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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…
Venting Too Much
Not me. Them.
I bought some Pentel Felt Pens about 4 years ago. I love those pens, I used them as a teen, and as a young adult, and they were good pens. Familiar in my hands, predictable, easy to get a good line.
The new ones were great. Nice and slick, they just let the ink flow.
I colored in one of those complicated coloring book pages. Just to get the feel of the pens again, it had been a long time.
Next I did a simple one, with lots of water, and very little white space left. I was beginning to work on refining my style. Felt pen has always been something I understood once I originally got the hang of interlining to blend.
Then I undertook a major work. An arrangement of poppy blossoms, very complex. Right toward the end, the Blue pen started to run dry. Barely enough to finish. Three works, and the pen was running dry! I was appalled. How could an artist afford to work if pens had to be replaced after just three works? And the first one hadn’t even USED that much blue, and the second had used OTHER colors of blue!
I did another, and ran out both of my most used green pens.
About then I made a discovery.
The caps on the pens had AIR VENTS in them! Seriously! The caps were vented to make the pens dry out! Pentel, a formerly reputable company just slid into the realm of worthless crooked cheats! $30 for a set of professional art pens recognized the world over as the standard for serious artists. And they do THAT!
Well, I spent about an hour patiently sealing those vents with Shoe Goo. One uses what one has, after all.
Then I put the pens away. I was afraid to start a work with them, for fear something I needed would run out. And so it is.
I can’t buy Pentels again. And I can’t find another brand that is just a regular traditional felt pen, they’ve all gone to something trendy that doesn’t work as well, or which has a tip that gets beaten down faster.
Finally, I have to have felt pens. There is this subject that begs to be rendered by my own personal hand. I must do it. Pens I must have.
I troll the shops online. Nothing appeals. Nothing is what I need it to be.
I finally end up at Hobby Lobby across town, one day, in desperation. They have nothing like what I want either. I finally settle for a carton of pens of two types I do not want, both in the same box. But I think maybe I can make them work until I can find something better.
I get them home, and put them aside while I finish a new work in colored pencil. Then I get the pens out and get my work area set up for the new work.
It is then that I notice the caps on the brand new pens.
I can’t believe my eyes. They are also VENTED! The same type of venting in the caps. (The venting is concealed in the design of the top of the cap – it has slits in it, and they go all the way through).
One thing is sure, I will NEVER be taken in by that again!
I spend 45 minutes sealing both ends of the pen – dual caps. These are easier to do.
We take a trip off to Walmart and Michaels just to see if there are other options.
Not really.
But we do find that the majority of felt pens at Michaels also have vented caps.
I get a package of permanent markers at Walmart, in 50 colors. Tips are too large, but I can do some works in broad tipped pen, so they are worth the purchase. Caps are completely sealed. I made sure before I bought.
This is not the only product we have found that is fatally flawed by some kind of fraud. For fraud this is! But to find it in my favorite pen, and then in so many others is pretty distressing.
So beware. Look things over well before you buy, even some of the brands in the big leagues are derailing.
TIP: Hold the cap up to the light and look through the top of it. If you can see light, it is vented.
If It Is Artificial It Can’t Be Intelligent
AI is just a boondoggle. Start to finish. Gimme a minute. I’ll prove it.
First off, we don’t want to call it “AI”. That means “Artificial Insemination”, which is something that actually CAN be done, and which has owned the abbreviation far longer.
Second, there is no NEW innovation or technology, nor application of existing technology which has any increased function or capacity. It is just OLD tech that is being given a face lift by naming it something that the namers hope will impress the world. (Look at what they are actually SELLING… It is the same old thing, only generally more limited.)
It isn’t anything at all. In fact, it is LESS than, not more than, the tech and progress of former years.
We are LOSING technology, not gaining it.
The web is dying, software systems are so exploited that embezzlement is rife (we encounter it regularly in our lives), and software LOSES features and functions on a monthly or more frequent basis.
