Day 2 Day radishes

July 28/ What is going on today.

When you live in Washington, the topic of conversation is the weather.  If it is raining, we talk about it.  If it is sunny, we are elated and talk about it.  If it is hot, it is the only topic of conversation.  So now it is hot. Mr Radish and I argue over closing up the house or leaving the windows open for the breeze. Tomorrow could be a Seattle record of 103 or 104.  Today is Mr. Radish's day of the house closed. 

 Health care, for our extended three generation family at the moment, is also a topic.  Even the children are talking.  My ten year old grandaughter almost wrote on Facebook. All adults, including imported niece who came to help our impaired, have written Senators and Congress men. I  also added my comment on Facebook. 

Yesterday Mr. Radish and I went to get shingles shots at daughter NoName's request.  She has been suffering with shingles and she is hoping to save the world.  A shingles vaccine shot is generally $210.00 which makes you think about it.  If you have health care the price could be reduced.  We only paid $50.00 a piece.  The vaccine grows a culture in your arm for three days.  As shots go, pain wise it is okay.  Shingles is a serious illness, and NoName did not have a bad case.  But all things considered, she is out of pocket over $500.00.  The pharacist said that any time the flu vacine will be here.  The first of a set of two vacines will be ready in around October.  

July 25 / Berry picking

You can tell it is the middle of summer because the kids want to pick blackberries.  Picking blackberries for kids is something that they have to think is their idea.  For example if you say, go pick some berries for a pie, that doesn’t work.  You have to say something like; wouldn’t a berry pie taste good?  I am just I am soo bad at crusts.   But even this is too leading. 

 

The best is to finesse them out to play baseball and have the ball be hit into the bushes.  Then they get the idea as they climb in and out of bushes and their shirts are red, there are berries.  Sometimes, driving around the country side works because they can see people with buckets in hand.  Admittedly, this might is iffy  today as kids would be zoned out on IPods or looking at a movie.  

 

Picking is a sport for kids.  They have to decide if they want to ruin their clothes.  They have to decide how many scratches they are going to take before they get out of shorts and into jeans.  For my girls there was the old plank trick of walking in on a board smashing the berries down.  Tonight my grandkids are cutting their way into the prickly vine forest.

 

It is just one short leap for them into making a fortune selling berries to the neighborhood. In the past, I have been a good purchaser. Berries were the only merchandise that kids selling around the neighborhood I ever really wanted.  I guess I be buying berries.

These are the berry pickers in their clean clothes.

July 24/ Experiment notes

http://gimundo.com/videos/view/sticky-note-experiment/ Go to the site for something fun.

July 23/ EMTs

I sit here at the computer and it feels like I have a mustache of scab.  While I am healing Mr Radish is sitting only on my good side. 

 

Here are a few thoughts on my recent hospital adventures. At a hospital you should always arrive by ambulance, because you get a room faster. You could sit in the waiting room until tomorrow if you just walk in the ER door. 

 

I should give a bag of brownies to each EMT that has transported me to a hospital.  They have been super! I have just used my seventh set. All of them have been men except for one, and I really did not like her as well. She did not have a sense of humor, but she was pregnant and very tired.  In the rural areas the men are generally good looking. They arrive with their baseball caps and smiles.  Always they are calm.  The head guy is 40-52. Always there is a newbie.  The best looking guy drives. 

 

The first two times I had panic attacks and they thought I was having a heart attack.  The first time I was in Montreal and I was taken to the French Hospital.  What I remember about that experience is that I lay on my gurney in the hallway with other patients for hours and hours and then I was shipped to McGill Univ. hospital where I stayed in a ward with only men.  One person was dying of hiccups.   One man looked like Santa and his bed faced me and his crotch showed a lot.  That was socialized medicine.

 

When you are really, really sick in an ambulance, you are sooo happy to be there.  You feel like someone is in charge, which is all I ask.  The ambulance rumbles along. The medics radio back and forth to the ER doctor discussing vital signs, get your iv adjusted, get the oxygen flowing. And of course, your room is waiting, and the techs are at the ready. I think a heart attack is the only time a doc shows up in less than 20 minutes.

