Triviana Two

The further spewings of a mind incapable of holding a cogent thought longer than….what was I saying?  Oh, yeah.

Do you store your kitchen knives in a wooden knife-block?  Are there grooves in the bottom of each slot?  You aren’t doing the edge, or the block, any good.  I was watching a British detective show, and the young Copper wanted to impress a date, by cooking up a home-made meal.  He reached over and removed a knife from the block – upside-down!  And the little light went on!  There’s no rule that says they have to go in edge down.  The knife-nut took a Gibbs’ head-smack out of petty-cash, and moved on.

This area must be a good one to live in.  There have been three articles about birthdays in the paper recently.  First, the oldest person in the Region is a lady who is now 106 years old.  A week later, we had a report of twin brothers who had celebrated their 100^th.  Granted, they were born in India, and came here after W.W. II, but two of them??!  One hundred!!  Must be the water…. or the preservatives in the Twinkies.  Finally, there was an article about a pair of female twins who had reached 90 years of age.

When she listens to radio in the evening, while reading, the wife likes to put on a local station which carries a syndicated show by New-Ager, John Tesh.  She likes the choice of music on his show, but his inane yammering drives her crazy.  I heard him say, the other night, that someone had done a study of 3700 crosswalk push buttons.  I don’t know what disturbed me most, that someone had got paid to study crosswalk buttons, or how badly they screwed up the findings.

Tesh claimed that 47% weren’t connected to anything, because, when they were pushed, nothing happened.  In my Analog Curmudgeon post, I bitched about things going on in the background in computers, which I couldn’t see.  It’s the same with computer-controlled traffic lights.  Just because you push a button, it doesn’t mean that the light will immediately go green.

The Traffic Department doesn’t want the flow of traffic disrupted, nor drivers slamming on brakes to stop at suddenly-red lights.  Your request goes into the system and your walk-light will appear in sequence.

MSN had an article today, about lengthening the time on yellow lights.  If the dwell-time is too short, drivers are put in a dilemma-spot.  Do they take a chance on running a red light, or slam on the brakes, and possibly get rear-ended?  The local Traffic Department, like others everywhere, installed red-light cameras at several problem intersections, “To improve safety!”  An independent survey group recently revealed that crashes at these corners are up 31%, and personal injuries have increased by 51 %.

Despite having these data given to him, the Traffic Co-ordinator insists that it’s not about the cash infusion from the fines, “It’s about the safety.”  We pay the company which installed and maintains the cameras, an outrageous fee.  The Ontario government takes an unearned cut, and the Region banks what’s left.  Thanks, Mr. Co-ordinator, my wallet feels much safer, just like your job.

As an ego sop to a bunch of egotistic saps, the Regional Council seems hell-bent on putting an LRT street-railroad down the middle of the already too-small, over-burdened main street.  Despite huge public outrage, it seems destined to be a fait accompli.  The projected cost is 818$ million.  The Provincial and Federal Governments are each providing one-third of the funding, but that just means we’re getting our own money back.  The inevitable cost over-runs will push it above ONE BILLION.

Regional Council has paid a local think-tank $75,000, to come up with a name which will make us like it.  Citizen suggestions had already included White Elephant, SUB – seldom used boondoggle, WTF – Waterloo Transit fiasco, TNT – Taxpayers’ nightmare transit, MET – money-eating taxer, FUUS – forced upon us suckers, RBI – really bad investment, RMP – Regional money pit, and OUCH – over-priced, under-used cash hole.

Without consulting the public, probably because of the above, the fairy-dust sniffers brought it down to three names.  They felt it should be Trio, for the three main cities in the Region, even though Cambridge will not be hooked up for years, if ever; Arc, because of the pot-of-gold (Which it’s going to cost us.) at the end of the rainbow feeling, and the curve it forms on the map; or Ion, which is supposed to represent energy, and the local electronic/technology industry.

With the predictable public reaction, they are now back-pedalling, and offering to accept public input.  C’mon guys, you’re burning money!  Somebody do what they’re (over)paid to do, make a damned decision.  Why not officially name it what everybody’s going to call it anyway – LRT?

Three naked male teens were reported jumping on a trampoline in a residential backyard recently.  They were clothed when police arrived, but were cautioned.  This is Ontario, in mid-January; parts can freeze and break off.

In case you didn’t notice at Christmas-time, the Politically-Correct Police removed the reference to Santa smoking a pipe, from the, ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas, poem.  They declared that nicotine addiction was “a pediatric disease, for which prevention must start early.”  This ranks with the Bowdlerization of Mark Twain’s, Huck Finn, and the recent furore over the movie Django Unchained.  It ain’t pretty, but it’s historical fact.  Not being exposed to it merely prevents us from making an informed decision when it inevitably arises.

I know my header says “Rants and Rambles”, but that’s enough for now.  I don’t want to tire you out with all that thinkin’ stuff.

