Can openers and corkscrews: adversaries

 

 

 

 

Can openers and corkscrews: adversaries

 

 

                Is it because I’m left-handed that these two machines/ implements/ kitchen aids never seem to work right?

                The electric can opener I inherited lies abandoned in an unused file cabinet on the back porch. The new one I bought, likewise. Sometimes they worked; most times, they didn’t. Could it have been the way I held my mouth, as the saying goes? Maddening!

                 I even bought a Pampered Chef can opener—one that, positioned a certain way that I can never remember, opens from the can instead from the lid. I’ve used it once.

                Right now on my countertop, several cans of soup-makings sit with a white-plastic-handled manual can opener on top. I’m hoping their proximity will provide good vibes when I ever get around to actually opening said veggies for said soup.

                Corkscrews are also adversaries. Each one I’ve had works, but holds the cork hostage inside the worm (?) no matter what I do. Short of cutting the cork out by sawing with a steak knife, I usually leave it until it’s needed again. Then, whomever is here gets to puzzle out the solution.

                I’ve begun buying tuna in sealed packages and canned fruit with plastic lids and spoons tucked neatly inside. They’re a breeze to open.

                It’s not my reflexes. I can catch a falling glass before it hits the floor. Or an aluminum pan of hot enchiladas that folds in my hand as I take it from the oven.

                It’s gotta be that I’m left-handed and these implements are made by right-handed men.

                Now and then—mostly all the time—the computer keeps me alert by moving the cursor while I’m typing, pulling up a pale screen of possibilities or skipping about on the page. Just now, the screen moved upward, my text out of sight. It’s a good thing I live alone. Otherwise, my housemates might get the idea that I’m yelling at them from another room. If computers had ears…… oh, dear.

              Another adversary is the neighborhood tom cat, unfixed, who’s found that I feed my cats outside. He lies in wait behind a shrub, on the far end of a bench, or on the rock step to the birdbath.

           The female—the only cat that’s not fixed, and who’s had (as of this very day) her third litter by that roaming roué,--comes to eat, and as soon as I disappear behind the door, he proceeds to nose her out of the dish.

Like some females of all species, she moves out of his way until he is sated. Unless I see him first and spray him with a mixture of vinegar and water.  It’s that, or go sit out near the steps with my bottle. Some days I win; some days he wins. Ambivalence, inconsistency—my strong suit as far as this goes.

Finally, Bermuda grass bedevils me by growing back into the space I removed it for expanding flower beds. “I was here first!” it seems to believe, so I find the hoe and show it who’s boss. For the moment.

Thank goodness, kudzu hasn’t gotten a foot-, uh, root-hold in my place. Bermuda, honeysuckle and privet are all I can handle.

 And that’s debatable.

              Is it because I’m left-handed that these two machines/ implements/ kitchen aids never seem to work right?

                The electric can opener I inherited lies abandoned in an unused file cabinet on the back porch. The new one I bought, likewise. Sometimes they worked; most times, they didn’t. Could it have been the way I held my mouth, as the saying goes? Maddening!

                 I even bought a Pampered Chef can opener—one that, positioned a certain way that I can never remember, opens from the can instead from the lid. I’ve used it once.

                Right now on my countertop, several cans of soup-makings sit with a white-plastic-handled manual can opener on top. I’m hoping their proximity will provide good vibes when I ever get around to actually opening said veggies for said soup.

                Corkscrews are also adversaries. Each one I’ve had works, but holds the cork hostage inside the worm (?) no matter what I do. Short of cutting the cork out by sawing with a steak knife, I usually leave it until it’s needed again. Then, whomever is here gets to puzzle out the solution.

                I’ve begun buying tuna in sealed packages and canned fruit with plastic lids and spoons tucked neatly inside. They’re a breeze to open.

                It’s not my reflexes. I can catch a falling glass before it hits the floor. Or an aluminum pan of hot enchiladas that folds in my hand as I take it from the oven.

                It’s gotta be that I’m left-handed and these implements are made by right-handed men.

                Now and then—mostly all the time—the computer keeps me alert by moving the cursor while I’m typing, pulling up a pale screen of possibilities or skipping about on the page. Just now, the screen moved upward, my text out of sight. It’s a good thing I live alone. Otherwise, my housemates might get the idea that I’m yelling at them from another room. If computers had ears…… oh, dear.