 

I did not actually need an ambulance for this last trip with my fall.  But there is no emergency treatment in town after 3:00 on Sunday.  My husband was 30 minutes away.  The EMTs were adamant that I have a cat scan because of my blood thinners and internal bleeding concerns, and they said that they thought I needed stitches to say nothing of having my wounds washed. The men assured me that it was their pleasure to take me to the hospital.  They said that this was their third fall today. No big deal.   I said that I did not want the government to shut off my health care because I was over 70.  If my husband came to get me and took me to the hospital, maybe I would get health care brownie points. They said, “Get in the truck”.

 

If someone calls me on this, I will deny I wrote this.  On a Sunday  afternoon, after the town doc in a box closes, and you are down, you want to have some jokes, you want to see some youth with some positive attitudes, and you can’t afford a restaurant where there are clever male waiters, maybe you should think of calling 911.  When the EMTs have their fund raiser this year in front of the local grocery store, I am going to give big.

July 21 / Accidents happen and I am winning

If anything these pictures are complimentary.  Going to the movie theater,  I tripped on the curb. I broke my fall by my hands but continued on down to my face on the pavement.  the bandage covers the pasting of my forehead which looks much better than the abrasions.  I am happy.  Very happy.  I did not break a thing.  

Writer's conference

My daughter, www.Expatprincess.Wordpress.com, and I are going to a writers conference the end of July.  She is a very good writer; I write. I think it is crucial for her to attend something like this to get in touch with the reality of what is out there, explore her voice . . . get some real tips.    We are going because it is a time to be alone together, and should I be giving up travel, I could a least make it to the Hilton at Sea-Tac.

 

My only writing aside from a very first draft of a  sprinkler salesman and his wife in Epistolary novel 15 years ago, is my blog.  I have no allusions about my writing.  At the conference you are supposed to learn how to pitch a book.  They have real editors and agents there.  We are considering pitching a mother daughter book from content on our blogs. 

July 18/ Michelle's worker bees

These are Michelle Obama's hand maiden's.  Michelle is pain nothing for what she does.  Of interest to me is the number, and how chintzy the salaries are at the bottom of the list.  After all, one does have to live near DC.  There are few males on the staff.

1. $172,2000 - Sher, Susan (CHIEF OF STAFF)
2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROJECTS FOR THE FIRST LADY)
3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND WHITE HOUSE SOCIAL SECRETARY)
4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS FOR THE FIRST LADY)
5. Winter, Melissa E. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)
6. $90,000 - Medina , David S. (DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)
7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (DIRECTOR AND PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY)
8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (DIRECTOR OF SCHEDULING AND ADVANCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)
9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROJECTS FOR THE FIRST LADY)
10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY SOCIAL SECRETARY)
11. Reinstein, Joseph B. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY SOCIAL SECRETARY)
12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF SCHEDULING AND EVENTS COORDINATOR FOR THE FIRST LADY)
13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ADVANCE AND TRIP DIRECTOR FOR THE FIRST LADY)
14. Lewis, Dana M. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT AND PERSONAL AIDE TO THE FIRST LADY)
15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY)
16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT FOR SCHEDULING AND TRAVELING AIDE TO THE FIRST LADY)
17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)
18. Tubman, Samantha (DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,SOCIAL OFFICE)
19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)
20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (STAFF ASSISTANT TO THE SOCIAL SECRETARY)
21. Bookey, Natalie (STAFF ASSISTANT)
22. Jackson, Deilia A. (DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)

July 13/ Under a tree for Kara Hunt's Seventieth Birthday

Friday I went to an intimate garden party.  We sat in a large, well groomed and flowered garden in a circle under a tree. We drank from a choice of three flavors of ice tea, and eating candy coated straw type cookies flavored strawberry and green tea fresh from Japan.  When a friend arrived from her radiation treatment with mini Dove bars, we ate them. Finally we downed dessert of chocolate little cups turned upside down on vanilla ice cream and fresh raspberry sauce. We sat around telling stories, or finding out about our friend’s health. 

 

One story was hilarious.  Our hostess described about when she was 8 months pregnant and overwhelmed with nesting fever, her dog brought home to her, in his mouth,  a just hatched egg with a breathing new born featherless crooked neck bird still partially in its shell.  Some one of our group said, “Well did you take it to the vet?”

 

“Of course not, you don’t take a bird not yet out of its shell to a vet.”

 

My friend kept the bird. She was determined to send the bird back into nature. 

