It’s finally come to this. The Washington Posthas an article today about a Houston study which shows the Covid-19 virus mutating and one of the mutations may make the virus more easily transmitted. The article gets a little technical for most but they are specifically looking at the changing of the amino acid aspartic acid into glycine by the mutation. The amino acids affect the structure of the protein spikes on the coat of the virus.
What does that mean? The article goes on to say not all viruses mutate as frequently as others Covid-19 may mutate more frequently and this may lead to a new Covid-19 vaccination every year just as we do with the flu vaccine. A major reason is the spread of the virus all through the U.S. which is enhanced by interactions between people which enhances the variations of the virus to spread among the population and mutate. Coincidentally, if the U.S. population took seriously the idea of wearing masks and social distancing, this would not have enhanced the viruses’ ability to mutate. In essence, we have been hoisted on our on petard by our ignorance and stupidity.
Of course, the only people who are saying this are scientists from several different universities and research organizations and we know they have no idea what they are talking about.
Anyway, the idea is vaccinating against one strain of virus may increase the chances of the virus mutating around that vaccine thus necessitating new vaccines every year – again like the flu vaccine. And we thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse.
It’s another blah day for me. At least I didn’t wake at 3 am. Instead, it was 4 am but I immediately went back to sleep, thank goodness. I was up at 5:30 am. I managed my long walk (2 miles) and did my yoga stretches and even got enough energy to start my laps in the pool but I quickly called a halt to that. Maybe the overcast day with threat of rain had something to do with it and then again, maybe it was just the year 2020.
I can think back on some bad times in my life, some hard times, and some times I didn’t think I would survive, but 2020 is going to be in my top 10. In reality, I guess I’m far luckier than most – my house is paid for, my jeep is paid for, I have steady retirement income and with the exception of the biceps tendon fiasco, I’m in relatively good health.
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Like most of life’s problems, it has more to do with the emotional than the physical. The physical, at least when you are young, you can pretty much surmount. The emotional can be a steeper slope. Remarkably, with all the depressing news, I’m not in the depths of despair. I know I’m lucky. It helps to have good friends to talk to and laugh with and zoom with.
I think that’s why I like hiking so much. Hiking up the side of a mountain is certainly challenging physically but it is as much an emotional climb as it is physical. You start off in good spirits and if the mountain is any challenge at all, you begin to wonder why you started this idiotic journey in the first place.
After a while it becomes a “put one foot in front of the other” effort. The physical gives way to the emotional. Just when you might be ready to chuck it all you round a bend and see a sight that simply stuns you with its beauty. It doesn’t even have to be dramatic. It can simply be the ten thousand hues of green being played upon by sunlight and shadows along the trail. It can be a small herd of deer that aren’t afraid of you and slowly go about their feeding. It can be a sunrise in the Rocky Mountains that takes your breath away.
The trick is to keep putting that one foot in front of the other and looking for the next surprise around the bend in the trail. Eventually, you’ll get to the apex and you’ll realize all the sweat and doubt was worth the effort.
Let’s hope all this effort we are putting into the pandemic is worth it. Stay tuned and stay safe!
Well! The upper cabinets arrived! Boxes and boxes and boxes of them. There are 26 listed items on the invoice and yet they still managed to not include the glass paneled doors on the upper middle cabinet nor the spice rack pull out. The Baxter Restoration rep was a little miffed. He even ordered some extra molding and a super large sheet of veneer to cover the back of two of the cabinets that face the kitchen table and yet they still left things off.
Kitchenmaid upper cabinets ready to be installed.
Not only that but apparently his main construction guy stood him up with one of his bosses’ projects so he’s done with him. I’m expecting Lewis sometime tomorrow to assess the cabinets in place and the new uppers and how to install them. I was satisfied with the work of the other guy but I understand you don’t stand up your bosses’ boss.
At least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it is not an oncoming locomotive. Again, I’m still predicting all will be done by December – assuming a hurricane doesn’t blow it all away before then.
Of course, that means I have to take everything out of the old cabinets – both upper and lower. The lower need to be cleaned out because they did ship the pull out drawers I wanted. Baxter brought me six Home Depot boxes and I’ve requested at least six more. What that means is if I want to do any cooking, I have to scrounge through around 12 boxes for supplies and dishes. I guess it is somewhat like a camping trip scrounging for things in a cooler.
Yesterday was a blah day. I did my walk and also my yoga but when I headed out to do my morning swim it started raining. I used that as an excuse not to do my laps in the pool even though it quit about 15 minutes later. Any port in a storm.
I’ve been a little leery of getting in the pool even with sprinkles. I used to be fearless and not worry about it unless I heard thunder. It reminds me of the old joke we told as kids, “If it starts to rain, go underwater so you won’t get wet.” That held until I was swimming laps with a perfectly clear sky – really, not a single cloud – and a huge clap of thunder startled me mid lap. I later read you don’t have to have clouds to have lightning. Florida is the lightning capital of the world, so I decided sprinkles are warnings. They even have lightning detectors scattered all across golf courses, ball fields, and anywhere there may be people congregated.
It was another 3am morning. I don’t know what’s going on with that but it’s gotten to be a habit. Fortunately, I dozed back off around 4:30am and got up around 7:30am. Normally I would read on my iPad but I have found when I do my accommodation goes to hell for the rest of the morning. My entire walk looks blurry.
My accommodation has been bad for about 15 or 20 years now. I can read for about an hour and I’ll have to wait another hour before anything in the distance is within focus. The early morning reads, however, take about 3 hours to get over. Not sure why the difference simply because of the time.
I may have to start my own garden club. I enjoyed the cucumber sandwiches so much last week I made more this week. I made a mistake with last weeks by putting them in a container and placing them in the refrigerator. The bottoms got soggy. I took off the top of the container and turned them over to allow the fridge to dry them out. They were at least edible. This time I placed them between layers of paper towels in the container in hopes they will absorb any moisture. If it works, I’ll be happy – and burping.
