Amazon at 3:30 a.m.: For All of Your Iceberg and Other Arctic Needs

Okay, so, I'm up at 3:30 a.m. with nothing much to do. Can't sleep. It could have something to do with the large meal that I ate at a local Mexican restaurant in Williamsburg, KY. It was delicious; perhaps even worth the insomnia now.

Even though I am wide awake, I don't want to awaken SBM, sleeping soundly in the bed next to mine, so I can't turn on the TV. Probably not much on at this hour anyway. Not that I want to watch, anyway. S, who is my favorite sister and my lifelong friend, has many wonderful qualities. None of them show up when she is awakened in the wee hours of the morning for no good reason. She requires a full eight hours of sleep every night and becomes beyond grumpy when she doesn't get it. I mean, REALLY grumpy.

So, I'm trying to just quietly surf the Internet, with the laptop facing away from her bed so that the light won't bother her. I'm glad that one of her wonderful qualities is that she sleeps quite soundly.

But, on to the real reason for this post. After checking FB (not many of my friends are on at this hour--not even the ones in far-flung time zones) and email, I still needed something to do. I don't feel like reading, so blog-surfing is out. So, I decided to do some window-shopping. Can't think of anything that I want or need to buy, so I just went to Amazon to look at random things.

Well, talk about random. This thing I found, right away, is TOTALLY and magnificently random. How does one even find an inflatable 14-foot inflatable iceberg/climbing wall/water slide? Well, a couple of weeks ago, I looked at grass trimmers on Amazon. You know how the site shows you items along the lines of the latest products you viewed? Well, there among all of the grass trimmers and accessories, was a $6,107.02 inflatable iceberg. Who knew that anyone even made such a thing, or that it could be had for such a reasonable price? I won't spend $6,000 on a car, but I sure would spend that much (plus the additional $107.02) to be the only person on my block with a large inflatable iceberg. (Not to mention climbing wall and water slide.)

I read the product description to see if it was for real. The jury is still out on that. The listing notes, "Only one in stock. More coming soon!" Well, guys, I'm guessing that you're not going to need to start cranking these things out at high volume any time soon. Although I'm sure that there are a few penguins who might be wanting to order fake icebergs in light of what global climate change is doing to their habitat. (I think that they would especially enjoy the water slide, though I'm not sure that the climbing wall would be that useful to them.)

I read all of the reviews, all of which were bogus but a lot of fun to read.

So, with no further ado, I give you...the 14-foot inflatable iceberg (slash climbing wall slash water slide). Just in case you are feeling wide awake at a ridiculous hour of the morning and need something to do.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ZBVGY4/ref=s9_simh_gw_p86_d8_i3?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=0NCAWGXREY2T6YNZZJ2R&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200422&pf_rd_i=507846

Car-Shopping Is Fun!

Car-shopping is fun! And sometimes incomprehensible!

For example, let's take a look at this random listing from craigslist:

1968 american rambler - $2500

very original 4dr 6 cly 3 speed with over drive white blue int have original papers int is great dash perfect trunk great call will text pic 865 315 4007 it has 59242 real miles

Okay, just forget the fact that the guy doesn't understand the use of punctuation (or got one of those keyboards that doesn't have any punctuation keys on it). 

We are, of course, to understand the abbreviations, as any good reader of classifieds should. Even when they're misspelled so that it looks like the car has 6 clays, not cylinders, but other than that, the standard shorthand is used.

I am glad to know that the white/blue interior looks great, that the dashboard is perfect, and that the trunk is great (I would have preferred to hear that the trunk was wonderful, or fabulous, or capacious, though that might have been giving away too much info). I wonder if the car runs?

My favorite turn of phrase is, "Very original." I'm glad it's not one of those "sort of originals." 

That reminds me of the name of the repair shop that I recently helped my friend take her Jeep to. It's called Just Jeeps & More. Do they know what "Just" means?

Next fave in the ad is the last few words, "59242 real miles." That's pretty profound, if you think about it. How many of us know how many *real* miles we've covered? Of course, it reminds me of that beautifully written short story by Raymond Carver, "Are These Actual Miles?"

You might be able to see why, now, it has been close to two months, and I still haven't found a replacement for my wrecked Miata. It takes awhile to thoroughly digest these ads.

Southern Exposure

A visiting pastor from Ohio told this story to our congregation of East Tennessee Presbyterians. The pastor, who found Southern ways strange and accents almost incomprehensible, had found himself transplanted to Tennessee, and he often used examples of his confusion over all things Southern as illustrations in his sermons. He sometimes referred to the place where he’d found himself as the “Deep South.” 

Finally, after one of many such references had been made from the pulpit, an old man from Mississippi who had been transplanted to East Tennessee himself to live with his daughter and her family (and apparently was none too happy about it), went to the pastor after the day’s service. 

