One Fine Day in the East Room of the White House

These kids give me hope for the future (click on title).

In case you haven't heard, 50 Presidential Scholars that appeared for a photo-op in the White House on Monday handed the president a signed and handwritten letter asking him to recognize human rights and to cease torture in the name of the United States.

I find it interesting that the only places I can find complete descriptions of this event (complete with video of John Roberts interviewing three students and transcripts of both the CNN and NBC interviews) are on the websites and blogs that claim the "liberal media" has taken over the minds of these young scholars. Meanwhile, the so-called "liberal media" is giving this event only a passing mention.

What do we make of that?

For one damn funny take on the day's events, see http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/06/maureen-dowd-w-learns-from-students.html.

One Fine Productive Summer

At least this year I can say that I got something constructive done during the summer.

With my own hands, yes, I caned two chair bottoms. Keep your admiration and awe to a minumum; caning these chairs was easy. The caning material is "pre-manufactured," that is, it is pre-woven. All I had to do was dig out the old caning material (including the spline and decades-old glue), cut the cane and the splice pieces to size, soak the materials in warm water, fit it all together and glue the splines in place. Each chair from start to finish took probably three to four hours. Most of that time was spent carefully cleaning the old glue and materials out of the grooves so as not to damage the wood.

History of the chairs: These belonged to my maternal grandmother. She was the last person to cane them, and my estimate is that she did so in the late 1950s. I remember them in her kitchen when I was a small girl; her friends would sit in them around the kitchen table to play Euchre with her. (If you don't know what Euchre is, then you probably are not from this area of the United States!) Grandma died in 1975, and the cane was just starting to break in a few places then. I have been the steward of these chairs ever since.

It was an interesting experience, to remove the work she had done decades ago and to replace it with my own. I have a book of instructions that I use, but it often felt as if she were there with me as I worked the cane into the grooves and tapped the splines in place to secure the cane. At times, I understood just how the cane should react; other times, it was as if I could hear her say, "See? That's why you pull the diagonal cane corners before you tap the spline!" Working on this project was meditative. I became lost in time as I listened to the wood. And now I want to finish caning her old rocking chair that I've kept in storage. I abandoned this project two years ago. This one is much harder; it requires that I weave individual strands of cane. When I thought I was nearly finished with the back of the chair, I realized that I had been weaving the cane too tightly. I need to start over, and I need to cane the seat.

But for now I have two kitchen chairs that match, are reasonably comfortable, and that don't look like I dug them out of the dumpster at Goodwill.

One Fine Day with Processed Food Products

Here's a tip: you can get free stuff if you contact manufacturers and talk about their products.

Several years ago, I found two (2) fly wings in a bag of pre-washed and cut lettuce. To me, this was no big deal. I've worked in food manufacturing and in restaurants before. These were just a couple of insect wings, for god's sake. It happens. But when I showed the little wings stuck to bag's inside to a wise-guy co-worker, she went nuts. She called the company and went on and on about those fly wings and how the mere sight of them right there in front of her almost made her throw up. She kept telling the person on the phone how disgusted she was, how germ-ridden their products must be, and just how nauseated she was becoming just thinking about it again. She sounded like a lunatic with her over-the-top messing with this poor quality control person.

And then my co-worker, bless her heart, gave the company MY name and address.

Well, the good thing is I soon received coupons for FREE lettuce, pineapple, dried fruit, juice, and a few other things the company manufactures and distributes. It had to be over $20 worth of stuff.

A few weeks ago I was irritated by the instructions on a box of Lean Pockets. The instructions said to place the product in the "crisper sleeve" and to definitely NOT reuse the enclosed crisper sleeve.

What crisper sleeve? Nothing was packaged with the Lean Pockets except...Lean Pockets. I microwaved them sans the mysterious "crisper sleeve" and they tasted just like the cardboardy things usually taste. (Sorry Hormel...these things are merely convenience foods that I use in a pinch. Tasty they are not.) But the lack of proper materials in the Lean Pockets box bugged me enough that I finally got online and wrote a message to the company. I was not "bitchy"; I merely informed them that something was missing from my Lean Pockets product.

In return for my feedback, I received coupons for FREE Lean Pockets, cents off Hot Pockets products, and a letter explaining that the instructions were in error. It seems that Lean Pockets no longer requires the use of these "crisper sleeve" things, but someone forgot to edit the old packaging. Apologies, apologies, please accept our coupons so you may continue enjoying our fine products.....

