In the style of an old-fashioned neighborhood barn raising, my family dug holes and spread dirt and got sweaty and otherwise put themselves out so that I can play in the dirt again.
digging dandelions for bunny food
Spreading soil and compost
In fact, it’s looking pretty darn good now. I filled one section with tomatoes already. Step by step, I’ll have a garden again.
And I’ll thank my family the best way I know how — with jars of the garden bounty, later on.
I’m spreading the word again: the word of book spine poetry. This time, it’s on the national blog from my employer. Please feel free (and feel encouraged) to share, like, pin, or simply enjoy the post. We had a good time making it.
Meanwhile, I picked up a book or two last night. Bookstores are dangerous. I have to stay focused. Walk in, walk out, and only buy what’s on my list. Do not stray from the center aisle. Don’t go near that sale table. Get what I need, then check out, and then leave.
I was doing rather well, I thought. Picked up the two books in the humor section, then headed to the children’s section and asked for the book by title and author. That led me quickly to the shelf with no danger of browsing on the way. Then I headed out to the registers, and I found this.
Read from left to right.
The cashier said she’d never set foot on the other side of the counter. She had no idea how much fun some other employee had setting this up.
Now, readers, I suppose you’re wondering. Did I make it? Did I get to the exit doors without buying something on impulse?
Almost.
I bought bookmarks.
I think I’ll address this in the form of a top ten list. Here you go, readers:
The Top Ten Ways Daisy can Tell She Hasn’t Blogged Recently.
10. Several friends have changed their Facebook profile pictures and I didn’t notice.
9. Plurk updates have gone down in quantity.
8. The laptop didn’t need charging.
7. I’ve known the final Jeopardy answer twice and haven’t bragged about it here.
6. I’ve had more posts on my employer’s national blog than on my own.
5. The latest ER visit had me saying “I hope the doctor on duty isn’t the crabby one.”
4. I’ve spent more time with my new blood pressure monitor than with my laptop.
3. Amigo asked if I’d blogged the latest captioning errors on MeTV’s series “Emergency.”
2. My coworker’s parents, regular readers, asked her to check on me.
1. I started getting emails saying “You haven’t blogged. Are you okay?”
In conclusion, my friends and family, it’s been rough around the O.K. Chorale. I was started to feel stronger and walk a little less lopsidedly (that is SO a word), and my back started giving me spasms so agonizing that we went to the E.R. (see #5). I’m healing, but I’m low on energy. I’m back at work full time, but not doing much else (see #6). I come home, throw my herbal heating pack in the microwave, and sit down to watch Emergency with Amigo (see #3). Supper has been a throw-it-in-the oven affair. Thank goodness for the nearby meat market that sells ready to eat lasagna, among other things!
I’m not kidding when I say I’ve rearranged the desk in my “office” to make room for a new tech toy (see #4). Petunia checked the reviews and made a few calls and found us a portable electronic blood pressure monitor. So far, the results are good – BP results, that is.
For now, I’m going to adjourn and watch Final Jeopardy. The category tonight is The Academy Awards. I don’t stand a chance.
A middle school student in our virtual school had a lesson blocked by his “net nanny” filter program. Why? The net nanny determined this lesson had a Mature Theme.
The lesson: Relationships Between Parallel and Perpendicular Lines.
My students must meet certain source requirements for their research, including print and online sources. I teach a lesson about recognizing reliable sources on the Internet. They always complain a little when I say, “No Wikipedia!” In addition, I don’t want my kiddos reading a conspiracy theory site and deciding that because it’s on the web, it must be true. So when I saw this on Facebook, I borrowed it.
“Quotes found on the Internet are not always accurate.”
— Abraham Lincoln
On another note, the closed captions on MeTV continue to entertain. In today’s episode, “blood pressure” became “blog pressure.” I can identify with the first phrase, but I don’t feel pressure to blog. I do it for fun. In fact, blogging is kind of like gardening: cheaper than therapy!
Chuck wanted to know where to put the ashes when he cleaned out the fireplace. I told him to dump them in the small compost bin. He replied “The pretty, fake terra cotta, un-green plastic one?” Hah, my dear, it’s made from recycled materials AND I got it free in exchange for posting a review. That must be worth something in the O.K. household.
Anyway, it reminded me of some fun I had with La Petite when this compost bin was new. Here you are, folks, from a few years back – the new bin.
I’m a garden geek. My son calls me a green freak. My daughter? You’ll see.
Husband tolerates and even supports my green proclivities. In fact, he brought home my first composter and later bought me a pitchfork to go with it. Lately I’ve been hinting that I need a second compost bin. “What’s wrong with this one?” he asked. “Nothing’s wrong with it; it’s full.”
That was in May. Luckily, compost compacts as it decomposes, making room for more. Now it’s August, and the bin is filled to the brim with organic matter. It needs stirring, and then I’d really like to leave it alone for a full year – a full twelve months or more. That means next spring I would not empty the bin and till it into the garden soil; I’d let it sit until the following spring instead, giving everything a better chance to decompose completely. But meanwhile, where would my kitchen scraps and yard waste go? Enter the new composter.