Archon’s Exciting Work Life

The inestimable John Erickson invited me to make him slack-jawed with tales of my work history.  The only thing about the story of me and my career that would make anyone go slack-jawed is why half of Southern Ontario hasn’t lapsed into a coma.

With no life-plan, and only a grade twelve education, I worked almost a year at a Royal Bank, before I realized that it and I were not good partners. I put in a summer season as the pro-shop assistant at a country-club golf course, although, as a paper-work diversion, I was on the books as the golf Pro.  I moved from Southampton Ontario, to Kitchener, because that’s where the jobs were, then. With no experience and little training, I went back to an adult education course.

After graduating (again), I worked as a Production Clerk at a shoe factory. The company moved me to a skate plant, where I set blades on boots. When they found that I could read well enough to not put out size 12 hockey blades to be attached to little girls’ figure skates, I became a Production Scheduler. They tried to train me for Quality Control, but a recession was on. I got a job at a steel warehouse/fabricating shop. I started as an Inventory Clerk, filled in for two months as Acting Inventory Manager, moved to Expediter, and later up to Buyer, over 7 years. Leaving there, I became a Purchasing Agent for a couple of years at a large millwright/rigging shop, with some metal fab. and machining. I left that company to be the Purchasing Agent at a large (400 employee) precision machine shop that made automotive, dental, medical and atomic energy parts, for four years.

I got a job as a fancy-named Materials Manager at a small auto-parts stamping shop for two years. I had 8 people working under me. The title just meant I had all the responsibility – with none of the authority. I got shit on from above, and had it rubbed in from below. When the company president found that I had ethics, he pulled the employment rug out from under me.

I tried outside sales, first for a small local courier, then for a safety-supply company, but, with no sales experience and no established territory, I couldn’t support the family. I drifted on and off unemployment for a couple of years. I delivered flyers and catalogs. I worked for a small, and later, a larger building-custodial firm. I spent a couple of years with a Security Guard firm. I patrolled a couple of downtown hotels, and then got moved to a shoe/boot/slipper plant.

I had worked with the leather-cutting department foreman years before. After about a year as security, he talked me into working for him. Starting at $7.01/hr, I worked up to $9.25. He put me on a piece-work job, where the previous operator had made $13.+/hr. Not only did I stay at the nine dollar figure, the company was busy going bankrupt, and I either went back to $7.01 or found a new job.

I took the seven bucks, and his shit, for a couple of months, until the previous press operator told me that her new employer was hiring – at $11.35. If you dig back to about August, you’ll find a post about how I got that job. The economy now booming, I kept that job for 17.35 years, through three corporate owners. The last wanted to expand too fast, and bought a lot of small plants, all over North America. When the boom went bust again, inevitably, they were asset-rich, but cash-flow poor, and jobs got eliminated until the entire plant closed.

I found that now, jobs were obtained by working through temp-agencies. I got a piece-of-cake job at a steel-parts producer. Just as I was about to be taken on full-time, the 2008 recession kicked in. Thinking I was only going to be laid off for three weeks over Christmas/New Years, I had the temp agency get me a fill-in job with a medium-sized transport firm. The parts firm went kaput, and I had to stick with the new job.

They were shipping steel coils by rail-car, to the prairies and B.C. I worked as part of a framing crew, using lumber to brace the coils from moving during transit. In and out of the terminal and the boxcars, we got rained and snowed on. Not properly wired for compressors, lights and heaters, it was stiflingly hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and dark in the rail-cars, on a four-to-midnight shift. Broken lumber for splinters, nails sticking out, nail-guns and circular saws, I’m surprised no-one was seriously injured.

It was a very physically demanding job, just at the time of life when strength, stamina and body control were waning.  I put in just over two years before qualifying for full government pension, got to Hell out, or got out of Hell, and retired.

It might be a bit different for people with a skilled trade, but for guys like me, working at one job, or for one company your entire life, was over years ago.  My father had had at least ten different jobs by the time I hit the market, and three or four more after I left home.  There are still exceptions.  One of the co-workers at the auto-parts plant retired with 48 years seniority.  He’d been there through six owners/name changes.  The joke was, that he had been waiting at the corner for a trolley-bus, and they erected the building around him.

Now you know the sad employment history of The Archon. Do you feel sorry for poor old Archon, or just sorry for yourself for having read this tale of woe?

Safety Patrol

When I needed to go to elementary school, the school building was too small.  There were eight rooms.  I’d have thought that grades 1 through 8 would have fit nicely.  A couple of the rooms must have been used for music or other training.  My grade 1 class was in what was known as the band-room, in the town hall, two blocks from the school.  The town band had practiced there and the town council had used it for meetings and weekly bingo games.

Back then, a grade 8 education was considered adequate, with many students getting jobs on nearby farms, or in one of the four factories in town.  The eight-room high school was under-utilized.  My grade 2 was in the high school building, next to the elementary, with rowdy teen-age boys running us down.