So now, I'm thinking that maybe I'll try writing to companies with glowing compliments for their products. I'm curious to see if happy customers get free stuff.

One Fine Experience with a Banking Survey

I did an online survey the other day. My credit union, in conjunction researchers at the local university, wanted the members' opinions on matters of security. Based on their thought-provoking questions, here is the comment I left at the end of the survey:

"I am not at all in favor of having fingerprint scanning technology as a means of security for my ATM transactions. I tried it a year ago, and most of the time the ATM would reject my attempts. By the way, thank you for giving me something new to worry about. Until this survey, it never occured to me that a criminal might actually cut off my finger in order to gain access to my bank account."

That is all I have to say for now.
Domhan

One Fine Day at Wendy's

Can't 5 bucks buy a lunch anymore?

It can if you order a grilled chicken sandwich and a SMALL drink at Wendy's. I left my purse in the car and took with me only a 5 dollar bill. I didn't even look at prices. WHO KNEW that a freakin' sandwich and a MEDIUM drink would cost $5.17?

I looked at the woman behind the counter in disbelief. I held up the 5 dollar bill limply. "Oh, crap," I said. "I'll be right back! I have 17 cents in my car!" The helpful lady running the register said, "Well, if you don't care about the size of the drink, it's only $4.85." That seemed reasonable to me, but then a voice behind me said, "No. Give her a medium drink."

I thought the dining room was empty; it was only 11:00am. I whirled around to see a rather nice looking man I've never met before. He tossed 17 cents on the counter. "Go on, give her a medium!" he said.

The woman behind the counter and I looked at each other in disbelief. Several thoughts ran through my head. Was it some guy just being nice? Or was he in a hurry and he decided that 17 cents was a small price to pay to get the airhead out of his way?

I decided it was probably a combination of the two, but really, does his motivation matter? I needed to take this as an act of kindness. I thanked him and got the hell out of his way, just in case that WAS his primary motivation.

I know it was only 17 cents. This man was well dressed, and he probably has a job where he makes 17 cents in half a second (I haven't done the math to see how much that could possibly be in a year). But those 17 cents made me smile for the rest of the day.

One Fine Day Four Years Ago, Part 2

Four years ago my son celebrated his first Father’s Day.

Can I tell you how proud I am of my son’s parenting abilities?

No. No I can’t. I’m not sure I have the words to do my feelings justice.

But I can write about the time I was lucky enough to witness a very tender moment between my son and his daughter that showed me she will have the daddy that every little girl wants, needs, and deserves.

My son (El) had been away from home for about a month on job business. My granddaughter (Ess), who was not yet three at the time, missed him terribly, but she handled his absence very well; the kid’s a trooper. When El returned home, Ess understandably wanted to be the center of his attention, but the well-adjusted kid she is, she wasn’t clingy or whiny at all. When he visited with other family members, she played next to him, often asked him to read to her, or happily sat in his lap, enjoying the chance to have him physically near.

At one point, El was sitting on the floor, deep in conversation with his father—some technical computer discussion, I’m sure. But his attention had been completely off of little Ess for entirely too long. She had been sitting contentedly in his lap, but she began to fidget. The conversation went on. She kept turning and looking up at El, but he still was not noticing. She squirmed out of his lap and sat on the floor facing him, cross-legged, gazing right into his face. Still nothing but techno-blab between El and his father.

Ess could stand his inattention no longer, so she did the most amazing thing. In a beautiful, clear voice, she sang, “Twinkle, twinkle little star! How I wonder what you are!” She sang the entire song very deliberately, very slowly, perfectly in tune, and without taking her eyes off her father’s face. She sang it as if everything depended on it.

El’s reaction was to stop talking in mid-word. He looked back at her with astonishment. He was entranced by his daughter’s song.

And when she finished singing, he scooped her up in his arms, told her what a beautiful voice she had, how much he loved her song, and what a wonderful and appropriate way she had found to get his attention. He spent the next half-hour playing with her, saturating her with “Daddy time” until she wandered off to play by herself for a little while. El’s father and I really didn’t exist to either of them in that half-hour. The techno-conversation ended with my son’s mid-word, and I don’t think it was picked up again that day. All was as it should be.