My new composter is smaller and cuter than my big beautiful bin. It has some nice features, too. This composter has a base and an insert to keep the solids off the bottom and let the liquids, the “compost tea,” drain off, and a spigot in front for collection. Compost tea makes a great fertilizer, I’ve been told.
When I want to empty the compost, I simply open the back. It stays open nicely, which will make it simple to shovel the rich soil enhancer into my wheelbarrow.
The holes in the sides have purpose: they allow air to circulate and speed up the process, and the holes are big enough that I can poke a broom handle or stick inside to aerate the compost itself. And last, I mentioned it’s somewhat smaller than my old one. It’s still a hefty size – big enough to fit a college senior inside. Yes, that’s La Petite, modeling the new composter for all of my lovely readers.
As soon as I decide where to place it, I’ll post more pictures! Then I’ll fill it with kitchen scraps and weeds and other organic goodies, and let the compost happen.
I subscribe to the feed for a cooking blog called How to Cook Like Your Grandmother. The trend in kitchens has been swinging in this direction for a while, away from mixes and pre-made frozen foods, back into cooking from scratch. Once in a while, when I’m just not capable of cooking (for whatever reason) we’ll go back to the old frozen pizza. Most of the time, though, we make the effort to put something good on the table and into our bodies.
Chuck was exhausted from a weekend of travel. Amigo was happy and tired from a weekend of travel. I was a little better off, but not much, just ten days out from a very scary and exhausting hospital experience. I’m still scrubbing off the bandage marks.
To put supper on the table, Chuck went out to do a whirlwind grocery shopping trip. Bunny food, a few other necessities, and a fully cooked rotisserie chicken were on his list. Meanwhile, back at the O.K. Chorale, I grabbed some frozen corn (frozen last summer when it was fresh), a small container of frozen red and green peppers, and tossed all of this into the steamer to cook. Somehow, even as wrecked as we felt, we put a decent meal on for supper.
Afterwards, I took a few minutes to be inspired by How to Cook Like Your Grandmother, a post still sitting in my inbox. . Tired, but not willing to quit quite yet, I took the bones from the chicken, the veggie water from the steamer, and a couple pieces of onion and I made a chicken broth. I had to be in the kitchen making lunch for tomorrow, so I rationalized I might as well get a broth simmering while I worked.
It was worth it. The broth looked thick and tasty, I got my lunch packed and a couple of options onto Amigo’s shelf in the refrigerator, and then diced up a little lettuce and tomato for the next night’s tacos.
When I’m tired and running almost on empty, sometimes I make the best use of my time. When everything is said and done, I can relax and go to bed knowing I’ve put in a good effort to feed the family and we didn’t even need to resort to frozen pizza – yet.
Signs that I am a literary type —
Every time the nurses asked me the standard question, “What month is it?” I was tempted to say, “April is the cruelest month” instead of simply “April”. I did find myself saying, “Still April for a few more days!”
My dear darling husband “Chuck” suggested that pre-surgery, maybe I was like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. I had a brain, but it wasn’t running on all cylinders. Now that the carotid artery is unblocked, who knows what ideas might surface!
I spent one morning chatting with the nurse about our favorite authors. It all started when she noticed I’d brought my Kindle with me. I recommended a book for her, and she recommended one for me.
The day nurse showed the tender spot on my abdomen to the night nurse and warned her that I was very, very sensitive there, but the pressure had gone down significantly since I moved onto the ward. I pointed toward the ceiling and told her, “See the footprints? Those are mine.” The pain was bad, folks. No way around it. Relief, however, was on the way.
Chuck and I shared a funny with the night nurse when she asked me to close my eyes and touch my nose. M*A*S*H fans to the end, we giggled a little about a recent episode when Blake was treating Radar and asked him to close his eyes and “…touch the old nose.” Radar, literal as always, closed his eyes and reached out to touch not his own nose, but the Lieutenant Colonel’s.
On a more serious note, people, I’m very thankful for many things. Most of all, I’m thankful that I didn’t know the extent of the blockage in my carotid artery until after the scan and surgery were completed. I freaked out a little (okay, I admit it, a lot) when I got the news. Now that it’s over, I can just feel relieved. Very, very relieved.
I tried. In fact, I tried twice. The first time, I didn’t document the attempt. Instead, I invited my dear creative cook husband “Chuck” to try it.
Bunny Buns on Pinterest
After all, how hard could they be? This time, I documented the action.
They have ears.
They have tails (sort of).
After baking, they looked like this. Warning: Put down any beverages you might be drinking. Swallow. Okay, now you may look.
Baked “bunnies”
Chuck thought they looked more like Pikachu. Amigo thought they were fine.
I have a little more frozen dough left. There may be a Next Time. I’ll share — but only if they look good.
Today’s political climate is scary in that so many seem to have forgotten the fights that have already been fought. Seeing so many attempts to return women to a marginalized group (I can’t bring myself to say “minority”) reminds me of a story from not-really-so-long ago. The original title was “Being a Woman”. Here it is, courtesy of Grandma Daisy.
