Day 2 Day radishes

June 27

  Family is here.  Anniversary time, family, Fourth of July.  Busy time.  My blogs will be sporadic for the next two weeks.

I have to wonder how any Congress person could have voted for saving the world by passing their Global Warming  bill without reading how they were going about it and where they were going to get the money.  I suppose Congress is going to take care of the sun spots that will be collecting in 2013 and lousing up  our electrical systems.  Go Congress Go. 

June 24 / At Macy's in the linens dept

Generally I like to talk to people in stores.  Sometimes some one gives you really good advice.  Sometimes I give really good advice.  Yesterday I was shopping and in my own defense I will say, I was tired.  Shopping is not what it once was for me.  In fact, now that daughter NoName is here, she is encouraging me beef up my shopping.  It takes her being here to make me realize that I really do not have any serving bowls, it is not my imagination. 

 

Yesterday I was in Macy’s after purchasing two new serving bowls.  I am ever on the lookout for cheap duvet covers for my king size bed, so I was going through the sales table and a 65-70 year old woman next to me asked me to read the package and tell her what the size of the sheet set was and then what was the thread count.  I told her queen and the thread count was 300.  She threw the package of sheets back on the table and said, these would be for her children and they would never tolerate a thread count that low. 

 

I thought to myself that her children could not be all that young. She is looking for Egyptian cotton in Macy’s? They never lived through the Great War?  I opened my mouth (mistake) and said, “Well then . . .  why don’t you let your children buy their own sheets.” I do not know how that came out of my mouth. But I turned around and just kept walking.  The best thing I can say about this is that at least I didn’t say, “Why don’t you let your kids buy their own damn sheets.”

In anticipation for the minus 4 tide, I stayed home until noon to photograph it.  It is the lowest tide of this year and I think in my memory. In addition, it is the biggest swing of tides and is a 16.3 feet difference. 

 

I like to see these events.  One the time the whole family was in Mexico and we got up to watch a meteor shower around three in the morning.  That was great, although the novelty wore off fast.  I made sure that we saw Hailey’s comet in 1985/86 which has been recorded since 246 BC and will not return until 2063?.  Not in my life time.  These little events are what they are, small events that do not have big meanings, but in several years I can say, “Once I saw a minus 4 tide”. “I saw Hailey’s comet. They do mark time. 

 

What can you see in these pictures.  The bay does not look much different from a minus 3 plus. But look at the island far out which oddly enough is named Baby Island.  There used to be a fishing camp there.  When tides are low, it is possible to walk out to it from the land.  But interesting to me is the spit that shows itself to the north which is more noticeable than I have ever seen.   

june 22/ In the kitchen with IPhones

I am still learning my IPhone.  Especially I am trying to type with two hands; I am getting better.  It helped when my sister told me to hit the left side of the key.  

 

Several months ago I read an article, I think in the NY Times, about how IPhones or that type of fancy phone were really handy to a cook.  I put that in my bank of why I wanted a tricked up cell phone. 

 

Now as I am learning to use it, it is a very handy tool for the kitchen.  It has an alarm, and a stop watch.  You can buy a program for conversions of nearly everything.  I am now cooking with a scale and generally measure in grams, so a calculator is very helpful.  You can add a shopping list.  This might seem minor but many times I type out my list at home and then forget the list.  And if you play with the list a little, you can truly organize the list by aisles. I think there is even a way to send half of the list over to your husband’s phone for him to shop.   If you are good at getting the Internet from the phone,  you can get recipes while at the grocery store. 

 

I am noticing a new trend in cooking.  We have thousands of recipes at our disposal.  But we do not think of cooking as the people in the past have cooked.  They knew how to increase a recipe.  They knew ratios.  And they bought what was cheap or something they liked and then figured out what to do with the ingredient in the kitchen when they got home.  All Recipes.com  answers a lot of questions. You see a lamb roast, but you do not know what else you need.  So you plug in the amount of time the dish can take and if it is an entrée or a side dish.  Push the button and up comes a list of suggestions for you.  You can photograph food and preparations along the way. 