Is anyone else getting political phone calls? I rarely answer my phone if it doesn’t have a name attached to the number but since I’ve been waiting on cabinets, I’ve been forced to answer some unknown numbers. Most have been telling me how concerned they are that my extended warranty is about to expire on my jeep. I confess to having one on the jeep but it is not ready to expire. That seems to be the most irritating call in south Florida right at this moment. There are even cartoons about it in the paper.
Broward County Supervisor of Elections finally published the sample ballot for my precinct. I’ve already filled it out and am ready to go. They’ll probably start sending the mail-in ballots this next week. I understand that Florida is sending out 5 million ballots in the mail next week.
At least the web site for the Supervisor of Elections lets you check when they mail you your ballot, when they received your ballot in the mail, and whether or not you ballot was actually counted.
This year’s ballot is not a busy as past years but there is enough. Besides President, there’s U.S. House, State’s Attorney for Broward, Public Defender for Broward, Sheriff, Supervisor of Elections (the current one is not running), County Commissioner, Yes or No on a Supreme Court Justice, three District Court Judge races, one Circuit Judge race, one school board race, a water commissioner and Mayor of Fort Lauderdale.
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Added to that are six state constitutional amendments and two Broward County charter amendments. Instead of my precincts 10 page ballot from last year, we are down to four!
I can’t remember the last time I didn’t vote in an election. The mail-in ballot makes it much easier than having to go to a poll, particularly when Broward County is constantly having to reassign polling places. For a while there I was getting a change in polling place every election.
I was talking with Michel the other day and we were gingerly discussing whether or not we were going to Key West this year. She, Nancy and I have birthdays that are fairly close together (particularly Michel and me) and we decided to do an annual trip to Key West to celebrate. After broaching the subject, Michel was greatly relieved when I suggested we not go.
I think this pandemic is a long way from being over. There was an article in the online newspaper today about a group of three friends living in a house in Tallahassee while going to Florida State University. They had a very small party at their house that had 10 total people. Two weeks later, all 10 tested positive for Covid-19.
The Covid-19 Dashboard for the University of Mississippi is now at 515. The last I checked it was in the 400’s. There are also 183 active cases in the city of Oxford that are also probably students. And – Ole Miss plays football on campus this Saturday. It’s a recipe for disaster. Supposedly there is no tailgating in the Grove but that’s not going to stop the fraternity parties.
I’ve probably mentioned this before but I like to haunt old cemeteries. It’s something I got from my maternal grandmother. Ruby would love to go visit and sometimes take flowers to our relatives. There were two that we frequently visited in Morton, Mississippi: Hodge Hill and Sims Hill. Seems like a lot of our relatives are there.
Anyway, I kept noticing how many had the date of death as the year 1918. It was only later I learned about the Influenza Pandemic of 1918. At first, it was taught in the schools at the Spanish Flu Epidemic. I even later learned that the reason was Spain was neutral in WWI and had not censored its press so the first news reports of the 1918 pandemic came from Spain.
What a misnomer that was. The original outbreak was traced to Fort Riley, Kansas among recruits going to Europe in 1918. It was the United States that spread the disease across the world, not Spain.
Virology was such a new field that no one suspected a virus as the causative agent of the epidemic. However, people had enough sense to wear masks even then.
You don’t hear too much about the role of the U.S. in the spread of the 1918 pandemic. That’s why I’m a little concerned about the new issue of Trump and the Republicans in Congress being upset at the revisions taking place in text books. Supposedly they are upset that the texts are trying to tell us all the bad things we did in U.S. history.
As someone who went to school in the 50’s and 60’s, I can safely say our textbooks were totally sanitized of any controversial topic. I didn’t hear about the killing of Emmet Till until a few years ago. I only knew about some of the massacres of first Americans when I read Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I learned to not trust Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam. Richard Nixon and Watergate further shattered my trust in the “official” version of what takes place in history.
I come down on the side of exposing all the travesties committed by the United States in our textbooks so students can learn from them and not repeat the mistakes. I’m not saying don’t tell the good, I saying tell the good with the bad.
As a kid I was always glad to read some of the American Heritage Foundation publications on historical moments in the U.S. Pride in country was inculcated in Boy Scouts. We raised the flag in the morning and had evening retreat to lower the flag in the evening. The Scouts even offered a citizenship merit badge. We had to take civics in high school. What we were not told were the darker parts of our country’s history.
Perhaps a little better understanding of our good and bad points would lead to a little more tolerance. Then I wouldn’t have been so embarrassed when I sat in study hall on November 22, 1963 when the principal announced the John F. Kennedy, President of the United States had been shot and the entire study hall erupted in cheers. I was stunned anyone could cheer the assassination of a President. I sat meekly in my seat wondering at the hatred. To this day I have no answer.
Well, if it hasn’t been crazy enough this hurricane season, a tropical low developed directly over the state of Florida yesterday and we have had constant rain today. Just a few minutes ago, it rained as hard as I’ve seen it here at the house.
On my morning walk, as I got to the end of one of the finger isles, the pumping station for my neighborhood was flashing a red light. That usually means the pump is not working. I called the hot line for the city of Fort Lauderdale to report it. The last thing I need is for the sewer to back up today. Hopefully, they sent someone out to look into it. They are supposed to have sensors to automatically notify the city but I don’t want to bet the farm on that.
The supervisor for Baxter Restoration showed up around 1 pm and brought with him some boxes for me to pack up everything in both the top and bottom cabinets. We are apparently still on for the 23rd for delivery of the new upper cabinets. After using all 6 boxes I texted him when he comes back on the 23rd to bring me at least 6 more. How do you accumulate so much junk?
