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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 million to build an insurance marketplace that had an actual work required pricetag of about $5000. 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.
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.
Burnt Applesauce
Not the canned kind. I never burn that, because I make it in a crockpot.
But sometimes, when we have extra fresh apples, often which have become the wrinkly kind, I make a small pot of applesauce for dessert. We love it hot off the stove. We did this when we had kids in the house also, and it is kind of one of those things we do.
They were Pink Ladies. The Apples, not the kids. Just so we know. Pink Ladies are tart and have a distinctive flavor to that tartness. That’s why they are Pink Ladies. Because they are tarts you know. Not sluts… no. Then they’d be Red Ladies. These are just Pink.
I often use Galas, and they cook quickly. Pink Ladies take longer to soften. Hmmm…. Well then.
But they do. So they cook longer. And that is a problem this day that I am making Pink Lady Applesauce.
They are cooking slowly, so I turn the burner down, make sure there is enough water, and set the timer for 15 minutes. I need to eat my dinner.
It really needed 10. Just before the timer goes off I smell it. They are burning. Those Pink Ladies are now well singed Ladies. See what happens when you get too hot? I wonder how they felt about Leggings…
Now I have a pot of burnt applesauce. Well… Not ALL of it, just the bottom. And the bottom is not browned, it is BLACK. All the way across. Some of it is shiny.
I pull out the apples that can be rescued, and then lightly scrape loose the partly burned ones. I then take off the black bits, and I have some well browned apples that might be rescued. I have to rescue them. This is just a hard time of year, and I’d rather risk the effort and ingredients to rescue them than lose it all.
Pot goes in the sink to soak. I know. Charcoal does not soak off. But it has to go somewhere until I can scrape it. Kevin will often do this, but I burned them. I feel determined to clean the mess myself.
The apples have been transferred into a clean pot. A little water added. Back onto the burner, and I stir them and mush them down. I make this applesauce with slices or chunks, and then let it cook apart. Nice textured sauce.
Pumpkin Pie Spice goes in first. A little more than I’d usually use, because I know the burnt taste will need a little extra camouflage. Cinnamon alone just won’t have the mellowing effect I need. This has to cook in, so I put it in first.
Then vanilla. Vanilla Bean Paste, actually (Yes, there IS a use for this product!). Nice custardy aroma follows that around, and I just love the richness of it. Quite a bit goes in. About 10 drips for the remains of my 5 apples (it is most of the apples, not a lot was discarded).
A dash of salt. Just a nice side note, not enough to TASTE, just enough to enliven.
Some sugar. Not too much or you lose the impact of the flavor of the apple.
And then, the Piece de Resistance. Maple. Three dribbles of Maple Syrup. This is something deep and dark and mysterious that should help to conceal the darkness of the scorching.
Stir some more, and serve up. With whipped cream.
And it is GOOD. It does not taste burned, it tastes rich and fruity, just barely spicy on the edge and not really maply, just darkly woodsy.
Rescued. I was not sure it would, but it did.
Kevin ate it without even knowing how badly it was burnt.
When I’m done with it I wash the pot. It takes scraping it with a metal scraper to remove all the black. But it all comes out, and fairly easily. It is a gracefully designed stainless saute pot, and probably my favorite cookpot, so it really does need to be shiny again, and so it is.
I wonder if this is something like repentance.
And I wonder what God has to do to sweeten ME out and compensate for MY harsh bits.
And does it really get me sweet and wonderful in the end?
(Do not feel obligated to answer that…)
Rink Skates, Really?
For many years, I’ve been feeling that if I could get back on skates, I could strengthen and heal up. I have several conditions that make this difficult, not the least of which is a mitochondrial (familial) condition that causes muscle weakness, and persistent obesity. I’m slowly losing weight, year by year, due to dietary changes (the opposite of what a nutritionist advises… I just eat whatever my body wants. As long as it is not an addictive substance – no, sugar and salt are NEVER addictive because they are REQUIRED for essential metabolic function – this works. I believe the taste buds were divinely designed to tell me what my body needs. So I listen, and I eat what tastes good, and DON’T eat what does not taste good. It has been working slowly. That is the only way it CAN work.
Anyway, back to the skates…
I took my grandson to the rink. There are no less than THREE skating rinks, all within 15 minutes of our house. The first one we tried was flooded from a leaky roof and storms the night before. The second one was in business. He skated for a session, and that tired him out some. It fired me with longings to be flying again.