Your software and computer does LESS work today than it did 10 years ago, and it is MORE TROUBLESOME to get the work done. Your CAR is less reliable, takes MORE gas, and the electronics break way too fast, plus the engine and transmission won’t even make 50k miles on many brands (due to the use of computer systems to configure metallurgy with no comprehension by the designers of the differences). Appliances must be replaced within 5 years instead of 20, and small appliances are even worse. Lawn mowers have aluminum blades, and paper filters because PEOPLE don’t understand the technical differences. Not only that, CAPACITY is declining, oven stovetops have smaller burners with lighter weight elements, and the oven has a lighter weight element that does not heat as fast. Electronic panels have built in fails where heavy loads are put on inadequate traces which burn out far too fast. Pick a thing. Bet it is WORSE, not better.
If that is “Artificial Intelligence”, then we don’t want it. Because it is RETARDED!
Mostly, what they are referring to as Artificial Intelligence is simply Knowledge Bases and the standard reminder and scheduling systems. But they try to rope in ANYTHING with an electronic panel, including Appliances, Cars, Machinery, etc, and they want to USE it to replace the common sense of a human brain. So I’m not off base… this is IT.
This is an attempt to do two things:
1. To persuade the public that the decline in technology isn’t relevant, and in fact, the things we had 20 years ago are good enough to rename to imitate progress. They want you to PAY MORE for LESS. If your phone no longer has the included apps that kept you working productively, you notice, and you don’t want to buy a new one. But they call the new one “Equipped with Artificial Intelligence”, and you rush out to buy, hoping it really IS better. But all it does now, is give you a second camera (or third), and includes even more online games that you cannot remove (malware anyone?). Everything else is LESS functional.
2. To develop a platform that they can charge for, that will let the computer do all the real work. This is again, partly knowledge base type applications, so that professionals can charge a fee without having to even ENGAGE with the client. Ideally, they want to charge you for the computer menu system access, AND then charge you for an appointment. At the design and engineering desk, they want the computer to do it all, so they can push a few buttons and never have to APPLY any higher reasoning or intellectual functions from their own brains.
Greed is rampant. Of course, they want to pay as little as possible for this stuff, so they reuse… and programmers double the price on anything they need to add.
A knowledgeable software engineer that I know tells me that there are COSTS involved. He says $4000 to build a foundational platform from scratch (without all the exploits that have been heaped upon existing platforms), and then another $6000 for a programmer to develop the interactive database system that allows professional “advice” to be handed out in a functional manner. And that PRESUMES the programmer is HONEST, and it presumes that the Question and Answer Database ALREADY EXISTS.
If the programmer is NOT Honest, a company has to shell out approximately 50 times that much money. Or more. This is why the government required 6 hundred million to build an insurance marketplace that had an actual work required pricetag of about $5000 (most of the software already existed – FREE, and MORE secure, not less). No, we are not overlooking the kickbacks and other graft surrounding that particular swindle.
Hardware is built on existing chips. If you need to do something you are LIMITED to the hard coded chips that EXIST. You can’t find ANY COMPANY anymore that will custom design a chip that works differently or performs a new function. They will TELL you they will, and then just cobble together existing chips into a substandard “solution”. And this is EXTREMELY COSTLY, because it IS NOT HONEST. Yeah, dishonesty always costs more. It is anywhere from $10k to $150k, and the lower end of that is NOT innovation, it is simply taking an existing solution entire, and passing it off as custom. (Actual justifiable costs for invention of the part and creating an entirely new one would be about $8000.)
The software arena developed, with a pretty good base, and then exploiters came in and bloated the code (this hides things better), bloated the billing (they worked on embedding their own exploits rather than on the project they were hired for), and they destroyed essential functions (this keeps them employed “fixing” them). It grew to a point, and then just got twitchy because too many greedy criminals got on board and derailed the progress train.
If you weren’t involved in the software development arena, you may not have SEEN this as anything other than an increase in bugs in your software. I WAS involved from the inside in many capacities, and I SEE things the average person does not, because I know what certain things mean. Our company DID develop software, and we adapted and troubleshooted software regularly. So my perspective is INSIDE, and I interpret differently.
For example, BUGS are not accidental. They are MEANT. Reasons are listed above, just apply them. Someone did it on purpose. But the entire industry shrugs and says, “These things happen”, and we buy it. I don’t anymore. Because what I see are problems so big they can’t have happened on accident. Someone DID it.
And now, there’s a little bit of a resurgence in the arena – we see this in computer Specs. 5 years ago they hit a low that was disgraceful. We should have been into laptops with 64 GB of RAM and 4 TB of SS Hard Drive Capacity. Instead it declined to 2-4 GB on many systems, and Hard Drives under 200 GB, and this at PRICES we were seeing for far more functional units just 5 years previous to that. We are finally seeing them with 8-16 GB of RAM again, but hard drives are still pretty messed up, and pricing is still WAY OUT.