I had a growing list of groceries so I tried to put an order in at Publix for delivery but the first two items I typed in on their web site came back as sold out. I shifted to Amazon. It’s a little more difficult with them. First, there is Whole Foods, a subsidiary of Amazon and also Fresh Market. If you type an item in you may get a Whole Foods item and if you type another item in, it may come up Fresh Market. A third item may come up Amazon Prime. Right now, I’ve had a delivery from Whole Foods, I’m expecting a delivery from Fresh Market and tomorrow I’ll have a delivery from Amazon Prime. Of course, Whole Foods and Fresh Market charge $4.99 delivery fee. Add a tip to each and it gets expensive.
By the way, since when has Karo syrup become so expensive? One small bottle was listed for $18. I passed on that one.
I always try to keep a bottle of the light Karo syrup (as opposed to their dark variety) on hand. There are one or two recipes I have that call for Karo. My favorite is mother’s chocolate fudge recipe. She wrote it down for me years ago but like so many recipes, until you actually try it, you don’t realize how incomplete the recipe is. I finally read between the lines of the recipe and I have to admit I make a pretty good facsimile of her fudge.
The recipe as she wrote it is 3 cups sugar, 1 cup milk, Karo syrup (she didn’t give an amount) 1/2 cup peanut butter, 3-4 tablespoons cocoa, and 1 tablespoon of butter. Do the soft ball thingy. She forgot to tell me to add vanilla flavoring with her recipe.
You can see the small lumps of cocoa that need to be broken up.
It’s far more complicated than that but also far more forgiving than you think. I mix the cocoa and sugar together in a cast iron skillet or very large deep pot.
Spread the cocoa to the sides so you can form a well for the milk.
You have to break up the lumps of cocoa before you add the milk. Make a well with the cocoa/sugar and pour the milk into the well and slowly incorporate the milk with the sugar/cocoa mix. This prevents any lumping.
I’ve screwed up the soft ball stage so many times I finally rely on a candy thermometer. You add the milk to the sugar/cocoa mix and stir constantly while on high heat. As it dissolves, I put the candy thermometer in and when it gets to 234°F. take it off the heat and let the roiling boil calm down – usually about 3-5 minutes.
If you get really good at this, you’ll notice as it gets close to 234•F it’ll change color on you from a light brown to a deep, almost reddish brown.Its goal is to foster advancements in physical therapy practice, research, and education.” The APTA’s stated mission is “is to further the profession’s role in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of movement dysfunctions and the enhancement of the physical health and functional abilities of members of the public.” If you’re a browse for more info pharmacy canada cialis PT, you’re undoubtedly a member. The option of the generic medicines is available at half tadalafil canadian price of the original blue pills. Side Effects: Side effects that you should report to your doctor or health care professional as soon as possible: * allergic reactions like skin rash, itching or hives, swelling of the face, lips, or tongue* breathing problems* changes in hearing* changes in vision, blurred vision, trouble telling blue from green color* chest pain* fast, irregular heartbeat* men: prolonged or painful erection (lasting more samples of levitra than 4 hours)* seizures Side. One life lesson that http://amerikabulteni.com/2012/01/24/2012-oscar-nominees-revealed-full-list/ viagra pill I have learned that before I have moved beyond NLP The 3rd excuse is the most commonly used excuse, because these are the people who have very obviously failed at techniques.
Add the butter, vanilla flavoring, peanut butter, and I pour in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup Karo syrup. The Karo makes a silkier fudge.
You then proceed to beat the Jesus out of the hot mixture. Mother would whip that mixture with a wooden spoon until it began to get thick. If you wait too long, it solidifies in the iron skillet so you need a deep dish of some type that you have buttered to prevent sticking. Pour it into the buttered dish and allow it to set up – around 10 minutes. In the meantime you can lick the spoon and the sides and bottom of the skillet. That’s my favorite part!
Scraping the pan and spoon lead to delicious eating!
My cousin Jimmie and I would watch my grandmother Laura make tea cakes but the best part was when she would let us lick the bowl and spoon of the raw dough. Yea, I know, you’re not supposed to do that because of Salmonella from the eggs, but it didn’t kill us then and I still eat the raw dough when I make the tea cakes now.
Sometimes mother would space out pecan halves on the surface before it completely solidified and cut the fudge into squares so each square had a pecan half in the center. Be sure to slightly toast the pecans first.
This is a great tasting fudge, particularly with that hint on peanut butter. I’ve learned to use really good Dutch cocoa instead of Hershey’s Powdered Cocoa but it works well either way. Sometimes, if I have Ghiradelli chips I’ll add some of those and I’ve also learned to add a pinch of salt to the sugar/cocoa mix and also a little powdered instant coffee or instant espresso which brings out the chocolate taste more.
Ghiradelli chips added to the mix.
Sometimes mother would add chopped pecans before starting to whip the fudge but I prefer the pecan halves on top, not in the fudge.
Deep, buttered dish. Make sure you pour at the right time or it’ll set up in the skillet, not the dish.
The science behind fudge making is interesting. You are using heat to make a supersaturated solution (there’s no way one cup of milk can dissolve 3 cups of sugar by itself). By whipping the fudge, you are creating “scratches” that crystals can form and you are ensuring it forms very small crystals for a smoother fudge. If you were to let it cool down on its own, it would form very large crystals and be far too sugary.
If you have ever made sugar sticks for coffee, you know what I mean. You make a supersaturated solution of sugar water and then place a skewer into the solution and let it sit for a day or two. It forms very large sugar crystals.
Rainy days lead to twinges in the arm. I’m sure I can forecast the weather from my surgery.