              Another adversary is the neighborhood tom cat, unfixed, who’s found that I feed my cats outside. He lies in wait behind a shrub, on the far end of a bench, or on the rock step to the birdbath.

           The female—the only cat that’s not fixed, and who’s had (as of this very day) her third litter by that roaming roué,--comes to eat, and as soon as I disappear behind the door, he proceeds to nose her out of the dish.

Like some females of all species, she moves out of his way until he is sated. Unless I see him first and spray him with a mixture of vinegar and water.  It’s that, or go sit out near the steps with my bottle. Some days I win; some days he wins. Ambivalence, inconsistency—my strong suit as far as this goes.

Finally, Bermuda grass bedevils me by growing back into the space I removed it for expanding flower beds. “I was here first!” it seems to believe, so I find the hoe and show it who’s boss. For the moment.

Thank goodness, kudzu hasn’t gotten a foot-, uh, root-hold in my place. Bermuda, honeysuckle and privet are all I can handle.

 And that’s debatable.

August, a laggard; September, a runner

 

 

                I thought surely when August finally was finished, I’d have time to work in the yard--digging privet, pulling honeysuckle, trimming shrubs, planting new mums—stuff like that. But it was too hot still, so I waited for the promised cooling.

                When the cool spell descended, I found myself tied to the writing desk and computer. First things first. An eye appointment and a morning spent with colleagues to judge our poetry branch contest entries kept me inside.

                The next week, waiting for folks to come over to gather pears for preserves, I did a smidgen of pruning. Enough to fill a wheelbarrow—Carolina moon-vine, saw briars, privet. Of course, my friends had to see the new floors. And we had to have a coffee klatch afterwards.

The next day it rained. Then I had a trip to Conway for the monthly writers’-group meeting.

                Back to the writing desk to compose another chapter for the Hot Springs novel group. And, of course, this weekly blog post.

                Confession time: On the first Sunday of September, I prepped for church where I’d directed/ played until retirement. Now, I was singing tenor in the choir. The director would be back after recuperating three weeks from surgery. The choir would sing, he’d said, a Communion anthem we already knew.

                But when I arrived in the choir room and opened a bulletin, I saw that he was singing a solo.  Turning on my heel, left. My sis followed me to the car with stuff she needed to return. I told her why I was leaving. “Tell anyone who asks, ‘She comes to sing the anthem.’”

                I want to know how many of you can--and will--set your alarm for six on Sunday morning? So you can get to church by 7:45 for hand-bell warm-up before playing in the service? We all do what we’ve committed ourselves to do, and that’s what happened this past Sunday at Bryant FUMC.

                At my advanced age and disposition, I don’t want to have to be at church at 8 a.m., which is why I dropped out of that church’s choir. Been there; done that; retired; don’t want to do it any longer, especially that early in the morning. Call me a wimp . . . if you dare.

                Finally, three hours before the deadline Monday morning, and by setting the alarm for 5:30, I finished another chapter of the sequel. It required lots of research, and was important in tying up one of the subplots.  I expected the writers to call it an information dump, but they did not, thank their sweet hearts.

                Oh, that same afternoon—Monday—I worked in the iris-yucca bed cleaning old foliage and pulling grass. I also manned the weed-eater until the two batteries gave out. So, I AM getting a little done toward keeping the bushes at bay.

The days are getting shorter, aren’t they? Oh, well, I guess so: it’s mid-September already. Wasn’t it still August just yesterday?