 

One of the reasons that human raised new born birds do not live, is they can not poop on their own.  So my friend at all hours of the day or night would give the baby bird milk on a Q tip, and with I assume another Q tip, would rub its bottom. It would instantly poop.  As the babe grew, it was given chopped worms, from the garden, or not, I do not know. Its bottom continued to be rubbed. In nature pooping is achieved by the mother bird stimulating the baby by licking the baby’s bottom. My friend took the bird everywhere with her. She slept with it.  Waiting for her own baby she was learning to be a mother.  Her final challenge was to get the bird to fly. She invited her family over for a bird party.  At this party celebration she was going to release the bird.  By this time she is nine months pregnant and she held her bird baby hand up to the sky, and ran with the bird down a hill.  The bird fell out of her hand, sank towards the ground and then spread her wings and flew.  Shortly thereafter, her own little girl was born. My friend thinks the bird went to live in her father’s garden.  Hum?

 

This is what you do when you are between sixty and seventy sipping iced tea in the garden on a hot day.  We all went home saying what a remarkably fine time we had.

July 12/ salt

I stand corrected.  Yesterday I wrote that my family, and in particular my daughters, had left my kitchen messy.  The girls said that messy implied dirty.  I thought messy implied only disorganized and cluttered. After looking this up in the dictionary, dirty was the operative word.  The kitchen was never left dirty as I had said. The kitchen was never left anything but well cleaned.  I was referring to the chaos of meal prep.  But I suppose it was no more than a restaurant kitchen.  Bungled was also a description for mess. But I know where my bread is buttered, and this did not apply. 

 

 

 

Frugality is the word for the moment in press cooking this summer.   I am familiar with simple foods of my childhood, which in a sense were more that simple, they were often plain.  What were good about them were the vegetables or the meat itself, and not necessarily the method and dollying up. We had butter, well after the war we had butter, and we had salt.

I have just read an article from the Baltimore Sun about finishing salts.  You can spend a lot of money purchasing these.  But you can take sea salt and grind them up your self with herbs or garlic, whatever you like for pennies.   I am going to use a mini chop, but if you have mortar and pestle that is the tool of choice.   And the article adds, not to worry about the sodium content as it is fractions of processed food.  You can make lemon salt, garlic salt, herb salt, and I am mad for truffle salt, but that does cost a fortune.  Szechwan pepper salt is supposed to be fabulous.  Tonight I am going to take herbs from the garden.  If you are grilling meat add a little salt before putting on the grill, when finished, take off, and add a little olive oil and then the finishing salt.  

July 8/ Tables turned

I will just admit it. I was in the hospital for several days, ruining at least one daughter’s time at her sister’s fab fortieth birthday party, totally exhausting my husband, and scaring the  life out of him to say nothing of spending a lot of social security and insurance money.

 

I went to the hospital because I was light headed and my heart was racing very fast. I was there two days leaving with the diagnosis that I probably had Cardiac neurosis, and I was incredibly deficient in Vitamin B12.  And while my heart and lungs are not good, nothing had changed.  Cardiac neurosis happens in a lot of heart patients who become hyper sensitive to their own bodies and feel all of the extra beats etc. and think they could be dying.  I am relatively sure that some of that applies to me, but it is embarrassing to admit.

 

Everyone is exasperated with me.  One year it is a broken ankle, one year it is heart failure, one year it was pneumonia, the next year it was another broken ankle.  This years version is vitamin B12 deficiency.  I have in fact screwed up lots of plans of others. 

 

But this time I was punished. Back at home for the Fourth of July weekend, only one child was allowed in the house at a time.  I was supposed to rest.  And . . . I was not allowed to cook.  Not to clean the kitchen was okay, but not to cook? No cooking for a week.  Mind you the doctor’s never said any of this, my family was the enforcer.  They loved it. Ate it up.  chaThey said, “no fancy menus for us, we will have hotdogs and you vill like it”.  My daughter’s bragged, “We are cooking, and you’re not going to like it”. If it did not come from Costco, it wasn’t served.  This was pent up anger of 40 years of eating fish, liver, broccoli, what ever. This was payback for CLEAN THE PLATE CLUB. They had me right where they wanted me. One more turn of the screw. There was one dinner when it seemed like people floated to and from of the table with no sense of anyone being involved with a dinner. 

 

The week is over and I am allowed to cook again. However, now I do not have to wonder what it is going to be like in the kitchen after I die, because I know. It is going to be a chaotic mess, and I think my daughters are going to enjoy themselves quite a bit.