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All The Make Do
He wears long shorts we wear long shorts…
You just can’t wear shorts if you are Mormon. Clothes must cover the garments, and they go to the knee. No, I don’t mind. It is who I am, it is part of my own moral code. I LIVE this dress standard. All summer long I just wear Capris.
So Kevin NEVER wears shorts. I mean, NEVER. He didn’t even wear SANDALS. He’s a long pant socks and shoes kinda guy. I don’t know why. He just is.
But this is Kansas. It is so hot and humid here in the summer, and his job is very physical. He walks a lot, lifts a lot, bends a lot, and just generally moves a lot, in a warehouse where the AIR moves very little. Even when the AC is on, it cannot possibly keep up.
He arrives home every evening in the summer months (of which there are 6-8, by the way), beaten, sweaty, and miserable. There is not enough ice cream to really compensate.
This persuaded him to begin to wear sandals when he is not at work. This helped him not hate the climate quite so much – but it is a 2 percenter, not a huge factor.
We started thinking long shorts or clamdiggers, and I went looking.
I found two things – shorts that were just ABOVE the knee (which cannot be trusted not to show the garment bottoms in the back, or when you move around), and shorts which LOOKED like they hit just below the knee, but which the MODEL was wearing LOW. Watch for it. THIS is about a 50 percenter!
We went to Bass Pro to get out of the heat. Very limited AC in the house, so sometimes we’ll go somewhere to use THEIR AC. Nice way to wangle an extra date or two each week…
But also because WE had POINTS.
We found a pair of long pants – cargo pants. The kind that aren’t all puffy on the sides, like Pockets in Hatari. Just nice pants with pockets on the sides that don’t poof. Paid for them ENTIRELY with points (boy did that feel good).
Got them home, cut them off below the knee, and I hemmed them up by hand (can’t use the sewing machine right now, too damaging to my spine).
They look really good. Like they were supposed to be that way. Somewhat loosish in the leg, but that keeps him cooler.
He thinks it over, and then thinks about work. He thinks maybe some short pants would help him stay cooler there. He wears jeans, so cuttoffs it is. I cut them off. They’ll fray on their own.
But if he has cutoffs, he also needs short socks. Kevin does NOT WEAR ankle socks. He likes Over the Calf socks. All year.
But this is Kansas, and shorts are shorts, and legs should not show long expanses of sock when one is trying to stay cool. But he wears work shoes that require socks.
By now, I am feeling a bit pinched with the costs that I can see coming (he has to replace the pair of jeans we cut off, I have had to buy some cooler shirts, and now we need more socks).
But as luck would have it, I have some spare socks in a drawer. Socks I don’t really like. Ankle socks with 2″ cuffs. More mannish. By some rare fortune I have exactly 5 pair. He is outfitted for the entire work week just by moving them from my drawer to his. Hallooo!
Next day I am looking for a cooler. We plan to head to the races this fall, and it takes some planning and saving to get there.
We have a cooler. It is a cheap cooler with a hand painted top. A kinda cool looking night-scape painted in acrylic. No mistaking it is ours.
But last fall (when we were GIVEN some tickets to the race), we hiked from the outfield parking to the gate, and it was a pretty hefty hike (much of it over VERY uneven ground). That little cooler got heavier by the step, and it was all on Kevin. (Soda pop, lemonade, and ice water, plus sandwiches, pickles, olives) I could barely lift the thing to help him move it to a cross carry so it would be easier to keep in place. It really hurt his shoulder to haul it all that way.
So I want a small cooler with WHEELS. I look around and I find one, and it is PERFECT. 16 qt size is just right for a day’s worth of lunch, snack, and fluids on a hot day.
Halfway to the checkout stand I think to pull that handle out on the side of it. The handle is about 6″ too short to actually drag the cooler without stooping QUITE a bit! You can’t even reach it without bending down when it is at rest, let alone tip it down to drag it. There is NO WAY you could drag it more than a few feet without pain. Shame on you, Igloo! I take the cooler right back to the shelf I got it off of.
Then I go hunting. No one has anything else in that size. Everything else is too big.
It occurs to me that a luggage cart might do it. I check. The handle is much longer, and the wheels are also larger. I think it might work. Same price.
Not only that, it is big enough to haul the cooler, the snack bag, AND both of our Stadium Seats. Woohoo!
