Tuesday, May 24, 2022 The Sour Cream Raisin Pie Incident

As part of my college training to be a dietitian, I had to take some sort of food service administration class. There was a campus cafeteria and part of our training was in practical experience. One day I was assigned to work part of the breakfast shift at the cafeteria. I was relieved that I was actually just going to be shadowing the regular cook, since I didn’t really know much about the finer details of making eggs to order. I followed the regular guy around with my hands hanging uselessly at my sides. It was going really well until he informed me that he wanted to take a cigarette break. PANIC! I hoped nobody would come while he was gone, but a fellow came over wanting an egg over easy. I wasn’t actually sure what this was, but it seemed self-descriptive and I didn’t want to tell him I was clueless. I bustled around confidently with an air of “I’ve done this a million times,” and cracked the eggs efficiently onto the griddle. Then my desire to do it right overcame my pride and I broke down and asked the customer when I should turn them. He kindly stuck around and talked me through it, probably wondering why I’d been hired. I was a nervous wreck until the cook came back.

My next practical experience came when several of us were asked to help in the main kitchen working on baking and cooking more substantial items. I was assigned to make the sour cream raisin pies. My instructor and supervisor, Louise Mullan, came over to tell me that this was Dean McFarland’s favorite dessert. He always came over to eat on the days that sour cream raisin pies were featured. Miss Mullan was a bit of a toady when it came to Dean McFarland, but she was a genuinely nice lady. The recipe wasn’t too difficult to follow and I was pleased with the three pies that I made and put in the fridge to be put out the next day.

I was assigned to the kitchen again the next day and came in happy and full of the milk of human kindness…until Miss Mullan asked to speak to me privately in her office. She was upset and looked as somber as if someone had died. I was alarmed without knowing why. She shut the door and turned to me, saying reproachfully, “We had to throw out the sour cream raisin pies you made. Dean McFarland took a piece and brought it back – it was inedible. You put in too much gelatin and they were tough as rubber. I know you didn’t mean to, but it was an awful mistake and I was embarrassed to have to take responsibility for your carelessness.” As Scooby Doo would say, “Ruh Roh.”

I apologized, I groveled, I volunteered to make them again, but the stakes were too high. I knew the Dean by this time and I think he might have been chagrined to know the fuss that was made about this incident. Still, I think Miss Mullan was well within her rights to read me the riot act. This was her turf and she did, indeed, take responsibility for the mistake instead of blaming it on me. I’d like to tell you that I was never careless again in reading a recipe, but that wouldn’t be true.

One last point: sour cream and raisins do not belong together in a pie. Can I get an amen?

There’s no raisin for me to delete this blog post pie tomorrow.

Monday, May 23, 2022 Readaholics

I’ve been going through all our photo albums picking out photos of our oldest son for a slide show for his wedding. I came across this one and just loved everything about it: my funky cat slippers and his sweet little bare feet, me with my hair bow and him wearing a blanket like a cape, and over and through everything, the companionship of our reading together. He learned to read fairly easily and entered into the world of books just like I remember doing at his age. We were both prone to staying up late reading, unable to put a book down.

Things haven’t changed that much – we both still love to read. But now, we don’t get to sit cuddled together on the couch while we do it. Those were good times.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning unless I’ve stayed up late reading and forget about it.

Thursday, May 19, 2022 My Thumb Hurts

Yes, it’s true – my thumb hurts. Of course, this is not something you care about, but I’m going to tell you about it anyway. Here’s how it went down…

It was a dark and stormy night. Just kidding. But we do need to go back a few weeks. Our cat was having an extended stay at our son’s house and one day I was down the basement talking to a friend on the phone when I saw it – a mouse. “Eek!” I said, or something like that.

This was no ordinary mouse. It didn’t even have the wherewithal to run away when I got closer to it. It appeared to be entering its sunset years and I half expected to see it using a tiny mouse cane. It crept to the edge of the room and stopped moving, as if it realized the gig was up and there was no use trying to escape. A sense of dejection and resignation emanated from the wee creature.

Nevertheless, I put my live-in Pest Control Expert on the case and he quickly set up a couple mouse traps. The mouse, probably surprised that death wasn’t as imminent as it thought, left the scene and did not give in to the enticement of peanut butter on the trap.

Two weeks went by and the mouse and traps were forgotten. Then the cat came back. (Those of you who went to camps as children are now hopelessly stuck singing the words “the very next day…” I’m sorry – it couldn’t be helped.)

It occurred to me that the cat might find those traps worth investigating, so I moved them off the floor and put them on the counter by the washing machine. At the time, I was patting myself on the back for being so smart as to remember the traps at all. I saved the cat’s life! And in the back of my mind, a teeny, tiny voice was saying something like “That might not be the best place for those traps.” I ignored it.