In grade 3, I finally moved into the “proper” building.  A steel bar had been installed from the ceiling to half-way down the rail of the front stairway, to prevent boys from sliding down the banister.  The building is now part of the Bruce County Museum, and there is a note at the top of the stairs.  You can stand at the top and sight down a 3/4 inch deep groove in the treads, on the rail side, caused by boys dragging their feet, as they slid down.

Grade 4 was across the hall.  The first day back after the Easter vacation, we all picked up our desks, and marched across the playground to our home in a freshly finished new school building, which now included a Kindergarten.

Forward-thinking for 1954, one of the new things established, was a safety patrol.  Four or five students from both grade 7 and 8 were chosen to help safeguard the welfare of the other children.  They had to be level-headed, somewhat of a leader, and of sufficiently high academic standing.  School hours were from 9 till noon, and 1:30 to 4.  The Safety Patrols were allowed to leave fifteen minutes early to go to their assigned intersections, and were expected to stay until all students had passed on their way back to school, so they might be a bit late.

The Patrol Officers (ooh, that sounded important) were given a bright-white waist/chest belt combo, with a shiny shield clipped to it.  There were no lollipop paddles or blocking a street for children crossing.  Cars had the right-of-way.  Patrol Officers stood at various nearby corners and watched for cars.  If an oncoming auto was spotted, they were to raise their arms, and students were expected to wait till the arms were lowered, to cross safely.

As I came through grades 5 and 6, I kinda thought I might enjoy the prestige of being a Safety Patrol, but I didn’t hold my breath.   When I entered grade 7, I was not surprised when I wasn’t tapped for the job, but about the end of September, I was surprised when the Assistant Principal told me I was in.  Apparently Miss Safety Patrol couldn’t fulfill her duties and I was the first runner-up.

Not only did I get the sparkly white Sam Browne belt and shiny badge, I got a book of summonses.  I could write tickets.  If I saw things like fighting, bullying, running out into the street, throwing sticks, stones or snowballs, I could hand out a ticket.  I gave the duplicate stubs to the Asst. Principal, and the offending student had a week to report voluntarily, to get a lecture and warning.  I had to issue one to myself.  The kindergarteners and Grade ones were let out the same fifteen minutes early, to keep them from being buffeted by the older grades.

I was nearing my assigned corner and thought I’d toss a snowball at a post.  I missed the post, but hit a Grade 1 girl in the face, when she suddenly ran up and dashed around the corner.  I got my lecture, and an explanation of why not to throw snowballs.  I also had to go to her house and apologise to her and her mother.

The next year, I was assigned a more dangerous intersection on the highway.  There was a Grade 1 girl who I was supposed to escort to the corner, and assure she crossed safely.  I guess I didn’t exude enough authority.  She would not walk with me, insisting on running ahead, and crossing on her own.  The street we took was in full view of several classrooms, and I was often spotted running after her.

The Asst. Principal called me in for a talk, and I thought I might be chastised, but he just told me that he was aware of her behavior problem and had a talk with her.  From then on she held my hand and behaved well.

Child Safety Patrol Officer to adult Security Guard, that’s about the extent of my social powers.  The recognition is nice, but I’m too much of a loner and free-thinker to want to control others.  Although, if I could get one of Paul Blart’s Segways, I might want to patrol a mall.

Ironically Christian

I found a Saint Jude’s medal the other day….and laughed until I could barely breathe.  I guffawed until I was bent over, and my sides hurt.  Why all the mirth and merriment you ask, at least you’d better, if you know what’s good for me.

At first, I thought that I’d found a dime wedged behind a railing at a French-fry wagon.  It was small, round and shiny, with printing on it.  Not until I read it, did I realize what it really was.  I keep my eye open wherever people handle money, and am often rewarded with a stray coin.

People often won’t bother to bend down to pick up a dropped penny, and now the Canadian penny is on its way to extinction.  I also find nickels, dimes, quarters and sometimes even bills.  One day I got 40 pennies from the overflow chute of a coin-counting machine.  My best day was when I picked up a hundred-dollar bill that two other shoppers had walked on, at my Detroit Meijer’s.

The first irony is that someone lost a St. Jude’s medal.  The Catholics followed Church instruction, and, for years, prayed to St. Jude, among their plethora of single-use saints, to help them find lost items.  That’s the second piece of irony.  St. Jude is not the patron saint of lost things; he is/was the patron saint of lost causes.  That’s the third piece of religious irony.  If finding your car keys is a lost cause, what good would come from praying to the guy who represents failure?

I was going to use the word final, but will settle for fourth, because the Catholic Church, and all churches, and all religions, are a rich source of irony and hypocrisy.  The fourth bit of irony is that, after years – centuries, of mindless Church-ordered supplication to St. Jude, the Catholic Church downgraded him, just like the Astronomical Society did to poor minor-planetoid Pluto.