Someone tried to push everything onto the Cloud (can you say “Microsoft”?). They want you to have to keep all your files there (that never works – you lose them, we know that, we don’t buy into that if we are smart), and they want you to have to login online to use shared software for all your major work projects (can you say “Adobe:?). THAT never works, you just can’t work fast enough, or function within the fractured workspace and bandwidth. Greed again. Why let people buy their own when you can charge them a subscription forever? Like we are going to be happy with that, or even functionally productive.
But there ISN’T anything new right now, other than a great push to make you believe that a COMPUTER can take the place of a QUALIFIED PROFESSIONAL. Not that all the professionals out there ARE Qualified (which is partly why they are willing to just set up a set of questions and canned answers and tell you that’s as good as it gets).
Not only has SOFTWARE declined, but we are losing KNOWLEDGE (I actually have a book in progress about that). Partly because of bullying by the “misinformation” police. Partly because there’s a real agenda behind that, to MAKE you purchase their solution to the false problem.
But mostly because we have several entire GENERATIONS of people in this world who are USERS of software, that have NO CLUE about how to troubleshoot it, or even use it beyond the simplistic things they’ve been lead to believe are the ONLY things they need to do with it.
Software (and much hardware) has been demoted from TOOLS, to TOYS, in the effort to make it essential for every single person in the world. And now, those who need serious TOOLS, find themselves confronted with TOYS pretending to be those tools.
We also have people who have been taught that if they have been to college and have a degree in an industry for which they have NOT BEEN GIVEN EXPERIENCE in that education, that they are JUST AS QUALIFIED as someone who HAS experience. These people are also DETERMINED that they shall never HAVE to gain the experience, because they spend their workdays trying to AVOID the work, rather than trying to MASTER the work. And these people control FAR TOO MANY positions of power and direction.
There are other factors, too complex for this post, which heave their influence into the decline of knowledge and functionality.
But there is no Artificial Intelligence. It is a contradiction in terms from the outset, and the base upon which such a thing could exist, even AS described by technobabble, does not exist anymore – it DID, but it is being systematically destroyed instead of built upon wisely.
AI just means Artificial Insemination. So watch out for what they are Inseminating into our contemporary understanding of technology, and don’t get taken in by the Boondoggle.
Wow That Did Not Look Good
I entered the doors at WalMart and there was a couple there. She was pouting. Genuinely pouting. She’d obviously been practicing it a long time, her version was quite dramatic.
In all my life I’ve not seen a more unattractive picture of a woman trying to persuade her significant other to see things her way. I think she really should have found another manner of expressing herself.
She’s young, and slim, with long hair, and a not unlovely face. Until she pouts.
Her body inclined, her shoulders dropped in dejection, and her face slumped in an exaggeration of distress (it actually got longer). And she heaved a great sigh. And pouted. Only not the classical protruding lower lip, no… Her ENTIRE BODY AND FACE pouted.
I wanted to tell her to not do that again, it was just really SOOOO Unatractive!
But I didn’t.
I went into the store. So did she. She was hanging around the produce, waiting for him, apparently.
Kevin had dropped me at the door so I’d not have to walk so far (my hip socket is acting up again). So I was there when Kevin came in… and when the significant other came in again.
He came in carrying her purse. I know immediately what the pouting was for, she’s trying to get him to go get it, and he doesn’t want to. She won. He’s conditioned, apparently. He doesn’t know how to get her to persuade him in a more beguiling way. She’d probably think that was manipulative…
Sure, I’ve done it. Forgot my purse in the car, and had to ask Kevin to go get it because he could move faster than I could. But GEEZ! There’s a nicer way than to put on THAT kind of face and pose!
My former Bishop says there’s a nicer way to ask for a favor than to put a guilt trip on the other person. I agree.
So if you’re out there and it gets back to you, don’t do that again. Someone might take a picture of you and want to dress up like you for Halloween. There’s a perfectly lovely alternative to that unpleasant drama queen act.
Just smile and ask Please.
Olive Garden For Breakfast
Leftovers for breakfast. Yeah… (Can you feel the delicious satisfaction?)