The Mississippian said to the pastor, “Suh, you often refer to Tennessee as the Deep South. Tennessee is not the Deep South. Tennessee is not the South.  Tennessee is not even the beginning of the South. Suh, Tennessee is the bottom of the Nawth!”

To read more on this story, go here: http://longinvolvedstories.blogspot.com/2013/02/where-is-south-anyway.html

I Want That Thing That Is Not Really That Thing

I pulled up to the Starbucks drive-through window and ordered a salted caramel hot chocolate.

Long silence.

Then I realized that that might have just been a holiday flavor, so I asked if that was the case.

SB Barista: No. We still have it. Just without the salt.

KB: You have the salted caramel without the salt?

SB: Yes. Well, no. We have the drink. But it was a holiday flavor [Ah!]. But we’re out of the salt crystals that go on top.

KB: Ooooookkkkay.

SB: The caramel hot chocolate is the same drink, just without the salt.

KB: Okay. I’ll have that then.

SB: It’s the same drink once you get past the caramel topping and the whipped cream.

KB: Got it. I’ll have that.

***

This reminds me of one of my and my sister’s favorite stories about our dad. Dad had a wit that was as dry as the Sahara, and was delivered with such flat affect that almost no one could tell for sure when he was joking and when he was serious. (This combination of humor and poker face continued to the end of his life, in spite of his dementia, which threw off many a nurse involved in his care. They would mistake his humor for confusion.)

Oh, before I embark on the story of Daddy Mac’s hammer, I have to give the back story that my maternal grandfather–dad’s father-in-law–known to all as “Daddy Mac” was a revered and larger-than-life character in our family. His sons-in-law loved him as dearly as his three daughters did, and though Daddy Mac had died before most of us grandkids were born, our childhood was so rife with stories about the man–his boyhood, his humor, and his adages (which were many) that we felt as if we’d known him. He was a venerable person in our eyes.

Now, cut to many years later. My sister and I, in our midteens, were hanging out in the kitchen, which was a sure sign that there was nothing that had to be done there, as we had a gift for making ourselves scarce when there was work to be done, particularly in the kitchen.

Dad came into the kitchen from the garage (his workshop), which was just off the kitchen. He came through, armed with the basic tools needed to do some sort of simple DIY project somewhere in the house. We spoke to him, and, for some reason, he held up his hammer, and he said, “Have I ever told you that this was Daddy Mac’s hammer?”

We were properly impressed with this bit of information and expressed an appropriate amount of awe and respect. It was certainly believable, as the hammer was really quite ancient-looking, and I couldn’t remember his having had any other hammer in my lifetime. The handle, which had obviously started out as a blonde, was now burnished to a rich auburn by much use and “elbow grease.”

Dad went on to tell us that Daddy Mac had given him (the oldest of the sons-in-law, who had known Daddy Mac the longest) many of his tools before he died, this being one of them. Well, as far as Sis and I were concerned, this made all of dad’s tools family heirlooms, and, again, we expressed our appreciation of this info. Dad then began to walk past us, explaining, almost as if to himself, “Well, of course, I had to replace the handle after it split, and then I replace the head when one of the claws broke off. But it’s Daddy Mac’s hammer all the way.”

By this time, he was out of the kitchen, leaving my sister and me looking at each other quizzically until his words sank in, and we were left, as my dad used to say, “to ponder the advisability of it all.”  

"Is Mary Magdalene in the Office?"

I'm making a lot of phone calls at work right now, to update our senior service directory. It's hard to get hold of the people I need to talk to during the holidays, as so many people are out of the office.

Yesterday, I called a local branch of the YWCA to check their info. The woman who answered the phone said that the person I needed to talk to was out of the office till after New Year's Day. She then said, “You could talk to Mary Magdalene at the main office.”

“Pardon me? Mary Magdalene?”

“Yes. Mary Magdalene,” she repeated with supreme confidence. And she gave me the number for the main office.

I knew that couldn't be the woman's name, so with great trepidation, I called the main YWCA office and asked for Mary Magdalene. The woman who answered reacted with obvious disbelief, as if I were making a crank call. “Mary Magdalene?” I could hear the suspicious sneer in her voice. I couldn't blame her. If I'd gotten a call like this, I would have suspected that the caller was trying to pull one over on me, too. She was probably imagining a young teen holding the phone, surrounded by a group of snickering children, hands clapped over their mouths to hide their laughter. I had to draw myself up and put on my most professional yet sympathetic voice. “Yes. I doubt that's her actual name, but that's who I was told to ask for.” She hardly listened to my attempts to salvage my self-respect.

“I think you mean Mary Gail Mullin.” I'm sure she thought that I was an idiot. That call was probably her laugh of the day, shared many times with her co-workers. I know it was mine.

It's Just What I Do

I tell long, involved stories. Always have. One of my brothers once said of me, when I was a teenager, "Kathy is the only person I know who can tell the plot of a half-hour sitcom in an hour and a half." I remember that remark because it was (and is) so true.

Delivered verbally, my stories are well received by friends and family. They get my gestures, body language, delivery, and comedic timing. Yes, I'll say it, I am quite a funny person. In person. I don't know that that translates well to the blog world because it makes my stories long. And involved. It may just be too much for the "give it to me in 15 seconds" world that we live in now.

But, for those who have the patience and the attention span, I will point you toward my new blog, "Long, Involved Stories." I've had a description and link to it in the right-hand sidebar of this blog for a couple of months now. I didn't want to announce it with a big media event or anything like that, so I figured that the link was enough. But the two people who have actually been reading my blog (and, yes, they're related to me) have chastised me for not making a bigger splash with it. I don't have the time, energy, or expertise to do the stuff that blogspot.com recommends to get one's blog noticed, so I have a pretty low readership for both of my blogs. That's okay with me. But my family said that I should at least point out in *this* blog that the other blog exists so that people who read this blog with interest and enthusiasm (ha!) will know that there's now "more of me to love." Oh, my!

I'm pleased with the stories I've posted on Long, Involved Stories, but I will tell you now that the blog is aptly named. It is not for the attention deficit or faint of heart. If you're interested, by all means, check it out: http://longinvolvedstories.blogspot.com

How to Roast a Small Pumpkin

Don't.

The end.

HaHaHahahahahaHahaHaha... (hysterical, edge-of-sanity laughter continues for quite awhile).

I like roasted veggies and fruits. I've roasted just about everything that can be roasted, to mostly good results (except for the watermelon incident. Who knew?).

So when I saw the little pumpkin pie pumpkins at Trader Joe's, they seemed like a natural for roasting. Sturdy, not real watery, and they can be prepared either savory or sweet. Sounded good. I bought two. Mind you, these were not the little decorative gourds that look like little bitty pumpkins. These were pumpkins for cooking. The big, jack-o-lantern pumpkins can be cooked, too, but they can be a little tough. These little pumpkins, though, are supposed to be excellent for cooking. I've got a checkered past when it comes to cooking, so, just to be sure, I asked the cashier, and she confirmed that these were cooking pumpkins. When I got home, I called my aunt, a veteran in the kitchen, and she agreed that I had a great idea in roasting these little pumpkins.

However, I was still a little nervous about this new endeavor, so I put it off for a week or two. When I went to do the deed, one of the little pumpkins had rotted and completely collapsed. Ewwww. The other was just fine, though. Well, I waited another week, checking the remaining pumpkin daily for firmness, and it was always fine.

So tonight I finally set out to roast this little pumpkin. It was about maybe eight inches in diameter. I may have never roasted a pumpkin before, but I have carved many a Halloween jack-o-lantern, so I got a good knife, and set to work. I sawed, I attempted to stab, I hacked, all to no avail. The shell on this thing was like iron.

I went to the Internet. Can this, in fact, be done? I asked it. Yep. I went to a site that showed the pumpkin cut into rings--horizontally--which hadn't occurred to me before. The recipe said “Prep time: 10 minutes.” I went back and reapplied myself to that pumpkin with a new vigor. But my family has a long, dark tradition of horrible accidents involving kitchen knives, and I became truly fearful that I was going to injure myself. I went back to the Internet. Did it mention anything about a chainsaw? About softening the pumpkin by soaking it in lye for 24 hours first? No. It merely said, “Cut pumpkin into rings of about one inch thickness....” It might just as well have said to cut through a coconut. Using only a sharp rock and your teeth. This pumpkin was impossible. I had managed to penetrate it with two one-inch stab wounds, which gave me the idea that, now that I'd managed to vent the pumpkin, I could try roasting it whole for awhile to soften it. At least, with those two narrow cuts in it, it wouldn't (I hoped) explode in the oven, which I set on 450 and inserted the pumpkin into for a good 45 minutes.

After letting it cool for quite awhile, I carved the stem out so that I could scoop out the steaming insides. This was much easier done this time, so I had great hopes that I had outsmarted this simple gourd.

But no. When I went to trim it into one-inch-thick rings, I once again had to saw and saw—so vigorously that I again could envision one slip of the knife taking me down a notch on the evolutionary scale. Again, I chopped, I hacked, I stabbed and cut and sliced. The inside was soft enough, but the outer shell was like a clam shell. Ten minutes! Ha! After almost 30 minutes, I was finally done, soaked in sweat and covered with pumpkin slime. I sopped up water, stray seeds, and blood. My back was killing me, but I took the time to sprinkle some herbs and spices on my mangled bits of pumpkin, put the whole mess into the oven, and then went to crash on the couch while it roasted.

I once again let it cool after it was well roasted. I just ate some. It has to be eaten like oysters on the half shell, scooped out of its hard little shell “cups” with the teeth. I wish I could say that it is well worth the struggle. It's okay, but it could be improved upon. If I can work up the strength to do it again.