Despite being the go-to guy for the church, apparently they did some checking on his marriage licence.  They found that he didn’t have one.  In a time and place where it was common to take a wife without the Official Blessing of the Church, Jude lived with a woman in a common-law relationship.  After having centuries to discover that fact, and despite the good that the Church claimed he did, suddenly the Unchanging Church revoked his sainthood.  It is now especially ironic that he represented lost causes.  Now, if you lose your car-keys, you have to pray to your husband or wife.  Sorry Jude, no offence.

From this general area of the planet, the Catholic Church has appointed its first Native American (Indian) saint.  A woman, no less, she was born in northern New York, and lived near Montreal.  I don’t know what the big rush is, she’s only been dead since 1680, but you know the Catholic Church, always right on top of things.

She is Saint Kateri, AKA Katherine, Catherine and Kateri Tekawitha.  I’m not sure what she did to win on the big Church show, “So You Think You Can Bless,”…. or was it, “Anointing With The Stars”?  Perhaps she helped Sacajawea get Lewis and Clarke one of those, Buy One Bison, Get The Second One Free, coupons at Wal-Mart.  The Church claims that a young man in the 1700s was cured of smallpox, by being touched with a piece of Kateri’s decayed coffin.  Of course, the beneficent Church insisted that he renounce Protestantism, and become a Catholic before they would treat him.  Sort of the same loving game they played with Pat Morita in 1943.

I’m not sure why, but a local school, full of white kids, was named for this Indian woman, who lived five hundred miles away. The name used to be The Blessed Kateri School.  Now that she’s been given a big promotion into management, the local Catholics want to bask in all the reflected glory they can get.  Despite her only being “Blessed” when the school was named, and the expenses involved, the Church is upgrading the name to The Sainted Kateri School.  I wait for scholastic results to rise.

As you may have surmised, I am greatly underwhelmed by the bureaucratic side of religions.  The reason that I take the occasional swipe at them, is that I unthinkingly believe that they deserve it.  And we all know that the churches are big on unthinking belief.

Xmas Cookies (Memories of Christmas Past)

Good morning Peter.  This post is for you, and any others interested in food in general, and our Christmas cookies in particular.  You can’t pull them off the screen, so get your own breakfast before we begin.

I apologise for blurry photos.  This post is a learning experience in publishing pictures.  It runs down a long way.  I wanted large pictures for detail, but there’s not much text.

1

These are cookie nests – chocolate drops pushed into balls of dough.  Our chiropractor and his family prefer milk chocolate, while we like the darker.  I took the picture below first, before I realized we had one light one left.  We also made a batch with mint chocolate drops, but apparently the last of them followed the daughter home.

2

More dark chocolate cookie nests.  Even with a fast digital camera, I manage to get fuzzy photos.

3

These are the Maple Sugar flavored shortbreads.  The wife found a correctly-sized maple leaf cookie cutter, and I used a small steel cookie spatula to lightly carve in fake veining.

 

4

These are some of the hard meringues, two of each flavor.  Grated dark chocolate and hazelnut ones on the bottom left, almonds and Skor Bits at the top, and chopped cherry and coconut at bottom right.

 

 

5

These are the Oat Delights.  No-bake cookies, they’re easy to make and yummy.  Put grated chocolate in a glass bowl in a pot with a bit of boiling water in the bottom, to melt the chocolate.  Mix in the other ingredients, dollop out in spoonfuls on waxed paper, and let set.  These, and the meringues above, are the no-flour cookies the grandson can have without allergy problems.

6

True Scottish shortbreads, just like Grandma used to make.  After much practice, Granma Ladybug makes them just as good.  Five different basic shapes – winter mitt, holly leaf, Christmas tree, star and plain circle.  The pictures don’t show as much detail as I’d hoped.  Again, I used the cookie spatula to cut in a cuff line on the mitts, a center vein on the holly, a Chrysler star out to the vertices of the star, and just an X on the discs.  It makes them easy to break into four mouth-sized pieces.  I used the end of a chop-stick to indent small holes in the Christmas trees, to simulate decorative balls.

 

7

These are some of the spritz cookie shapes I pushed out of the cookie press.  You may notice that some of them were from the first batch, and got a little too brown.  They’re not burnt, but are not cosmetically acceptable as gifts, so we get to keep and enjoy them.  As you can see, different sized and colored decorative balls (dragees), mini M&M candy, as well as slivers of red and green glazed cherries are used to brighten them up.

8

A few of the shapes of iced and decorated sugar cookies we made.  Making and baking is quick and easy.  The icing and decorating takes far longer, but we use the time for some family togetherness, silliness and stress relief.  Note the results my steady hands produce on the candy canes.  The wife sprinkled a little of the Maple Sugar on the reindeer to produce a fur effect.

9

Some more of the iced sugar cookie shapes.  I can slather red, green or white on wreaths or snowflakes.  The son helps his mom dress up the wreaths, bells and Christmas trees after she’s done with reindeer.  She puts names on all the stockings.  The dressing of the boy- and girl-cookies falls mostly to LadyRyl.  These are just the extra ones we bake in case one of the ones intended for gifts might break, so these are the plain ones.  If I’m still around next Christmas, perhaps I could slip a couple of pictures of the more ornate ones in with a post about motorcycles or sewage disposal.