 

 A lot of this can be done on a computer.   And believe me I do use the computer. But I am seeing possibilities both in my kitchen and away from home.   There is one real problem to both of these devices as a kitchen tool, the computer and the cell phone, and that is my dirty hands. 

June 18/ expat here and there

When people, such as my daughter’s family, who live out of the country, come home, it is not a vacation.  They have to do what hasn’t been done while they were gone.  They have to do what will be needed for the coming year.  Today is dentistry, the day before was international driver’s licenses, yesterday was the computer store. Tomorrow are physicals for the Home Office.  Coupled with jet lag, this is exhausting. All of the driving averages to just over an hour’s trip each way.   Coming on top of moving, and its packing and grief of leaving friends, it is profound. This does not account for the clothes people need today and what they will need.  This is not glamorous. Today you would not want to be an expat.  But two months ago you could have been on the beach in Thailand for a week. 

June 16 / A slave

My granddaughter Thing 1, just before she left

China

to come here for part of the summer, lost her glasses. Her glasses are a big deal as it takes two weeks to grind them.  They are expensive, but in addition to that she will have to get new  glasses ground in August.  Her parents thought she should have some reminder of the loss.

 

Good news for me, I now have a kitchen slave while Thing1 is here. Fabulous, I have never had an unpaid worker quite like this before. I can not say that my children were exactly kitchen slaves, although that was partly my fault.  I gave up, exhausted with them with their sour moods, getting lost to have me go look for them, and then when they got to the kitchen asking me million questions. Once for maybe a week, they had cooking days.  But truthfully I could not take the chaos. Their eagerness only arrived when I so busy that I did not have the time to work with them.  I wonder if they planned that?

 

The Things plural are of an age when they can clean the kitchen.  In the past cleaning the kitchen was putting the dishes in the dishwasher.  That is such cinchy job; they could have saved the plates for me. The real work was putting the milk away.  Gathering up the leftovers and deciding to pitch or store them in the refrigerator. Now,I am thinking that unless there is an exceptional amount of food, we are going to take no prisoners.  Forget the hungry in

Africa

. Pots and pans are now grandkids work. And finally, wiping down the counters is the mark of a clean kitchen.  Next year it is on to cleaning the sink.

 

Thing1 is to help with kitchen prep, and is to work on kitchen clean up.  But that is not where her interests or talents lie.  She is temporarily helping with electronics. For a while I am playing CEO and I am switching her out to electronics: cell phone, I tunes cleanup, making posters, sending my last year’s blog to be published.  She has even put a program on how to figure restaurant tips on my cell phone.

 

Dear God, thanks for sending me a slave.  Love you so much Thing1. 

June 15/ Granddaugters and IPhones

The chilens are here.  Grown.  So fun.  I am not allowed to refer to them by name.  So this is always a little cryptic.

 

On Saturday, Mr. Radish and I got IPhones.  We were never going to get them as they were Apple, and also why would you get one, when you could get a cell phone so much cheaper.  Part of the expense of an IPhone is the monthly surcharge of $30.00 per phone.  The surcharge is to get all the programs via the Internet, as “why would you have a cell phone without the Internet”.  So we bought cheaper phones: LG a Korean phone.  These we bought at Costco.  Costco I find to be a shining company, but not at the phone Kiosk.  We could not get our phones to work, for example: we could not set up our voicemail, but after two visits they could not tell us how to do it, and were snippy because we were drawn to hi-tech phones.   

 

When my middle daughter and a son-in-law became IPhone owners,  Mr. Radish figured it was the very thing to buy.  I could not talk him into it, but important people like daughters and a son-in-law could. Anyhow we are now  owners.  We still do not know how to run them, but we are more enthused about learning on an IPhone. 

 

Enter my eldest granddaughter. Enter my youngest granddaughter. I was in a car with both girls yesterday for an hour and a half, and they taught me a lot, and more than just about cell phones.  The eldest really tripped up my phone: faces for callers, icons for bookmarks on the Internet, voice mail and the temperature in

Madrid

, which by the way is 95 degrees at 10:PM. The youngest girl showed me how to do use the map.  “Spread your fingers and you can zoom in.” And as there was an accident ahead, she was able to show me where it was and where the traffic would loosen up.  Both girls corrected me on how to touch the pad. “You don’t have to touch it with your nail, just touch it lightly.”  The joy of these girls teaching me knows no limits. 