It is a family tradition. At least on my side. My children inherited it from me. My husband did not.
He looks at me weird if I eat potato soup for breakfast, even if it has bacon in it. Or meatloaf sandwich (hey, there’s egg in there). Or even Yorkshire Pudding. I often eat them cold.
And then there is Pizza. Cold Pizza is a thing. A really tasty thing. Pietro’s. That’s the one it started with (the actual original Pietro’s Pizza on Industrial Way in Longview Washington). Before the days when frozen Pizzas were considered normal. We didn’t eat out for Pizza often. A couple times a year maybe until we were teens and could buy our own. But leftovers for breakfast happened as often as we could mooch them.
Tuna sandwiches were pretty great also, on the way out the door to the school bus at the end of the lane. You could saunter down that long lane and have time to eat the whole sandwich before you got to the bus stop.
My children naturally adopted the habit. Macaroni and Cheese, Stew, Burritos, Mexican Lasagna, Tuna Casserole, or anything else hearty left from the day before.
Kevin has come around to cold Pizza finally. And cold chicken. No idea why it took him so long, but he will eat either one for lunch at work now. I haven’t persuaded him to Cold Spaghetti or Sloppy Joes for lunch, nor have I persuaded him to Pasta Salad for breakfast. He’s just not that daring yet.
He wasn’t here when I ate the leftover Seafood Alfredo this morning, with one reheated breadstick. He would have LOOKED at me… Like THAT, if he had been here.
But it was good. I heated it first. It is the sort of thing you DO heat if you can.
But if I had not been in a kitchen with a microwave oven, I WOULD have eaten it cold. And I would still have LIKED it.
Gardening Time
I’m fatigued this year. I want somewhat of a garden, but geez, all that bending just kills my back and hips. The shovel kills my feet. As in, it breaks bones, and they hurt for weeks, and I risk a new level of meltdown. Sigh. I really want tomatoes and squash and strawberries.
So the neighbor plows up a section of the yard. Garden shaped.
Kevin goes to take a look. The guy tells us we can put some plants in if we want. Into his garden. For our own use.
I’m not the type to do that. Besides, my own few small beds are all I can tend. So I decline. I tell him why. I offer my old seeds for them to dig through, but he doesn’t know what to do with seeds, he says. (This explains why he does not think he can fill a wee bitty 20-30 garden plot… plants are just THAT expensive.)
I’m disappointed, actually. We moved, I lost all my stored seeds, could not find them. Found them after I ordered new ones, so now I have all the old ones and the new ones for this year.
I wander back home, and I dig out my seeds. I have ordered a few also, things I need. So I’ll make the effort. At least it is a long growing season here so if I don’t get it done right away, there’s plenty of cushion for procrastination.
I think that it would be really fun to sneak out while they are at work, and just randomly scatter seeds in their garden. Really random.
I’m just not sure they’d get the joke… Probably weed them all up without even noticing they were food. After all, if it is not where you want it, it is a weed.
And then there’s my feet. I’d have to have something other than size 12 wide feet to get away with sowing seeds in someone else’s garden.
Stinky Vanilla Beans
I ordered the cheap ones. It was all I could afford. Not sure WHY I felt I just had to have vanilla beans, but I’d been unable to shake the desire to have them for a long time, so I just did it one day.
They came in, and I opened the package and just about got knocked over. They did NOT smell like vanilla. The smell that came out was more like a pigpen.
They smelled of ammonia, and almost of fecal matter. Not quite, but that’s the only description I can gather up that even comes close to the repulsive smell that exuded from those beans.
I was really disappointed. What now?
After much contemplation I decided to dry them more. Maybe I could at least use them in a medicinal preparation (vanilla beans have tonic healing elements).
The beans were pliable and moist. They should have been crispy dry.
Now, people will TELL you they are supposed to be moist, but ONLY if they are FRESH. They tell you that the rich vanilla aroma and flavor will be damaged by over-drying.
If you dry them to a damp pliable state, they DECAY instead of being PRESERVED.
Turns out they DECAY and start to SMELL of ammonia and pig mire! The PROBLEM was that they weren’t dried enough to begin with!
This is another of those instances where a pernicious MYTH has overtaken an industry to the destruction of good food. While it is true that drying them completely does allow a bit more evaporation of some of the more volatile aroma and flavor, it is also true that drying them INCOMPLETELY absolutely RUINS the flavor and aroma to the point that people discard the beans because they are so repulsive.