10

These are called thumbprint cookies, glazed cherry halves pushed down into walnut coated dough balls.  Of all the cookies we make, by a narrow margin, these are my favorite.  I could, but don’t, eat these by the dozen.  There is absolutely no taste difference between red and green cherries, and my mouth can’t see….but I like the red ones. Granma Ladybug is partial to the green ones.

11

Last, but not least, we have what we call Yule Logs.  The dough is similar to the spritz, cookie nests and thumbprint.  (They are all shortbread types.) Form small cylinders and bake, next day, someone with a steadier hand than mine (see The Wife, above) dips them in more melted chocolate, and puts them aside to cool and set.

 

Granma Ladybug said that my contribution to this industry is my ability to put the cookies in the oven, take them out to cool and then pack them into the containers.  Wife says without this assistance, she would be very hard pressed to do this.

We feel we can do this for at least one more year, and hopefully beyond.  Friends and family enjoy these, but our caring Chiropractor and his family receive the single largest donation.  They are overly generous in return.  Half a fruitcake goes along to ride shotgun.  No photos were available because it’s shy and wishes to remain anonymous.

Summer At The Beach

Once upon a time, in beautiful downtown Ontario, there lived a man and his wife.  He worked hard at his job, and became very successful.  He became so successful in fact, that his boss asked him if he would like to open up and manage his own branch office.  Overjoyed, the man quickly said, “Sure.”

Then the boss told him that the branch was to be in Moose Factory.  “Moose Factory,” he said, “that’s almost above the Arctic Circle!”  But he went, and he was very successful in his new location, and he stayed.  He and his wife had a family, and they grew used to the place, and its weather.

Winters were cold and snowy, but they went skiing and snowshoeing, and snowmobiling and ice fishing.  They damn near froze to death, but they did them.  They also found what the place had in the summer….18 to 22 hours of sun every day.  The weather was consistently clear, and the temperatures often went into the eighties F. and sometimes even the nineties.

Summer lasted from June through to September, and they did live right on the ocean shore.  It was the Arctic Ocean – well…Hudson’s Bay….but it was the ocean.  Granted, it didn’t warm up enough to swim in until late August, but you could go boating on it, and almost everyone did.  Anything from Eskimo kayaks to canoes, to row boats, to motor boats, and sailboats of all sizes….

Within a few years, the man and his wife had accumulated a family of kids, and a group of boats to go with them.  One of the problems encountered by ocean boaters, but worse in this location, was that of marine finishes.  The salt air, combined with being stored over the winter in a cold climate, meant that all the boats had to be scraped and painted every year, before they could be put in the water.

It got to be a real assembly-line performance, with the older kids scraping and sanding, and lifting boats on and off the painting stands, Mom stirring the paint to be sure it was the right color, and well mixed, and Dad brushing it on, while the youngest of the children, a little boy, ran up and down the beach throwing stones at the Arctic seabirds.

It was while he had stopped to rest for a moment, and was gazing at the scene, the father realized that his wife was leaving no tone unstirred, he was leaving no stern untoned, and his young son was leaving no tern unstoned.

All together now, “GROANNN!”

The management accepts no liability for overextended groan muscles.

Your groan may differ.

If your groan lasts more than four hours, please see a doctor.

Statistics Status Stasis

I’ve seen other bloggers gleefully, boastfully, posting about their year-end WordPress stats.  Much against my own advice and better judgement, I’ve decided to serve up a little tale of my own results.

I don’t remember WordPress presenting stats, last year.  Even if they did, I only managed to get out two posts in late November, and another two in December, before the *Flu To End All Flus* almost ended me, and F….ouled up my vision.  I could barely run the keyboard, much less the WordPress platform.

Over the past year, I’ve improved and increased my output, but still didn’t set the world on fire.  The fireworks on my report consisted of a picture of the kid next door, with a birthday candle in a cupcake.  In my report’s reference to Mount Everest, apparently the cargo plane hasn’t even landed at the airport in Nepal.  If my output were compared to Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill, he’d still only be halfway up, the first time.

Actually, not setting the world on fire with my prose is not a disappointment.  It was neither an expectation nor a desire, when I started.  Veni, Vidi, Vocab.  You came, you read, and you commented, and for that, I am greatly gratified.  I continue to read, and be read by, some interesting and impressive people.

Actually, a couple of things about the daily report, interest and confuse me more than anything in the big year-end wrap-up.  Along with other bloggers, I am surprised by the themes of posts which seem to attract the most views.  Post something about Native poverty, or religious intolerance, and get the usual crowd slouching through, kicking the tires.  Put up a little fluff piece, and have to step back into a corner, to keep from having my toes stepped on.