I used to skate. I used to be GOOD. Not GREAT, but GOOD. I could skate forward and backward. I could step over on the corners, going forward, and I could step under going backward. I could stop in reverse by tipping up onto the toe stops. I could do that sideways thing on the corners like the cool girls do. I could almost do a three turn. If I’d skated for another few months, I’d have had it down. I could jump. Just a little. I could fly off the rink floor onto the carpet and not stagger at all. I took lessons for a while, and learned some dance steps. I was as comfortable on wheels as in shoes. And I loved to fly.
I don’t think I was exactly graceful. But I wasn’t awkward either.
I had my own skates. I studied it out, saved up, and then balanced what I WANTED, with what I could afford. Lined boot. Could not afford the lightweight flat chassis, I had to compromise for a ridged (rink style) jump reinforcement, but this skate also had a jump bar added for additional sturdiness. A good skate, cost $125, which my daughter eventually bought for $50, and sold (with worn out wheels and toe stop), to a skate shop for $150 with the case, about 20 years ago. My brother bought the lightweight plate (flat, no ridge), with a jump bar, same boot in men’s black. He paid $200 for his… I could not afford $200, I was only 15 when I bought them. I did all the stuff – skate covers, sparkly laces, a silver skate case. But no glo sticks. NO glo sticks.
So I knew how to buy skates… if I ever did again. I only knew that I NEEDED to skate again. And that if I did, I’d want to buy skates.
The Saturday after I took my grandson skating, I persuaded Kevin to go. I could not skate, I need to gain a little more strength in my legs first. But I’ve gone from having to ride the cart in the stores every time (over the last year, due to a hip injury), to walking about half the time, so I know I am making progress, and can make more.
I talked to one of the rink employees about buying skates, and where one does that here – this rink does not have a pro shop. I didn’t feel good about their suggestions, I had already looked online and was not happy with the options. Then another employee tells me ther are skates in the back – used ones – that he might be able to sell me. I nibble.
He takes me to the back, and disappears. Brings out a 9 1/2, and a 10 (men’s… they are all men’s now, and Kevin and I wear the same size now, my feet are no longer wider than his). Just a bit too tight on the smaller pair. But the 10 fits me perfectly. I ask the guy to get another pair. He does. He has to put the wheels back onto them – and says he needs to find wheels and good bearings. I never thought about bearings before. He cleans the wheels on both pair, and they have decent laces and very worn toe stops which are still usable… just.
Now, these are just used rental rink skates. Tan LEATHER boots, lined with black polyester mesh, brown layered soles, shoe size stamped into the heel, ORANGE wheels and toe stop (my LEAST favorite color other than Black), and a BROAD and HEAVY jump ridge (SureGrip X L). But they are skates. And they are not in bad condition, the boots are only lightly worn. This is the old style – the rink now uses a gray boot.
But they are very durable. That’s a thing about rink skates – they are made to take a beating.
They charge us TWENTY FIVE BUCKS for each of the two pair we decide to buy. I figured $50 at least. I feel like I won the lottery. These will do fine until we can get something better, I think.
We take them home, and I look for something better. It will be $300-500 just to get something COMPARABLE to those rink skates! And then they will be TOO NARROW for me, even if I buy men’s skates. We can’t even FIND leather uppers for less than $400, and lined boots are never lined with leather anymore.
I bought my old skates for $125 in about 1978. You can’t get those skates at any price anymore. Everything is lower quality.
The rink skates have aluminum alloy chassis, and stainless is FAR better, but they are a broad, reinforced jump ridge, and I CAN add jump bars, I think. I’m a heavy girl, and the extra sturdiness is kinda needed, I feel.
I do the research, and then suddenly, I know. These aren’t temporary. They are IT. I CAN’T get anything better.
So we decide to INVEST in these old skates. We do a bunch of things:
- Kevin uses Leather Lube on his. It actually plumps the leather a bit, and makes them look almost new.
- I order shoelaces. Teal for me, Navy for him.
- I order wheels. White speed wheels for him, red and black swirled basic wheels for me.
- I order toe stops. He gets the red and black ones that come with my wheels, and I get blue sparkly ones to go with my colorful outfit.
- I use Sharpies to create a feathered multi-color pattern on my boots. VERY colorful, in all my favorite colors.
- I color the soles dark brown instead of the layered tan and brown.
- I use brown Sharpie to fill in the size markings on the heels of both our skates.
- I order a tool set for each of us. They are not expensive.