Well, I made six days in a row with my walking, yoga and swimming. I feel very good about that. For some reason, I feel better physically than I have in a very long time. Part of my problem was the prostatitis. I didn’t really understand how badly I felt until it went away. That may be part of why I feel better than I have in months but I think part of it is also the endorphins from the exercise.
Emotionally, I’m OK. I guess I’m settling into the long haul of pandemic fairly well. There’s always the cabin fever aspect of it but I find enough to do around the house to keep my mind from decomposing completely. Music helps. A few nights I have done ITunes material from my computer that I have purchased over the years. I only have 3,915 songs to choose from.
Strangely, I last listened to a bunch of hymns, gospel and such. Although I am totally nonreligious, I was brought up in the Methodist church. It was definitely a singing church. Everyone knew Baptists always reluctantly sang. Methodists sang exuberantly.
Several years ago, Tom, Kurt and I attended Easter brunch at Lips, a drag show club in town. In addition to a complete brunch with bottomless mimosas, the drag queens did gospel and hymns. Tom and I shocked Kurt by knowing the words and singing along to every number. I think the drag queens were even impressed.
One person and one religious tune stands out for me. Actually two. The first one was the hymn (not sure it’s really classified as a hymn) “How Great Thou Art.” It was one of the first pieces of church music I learned to play on the piano. One of the verses in the hymn ends with “I hear the rolling thunder.” I was at the Morton Methodist Church Sunday night service when a guest soloist started the hymn. When she got to that last part of the verse, thunder actually did roll across the sky and could be distinctly heard in the church. Everyone chuckled.
The second memorable hymn was after our church burned and we alternated services between the Presbyterian and the Baptist church. It was a Sunday morning service at the Baptist church (we attended early service so the Baptists could have their regular service time) and there was a guest soloist. She sang “The Holy City” and I’ve never experienced a voice like that until I heard a duet at the San Francisco Opera House of Verdi’s Rigoletto. She sent chills up and down my spine and arms. Like so many things back then, I forgot the name of the hymn and only a few years ago found the tune on ITunes. I now have four different versions of that song and love all of them.
One version is by John McDermott, another by Mahalia Jackson, another by London Philharmonic Choir and the last is by, of all people, Nelson Eddy of Nelson and Jeanette McDonald fame. All are winners.
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I also remember as a kid my Dad telling me his two favorite hymns were “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder” and “The Old Rugged Cross.” When it came time to have his funeral, I made sure the organist played those two hymns for him. I used to joke with him about his “froggy” voice until Mother called me up short about it one day and said he had a beautiful voice. I never teased him about singing again.
I know it seems strange for me to like religious music even though I’m an atheist but I was brought up with it and it still moves me. I have several playlists I use on long trips in the jeep and I really rock out to some of those hymns.
The new upper cabinets are scheduled to be delivered September 23rd and by this time with the lower cabinets I had been contacted twice by phone and once by email from the company that delivers them. I’ve heard nothing about the new upper cabinets. I mentioned this to both the Citizens Insurance representative and to the supervisor of my project with Baxter Restoration. Both said they would check into it.
I’ve also asked for boxes to pack the dishes in the upper cabinets. I’m not sure I want the Baxter people packing my dishes. I break them enough on my own, I don’t need anyone else’s help. When it comes to the day, I’ll park the jeep on the swale and hope they show up and put them in the garage until Baxter is ready to remove the old ones and install the new ones.
Yesterday was not a good news day with the passing of RBG. Regardless of peoples’ political persuasion, this woman did more for women’s rights that probably anyone in this century. If we thought the election was crazy now, just wait until Senator McConnell tries to push through a Trump nomination. What’s the old expression? “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
Two days in a row! I completed my walk, yoga and laps in the pool for the second consecutive time and was even able to do my complete set of pool laps instead of the half routine I’ve been doing since the surgery. My arm doesn’t feel great but it doesn’t feel bad. Looks like I may get over 90% function back in that arm.
Even better, there’s a noticeable drop in the humidity levels outside. I completed my walk this morning and there were actual dry spots on my t-shirt. Usually, when I complete my walk, the humidity is so bad I need to wring it out and hang it to dry. Ah! Fall is in the air and we are headed for 80˚F temperatures!
It was nice enough outside that I even did some weeding in the front yard. The area where I have some rain lilies was being taken over by dollar weed. Dollar weed is a real pest in lawns here. It’s actually the genus Hydrocotyl and is a semi-aquatic plant. Most people get it in their lawns when they over water. That wasn’t my problem. The problem was the torrential rains we’ve had since mid-May.
Rain LiliesDollar weed – genus Hydrocotyl. The stem is dead center on the underside of the leaf. The term for that type of attachment to the leaf is peltate.
The good news is the rain lilies really bloom after torrential downpours so I’ve had several blooming periods with these this year. The dollar weed has underground stems (rhizomes) and they are a pain to dig out of the soil as they intermingle with the bulbs of the rain lilies. If you don’t remove the rhizomes, they just keep growing so hand digging is the only option. In any case, it felt good to get outside and do some work without melting in the heat.
South Florida is known as a subtropical climate. Anything between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer is considered tropical climate. The tropic of Cancer lies at 23.5˚ North latitude and Fort Lauderdale is at 26.1˚ North. A degree in latitude is approximately 69 miles, so my house is approximately 180 miles from the Tropic of Cancer. Key West is approximately 110 miles from the Tropic of Cancer.
I’m rambling but my point is a subtropical climate pretty much stays green all year and our growing season is 12 months. It’s more lush during our rainy season from mid-May until the end of September. I once had a friend from Memphis come stay during December and his first comment after he got off the plane was “It’s so green!”
We have to seasons here: hot and hotter. Weeds can take over in a few days time and you are always cutting things back and hauling it out to the curb for bulk trash pick up.
Only Alaska has any real arctic temperatures in the U.S. I’ve experienced cold weather before and some of the coldest weather I’ve experienced has been in Mississippi. It’s a wet cold. As a kid I remember ponds freezing over and you were able to skate on them. We had no ice skates but leather soled shoes worked really well. The first and only time I put on ice skates was when the Coliseum in Jackson started an ice rink. I discovered at that time I have very weak ankles.
To explain Mississippi cold, a guy I worked with in the Bureau of Land Management in Miles City, Montana told me the coldest he had ever been in his life was Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In Mississippi, you can make snow balls because it is a wet snow. In Montana, it’s dry powder. A -20˚F is perfectly acceptable weather to walk about in as long as the wind is not blowing in Montana. However, you quickly learn to never touch metal unless you have gloves on.
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The coldest day of my life had to be one day waiting for a bus to take me to Florence, Mississippi middle school. There was about 10 inches of snow on the ground and the bus was late. Mother insisted I stay and wait for the bus even though I didn’t have much in the way of winter clothing. She really didn’t want to take me because the roads were iffy. Anyway, I must have waited 45 minutes for that bus. I hope I’m never that cold again.
I’ve been in deeper snow but it was at Havre de Grace, Maryland. Dad was stationed nearby at Aberdeen Proving Grounds getting ready to ship overseas to Korea. We lived in a trailer that was probably part of army housing at the time. The main source of heat in that trailer was an oil fired heater. When you lit the heater, it would start moaning and groaning and I swear it started jumping around on the floor. I called it the bucking heater – like a bronco. I was scared to death of that thing and insisted on going outside until the heater warmed up enough to quit the noise and disturbance.
It snowed so much that year that Archie and I were running across a field. We had forgotten there was a drainage ditch and we both plunged out of sight when we ran over it. Both of our heads were below the snow level of the field.
We had that old Plymouth for years. I think he finally traded it in when we lived in Cleveland, Mississippi after the Korean conflict.
Dad helped me build a snowman. Archie, being the sweet, lovable brother he was knocked it down. I was really, really upset and cried for a few days. Obviously, from the photo, I got over it.
Archie had already knocked over the snowman.Mother wrote on the back of this photo that this was a neighbor kid we played with from Indiana.
Well, maybe I never did get over him knocking it over.
My only real adult time in the snow was at Governor’s Island New York when I was in the Coast Guard. I remember one day on barracks duty the Officer of the Day hauled us out of the warm barracks to shovel snow to form a square snow berm. He then filled the square with water to form an ice rink. A couple of times after that I had to shovel snow as part of my detail duty and I quickly learned why so many people die of heart attacks shoveling snow in winter. It’s very strenuous.
Florida continues to see a decrease in the number of new cases. Today in both Broward and Miami-Dade county, people protested the closure of bars. I guess they want them to open up so they can get hammered while not social distancing. Booze protects you from Covid, doesn’t it? There are several areas that are notorious for outbreaks of Covid. Nursing homes, prisons, meat processing plants, college campuses with their parties, and bars. We can now add Trump’s political rallies back in the mix. I can only assume those protesting about the bars feel slighted that Florida is no longer breaking records for new cases and want to up the cases higher and higher to where we are number 1 again.
Tropical storm Sally apparently decided to dawdle before it made it to South Florida. I kept getting notifications on my iPhone about how we were in for torrential rains and winds around midnight. It was a very calm night with very little rain.
I started my walk this morning but ran into rain squalls so I beat a hasty retreat. Ever since then, one squall after another has come through with small but consistent amounts of rain.
When it rains, I have some heliconia plants outside my bedroom window and I can hear the rain drops dripping on the leaves. It’s very soothing. It reminds me of staying at my paternal grandmother’s house in Pulaski. I’ve written before it is an old dog trot type of house with one side with a front room, a small middle room and a huge kitchen. The other side of the dog trot was a bedroom where Uncle Ray and Aunt Minrose used to live, then a store room/library.
It had a tin roof on the house. Grandmother kept a double bed in the front room for company – especially grandkids. If it rained at night, you would hear the rain drops on the tin roof. In a downpour, you really couldn’t hear yourself think – it was so loud.
If you went to stay overnight in the winter, she would put old metal irons that she used to iron clothes with in front of the fire place to get them hot then wrap them in towels and put down into the bed to warm it up for you. On cold winter nights, after the fire had died down, you really needed that warmth. After the bed was warm enough, you would fly across the room and get tucked in as she removed the irons. It was a feather bed and you generally ended up in the middle, usually with a brother or cousin on either side of you pressing down on you because the mattress sagged.
The front room is on the left and the bedroom is on the right. The dog trot was used to cool watermelons during the summer.
My brother liked the sound of rain also. At his home in Brandon, he and Tanis placed a piece of tin roofing next to their bedroom window to get the effect of a tin roof.
Years ago, Dad moved back to the old place and decided to try to get the old place back in shape. Archie and I went over and climbed up on the roof and re-nailed the tin roof down where we could. Over the years, it had come up from the slats on the rafters (what is now called decking because it’s plywood sheets). Interestingly, the roofing nails had a lead piece similar to a washer. As you pounded the roofing nail into the wood below the tin, the lead would flattened out to provide waterproofing for the nail hole.
The window to the left of the chimney was the front room side window. The middle window as the very small room where grandmother and granddaddy slept and the closest window in the photo was one of several windows in the kitchen.Choose right methods of sexual enhancement There was a time when we need more growth, the price of cialis EU has come along with a measure that makes our labour market less flexible, adds a mass of red tape to small businesses and will cost our economy millions. ‘It is time to stop the never-ending flow of regulation from Brussels.’ But a source close to Mr Cable dismissed the criticism, saying: ‘Vince and Ed Davey. Want a fast and cialis professional for sale effective solution to erectile dysfunction that worked in almost 90% of all cases. Do you know? Erectile dysfunction can be relieved or reduced with chiropractic soft pill cialis care. cheap viagra http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/cheerios/ Here we have listed a few of these: The blood needs to rush to the organ for continuous performance.