My most visited piece this past year, was a (hopefully) humorous acceptance speech for a blog award which had been flung at me.  For three or four months, my most-visited day was 71 viewers.  Near the beginning of December, suddenly that same day was only worth 69 views.  Wha’ happun??  Did two of my readers die?!

I offer that possibility flippantly, but, one of my followers is a cancer sufferer, and another is a hopefully recovering drug/alcohol addict who was missing for about three months, because she had a car crash.  Neither has posted in months.  I am concerned!  Can any of you techies out there explain why my reported viewership is shrinking?  I believe I remember Edward Hotspur mentioning that the same thing had happened to him.

The other thing which baffles me, is the new, “so many actual visitors/so many different page-views” daily report.  During one day, when I checked, the report showed 5 visitors, and 6 separate views….yet I had 10 *likes*!  Somewhat later in the day, when my ego drove me to check again, it still showed only 5 visitors….but now 7 different views, even though all views were of the most recent post, and I now had 11 *likes*.

Again, if one of you who understand WordPress workings wishes to explain its arcane actuarial tables, I’m interested, but not concerned.  When I reached my one-hundredth post, I expressed concern about coming up with more blog-themes.  It may have been like driving past a traffic accident, but apparently I entertain a few folks, and was urged to continue posting my digital diarrhea.  I’m now near 140 posts, and occasional ideas continue to pop up.  You’ll not get rid of me easily.  I’m goin’ out typing and tapping….

……Gerry Seinfeld just called.  He said, Enough of the Yada-Yada, Nothin’ already, put this puppy to bed before all my readers doze off.  I just threw this post together because I wanted something time-sensitive.  I’ll be here all week, ladies and gentlemen.   I’ll be back soon with a Christmas-cookie photo spread, and some more serious fare.  A Happy New Year to all, and to all – good blogging.

Words, Light And Heavy

If you over-indulged a bit (lot?) over the holidays,  you may want a look at,

The I-Hate-To-Diet-Dictionary

Trying to lose weight can be heavy.  Why not lighten the self-deprivation with this spirit-lifting lexicon?

Aerobics, n.

A wiggling, jiggling, giggling class of moaning, groaning, toning klutzes

Baby fat, n.

Appealingly pudgy condition of infants, children, and young adults (not applicable after age nineteen)

Celery, n.

Effective, low-calorie device for scraping out the last morsel of peanut butter

Dieter, n.

Someone never caught in the act of eating

Exhibitionist, n.

A size 7 who tries on clothes in a community dressing room

Fit, n.

Emotional outburst when jeans won’t zip up

Goal, n.

To be ten pounds less than one’s ideal weight, so that one can have the joy of gaining it all back

Hip, n.

One of two protruding parts of the body used to carry small children, grocery bags, or large cartons of Twinkies

Interested, adj.

Telling someone else how much weight you have lost on your diet

Justice, poetic, n.

Attending one’s tenth reunion, and discovering that the ninety-pound cheerleader….the one with the most to gain….did

Lockjaw, n.

Serious illness most dieters would love to have two to three days a week

Marquis de Sade, n.

Eighteenth-century inventor of Nautilus equipment

New Year’s Eve, n.

Rollicking conclusion of the old year, when one makes a sincere resolution to lose fifteen pounds by January 23

Optimist, n.

Any dieter who buys a leotard with horizontal stripes

Pound, n.

1: A fixed unit of measure found on one’s scale (usually accurate)

2: a fictitious unit of measurement found on one’s driver’s licence (usually inaccurate)

Quest, n.

An everlasting pursuit of the perfect pizza

Refrigerator, n.

Temporary storage area between grocery bags and the mouth

Scissors, n.

Handy tool used to cut oneself out of photographs

Thyroid, n.

1: Overactive: God’s gift to Adam

2: Underactive: God’s gift to Eve

Unconscious, adj.

The only state in which a dieter is not hungry

Weight, n.

Physical defiance of Newton’s Law of Gravity; what goes up, does not necessarily come down

Yin & Yang, n.

Buddhist terms of opposition, taken from the Zen macrobiotic diet

1: the loss of forty-five pounds

2: the loss of one pound, forty-five times

ZZzzzz, n.

The sound of a dieter not eating

Many thanks to Sandra Bergeson for enabling me to present this light-hearted list to those who will now hate me for doing so.

Ice And Snow

I went to my daughter’s place today, and discovered another blog-theme.  It may be of interest to some of you.  Canada has ice and snow in the winter.  Despite what some folks think, only places wayyy up north have ice and snow year round.  I’m not as much of an expert about it as you might suspect.  I live almost as far south as Detroit.  Sparklebumps, in Minnesota, is north of me.  ByronicMan, on the Left Coast, is north of me, but all the lit doobies out there keep the temperature up.