Two instances of head-bowed remembrances

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. LEST WE FORGET

“Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children. “
– President George W. Bush, November 11, 2001

“Our enemies have made the mistake that America’s enemies always make. They saw liberty and thought they saw weakness. And now, they see defeat.”
– George W. Bush, President of the United States
~~~~

“Now, we have inscribed a new memory alongside those others. It’s a memory of tragedy and shock, of loss and mourning. But not only of loss and mourning. It’s also a memory of bravery and self-sacrifice, and the love that lays down its life for a friend–even a friend whose name it never knew.”
– President George W. Bush, December 11, 2001
~~~~

 “Today, we gather to be reassured that God hears the lamenting and bitter weeping of Mother America because so many of her children are no more. Let us now seek that assurance in prayer for the healing of our grief stricken hearts, for the souls and sacred memory of those who have been lost. Let us also pray for divine wisdom as our leaders consider the necessary actions for national security, wisdom of the grace of God that as we act, we not become the evil we deplore.”
– Rev. Nathan Baxter, Dean of Washington National Cathedral

~ ~ ~ ~







 

NINAGENE TILLERY—She is so much more than what appeared in her obituary. A poet, poetry column editor for the Hot Springs Sentinel Record for many years, former Steel Magnolia and Central Arkansas Writers member, prize winner in Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas’s contests, one of the latest being first place ($1,000) for her 2012 Sybil Nash Abrams poem, “Aunt Bessie McBee and the Salem Community Tornado, Saline County, Arkansas, Christmas Eve, 1982,” a beloved personal friend, a PRA Merit Award winner, PRA Anthology co-chair—the list could go on and on if I knew all her Hot Springs civic activities. She lived in Benton for a time before I knew her.

            Because of a promise she made to her late husband, she opened her home to her granddaughter and four great-granddaughters. She suffered at least one deep-seated bout of/with depression, but she finally swam up to the surface and took her life back. She “saw to” her sister as long as the sister lived. Nina was truly a giving person and tried to follow Jesus’s example and teachings. My prayer is now that she is free of her earthly burdens, she is flying around to find Jeanie Carter and Ann Kinnaird as well as her parents, husband and other family. That’s after she’s seen and knelt at the feet of God and Jesus.

 

Save me a place, Nina, though I won’t be as “high up” in God’s favor as you are. I love you.

I promise this is the last episode of home rehabbing

Google images

 

Regarding last week’s ending question about the dishwasher after it was reinstalled? And after Richie replaced the frayed cord with a new one and covered it with a metal box? Here’s the outcome.

I put in a load of dishes that I’d stacked in the sink during the appliance absence. The machine started as per usual. Then stopped. Oh, woe. I leaned heavily into the door. Isometrics? The lights flashed and the water intake resumed. But I couldn’t do this for the sequence of even a light load. I had writing deadlines to meet. What to do? What to do?

Ah, duct tape. And it worked. For a while. I re-taped 3 times, but the heat must have loosened the stick-um. I pushed in until it drained, then opened the door. I’d wash them by hand—or rinse them—later. But I’d be calling the plumber ASAP Monday morning.

In the meantime, I’d asked the electrician to “do some work just for me.” Before he left from the dishwasher job, he’d looked at two non-working ceiling fans.  Using my rickety wooden ladder, he investigated. “They both need replacing.” These fans were in the house before I moved here eight years ago. Grandson Billy had manipulated his so only the fan would work. Richie said he couldn’t figure out what my boy had done to kill the lights.

I’d also asked for a motion light on the outside corner of the house by the driveway. That end of the porch had not been roofed, ergo, no light. This meant Richie’s disappearing into the dark recesses of the sloping un-floored area in the attic. Surely electricians are used to such places.

Afterwards, he opined that he could do that job and showed me on the outside where he would attach it.

On Monday, I was to buy two new fans, the motion light and two bulbs. He would begin early on Tuesday. Done. Next thing was to pay the piper, er, the carpet/ floor company. At Mullin’s, I whipped out my OTHER credit card (not the one I paid for refinishing the floors with) and settled up. I told the boss about my dishwasher episode and she said, “Call me if it happens again.”

Thank goodness it hasn’t.

Do you know that electricians who work for the McCauley Services in Benton bring down $80 an hour? I wrote my sis: “Wouldn’t it be nice if church musicians were paid that much?” Especially after the $$ we spend getting our credentials? When I asked Richie how/ where he learned his trade, he waffled muffled-like, as if he just learned it somehow. I know better. He had to be an apprentice, a journeyman. Anyway, a motion light and two fans installed (after taking down the old ones) took most of the morning. So that job’s done. And paid for.

I told someone that when the floors were all “new,” I’d begin painting the paneling in the back kitchen, but I haven’t.

Maybe I can get to it this month.