By the way, the tin roof was not aluminum. It was put on the house around 1898 and was the actual element tin. I suspect that house has a small fortune of tin still on that roof. The panels were quite thick, approximately 1/8 to 1/4 inch in thickness and each panel was around 6 feet long and 4 feet wide. That’s a lot of the element tin.
This is a view of the south side of the house with one of the two bedroom windows with a tin sign keeping out varmints. The small addition to the east of the bedroom is the storeroom but what we called the library because of a huge built in book case. This photo was taken just about where the well for the house is located (80 feet deep).
I loved going to visit my grandparents in Pulaski. I played in the barn loft as a kid and discovered wonderful tasting hay. Actually, it was what I thought was hay because I knew granddaddy did store hay up there but what I thought was hay was actually his peanut crop drying out so he could parch the peanuts in the winter. I would climb up there and eat my fill.
Next to the house was a blacksmith shed and a wood shed. I played in the blacksmith shed many, many hours and probably made a mess of it but granddaddy never said a word.
For some reason, I remember the barn as much larger and me much smaller. That’s granddaddy walking up from the pig pen. The woodshed is in the foreground. What you can’t see here is the blacksmith shed – actually where the picture is taken from – and the two hole out house. The outhouse was a little closer to the house.
There was a smoke house just a little east of the last picture. It was no longer in use when Dad returned to live on the place. However, he tells the story of his mother going to cut off a slab of bacon from the smoke house and frying it up while she roasted the coffee in a wood burning stove.
As far as the pandemic goes, Florida keeps opening up. The governor decided the entire state must go to phase 2 for reopening. The newspapers seem to keep suggesting our new cases are going down, but the Covid-19 dashboard for the state suggests otherwise.
The new case total for 12 September is 3,650. The chart above only goes to 11 September. On that date there were 3,327 new cases. I suppose you take you good news from where you can get it and that is the number of deaths seems to be dropping. The bad news is on 11 September there were 4 deaths for the state and today on 12 September there were 176.
All of a sudden, people who come to my house need to use my bathroom. When the FPL guy came, he needed to use the facility and I don’t mean number 1. The construction guys, I can understand – they were here all day – but even then the son spent a large amount of time in the bathroom – more than I do and I’m old and have a small bladder.
I don’t really mind, it’s just one of those things that never happened before and then I’m on this streak of people in need of my loo. These were not the only two. Just about everyone I’ve had in the house for the past several months have needed to relieve themselves.
Speaking of relief, I remember thinking how funny it was as a kid when I went to Roosevelt State Park just outside of Morton and see that the restrooms were labeled as “relief stations.” As far as I know, they still are. Where that term came from I have no idea, but as I get older and need to urinate, sometimes the urgency puts me in a panic and I could use some relief. Maybe I’ll hang a sign over the bathroom door that says “relief station.”
My next door neighbor mowed the yard this morning and just got it in before the rain started. I’ve not mowed the yard since my surgery and as long as he is willing, I’ll be happy to pay him. He is young and seems to enjoy mowing several yards in the hood. I don’t miss it at all. I probably need to see if anyone wants my old lawnmower and edger.
One of my neighbors had an emergency the other day. She called and said her daughter was home and that a fire truck had pulled up. I told her I would go see. I saw a TECO gas company truck there as well. The agent had just left my house for a three year inspection of my gas meter. He said I was good to go and the meter was in good shape. I assumed he was inspecting their meter too.
When I got to the door, a fireman walked around the corner and I explained there was a young girl at home (she just started high school this year) and that her mother had called. She was surprised there was someone at home. I was surprised no one had checked.
Later, I found out the TECO inspector had discovered a leak. After the leak was repaired, my neighbor told me they also discovered the water heater was bad and was leaking carbon monoxide into the house.
Their story took me back to my childhood when we lived in my grandparents old home in Morton. Mother and Dad always parked the car close to the house and not in the dirt parking area behind the house. Mother was always a little loosie goosie with her driving and apparently one day, she failed to put the car in park and did not put the parking break on (it was a straight shift). As she got out of the car, it started rolling downhill towards the house. Dad tried to stop it but it hit the house and the gas meter. It knocked a coupling loose and gas gushed out of the broken coupling under great pressure. He very calmly got a wrench, cut off the gas at the valve on the meter and put the coupling back on. Then he turned on the gas and relit the pilot lights on the stove and the water heater.
One of my neighbors doesn’t have a gas line into the house and never allowed her husband to have it connected. She was afraid of gas. I was raised around it and it has never bothered me. I learned at an early age that gas heaters had gas “combs” that radiated the heat and somehow affect the carbon monoxide released in the burning of gas. I knew never to run a heater with those in place.
Mother always had trouble with gas meters and gasoline pumps. We lived one time in Morton next to a state highway department maintenance facility. They had a gasoline pump to fill up the state vehicles before they headed out on the job. Mom and Dad had received permission to sometimes park at the facility because it had a huge oak tree that provided shade. They parked to keep the car from being too hot in the summer. Mother had a bad habit of throwing the car into reverse and stepping on the gas without looking behind her and knocking over the gas pump. Not once, not twice, but three times.
Eventually the highway department embedded the base of the pump in concrete. It didn’t stop Mother. She knocked that over. Finally the workers told them not to park there any more.
On my walk yesterday morning, I met up with the wife of a realtor family. Her husband has been flying a Trump flag but lately it has been removed. Anyway, in conversation, we got around to talking about a vaccine. She volunteered there was no way she was going to get a November vaccine into her. I agreed. Perhaps they have been rethinking their Trump support.
