so different, I have no idea.

In the spring, daughter is going to take all the dirt out of the gardens in order to replace it with new—once her daddy deepens those boxes. That is something that’s necessary, because it’s dirt in a box, and has no way to refresh itself. And it does need to be deeper, because plants grow so well they begin to topple. But this’s year’s near calamity?

You may recall that David loves to provide seeds and nuts for the wild critters. The squirrels and chipmunks surely know where to come for a feast. So, this spring when the chippies saw David planting the bean seeds in our box gardens, why, they just thought he was making mealtime fun for them!

The result was that he had to replant about half of the quantity of the beans and had to settle for climbing bean plants when there were no more bush bean seeds to be had anywhere. Once the beans were up and began to grow, the chippies left them alone. And no, he did not provide anyplace for those climbing beans to climb except into each other, and, of course, into the tomatoes.

So, the two-part resolution for next year:  tomatoes in their gardens, and the beans in theirs, with deeper gardens and fresh soil. And do not plant the seeds until he’s successfully fabricated a temporary mesh “top” to protect those seeds yet allow plenty of sun and rain for the growing process to begin.

And I have written all that down because we’re older now and tend to forget these kinds of things, no matter how important they seem in the moment.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Recalling a day at the beach...

 August 3, 2022

Last week, our daughter took her grandchildren to the very same beach that, when I was a child, my father took us.

It’s a beach on the south-western shore of Lake Ontario, and from what I can tell—from Jenny’s descriptions of what it was as like—it certainly has changed since the last time I saw it, which would have been at least thirty years ago.

In its heyday, the beach was more than just sand that ended at the water’s edge. There were concession stands, where one could purchase French fries, footlong hotdogs, cold drinks and the inevitable souvenirs, including beach toys. There was a small amusement park, with about a half-dozen rides, and those rides were geared for the under ten crowd. I recall from my childhood a busy place with lots of people and traffic. Since I would have been only about seven or so the last time Dad took us there, I’m pretty sure there were other attractions that I wouldn’t have noticed at the time.

We usually went to a beach about twice a year. Once to Lake Ontario, and once to a park that was on the shores of Lake Erie. The latter was for a picnic hosted by the company my father worked for, Studebaker-Packard, a picnic that took place at Crystal Beach.

I barely recall the times at Crystal Beach, but oh the memories I have of our days at Lake Ontario! The water is colder at this lake than it is at Lake Erie—something that really surprised our daughter. I never thought to warn her, but it’s always the case, because Lake Ontario is a whole lot deeper than Lake Erie.

Now, as then, the beach and the parking are free. Back then, there were five of us. We never had much money to spare, so my parents would make a proper picnic lunch, with a little something extra. There would be lots of sandwiches, not just PBJ or bologna or egg salad, but sometimes salmon salad, and they were the best sandwiches ever. As well, dad would pack his Coleman stove, and would have brought all he needed to make pan-fried potatoes—the something extra.

My mother once told me that the aroma of those potatoes cooking in bacon fat made everyone around us drool. I remember that my parents would bring a big thermos of ice-cold lemonade, or Freshie (another brand name for Kool-Aid) for us to drink, but sometimes we’d be treated to soda, purchased at one of the stands.

In those days, you didn’t burn in the sun as easily as you do now. We didn’t have “sunscreen”, so much as we had “suntan” lotion. We’d slather it on and hope not to get too badly sunburned, and even after several hours in the sun, we usually weren’t. At the end of the day, before the sun set, we would do something else at the beach that surprised my own kids years later when I told them about it: we’d wash up. Yes, you took a bar of soap into the lake and washed. It wasn’t just us, either, because as you looked up and down the beach you saw many people indulging in this—and some folks even had shampoo in the water too.

That, my friends is the down side of what they call the good old days. And yes, indeed, I am at this moment most definitely rolling my eyes thinking about it. I was just a child, but one would have thought that science would have progressed far enough in the early 1960s to say “don’t do that”.

By the way, my daughter informed me, as I read her this, that not this time, but the time before when she went to the that beach, she saw a couple of families with soap in the water.  So, science has progressed, but I guess not everyone got the memo.

I’m not particularly bothered by the fact that I seem to be at that part of getting older when I’m recalling how things were, “back in my day”. Actually, just the opposite is the case. I suppose the longer one lives, the more experiences and memories one has in the brain. It’s hard to find them when you’re just looking around for them. But hear of something that could be considered a clue, and sometimes, those sweet moments just pop back right up to the surface. I think that’s one of those unwritten bonuses one gets for getting older.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury