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.



The last of the floors done--whew!

Google Images

 

“Do you have a socket set?” he asked

                 Robert and Clayton had spent one day last week prepping the kitchen and back room floors to receive the vinyl tile I’d selected.  The next day, they laid it. The former activity took much longer than the latter. Now it was time to move in (from the back porch--cleaned to a fare-thee-well to hold the six large appliances) and hook up the range. Done.

               Next, they moved the fairly-new refrigerator inside, hooked up the ice-maker pipe, and then plugged it into the wall recess. I say recess, because the wall was originally thick plaster. Over time, it had crumbled and was lying between the outlet and the paneling. A piece of the wood had been cut out to access the electricity.

 

               Then they moved the washer and dryer in, but left them freestanding on carpet squares. Something wasn’t right. With their sharp carpenters’ eyes, they noticed the fridge was leaning forward. 

 

               “Do you have a socket set?” Robert asked. I didn’t. So while he lifted the front of it with a carpet-square-cushioned crow bar, Clayton unscrewed the front feet of the appliance until it was squared up. Voila! Their job was done, so we hugged goodbye and wished each other happiness.            

 

            Eddie came the next morning to lay the new base shoe (what I called quarter round). He used a coping saw to cut the wood at-an-angle for door frames, corners and thresholds. Then he, too, took his leave after a conversation about deer hunting and his son’s house that he would help build off Brazil Road near here.

 

            All that remained now was Steve-the-plumber. He replaced a piece of paneling behind the washer that had stained and softened. He soldered fittings for new flex metal hoses, put in a new “box” to house the washer hoses and tightened the drain hose —after it pulled off in his hand. He attached the lint hose to the dryer and tested the two machines.

 

            He’d bought a metal pan for the water heater (requiring a hole drilled through the floor to the dirt of the basement) in case it ever leaked.

 

                That left the dishwasher. Here, Steve found something else: a frayed wire at the back of the space. “Looks like a mouse gnawed on it,” he said.

 

               Uh-oh. Aren’t there enough cats on this hill to keep the mice away?

 

               He called an electrician; we made an early-the-next-morning appointment. When that was repaired, Steve would come back and hook up the dishwasher.
 

               He took his boots off at the door, Richie did--this young electrician whose grandparents I taught school with. “No rat chewed this,” he said. “It looks frayed, that’s all.” He did his thing and attached a metal box that jutted into the empty space at the back.

              That afternoon, Steve saw the box and said, “Aw, that won’t hurt anything. It’ll fit right under the body of the dishwasher. But he didn’t test the machine, and he, too, bid me goodbye with a ‘Call-if-you-need-me’ message and a wave.

 

              Would I need him?

~~

 

c 2014 Pat Laster dba Lovepat Press



August events and deadlines have swarmed..........

 

 .......... so you get an updated post on one of my favorite subjects: birthdays and birth names.

                August 19 was my late mother’s (Anna Pearle Scott) birthday (1912). It is also Bill Clinton (1946) and Tipper Gore’s (1948) birthdays. Plus a jillion others’, not many of whom I’ve heard of. Oh, some actresses, composers, but beyond that, no. The list I viewed began during the 16^th century and ended in the 1970s.

Mom had a thing about Bill Clinton because they shared the same birthday. She loved him. He (his office) sent her birthday cards. She sent him birthday cards. She had two FOB Christmas tree ornaments she dearly prized. (And I continue to use.)

                She would have watched everything on TV about Chelsea’s wedding. Likely, she would have said, as was her tendency, “For such an ugly child, she made a pretty bride.”

                Mom didn’t like her own mother’s spelling of Mom’s middle name (appearing on her wedding announcement), so Mom omitted the “e.” Her parents’ names were Flossie Samuel and Elmer Holloway.

                I named my fourth child Annamarie—one word—after both her grandmothers. I often laughed and said, “It could have been Margie Pearl!” In all my name-collecting, I have never seen that combination.

                Ah, a perfect segue into something that takes up hours (when added over the years) of my leisure time, my paper-reading time: names. It started with the High Profile section of the daily state paper. Odd first names; odd surnames. Then I discovered the obituaries held, in addition to names, so much more information.

Lately, I’ve begun keeping a name’s list of those 90 years old and older at death. And if he/she was born before 1920, I keep a list of the deceased parents’ names. (A good friend told me once to 'get a life.')

Compare the names of the parents of this generation to the parents in early 1900. Now days, parents of either the deceased or the engaged might be Susan and Eugene, Cynthia and Timothy, Patricia and Paul, Sharon and John.

                Ninety years ago, parents' names were George Washington and Lucinda Beatrice, Frank Willie and Anna Elizabeth, Virgil and Dora, William and Myrtle, and Richard and Mary Ida. (BTW, I have a beloved friend named Anna Elizabeth. Some things don't change.)

                Given names of engaged couples—except for Elizabeth and William, which span all times—are noticeably different, too.  A Rachel Lee (middle name) is marrying a Nathan Lee (middle name. In earlier times, a William Daniel married a Sarah Adeline.

                Today’s parents have names like Beverly and Quranner; in the old days, it might be Fred and Mittie Jane, or Clenis and Odessa, Argus and Effie. Like Dave Barry, I’m not making this up.

                One more example:  Parents today might be Kathy and Denny, Janet and Steve. In the decade of 1910-1919, it might be Will and Willie, Mattie Pearl and Hugh, William Dexter and Bertha, Len and Beulah.

 Fascinating, the changing fashion in names. In one issue of this month’s Saline Courier, were the following new babies’ given names: Tinleigh Rein, Yesenia Angelic, Tate Ryan, Xander Hayden, Tinley Elyse, Chevy Lynn Kayee Vegaa and Hunter Matthew.

Just this morning--and before I even read the obits in the state paper--I jotted down these names: Kayliee, Vivica, Dellar, Kiyanda, Deja and Brianetay.

AND this from Wednesday: Chris Christopherson-- a California fire spokesman. Is no name sacred???

 

Look, Daddy, she hugged that stranger!

Dancing with a former stranger-

pic by J. White, at Beaux Bridge, Louisiana

 

 

                But Daddy, I thought we weren’t supposed to even speak to strangers.

                Darling, that’s for little folks. Big people are different. Some talk to strangers all the time. It’s called being sociable.

                Now, here’s the big people’s response to this hypothetical scenario. I’m the ‘big people.’ At 7:30 Saturday morning, after two people had commented that my front tire looked low, and before I drove to Conway for a 9:00 writers’ meeting, I tooled south to Williams Tire--my mechanics and all-round good guys. Only one youngish man was already there, standing and watching the big TV in the waiting area.

                After I surrendered my keys, I walked over. “Looks like rain today, and I’m headed to Conway,” I said to the handsome stranger. We chatted a bit about why we were in this place.

                “I took my son to the high school for a football game and decided since I was this close, I’d check on . . . .”

                I didn’t catch on to the last part of the sentence. What I DID hear was a football game ON SATURDAY morning. When I said, “The little boys?” meaning the future Panther teams, he said, “No, it’s a high school mock game.”

                I must have done the melodramatic back-of-the-hand-against-the-forehead gesture. “I used to teach there. So glad I’m retired.”

                “I thought you looked familiar,” he said. “I was in your class.”

                “Who are you?” I asked.              

“T - - - H - - - - - -.”

I might have whooped, but I don’t remember.

“I remember your name. Was it at Eastside (Junior High)?

“Yeah, Eastside Cougars.”

That’s when I hugged him. And he returned it.

“Isn’t it great that there’s life after junior high?” I said, and he laughed heartily.

 

Darling, see that? Sometimes for big people, strangers turn out to have been younger folks that have grown up. It’s okay to hug them. You’ll understand some day.