There has been nothing that seems to have an effect on Trump supporters. His base remains steadfast. The last two weeks has seen two things that may actually rattle them. The first was the comments about the military that have come out. The second has been the knowledge about the severity of the virus since February and purposefully withholding that information and actively behaving if the opposite was true. This may actually do him in.
How can you in good conscience allow over 190,000 people to die and still not follow the advice of scientists in the field of epidemiology? Perhaps even his die hard supporters can’t stomach that.
We still seem to be in the rainy season although we should be tapering off by now. Looks like climate change is lengthening the wet season.
I had two people at the house yesterday. The first was an electrician representing Florida Power and Light and he was here to remove the On Call system. I wrote about the problems with the last post. Guess what? He said whoever wired the On Call system wired it incorrectly. I think I am six for six people who had told me that the system was wired incorrectly.
He had a real problem with the air conditioning unit that was wired to one of the On Call boxes. He couldn’t figure out what the AC company had done. I heard him talking to his supervisor and later he explains the AC people had wired the AC incorrectly by using the wrong colored wires for ground, hot, etc. He thinks the reason they did this is because the On Call was wired incorrectly. Regardless, the box is now gone and the AC still works.
The second visitor was to check on the 3 zone valve with my sprinkler system. He was a very nice young man who owned the company. He worked for probably and hour and a half (and that didn’t include his trip to pick up a part). My system apparently dates to the late 60’s or early 70’s. He cleaned the system and replaced the top of the valve (much like a distributor cap in autos) and charged $177.75. I thought that the best bargain I’ve had in some time.
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September seems to be flying through the calendar. It will not be too long before the new cabinets arrive (September 23) and I get to go through the construction phase again. At least I had the foresight to purchase moisture detectors and spread them around potential leaks in the house – including the dishwasher. The dishwasher device allows you to monitor it via a phone app. So far, no leaks.
It rained most of the day yesterday. Usually September begins our dry season but I haven’t really had much need for the sprinkler system as yet. That will surely change.
Today, of course, is 9/11. I used to watch the twin towers as they were built when I was stationed at Governors Island in New York for radio school. I remember seeing the vast hole in the ground where they stood on another trip back in the 90’s. My last trip to New York I got to go up into the replacement tower and also see the memorial next to the new tower. It’s been remarked how the number of deaths from 9/11 is close to the dead we lost at Pearl Harbor yet we are now approaching 200,000 dead from a virus that more could have been done about.
We’ve entered the peak month for hurricanes, at least in the state of Florida. Keep your fingers crossed!
I had my last round of sulfa drugs yesterday and maybe it’s psychosomatic but I felt better yesterday than I have in a couple of months. I walked, did yoga, and swam laps and even had enough energy to do a few things around the house. The new drug didn’t seem to give me the body odor that sulfa drugs usually do, but then I wasn’t around anyone for them to smell me.
The sprinkler guy will come tomorrow and give me some kind of news on the problem with my 3 zone valve. That thing is ancient. I suspect it was put in when the house was built in 1956. Hopefully, I just reassembled it incorrectly.
I also have a company working with FPL to come out and remove the On Call system I have on the pool and the air conditioner. It allowed FPL to shut off your air and pool pump during peak usages and supposedly allowed you to save some money. I had these installed several years ago. When I had to replace the timer on the pool last week, the electrician told me FPL had wired their On Call system wrong. I asked him to disconnect and called FPL and asked them to remove the boxes. He’s due sometime tomorrow morning. Every electrician I have had in the house has told me the On Call system was incorrectly wired – including two of FPL’s electricians!
I had to take my jeep in today for the third software recall requiring a dealership to complete. Add that to the two software upgrades I had to do and I’m beginning to think the computers on these things are a little haywire. As a matter of fact, one of the recalls had to do with someone being able to hack the jeep and take control of the breaks, acceleration and steering.
The last time I went to Hollywood Chrysler Jeep I felt I was taken advantage of on the service. It was totally my fault because I didn’t read what I signed. Today, there was no up-sale of service so I was in and out within and hour and 15 minutes.
Every so often I get a craving. Today’s craving was home made caramel corn. It’s remarkably easy to make and tastes much better than Cracker Jack. I made two large gallon baggies and I often give some of it away but not this time. It’s all for me. I hand shelled the peanuts, roasted them slightly and then made the caramel sauce to pour on the popcorn. The only real time is you have to put it in the oven at 250 F and stir every 15 minutes for 1 hour. Trust me, it’s worth it.
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Speaking of craving, I was on a zoom meeting the other day and someone mentioned cucumber sandwiches. I haven’t had those since I was a kid. My grandmother Ruby used to drag me around with her to Women’s Club and Garden Club meetings and there were always refreshments. Once I experienced cucumber sandwiches, I was hooked. I kept going back with her in hopes of getting some more. Alas, it was not to be.
What did happen was once I was served some type of congealed salad. It was the most awful thing I’ve put in my mouth. I almost gagged and threw up. That cured me from going with my grandmother. When she would plead with me to go with her, it was a firm no.
Anyway, back to the cucumber sandwiches. I made a grocery stop after the car dealership and picked up the ingredients for the cucumber sandwiches. I made them and had a few for lunch. One thing that makes them taste so good is the soft, white bread with the crusts cut off.
A cool, summertime treat!
Mrs. Williamson who lived up the street from us used to have me in and she would make me PB&J sandwiches with the crust cut off. That spoiled me for life. Only later when I experienced real French bread in Paris did I begin to get back into crusty bread.
She also used to make me wilted lettuce. She picked young lettuce that had not formed a head and sautéed it in bacon drippings and onions and added a small shot of vinegar and the crumbled up bacon. I even make that sometimes now but without the bacon.