I am finding that it is often very hard to find the things we need, it is like the world is imploding and things that were common and useful are all of a sudden dinosaurs and the fossils we find in their place are just not useful at all. There is something about them that is done so badly it destroys their essential function. Sometimes there is an alternative, or a way to compensate, sometimes not.
Cutting off pants and hemming them, that I can do. Wearing cuttoffs, that is something Kevin can do. Using a luggage cart to haul the gear to the race is also something we can do.
And just as a side note… Shopping at Ikea is something I CANNOT do. What a mixed up nightmarish labrynth that store is.
The Thingamabob That Does The Job
In certain herbalist circles this phrase is used to identify an element that is a KEY herb or substance in a remedy. Something like Calendula and Geranium for Resistant Strep types. Or Decongestant with Croup or Mumps as being one of the Thingamabobs that does the job.
We quote that from Disney. But he got it from cultures LONG before he dreamed up Bibbity Bobbity Boo.
So what is the origin of that peculiar phrase?
The Thingamabob is actually a Thingamabobble. Just a bobble on a hat. Either a pompom, or a string with a clipped pompom swinging around on it. Other variations also, depending on the style favored at the time.
This is Lapland. It is upper Finland, and two counties of Russia including Murmansk and one lower. It is COLD country. Hats are a big deal.
People are generally fairly poor, and life is hard. Lines of frugality are drawn in ways we might not have to consider in our day.
A hat was made with the least wool possible. A pompom in any manner was a frivolity or a luxury, again, depending on what was in style, for wool is dear, and there must also be gloves and scarves and socks, not to mention warm pants and coats.
It is the MEN, ladies. Women did not wear bobbles (women wore feathers, and ribbon or crocheted flowers, if they could afford them). Men wore the bobble.
This meant either they had a frugal wife who tended well to them, and managed the resources so he had a little bit of finery dancing on his noggin, or that he made enough money to AFFORD a wife, if he were single.
So a man who wore a hat with a bobble was a good prospect for marriage. He had sufficient money to buy a hat that announced his prosperity. And so he did… a single man on the lookout for a wife would work to acquire a hat with a pompom, to add weight to his dating efforts.
So this phrase translates roughly to, “The hat with the bobble that attracts the girls.”.
Life is often stranger than fiction.
Stopping The Little Meecies
Mice were everywhere. We had a pigeon coop, and they ran freely in it, and there wasn’t much we could do to stop them. Too much grain spilled by the pigeons.
But they were in the house also. Everywhere. Oh… I already said that.
We didn’t just have mice, we had mice with attitudes. They’d sashay through the living room in broad daylight, and wave as they went by. They stole the bait from the traps and never even lost a whisker. They walked around the flat traps and left evidence of their passing. Eyooo.
Upstairs, downstairs, in every room. We were so sick of mice and felt helpless to stop them.
We could put a flat trap down where a mouse was running frequently, and usually catch one. But that’s all. The rest kept on breeding and multiplying.
Flat traps… Catchmaster paper glue traps. I know, they don’t work, right? Wrong. You just have to use them right. Lay them flat. Don’t box them up. Bugs like the boxes, mice avoid them. But they’ll run right across a flat trap and stop stuck in the middle. Those did actually work if you could get them put down somewhere that the mouse would actually run. They do avoid them also though.
Then the dog died. My mother’s dog died. We were living with her at the time.
Within a month the mice disappeared. Gone. That fast, they moved out.
Now we had mice in the Pigeon Coop, and still did. But that isn’t what brought them into the house. It was the dog.
Dogfood or catfood will do it every time. If there’s an open pet dish with food in it, mice have their own private buffet, and they love that stuff. Just the right size to haul off to their nests to feed the babies. Just like the Coop. There is free food, so they multiply right there.
You never SEE them at the dish. But they feed there. Put a flat trap beside it (where the dog or cat won’t step on it) and see if you catch a mouse. Bet you do.
If you leave food out to feed the mice, you’ll never win the battle. And they’ll be arrogant, and they get clever about the traps. You just can’t beat them.
Lock up the dogfood. Make sure that you only have it out during mealtimes for the animal, OR get a dish that is mouseproof that the animal can use to get at when they are hungry. Don’t get a stupid one, get a smart one.
My mother got another dog, and the mice just came romping back. It wasn’t something I could do anything about. This one died also (post-vaccination diabetes, actually), and the mice disappeared again. No replacement this time, and I’ve never had a mouse problem in my house like that again.
Just that ONE thing…
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