I went ahead and dried them some more. It took 2 days on lower heat.
The first day in the dryer they stank. But by the end of the day they stank less.
The second day in the dryer they did NOT stink, and they began to smell like vanilla.
When they were done, the foul smell was gone, and what was left was vanilla that didn’t smell strong, but that did smell like vanilla! They are entirely usable, and that is something I did not see coming! I didn’t think something that smelled that bad could be rescued!
I ordered some vanilla from another company right after I received the nasty stuff. This new batch was far more costly, though it is still considered inexpensive for vanilla.
When it arrived, the package I opened was delightful. Smelled deliciously of creamy custardy vanilla.
I opened another package, and it smelled faintly of ammonia and pig mire. The third one did also. This confirmed what I learned about it not keeping well if not dried completely.
I popped the beans into the food dehydrator and ran them until they were crispy dried. All of them smelled good once dried. I stored these in a separate container for use in cooking.
I’ve used the lower quality ones in medicinals, and they have imparted a rich custardy vanilla flavor when used liberally. They also help the flavor of the extractions that I add them to.
So when you get your vanilla beans, DRY THEM! And if they smell nasty, don’t throw them away, DRY THEM, and see what happens. It is likely to be miraculous!
Crackers in Milk
It’s an old thing. A deep memory from early in my childhood. Crumbling up the crackers into milk, and eating them with a spoon.
Kevin has been eating crackers when he gets home from work, to tide him over until dinner. Yesterday he is changing his clothes after work, and he comments, “As much as I dislike soggy crackers, I used to eat crackers crumbled up in milk when I was a kid.” I remember. It isn’t the first time he has said this, just the first time I have connected it to a memory of my own, I was pretty young when we did that.
“Yeah. We did that when we were kids.” I tell him. He pulls his shirt out of the drawer and takes off his dirty shirt.
“But if you put too many in, it tastes too salty.” I tell him. I remember that the saltine crackers had JUST enough texture left to not be gross. But if you put more crackers in after you ate them and still had milk left, the milk got kinda salty.
“Eyooo!” he says. “You don’t use saltines! Gross! You use graham crackers!”.
“Oh yuck!” I tell him. I can’t imagine how soggy those must have been! Or maybe I can… and I can’t imagine being able to EAT them!
He laughs.
I laugh.
We have this connection, he and I. One more thing that we share. But also not.
We both remember crackers and milk. But we don’t have the same memory AT ALL.
Backward Glance
Perhaps 10 years ago I was the heaviest I have ever been. This means something in this world.
- It means you are judged.
- It means you can’t move as well.
- It means you can’t find clothing you like in your size. I feel like I am forced to wear someone else’s clothes.
- If you are ill, or disabled, it means someone is going to get mean about it and blame the weight, rather than assigning the weight to the illness or disability.
- It means Doctors assume your IQ is lower than it really is. And so far THEY haven’t done ONE THING to help with any of it, I have had to learn ways to treat my issues myself.
I have been heavy for 40 years. This body has a HISTORY, and it isn’t one I can explain in a single blog post.
There are always reasons for obesity, and at my weight, obesity is the only word for it. The reasons are many…
- I have a Mitochondrial Complex, and it includes protein processing disorders, carbohydrate processing disorders, a fat processing disorder, a kidney disorder, some muscular and bone disorders, a chemical flushing disorder (I don’t flush toxins well at all), and a growth hormone disorder.
- I have had several illnesses in the past 14 years that have destroyed my immune system, and then others that attacked my liver. Hepatitis for one.
- Hepatitis has given me an enlarged liver, and my stomach protrudes. I always had a figure, with a waistline, so this is distressing to me.
- I had Crohn’s Disease. More than half of people with this disease GAIN weight, and have persistent obesity. I was one of those. But I found a way to treat that (no thanks to the Doctor who told me that the best way to get help for it was to eat Pizza until I crashed and ended up in the ER), and now only ever have mild flares of IBS. But while I had Crohn’s my body went into a habit of hoarding fat. When you don’t extract nutrients from your food very well, the body often hoards… it is an artificial starvation condition, and the body reacts to that. Especially certain genetic heritages.