Today I grabbed a tape dispenser on that counter and didn’t see the trap by it until – THWACK!

My thumb hurts…and now you know the whole story.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, because the fact that my thumb hurts is really irrelevant to the entire world.

Wednesday, May 18, 2022 Fountain of Life

Back when we were in our child rearing years, we used to read the Psalms regularly with our children and wanted to have them get a thorough familiarity with them. One of the things we did was to let them choose a “title” for each Psalm based on some of the wording of it or something that seemed important about it. Psalm 1 was entitled “Contrast,” since it illustrated a contrast between the righteous man and the ungodly man. We also worked on memorizing one verse from each Psalm. It was a big project (150 Psalms!) and hard to keep up with, to be honest. We did end up with our own titles for each of the Psalms, but the verse memorizing was a little spotty.

Some of the titles were rather quirky. Psalm 96 became the Ent Psalm, because of the verse “Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the LORD.” You’d have to be acquainted with Lord of the Rings to understand that one. We also entitled one of the psalms “Legolas,” because of the mention of arrows (another LOTR reference). Psalm 18 was called “Superman” because there’s a verse that says “For by You I can run against a troop; by my God I can leap over a wall.” Occasionally I had to nix a title, but I allowed a fair amount of leeway because it gave them more of a sense of interest and “ownership” of the psalms.

Psalm 36 had the title “Fountain,” for verse 9: “For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.” And now we get to the subject of this blog post (finally!). We have two water fountains on our property, which seems like an embarrassment of riches. The fellow that built this house put them in – a hobby of his, apparently. There’s something so mesmerizing and calming about moving water. It’s a lovely sound and an even lovelier sight to see a fountain. And when the sun shines through it, the light intensifies and sparkles, constantly moving with the water.

Six years ago, both fountains had to be “retired” – temporarily we thought, because each needed some repair or parts replaced. But as the years went on, the project never rose to the top and the fountains became a distant memory. Until this year… Praise the Lord and hallelujah! My husband got the back yard fountain going a couple days ago and soon the larger one in the front will be back in business.

I realized that every time I thought about fountains, that verse from Psalm 36 would come to my mind. I guess even if the kids have forgotten those titles, some of them stuck with me. A fountain is continually replenishing the water flow, over and over and over. How sweet to think about the Lord giving us a fountain of life in Christ, continually replenishing His grace to us. In His light, we see light.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning to the refreshing sound of our water fountain. Ahhh…

Tuesday, May 17, 2022 Vacation Memories

I’m running short on time today, so I thought I’d share with you the first answer to my Storyworth questions (the Mother’s Day gift I got from my kids). The question was: Where did you go on vacations as a child?

When I was very young, my parents took us to a cabin on Tripp Lake. My only memories of that place were that the refrigerator was really loud and kept me awake at night and the lake was very shallow for quite a distance from shore. No doubt that was part of its appeal to parents with many young children.

Me and the sibs – I’m on the far left

My father worked with a fellow who owned a cabin on Palmer Lake, which was near where my dad’s parents lived. For a time we went to that cabin for a week every summer. It was isolated and very rustic. The water in the kitchen sink operated by a pump that had to be primed. There was no indoor plumbing, either – you know what that means. I count it a badge of honor that I learned to use outhouses so early in my life, but I never used them without feeling a high degree of nervousness and distaste. The cabin at Palmer Lake had a loft which was where us kids slept. Eventually all six of us siblings were there, so I’m sure that bedtime was accompanied by plenty of shenanigans. My oldest sister probably was accorded the privilege of sleeping down in the main living room. We had a dock and a swimming area, but it was really more of a fishing lake. The swimming area was filled with disgusting weeds that clung to your legs and made it hard to touch bottom because that meant standing on them. Ugh. I learned how to dive off that dock, a trial for everyone concerned. My method of learning how to dive started with me telling everyone that I was going to dive off the dock. Then I would run down the dock and stop at the edge, saying, “Wait!!” What seemed so possible at the beginning caught up with me as a nearly impossible task at the end of the dock. After that, I’d remonstrate with myself for being such a chicken and I’d start the whole thing over again. I think it was several days before I finally got up the nerve to fling myself off the dock head first in some semblance of a dive. For years I got teased about that “Wait!” that came with every attempt. It’s sort of symbolic of how I approach trying new things, though.