Palm Beach County has entered phase 2 of the pandemic, whatever that means. South Florida has so many small towns in the three county area that it is difficult to get everyone on the same page. You could be sitting at one restaurant with one set of rules, leave the city limits and be under the guidelines of another set of rules.
Not sure what I did strenuous yesterday but my arm is letting me know it is not happy. I feel it could have been the rain storms that swept through. In any case, it continues to improve, albeit slowly.
Recipe for caramel corn:
Pop corn, enough for a four gallon pot.
Shell and slightly parch the raw peanuts (red ones are the best) – I usually put them in a 350 F oven for about 10 minutes.
Make the caramel sauce 2 cups brown sugar 1 cup butter 1/2 cup Karo syrup 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Melt the butter in a medium size pot. Add the syrup and brown sugar and stir. Once it comes to a boil, let boil – unstirred – for 4 minutes (I set a timer). Remove from the heat and add vanilla flavoring and baking soda and stir vigorously. Pour over peanuts and popcorn and mix well.
Spread over two rimmed cookie sheets and place in a 250 F oven, stirring every 15 minutes for 1 hour. Remove, let cool, then break apart and bag.
Recipe for cucumber sandwiches 1. 1 8oz package of cream cheese 2. 3 tablespoons mayo 3. 1 or 2 teaspoons of chopped fresh dill 4. 1 or 2 teaspoons of chopped fresh chives 5. salt and pepper to taste 6. 1 English cucumber sliced very thinly
Mix softened cream cheese and mayo with a hand mixer in a medium sized bowl. Hand fold in the fresh herbs, salt and pepper.
Spread the cream cheese mixture on one side of two slices of white bread. Add the cucumber slices in layers to make the sandwich onto the cream cheese of one slice. Put the two pieces of bread together and cut off the crusts. You can then slice them into triangles or into three sections.
Today has been a very busy day. I continue to wake around 2am and fail to fall back to sleep. I read a little and then turned out the light around 4:30am. I didn’t wake again until 8am. I saw a headline on the web suggesting a lot of the lack of sleep is due to pandemic anxiety. Maybe that’s my problem.
After getting up, making coffee, eating my shredded wheat with blueberries, I noticed two more palm fronds had fallen from the Bismarckia in the front yard. There are still around 5 more fronds that will fall, probably before next week is out. When I went to cut up the two fronds, it pretty much filled up the entire yard waste bin.
I raked leaves in the side yard. It’s amazing how much leaf drop there is from my neighbor’s mango. I’m not complaining. Although I didn’t get the benefit of mangoes this year, I probably will next year. The tree seems to be super productive every two years. Add that to the leaf drop of the star flower trees and the fire plant trees, there’s a lot to rake. It didn’t help that the yard waste bin had been too full the past pickup period to accept the rake up. That and I couldn’t get to some areas because of the old cabinets in the yard.
Speaking of cabinets…. My last conversation with the Baxter Restoration supervisor was that his construction guys would be out the first thing yesterday morning. They showed up at 5pm. They mostly did what they were supposed to do: (1) place pulls on the cabinets and drawers (2) change out the power cord for the dishwasher and (3) they helped me replace some overly large furniture slides on one piece of furniture with more appropriately sized slides. After they left around 6:30pm, I realized they failed to put one pull on the spice rack cabinet. I can live without that until they return on September 21. That’s when the new upper cabinets are to be shipped to my house.
Rather strangely, one of the first things the construction guy asked was where were my old cabinets. They have been sitting out in the rain and sun for the past two weeks. Initially, he had asked if he could have them for a friend and I said yes. They were supposed to haul them off.
Two weeks later and they were still there, getting soaked with frequent downpours and blistering sun. I called Baxter Restoration and asked if it was OK to put them out for bulk pickup and he agreed. If I asked someone for old cabinets, I don’t think I would wait 2 weeks to load them up. There were water stains all though the wood and they were beginning to warp.
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My friend John arrived just before the 5pm construction guys with produce from an open air market. He has a favorite produce stand and he always calls before he goes to get his produce. I ended up with some very nice tomatoes, organic carrots, and a quarter of a watermelon. Pretty cheap at $9.20 for the lot.
After raking and sawing palm fronds, I cleaned the pool filter, checked the chemicals, and washed down the patio. It’s getting to be the dry season here. Since Florida is a peninsula, our wet season is in the summer. The dry season is every season but summer. From May to August we get the majority of our 54 inches of rain per year. That means we get some tremendous downpours when it does decide to rain.
Anyway, as we are heading into the dry season (and peak hurricane season – September – I decided to check out the sprinkler system. I hadn’t used it since June. There’s always a few sprinkler heads that get blocked with disuse. Fortunately, there were only two that needed to be cleaned out. Once I clean them out, I always check by running the system through the three zones to make sure they all are working. When I went to check the system, no water came through any of the heads. The pump hummed and was working but no water. Somehow, while working on the system, the pump lost prime. It’s never done that before.
I had to take off the head of the system head and add water. One I put the head back on, it still didn’t work. Then I had the bright idea of opening up the hose into the bleed out with the pump on. It finally got primed. However, it’s still not working exactly correctly. That means I’ll probably simply operate it manually instead of using the automatic timer. Later, when everything calms down, I’ll probably call out a sprinkler service to figure out what the problem is.
As far as the pandemic is concerned, I continue to get mixed messages from data from the state. The official word is that the number of cases continues to drop yet they reported over 3,000 new cases today. Last week, there were only a little over 1,000. That doesn’t seem like a drop to me. I suppose the only real data points would be the number of hospitalizations with Covid and the number of ICU vacancies.
Of course, with all the outside work today, I probably put too much stress on the right arm. As I type this, I can feel tiny twinges in my biceps.