 

Thank you Winnie (the paternal mother in law) for your part in granddaughter heaven.  Thank you for wanting me to want a IPhone.  And I also have AT&T.

June 11/ Get ready

I was recently reminded that it is important to clean out your gas grill once a year.  We have had ours five years and have yet to do it.  While it does not seem to get quite as hot as it used to, we have accepted the imperceptible decline in function like your eyes going bad with cataracts.  But tomorrow is clean the grill day to ready ourselves for summer. 

 

While the weather has been exceptionally fine this year, summer really starts when the children from China, or where ever they are, arrive home for a month, sometimes more.  Then the cousins who live an hour and a half away also come to the pod.  It is in and out, in and out, close the screen door.  Don’t snap the screen door like that. Go out side and play, you are driving us nuts. .  Set the table.  Carry your dishes to the dishwasher. Who wants milk?  What, you don’t want to go down to the beach?  Where is the sunscreen? The beach is why we bought this place. No you can’t eat later; this is when we are eating. You will have to wait for diner then.  Who walked in with muddy feet?  We don’t eat ice cream on the sofa.Go back and hang up the towels in the bathroom, and if you haven’t flushed the toilet, do that too. 

 

It is summer!YIKES!

June 10/Childhood wildflowers

I remember California Poppies very fondly from my childhood.  There were times when driving in the country on the back roads of California, the hills would be all orange.  There was also blue from some lupine, but mainly the hills were filled with orange patches.  I assume they are not there now due to development.  At other times in the spring there was what we called Indian paintbrush.  It was a deep red which must have been related to the clover.  I also assume that the name Indian paint brush has been changed.  California countryside was beautiful.  Our family loved the live oak trees. 

I walked home from grade school along a country road and picked my mother bouquets of the above mentioned  wild flowers.  Generally my brother and I walked as if we did not know the other.  No one ever stopped to hassle us or ask us if we wanted some candy.  We knew we were not to take any, but my brother would have had he been asked.  We would be sweaty at the end of the mile then  up a hill to our house.  There would be the red geraniums at the front door. At the time I hated walking home by myself, but now all I can see are the wild flowers.

While you can still remember ,think about the wild flowers of your childhood. Leave a comment. 

June 6/ Hide, and you won't find me for work

Sunday the China grandchildren will be here on their way to Spain.  I look forward to seeing them, although being teenagers  dispositions can change from year to year.  You never know if they will sit in their room with their computers and phones, come out and join the party, or sulk.  Some of this is true for my grandchildren, but I really remember my own children.  With my own children I did not have a sense of humor. 

Last year the oldest grandchild played hide, and they won't find me for work. This is a mind set that I remember from my daughter, and this grandchild's grandmother,  at thirteen with a book in the bathroom, ME. Come to think of it, in another branch in the family, the that oldest grandson has the same affliction.  Hide and they will never think of finding me for work. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe they will think I am not irritating the adults. 

I was interrupted at acheiving perfection because I had Capt. Quegg for a father. For my daughter, I would yell, "Get the hell down here and clean this kitchen. I would yell so my daughter's could hear.  "You just wait until you have teenagers, and God give me strength to live long enough to see you having to deal with  a teenage daughter."

Last night my daughter NoName called and she said there was a little family fracus with family teenagers over the weekend.  I listened to my daughter, and I realized my dream has come true and I have now come to see my daughter have to deal with teenagers.  So now that I am here,  that which I wanted to scream, " I told you this would happen",  oh how  I dearly wanted that pleasure, the pleasure is not so sweet.  Now it seems all wrong, I want my daughter to live the life of managing sweet teenagers.  And I love my grandchild so much, I want her to live a life with no stones in the path,  and for her to be the first daughter in the history of the world, to cause her mother no grief.