Other than that, our vacations were either to Duluth, where my mother and father had grown up, or to campgrounds at county and state parks. With a large family on a schoolteacher’s salary, vacations were done on a budget – we always camped. Dad would circle each campground very carefully before picking a site – it had to have plenty of shade and nice level ground, and also isolated from others, if possible. Being near the bathrooms was a plus. Mom and Dad had a pop-up tent trailer which slept 6, and the older kids usually put up a separate tent. We hardly ever left the state of Minnesota (see previous comment about budget vacations), but had a lot of fun. I do recall one camping trip to the Chicago area. Here are a few specific (but not necessarily fun) vacation memories:

1. The infamous camping trip to a campground in the area where we live now. It was raining when we arrived, raining when we set up the trailer and tents, and it rained unrelentingly for at least two days. We’d been trapped in our tents the entire time playing cards. My dad, who was not easily defeated, finally gave up and gave the order to pack up, take the tents down and go home. Worst Camping Trip Ever.

2. Dad took just me and my older sister on a camping trip and I got sick with a fever our first night out. We were in a campground occupied by some young men who were partying pretty hard and very loudly late into the night. In my sleep, I overheard all the ruckus which included my dad going over there and confronting them, but my fevered imagination turned it into a very threatening scene in which my dad had to fight them. In reality, I think he did go over and ask them to pipe down, but no fight ensued.

3. The glorious trip to the Boundary Waters with my dad and two sisters. That was one of my favorite vacations! Paddling through pristine lakes, the sound of the oars dipping in water, the loons at night, taking our drinking water right out of the deepest parts of the lakes, doing portages, finding driftwood to bring home for our mom to put in her gardens, the simple meals, reading Mary Stewart’s books about Merlin, giggling with my sisters at night…all memories I cherish. God bless my dad for being willing to take a trip like that with three females.

That’s the story for today!

I’ll probably…you know.

Monday, May 16, 2022 The Merry Month of May

Things have finally gotten merry around here. We had one day of sweltering August last week, but we now have a May worth boasting about. Allow me to introduce the articles of evidence (I’m channeling Hamilton Burger):

Article A: The goldfinch party arrived for their spring repast.

Article B: The indigo bunting came to call. One hopes it was not rudely eating our cilantro and parsley seeds.

Article C: The apple tree is in bloom. For further evidence, I submit these close ups:

Now if only we can keep those devilish Japanese beetles away from our apple trees this year. Hubby has a plan which involves the number 7. That’s all I can say – wouldn’t want them to get wind of it.

What are the evidences of the Merry Month of May at your home?

Did any of you see the lunar eclipse and the blood moon last night? We missed the whole thing, completely oblivious.

I’ll probably submit articles of evidence to convict this blog post in the morning.

Thursday, May 12, 2022 Potpourri of Musings

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight
Red sky at morning, sailor’s warning..

Yesterday morning, we had an unusual sky going on – definitely a warning of things to come.

And lo, it came to pass later in the day. Another humdinger of a storm passed through town. The tornado sirens were sounding and I thought about whether or not I should start hauling all our photo albums downstairs. I decided not to, which turned out okay this time.

They ask but our Delight-
The Darlings of the Soil
And grant us all their Countenance
For a penurious smile.
Emily Dickinson

I read that poem yesterday morning and it made me think of pansies, who are definitely “darlings of the soil,” with something like a countenance. Thanks to our neighbors we have a beautiful pot of them by our front door. They ask for my delight and I give it to them.

Just look at that face!

Lastly, I need to redeem myself with a better photo of Mr. Gnome performing his duty of lighting up his little corner of the world in our back yard.

Mr. Gnome, Mr. Gnome
Lighting up his earthy home
Sitting atop that rich black loam
That constitutes his biome.

He scares away the grumbly Grome
And the shrieking, frightful furtive Floam
He protects us from the tiny Thome
And the slippery slimy Salladome

Oh thank you, thank you, Mr. Gnome!
Lynniebee

Well, that certainly turned into something surprising. You never know what your brain is going to concoct on the fly in a moment of need.

Call me when you see a grumbly Grome and I’ll delete this post, especially if it’s in the morning.

Tuesday, May 10, 2022 Hear the Wind Blow

Down in the valley, the valley so low,
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow

Most of you are humming that tune in your heads now. It’s the way I’ve ended most Skype calls with my mother for the last couple of years. I play it on the piano and sing the melody and more often than not, she rises to the occasion and squeaks out a little harmony. She can hardly see now, she can hardly converse, but music is still the language of her heart.

Roses love sunshine, violets love dew,
Angels in heaven know I love you.
Know I love you, dear, know I love you.
Angels in heaven know I love you.

When she is gone, I do not think I’ll be able to sing that song without weeping.

Angels in heaven know I love you, Mom!

I’ll delete this if I hear the wind blow down in the valley so low in the morning.