- I order skate cases. Only ONE company makes the old classic skate cases, all the other skate cases are for in-lines, or kiddie skates.
- We rip out the old felt liners in the boots, and buy some cushy new insoles and put them in.
- We buy two small cosmetic cases for the tools. Clear zipper cases at Wal-Mart. Clear for Kevin, Pink for me, they are the only two colors they have.
Things start coming in, and meanwhile I was coloring my skates. When I finished, Kevin lubed them for me. It darkened the colors some, but they are brightening up again as the oil absorbs and evaporates.
We put the wheels on, we put the toe stops on, We lace up the boots, and they look really good. His are simple looking. Mine look like a rainbow threw up on them, but they are colorful and not actually tacking looking. They aren’t rink skates anymore!
The skate cases never come in. The shipper tells us they delivered them to a dock in a town we do not live in. We get a refund, and I have to go looking for some other kind of skate case.
I find all kinds of padded duffles that will do, but they are TOO MUCH. I finally find a luggage set at Fingerhut, on clearance, and it has a padded duffle that will hold them, I think.
Still trying to figure out what to do for Kevin to haul his skates in.
We go to a Cabela’s Loyalty Night, and the door giveaway is a Bass Pro small wide duffle. Kevin and I each get one. While he’s at work a few days later, I put his skates in his duffle. They fit perfectly, with only a little wiggling to get the last wheel in. He comes home and tells me he was gonna use that for a second range bag. I’m a good wife… I give him mine for that (I didn’t ABSOLUTELY NEED that camo bag anyway). His skates have a home, and it didn’t cost us a thing.
My bag arrives, and it does fit the skates. It is a little long, but it works well, and has pockets in the inside on the ends for the tools and a pair of thin socks (I wear sandals all summer).
So Kevin is in for $115 for his entire setup. Mine runs $150, because I had to get a case.
So the real question is, can I skate?
Well, the first question was, could I get up off the floor if I fell. So I tried. I could, but not IN the skates. I’d have to take them off. It was hard, due to weak muscles in my legs, but I did it.
Then I decided to try to see if I could do it a different way. Dang, I wish I hadn’t done that. It damaged the ligaments in my knee. Normally a LONG heal. By that night my knee was swelling, and I could not sleep well because it was so painful. Next day I decide to try comfrey (yes, I am well aware of the risks, but it has risks because it WORKS… it is used ONLY for acute conditions, not chronic). This is my first experience with comfrey. To my absolute shock, my knee is feeling better within 8 hours of taking it. By the following morning I am no longer limping and the swelling is down, and by that evening I can’t tell that I’ve injured it! I don’t know how it did it, I only know IT DID.
My knee is not painful now, but it is still fragile, I have to be very careful. If it hurts, I use comfrey again, and the pain fades out within the day.
Two weeks later, I put the skates on at home. I have a plan. The wheels on my skates do not spin freely… they are slowed a bit, so it is less slippery. My plan is to get my feet back at home, with restricted wheels, and then try that at the rink… ONLY around the edges that have a rail (so I can hold on if needed, and so I can pull myself up if I fall).
There are THREE problems here:
- I know from prior experience, skating with my kids, that if it has been a long time since you skated, you WOBBLE. You FORGET how to move and balance to skate smoothly, and it is easy to fall if you are not careful. Takes 4-8 laps to remember how to skate.
- The muscles that support skating posture and movement are GONE. You can get back forward motion fairly rapidly, but it takes much longer to get back the advanced skills. Not just because of REMEMBERING, but because of STRENGTH in places you don’t normally need strength.
- Kamikazes. Those little plowing children with no sense of self-preservation, and no sense of avoidance of other skaters. They take out pros all the time. I am at particular risk. I can’t control THEM, I can only try to avoid them.
I wear the skates in the house, and I go from the center to one end, and then back and to the other end, then back to my starting point – I have to hang onto something on the slick linoleum, but not on the carpet. I don’t feel stressed (it isn’t much, I know). But I stop. I do NOT want to re-injure my hip, I do not want to stress my knee, and I don’t want to have sore muscles in my legs, it could be more damaging than it seems, due to my condition.
I know when I’m done that I can do this, as long as I do not rush it, and as long as I don’t stress anything. I know if I just DO this (and I can’t do it daily yet), that I’ll get there. Wheels on my feet signal my body that something needs strengthening.