- My genetic heritage is one that hoards fats and sugars in times of dearth.
- I have an Osteo Degenerative Condition – Resulting from the Mito Complex. A form of brittle bones. I have stress fractures (back, neck, feet, hips, shoulders, etc), and they heal badly and rebreak easily. They prevent me from walking much, and from engaging in strenuous activities. I am discovering natural treatments for this, so there is hope. It means I’m sedentary. I don’t have a choice.
But something happened in the last 10 years. I lost some weight.
It was very slow. Perhaps 10 lbs a year, and NOT every year. The sicker I get, the less I lose, but when I’m doing better, my body is changing in a few good ways.
I do have to interrupt here to say I am NOT dieting. Quite the reverse. I eat whatever I want. Fats, sugars, salt, meats, potato chips, starchy carbs and non starchy carbs, gravy, and OH so many condiments. If it sounds good and I can afford to eat it I do. I am no longer afraid of food, I now know it is not the PROBLEM, it is the SOLUTION.
I have lost somewhere around 70 lbs (depends on whose scale you use). It goes up, and down, and up and down, with a variance of 5-10 lbs, and every once in a while it hits a new low, and that is what I count.
I’ve seen the effect on my body as I’ve slowly lost. It is NOT the effect I want.
Did you know what weight comes OFF in a different way than it goes ON?
It goes ON to the legs and the butt and the bosom and shoulders and waist and arms, and even the chin and cheeks and neck.
It comes OFF of the neck and a little off the chin. It comes OFF the upper arms, and butt and thighs, but NOT evenly. It comes OFF the hands and feet. It will ALWAYS come off the bosom before it comes off the waist… Sigh.
I still wear a 3X shirt, but I’m down to a 1X pant. And I wonder why THAT part of my butt shrinks, but the part that really sticks out still sticks out just as far.
And the WRINKLES.
Yertle skin under the chin.
Bags under the eyes.
Flaps under the upper arms, and of course on the stomach.
And the wrinkles on the legs and the butt, you don’t even WANT to know! Just take my word for it, you end up with wrinkles in places you didn’t even know COULD wrinkle.
Over time (years and years), those wrinkles do take up a little, but when you have a Primary Collagen Disorder (that is one of the major components of the Mitochondrial Complex… An Inborn Error of Collagen Synthesis), skin does not have the elasticity and recovery capacity that it should.
Even so, things ARE a little better. I can move in some ways a little more easily. Hard to judge since the bone and muscle problems make it HARDER to do many things.
I was hoping as I lost weight I’d get something back more like my body in my 20s. Instead, some stranger’s body is taking over, and all the things I want about it don’t count. I’d really be happy to have a waistline again.
People who are overweight always say they want to lose weight. And they do. And they should.
But if they KNEW what was coming, especially the wrinkles, I think they might not want to do so!
Life On Bacon Street
In the process of studying Constitutional Law, I created a document to record in.
The filename was abbreviated. It had BA as one abbreviation. It had CONST as the other abbreviation. It made sense. I named it, and saved it.
When I went to find it again, there it was. Only it now said Bacon St. It DID! Ba Const runs right together as baconst.
So this makes us think.
Bacon is Liberty. There are those that think Bacon should have been a protected right under Constitutional Law. They may still get an amendment passed for that.
Bacon should be Law. Or at least protected from trespass or unwarranted nibbling.
Bacon has to be FAIR. He can’t take more of it than I get.
Bacon should protect the little guy and restrain the big one from getting it all by Crime. Or even by mooching.
Bacon ought to be exempt in the Constitution, specifically, in regards to Slavery. It should be specified that enslavement by Bacon is Constitutionally permitted.
Bacon St. should invite us to sample the delights of Porkery. It should do so with much savory mapley smoky enticement.
And it should definitely be Smoky and Salty. Bacon is, after all, how you Smoke without being an addict (though the case CAN be made for Sausage and Ham).
Bacon St. Who knew THAT was in the Constitution?
An acquaintance rewrote the US Constitution by placing the word “Bacon” in every place they wanted it to be. They said that much of it made more sense that way, and somehow it turned out all right if we just though of Bacon as a metaphor for Liberty.
Please do not misunderstand our humor. We take the Constitution VERY seriously, and feel a great loyalty to that Law which IS Constitutional. Which is why I was studying it in the first place.
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