Monday, May 9, 2022 Many Monday Musings

It’s a balmy evening, so I’m outside listening to bird calls, the sound of the wind pushing trees around, and the occasional passing car. In Minnesota we have waited a long time this year for warm breezes and being able to go barefoot. It’s a welcome foretaste of summer.

My children found the perfect Mother’s Day gift for me, the gift of allowing me to tell stories every week that will accumulate on a website and be printed out in a book (with photos) at the end of a year. Each week I get a question to prompt me and then off I go. If I don’t like the question I can pick another one. For someone who loves to tell stories but always worries that I’ve told them too often, this is quite a boon.

I suppose that’s really why I started this blog – as an outlet for storytelling. And I don’t want to just send them out into the ether. I always love hearing your stories, too, and getting your feedback. I was contemplating today that my blog audience is composed mostly of my friends and family. I like it that way.

Across the street I can see a child swinging on a swing set. Boy, does that bring back memories. I used to love swinging back and forth, going higher and higher and then jumping off. Sometimes I’d lay back while I was swinging and just watch the sky above me. Sometimes someone else would push you and when you got high enough, they’d push right through underneath you. That was exciting. I used to wonder what would happen if you swung so far that you went right up over the bar and back again. It seemed like it would end badly, so I never attained to it.

When I was in my early 30’s I got on a swing to re-experience this joy from my youth. What I actually experienced was a distressing amount of dizziness. Apparently this is a sport for the young.

(From the free photo library)

It’s appropriate now to contemplate and enjoy Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic poem called “The Swing.”

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

I’ll probably push this blog post on a swing until it goes ‘round and ‘round the top bar – then we’ll see what happens.

Thursday, May 5, 2022 I Spy with My Little Eye

Egrets don’t really have any way of hiding, do they? Unless they’re standing against a snowy background (which they never are), these huge white birds are easy to spot and photograph, for which I bless them and thank God.

I’m guessing the egret might have stayed where it was and posed if I hadn’t stopped, pointed and said loudly to my husband, “LOOK!” Rookie mistake.

I was actually on the hunt for killdeer, since you can hear their shrill cries out over the fields. With clever eyes, you can spot them flying, but always just out of reach and never seeming to touch down.

Speaking of clever eyes, as we were walking the other day, I thought I spied a rib cage out in the brush. You don’t see that every day. I meandered down to get a closer look and as we suspected, it was the remains of a deer. Odd place to die, though – in a very narrow wooded area between the walking path and some houses. If you watch as many murder mysteries as we do, everything starts to seem sinister.

I went out last night just before we went up to bed so I could get a photo of Mr. Gnome shining his light upon the yard. It’s a terrible photo – I think I can do better. While I was crouched down with my phone getting the photo, something rustled in the leaves right by me and I sort of freaked out. I’m easily spooked.

This has definitely been a musing post, but not necessarily an amusing post.

I don’t think the world would miss this blog post at all if I deleted it in the morning.

Wednesday, May 4, 2022 Shy

My mother liked to tell the story about taking me to the drugstore when I was perhaps three years old. In my mom’s words, “The clerk talked to her without much response. She’d just look. Finally, when she’d been asked a direct question and still just stared, I urged, ‘Well, say something.’ She reached for my hand, and thus fortified, murmured respectfully and shyly, ‘Something.’”

Those were the days when you could still describe someone as being shy and it was a description, not a condemnation. Somewhere along the line, that word began to smack of being a character flaw, so it became the more acceptable word, “reserved.” I’m not shy, just reserved.

And then later still, the whole introvert vs extrovert thing came along. Oh how I used to envy those natural extroverts in my life (you know who you are). What I wouldn’t have given to feel at ease in a group, always equipped with the right thing to say instead of being frozen into silence. But now, people are eager to identify as introverts, so that worked out pretty well for me.

I think it was the experience of being in college that taught me how to be less awkward around people. I realized that even if I was feeling unbearable shy, I could overcome that and find my inner “extrovert,” so to speak. We’re all just combinations of those things anyway, depending on the circumstances, don’t you think? Sometimes I’m cheerfully expansive and able to handle any and all social situations. Sometimes I’d rather withdraw into my shell and let everyone else do the hard work of socializing.

I’ve heard it said that both introverts and extroverts can go to a social gathering and really enjoy it. The difference is in how they feel afterward. The introverts are drained and need to recover (this is me). The extroverts are energized and ready for more.

That’s all I’ve got to say on the subject. But I’d love to hear what you have to say about it!

This is me, perhaps on a shy day.

I might have to delete this post unless I’m recovering from a social gathering and don’t have the energy.