THAT is a Father, a Pop, a Daddy, a Papi, a Dad. That was the reaction every little girl should get from her father. Ess is a lucky kid, and I am so thankful she has Bee and El as parents. They are the best!

Happy Father’s Day, my boy. You are doing an amazing job.

One Fine Windy Day

Hot, dry high winds all afternoon. So odd. The light green maple leaf underbellies showed all day long, a sign my grandmother always told me meant rain was soon to come. Multiple branches litter the yards, and clusters of live green leaves are strewn in the neighborhood streets. This is an unusual wind--unusually strong, unusually long-lasting. Something is blowing in. Yes, there are tornados in the upper midwest today, but here there is not a cloud in the sky. This wind is hot and mysterious, as if something entirely different is being conjured. And this evening, even though the humidity is low, the sky appears dusky as if the air is full of moisture.

In the normally humid summer of this area, today's mere 42% humidity is an oddity. I drank a half gallon of iced tea. In an attempt to take advantage of the drier air, I tried to hang laundry on a wooden rack in the back yard, but no matter how I oriented it to the wind, the entire rack of clothes would end up collapsed. The wind has been strong enough today that I saw very few birds or squirrels in the yard; normally I watch 6-9 squirrels and countless birds. They are hunkering down. I'm sure it's just too much effort for the birds to fly, and who knows what the squirrels are thinking?

One Fine Day, Four Years Ago

Four years ago today, someone was born who has changed "everything."

My granddaughter, Ess, has changed how I love and how I view love. Oh, sure, I've always loved, but she has given me the focus to understand how it is that I love. And why.

She has changed how I see myself as a parent by allowing me the time to be her grandparent. In return, I have given her the time and patience that I never had while I was "just" a parent.

She has given me a perspective on others that I never had before. Now I can understand that all humans start out wanting to please others as well as themselves, that they never want to do harm to others, and that they all simply want to have a "senselessly joyous" life. She has taught me that all any of us really want is to be seen, noticed, acknowledged, thanked, fed, kept warm, but most of all loved.

Because of her, I have far more compassion and patience for my students, for the man driving 20mph in the 35mph zone, for the woman in the grocery store who keeps getting in my way, and even for screaming children in restaurants. Because of her, ANY crying child makes me hurt inside.

She managed to do all of these things and much more by the time she was a year old, and each year she has reinforced all that she has taught me.

Happy Birthday, Ess! You are a bright light in my life, and the most powerful little soul I've ever known.

Love,
Gramma Ell

One Fine Day as My Father Grilled Sausages

Another funny father story.

About fifteen years ago, my father had triple by-pass surgery. Overnight, my mother went nuts with serving him NON-fat food, so much so that my father developed a new sentence to describe her cooking: "This tastes like crap." After the horror and shock of his surgery (and his new description of her culinary skills) wore off, she eased up on the non-fat cooking. Over the years, however (and much to MY horror), she now ignores all of the low-fat food suggestions and they eat pretty much anything they want to.

This story is about the day, while my parents were still fat-conscious, that my father decided what he really wanted was some grilled sausages.

He asked mom to make the cole slaw. He fired up the gas grill. He listened to the sizzle of the sausages as he placed them on the grate. After a few minutes, he turned the sausages over and saw that they had plumped. Curious about the plumping, he poked one with a fork. Juices flowed out and caused a flare-up on the grill. He quickly closed the grill lid, but that gave dad an idea.

He opened the grill lid again and poked ALL of the sausages. Surely, he decided, the stuff dripping out of his poked sausage was nothing but FAT since the flame licked up so much. And if he could only drain all of that fat from the sausages while they cooked, he could have his delicious meal without fat, right?

And so, my father cooked the sausages until no more juices dripped from them. He stacked them on a plate and proudly carried them into the kitchen to show my mother his sheer low-fat cooking genius.

He was practically drooling. He had waited so long for this--so many dry, baked chicken breasts! So much steamed vegetables! And now: grilled sausage!

He said that when he tried to cut the first one with his fork, dust flew out. His exact description to me (with a look of disgust on his face) was, "Poof. Dust."

And once again, my father laughs at his own actions. He laughs because he thinks it was the stupidest thing anyone has ever done. I laugh because, yes, it was a pretty dumb thing to do, but more than that because my father can laugh at himself.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.