I try again after some days. This time I make it one and a half times around the house (I stopped when I felt like I would tire if I finished the lap), and I don’t have to hang on all the time. I am still just walk and rolling, instead of getting some inertia after each push, but I’m not slipping or spazzing because I’m losing my balance. It is ever so slow to make progress, but progress I AM making.
I’m happy with the skates. They FIT, and I can adjust them for my needs.
The only MAJOR disappointment has been that one truck bolt is STUCK. And the bolt head is stripping just enough we probably won’t be able to get it off to put the jump bars on.
Sigh. Just have to be one of the ordinary people, I guess, and keep losing weight. I know I CAN keep losing weight. Not sure I can EVER be one of the ordinary people though…
UPDATE: One of the guys at the rink got the bolt out. It was damaged in the middle, very hard to remove. He replaced it with a new bolt and checked all the rest. Need to work on the jump bars a little to get them to fit right, but we’ll get that too.
Really, American Family? How Crooked Can You Be?
We needed to add a truck to our insurance. It should have approximately doubled our premium. We know how insurance works, we’ve been at this a long time.
Now, to make one thing clear… I LOVED this company. We would have stayed with them until doomsday. Until their agents screwed us.
If you think you are being screwed, you should know, Screwed means: Tightened, Torqued, Leveraged, Impaled, Pressured, Squeezed, Fastened, Forced, Pinched, Turned, Twisted, Secured.
First, we went to an agent we were familiar with. She turned out to be the insurance agent who refused to issue a policy for minimums. I walked out. She quoted WAY too much. Far more than the amount I knew it should be. (She’s stupid. If you will ONLY handle high rates, you LOSE all the bread and butter customers, and you make literally 1/10 the money that agents do that take all comers. Her office kinda shows it.)
Next, the one who promised they’d be happy to issue the minimum coverage I wanted. Only she couldn’t quite figure out how to quote it… and the computer would not bind it… and it would take a few more days. She was friendly, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt in spite of her yellow orange hair.
A WEEK later, she finally has the quote. She quotes me almost THREE TIMES the amount we had been paying. MORE than the one did for 100k coverage. instead of minimums. How does that work? You get LESS insurance, but you PAY MORE?
We quit. Went to another company – one we’d been happy with before. They wanted EIGHT DOLLARS MORE per month WITH THE TRUCK than what we’d been paying for JUST the old car. And I do mean OLD car.
We canceled.
Now, insurance bills TWO MONTHS in advance. When you get a new insurance policy, if you pay monthly, you pay for the first six months over FOUR MONTHS time, and you keep a buffer of 2 months. Always has been this, and American Family was no different than any other.
A week and a half after we cancel, AMFAM sends me a notice. My refund of $21.21 is processing. I should have it by check within two weeks.
Now… They owe us MORE THAN $150. Two months PLUS the part month. And all they are counting is PART of the part month. They want to back date the outrageous rates to the day we purchased the vehicle.
So three weeks later, (I did wait to see if the check arrived), no check, no refund. Not just crooked in one way, crooked all around.
I call. The sweet young thing tries to tell me that there is no 2 month buffer. That they only owe me $21. She tells me they sent it to our street address instead of to our billing address (We do not have street delivery, the Post office will reject it and I will never know.). (Companies like that do NOT make that kind of mistake unless someone is tampering with the mailing of the check. This is done to cause the check to be returned, or to send it to a third party.)
The little squint then tried to find out whether I had insurance now, and told me she could not remove the truck (which we never did authorize to have added) from the policy (to adjust it for the time during which I had not been given a price nor agreed to anything) unless she reported me to the Kansas State authorities for not having insurance on my vehicle so they could fine me, and she said she’d have to report me to the finance company so they could charge me for insurance for however many days we did not have it on the vehicle. Bully boys bully.
This whole situation involves all kinds of things. Software, and crooked associates, mostly. Software exploits that let someone quote high while leaving low benefits, usually by overriding company rates. Software that lets someone manipulate payouts. And then dishonest employees that are willing to lie for each other – they close ranks, like jail people, and like politicians and dishonest lawyers, to tell the lie that leaves you unable to get justice. They will never admit what you are owed. Without a lawyer who IS honest, you can’t do anything about it and they know they can just bully and win.
I would not have thought it was this deep in this company. Corrupt and greed stricken (and stupid) agents in a specific region, yeah. But I did not think it went all the way up.
We are with a different company now. I expect things won’t last long before they start ratcheting the rates. But for the next six months, I can breathe where my insurance rates are concerned.
Come back, American Family. We need you.
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