I am the Audience

Spring is creeping in.

March 27, 2021

a day in this life

Last year, I read that strawberries and asparagus grow well together. The strawberries keep the weeds out of the asparagus bed and the asparagus ferns shade the strawberries through the summer heat. Yesterday, I picked up some strawberry plants and found as a delightful surprise.

Also, the fuchsia died and, now, that pot has purple pansies and yellow moss roses in it.

And the hummingbird feeders are out. I used this map to decide it was time.

Last Thanksgiving I had a really hard time finding sage for the gravy and dressing. That’s when I learned that Thanksgiving is the sage flavored holiday. I’m not dealing with that again. This went in the ring bed in the back.
Sawyer and the cherries.

March 9, 2021

a day in this life, family

There was a meme on FaceBook about cutting grapes so little kids don’t choke on them and it put me in mind of a story. I don’t know if it will amuse anyone but my nephew and me. But, remembering makes me chuckle.

When my youngest nephew was 3 or 4 years old, we were visiting my parents. He was (and is) a delightful person. But, at that time, he really didn’t talk much. He was one of those kids who used expressions instead of his vocal cords. You can know that, when he finally decided to talk, it was Katie-bar-the-door.

My mother got out a bowl of fresh cherries for us to nibble on while we chatted. Of course the youngest child in the room was all about the fresh fruit and I saw him pop one in his mouth. I made him spit it out. I think he had a second of debating whether to bite me after he did it. But, he did. I picked it out of my hand, showing it to him, and split it open, showing him the pit and removing it. His face said “Oh! I didn’t know that was in there.” I handed him the pitted cherry and he very happily pulverized it.

So, we sat there sharing the cherries. I think I got one for ever 2 or 3 he ate. Whatever.

When we were about 2/3 of the way through the bowl, his mother looked up and said “Did he just eat a cherry? Those have pits! Spit that out!”

He rolled his eyes to me. WithOUT spitting out the cherry. (He still uses that expression. 15 years later) I showed her my collection of pits and said “We’ve got this.” And she left us to it.

I think that is probably the real beginning of our relationship.
A change of taste

February 16, 2021

a day in this life, family

25 years ago, Offspring wanted to share some too-sweet-to-bear candy with me, saying “You loved this when you were little!” And I had to say, “But, that was then and this is now. It’s too sweet for me now.”

A week later, I stumbled on a sciency article about taste. It said we effectively have new taste buds every 5 years, give or take a little bit. So, we talked about that and the candy.

To my great delight, since then they have been willing to try stuff they didn’t like before if it had been 5 years since the last attempt. Sometimes the response has been “Nope. Still don’t like it.” But, sometimes, it’s been “This isn’t as bad as I remember.” or (even better) “Oh! Wow! This is good!”
It doesn’t taste the same

February 16, 2021

a day in this life, food & drink, Southern culture

Ages ago, I was at a covered dish dinner at some friends’ house. One of the contributions was a pasta casserole with tuna and peas in a white sauce. Our hostess chuckled when she saw it and asked the woman who brought it if her husband had gotten any of it yet. The answer was “Yes. You see that big scoop already out of that side of the dish.” and they both laughed.

I asked what was funny about the casserole.

The cook said, “Ken loves this casserole and always asks me to bring it if we’re doing a covered dish. A couple of years ago, I gave him the recipe so he could make it himself between parties. He called me 2 days later and asked if I’d left something out because his didn’t taste right. So, I told him to walk me through what he did step by step to try to figure out what was wrong. He said ‘Well, I didn’t have any tuna. But, I had some canned chicken and I used that. And I didn’t have any peas. So, I used corn. But, I made it exactly like you told me to and it just didn’t taste right.’”

And, then, all three of us were laughing at him.
We got our first COVID vaccination yesterday

February 11, 2021

a day in this life

The place we got it was astonishing. It was drive through.

We couldn’t get in the front entrance of the community college where it was set up. There was a cop parked in the road to block that entrance. So, we drove around to the back entrance where the line formed.

There was a group of 4 people handing out a form for us to fill out at one spot. (We had been told to bring something hard we could use to write on and a pen.) Then, a little line as we filled in the top part of our forms. Then, we drove into a tent where another little group of people collected the forms and asked all the preliminary questions and told us what side effects to expect. A second tent had 6 stations of people to give the shots. We pulled out of that and were directed to park for 15 minutes in case of an unexpected reaction.

There were some people in street clothes and some in fire department and military uniforms. Some had stethoscopes draped around their necks. Where we got the shot was determined entirely on which arm was by the door of the car. The needle didn’t hurt but the vaccine was a little thick.

We did some yard work when we got home, hoping to work it in to the muscle sooner. But, we were both whining about it being sore by bedtime.

I sent this to my kid to show off.

Spring is creeping in.

Sawyer and the cherries.

A change of taste

It doesn’t taste the same

We got our first COVID vaccination yesterday