I almost posted a quiz – a list of feminist slogans and quotes along with a list of years, with an opportunity for readers to match the two. Instead, I offer you an chance to reminisce about creativity in the feminist movement. Remember the Barbie Liberation League? In the 1990s….Grandma Daisy does this sort of storytelling best, so here she is.
Oh, children, your world is different, thank goodness. I lived through a fascinating and yet difficult time we called the Women’s Movement, or Women’s Liberation, Women’s Lib for short. We reminded lawmakers and voters that we are people, endowed with basic human rights along with our, ahem, voluptuous figures. To put it bluntly, we didn’t need balls to make good decisions about …. oh, your mother is listening. I can’t say that in front of you young ones., so back to the history behind the story. We had rallies, we held demonstrations. We ran for office ourselves instead of waiting for men to take care of our needs. We worked to pass laws that protected our right to make health care decisions.We built awareness of the importance of birth control and how much that birth control meant for our freedom, our liberation. We fought for equal pay for equal work. Laws passed, medications improved, but attitudes were harder to change.
Sometimes women got creative to make a point. The Barbie Liberation League was one such example. We females were determined to be good students and make it “cool” to be smart. Math and science were supposedly men’s territory, so girls had some catching up to do. Adult role models like teachers and nurses pushed us young ones to go farther, higher, faster into the world of advanced math and sciences.
Barbie dolls. You know the doll, right? Of course. They’re at the bottom of your sister’s closet with the rubber ducky and the worn out blankie she won’t throw away. Barbie, the doll with the unrealistic figure (39-21-33 at 6 feet tall were the proportional measurements, if you’re into trivia) was a favorite of many young girls. Girls knew she wasn’t realistic, but some tried too hard to look like her and became anorexic. A doll for a role model? Well, it happens.
When the Talking Teen Barbie came out, she had a limited vocabulary. Unfortunately, the people who programmed and recorded Barbie’s phrases had been in a fog throughout the entire women’s movement. Take a look at these examples.
Will we ever have enough clothes?
I love shopping!
Math class is tough.
Wanna have a pizza party?
In the old toy store aisles, G.I. Joe was a parallel type of doll, er, action figure, on the little boy side. His vocabulary was macho and tough – what they called “all male” back then.
This is going to be rough. Can you handle it?
I’ve got a tough assignment for you!
Mission accomplished. Good work, men!
The Barbie Liberation League took action. They bought Talking Barbie and Talking G.I. Joe from toy stores, swapped out the voice boxes, and then repackaged the dolls and returned them to the stores. Little boys and little girls got Barbies that said, “Vengeance is mine!” and G.I. Joes that suggested, “Let’s plan our dream wedding.” When Joe proclaimed “Math class is tough”, it sounded ludicrous.
Well, darlings, that was the point. If a man couldn’t say it without sounding idiotic, why should a woman repeat that phrase and internalize that philosophy? Talking Barbie wasn’t pulled off the market, but the feminists and the Barbie Liberation League had made their point. Being female didn’t mean being less intelligent. It still doesn’t.
Anyway , my grand-precious ones, some day I’ll tell you what we did when the guys at our college claimed that women couldn’t play jazz. Hah! We showed them, all right. Now go practice your trombone, and I’ll tell you that story later.
This post originally aired about one year ago. Since then, the magic number of prevalence has become 1 in 67, up from 1 in 88.
It’s April, again. Autism Awareness Month. Now that autism numbers are estimated at 1 in 88, shouldn’t we already be aware? Shouldn’t we as a society be moving on?
Moving on beyond awareness means learning about each other, neurotypical or on the autism spectrum. Even under the old numbers of 1 in 166, the estimates indicated so many children and adults with autism that “normal” needed redefinition.
Awareness, people, is not enough. Awareness is a low form of knowledge, and knowledge itself sits down low at the base of the learning pyramid. Awareness means knowing that the student sitting next to your child in class might have autism. Knowledge and understanding come around when that child responds to gestures of friendship, perhaps awkwardly, yet making a step toward joining the social peer group in some way.
Awareness? Awareness means slapping a multi-colored puzzle-design ribbon magnet on the back of the family minivan. Understanding means that when the minivan next to yours at the red light is moving back and forth propelled by the rocking of the teenager in the front seat, you notice but don’t judge. You might offer an understanding smile to the driver if the opportunity comes up. By refraining from negative comments, a parent provides a role model for the rest of the minivan passengers.
The “R” word is also still active, unfortunately. The word Retarded hasn’t been in active use for educational professionals in decades, but it still turns up in verbal put-downs. Awareness means knowing the label Retarded is unacceptable. Knowledge and comprehension would show that anyone with limitations in learning faces enough challenges without getting their diagnosis tossed around as a playground insult.
I wore my “R” Word t-shirt on the appropriate day. That’s my awareness activity. To bring it to a higher level, I vow to stop and comment when I hear the word used: stop and educate those who would otherwise redefine a person in narrow boxes.
Now it’s time to take Autism Awareness to a higher level, too.