My blog-friend, Nicole, in Phoenix, just went through a cold spell.  The thermometer dropped all the way from 75 F, to 65.  She has to go to the fridge to see what I’m talking about.  Meanwhile, I’ll get comments from SightsnBytes and Benzeknees, saying, “Wimp!”  TheHaremsMaster, whose back door opens on the North Pole, is too busy choking with ironic laughter, to take my rant seriously.

For you lucky people in warmer climes, I’d like to make you aware of things that we have, that you don’t.  Things that get us through the winter, both personally, and for our vehicles.  Snow falls on our cars and obscures the view.  Some of it will melt, and then, while we’re out of the car, it refreezes on the glass.  When we go to use the car, the first thing we have to do is remove that ice and snow.

We have windshield scrapers.  These are two-foot-long wooden or plastic handles, with a brush on one end, and a scraper on the other.  My “Don’t Yell” blog tells of using one in the summer, to convince a road-rager to stay away from my car.  You use the brush to clean the snow off the car, and then the scraper to get the ice off all the windows.  At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.  All too often I see idiots who have swiped a small patch off the driver’s side, but the rest of the glass is obscured.  It must be like trying to drive through a drinking straw.  If you don’t brush the snow off the hood and roof, the windstream just blows it back onto the front and rear glass.

Something else that most vehicles, sold in Canada, have, are block-heaters.  These are little electric heaters, which are installed in the bottom of engine blocks.  You plug them in when the car sits in the cold, so that the oil doesn’t congeal from the cold, and lack of lubrication causes engine damage.  In Sudbury, which is 500 miles north of here, but still not above the big 49^th parallel border, many of the parking meters downtown have electrical plugs provided.

We have a TV show called Ice Road Truckers.  These are guys who deliver goods to the northernmost, often Indian and Eskimo villages, on or near the Arctic Ocean shore.  This stuff can’t move by truck when it’s warm, because there are no roads through the swamps and muskeg.  In the winter, they bulldoze up the snow and spray water on it to create a drivable surface, literally made from ice.

They bore holes in the ice of lakes that would be too thin to support these big rigs, and keep spraying it on the road path, till it’s feet thick.  There are several of these ice roads, some of them 1500 Kilometers long.  It’s so cold that often, the trucks are never shut down.  If they sit in the cold too long, they’re almost impossible to restart.  If they do have to sit for an extended period, just before they are needed, small fire pans are placed under the engines to warm them.  Some truckers have been known to pry off a hub-cap, and fill it with diesel fuel to burn.

Driving in the winter is very different from summer.  Plows remove most of the snow from the roads, and pile it on the edge, narrowing the available driving room and blocking vision.  Much salt, and a little sand is applied to the roads by works crews in spreader trucks.  This damages the road surface, nearby vegetation, and car bodies.  A new and better system has them spraying liquid brine, before a snow or ice storm is expected.  It uses less salt and causes less damage, and works better, because it melts the problem from the bottom.

Much attention must be paid when there is ice and snow on the streets.  Going up or down icy hills can be an adventure.  Sometimes you go down, even when you try to go up.  You can’t pull out into traffic as quickly.  You have to take turns more slowly.  You should think, and drive, ahead.  Will the road be slick at the stop light or sign?  Streets conditions can change so quickly.

I was driving the daughter and grandson to our house.  We were on a two lane street.  The outside temperature and the volume of traffic had the road surface bare and damp.  As we came around the inevitable bend in the road, for the last half-block before a T-intersection, the road widened to include a left-turn, and a right-turn lane.

Combined with a more open area, the entire street was a skating rink.  I made the anti-lock brakes do what they could, but still slid broad-side in front of a driver trying to get up a small hill.  One moment of inattention caused $3800 worth of damage, just to our car.

When we visited South Carolina, I noticed a sign on each bridge which said, “Bridge freezes first.”  I asked a native how often that occurred.  Only about every three years, but we have to keep reminding the fools, so they don’t fall off the road.  If you live where ice is in drinks with little umbrellas, and the only snow you see is on the TV when the cable connection comes loose, count yourself lucky.  I have to go take the snow-scoop and shovel, and clear my driveway.

Something’s Cooking

Baking, actually.  It’s a good thing I have a few posts ahead in the drafts file, or I wouldn’t even have been able to put out the desperate few I did, the last week or so.  We’ve been making Christmas cookies.  We two fruitcakes also made two fruitcakes.  I can’t figure out how to Email the second one to KayJai, so I guess we’ll be forced to eat it ourselves.

In the last couple of weeks, the wife and I, with some help from both daughter and son, have made up 80 to 90 dozen cookies.  First we laid in supplies, a flat of 2 ½ dozen fresh eggs, ten pounds of butter, two 10 lb. bags of flour, plus nuts, flavoring, decorations, chocolate, and stuff even I don’t know about.

We made up 11 different types – two different versions of Scottish shortbreads, three flavors of hard meringues, thumbprints, Yule logs, oat delights, several shapes of cookie-pressed spritz, some decorated sugar cookies, and a batch of ginger snaps.  I know ginger snaps don’t seem like a Christmas cookie, but I’ll try to explain later.  Each different batch yielded 6 to 8 dozen little bite-sized gems.

It all started because my wife is the youngest of nine children in a Bad Good Catholic family.   Well into her late twenties and early thirties, she was treated as if she couldn’t cook, despite her next oldest brother, a trained Chef, admitting that she cooked better than him.  For the summer family picnic, she was told to “Just bring chips and dip.”  For the Christmas celebration, it was, “We’ve got the main courses.  You just bring cookies.”  So she learned how to make homemade cookies.

My good Scottish mother taught her how to make real Scottish shortbreads.  The secret is working the dough by hand, so that the skin warmth causes the butter to meld with the flour and sugar, to produce a literal melt-in-your-mouth Ambrosia.  This year, instead of using white sugar, she produced a second batch with Canadian Maple Sugar.  If the Americans ever invade Canada, it will be to get those cookies.

The grandson is allergic to wheat flour, so she found cookies with no flour, not just for him, but he loves them.  Hard meringues are just lots of egg whites and sugar, whipped till they’re stiff.  Three different batches, all with different stuff mixed in, one got shredded dark chocolate and hazelnuts, one had slivered almonds and Skor bits, and the last received finely chopped glazed cherries and coconut.  Dollop on a sheet of parchment and bake low and slow, till firm.

Oat delights are melted chocolate, shortening, rolled oats and coconut, mixed together.  No need for baking.  Form into small globs on a cookie sheet.  When the chocolate solidifies, they’re ready to eat.

Yule logs, thumbprints and spritz cookies all have a shortbread-like base.  Yule logs are rolled to finger-like size and shape, and baked.  The next day they have the tops dipped by hand into chocolate and set aside to harden.  Thumbprints are rolled into ping-pong balls, dipped in egg-white, rolled in chopped walnuts and half a glazed cherry pressed into the tops, then baked.

Spritz cookies are dispensed by a cookie-press, so that they, but not me, are fresh-pressed.  Variously sized and shaped bottom dies give crosses, Christmas trees, and lobed discs.  These have colored sugar balls and other shapes pressed in by hand before baking.

While making cookies for the family gathering years ago, the wife threw out her back.  We had just received a flyer from a new chiropractor, working from the basement of his home, a half a mile away.  I called and he said to bring her over.  It’s 9:30 at night!  You mean, in the morning, right?  No!  No!  Bring her now.  We went over.  He cured the problem, we took along a card-box of cookies as a thank-you, and a tradition was born.

When the wife was forced to give up her family, because they were toxic, en masse, we needed somewhere to put all these cookies.  Each year the number of cookies given to the doctor and his family grew, as his family increased.  Sugar cookies were added to the mix, specifically for the kids, and the Christmas cake recipe was developed for the adults’ more refined tastes.

Sugar cookies, rolled out flat and baked, are bland and uninteresting.  As with so many things worth doing, the wife decided to improve on them.  We began icing them, not just with a sugar glaze, but with a colored, flavored glaze.  Bells are coated with a gold, maple flavor, stars, snowflakes and snowmen get white, almond.  I slather green, mint on holly wreaths.  Stockings get red, cherry, except for a white cuff.  I stripe candy-canes red and white.

The wife makes sure bears and reindeer look natural in brown, gravy?  No. Peanut butter? No!  Sugar beads, bells and bows, along with other shapes, and coarse, colored sugar, are all added to dress them up.  Their stockings all have their names in burnt-sugar coloring on the cuffs.  We cut out boy-shapes and girl-shapes.  The daughter, with the best eye, the steadiest hand, and the most artistic flair, turns these into representations of the kids.  Kids?  Hah!  They were when we started, 25 years ago.  The cookies have grown with them.

Two of the girls are married.  She made one girl-cookie into a young school-marm, with a book on the front of her pretty frock.  Another married daughter is also a teacher, but more of a free-spirit, so her cookie looked more like a hippie in a flow-y skirt.  The third was dressed in a ball-gown, with a string of pearls.  The son, the youngest, and studying to be a pharmacist, got his cookie with a pharmacist’s jacket, and his studious glasses.  One new husband is a painter.  His boy-cookie came with a paint spattered sweatshirt and blue jeans.  The other is a bit of a gamer, so his showed a controller on the tummy.

The kids have loved these personalized presents for years.  Even now, *grown-up*, they and their spouses still want the fun, and the recognition.  Pictures are taken and stories are told to friends and co-workers.  The family has built a Christmas tradition.  First they exchange and open presents, then they all sit down to pots of tea, and our cookies for a family brunch.  While making this mass can be a bit (lot?) of work, it’s also fun, and what we do to release tension.  The joy and appreciation make it all worthwhile….and there’s leftovers till February.

Oops, almost forgot.  We found that the chiropractor’s favorite cookies are Ginger snaps, so we include a canful, for him.  He claims he takes them downstairs to the office, and the rest of the family doesn’t even know about them.