Simple Things

    ‘YOUTH WOULD BE AN IDEAL STATE if it came a little later in life”    (H.H. Asquith)

     When I was a child (somewhere between the Dark Ages and the Vietnam war) there was a marvelous place where my friends and I went almost every day to play.  It was called O-U-T-S-I-D-E.  For those of you under 30, who may not be familiar with it, you can usually find it located right outside your house, and at the right time of year there is green stuff and blue stuff out there.  The green stuff is known as grass, and the blue stuff is the sky.  This was ALL we had to play with ~ there was no Play Station, no iPods, no video game you could hold in your hand.  In fact, we had no “buttons” to push, (except maybe our mothers’ ~ who would yell “Go Outside!!)

     Some of us played a game, called “Annie Over”.  It was played with a ball (not a football, not a basketball, nor baseball), just a plain old round ball of assorted sizes.  Children would stand on each side of a small lawn building (ours was the tool shed) and throw the ball over, yelling “Annie Over”.  NO, I don’t know why it was Annie, I guess it could have been Charlotte, or Kathy or Bob; but for us it was Annie.  The building was tall enough that we could not see over it, so we did not know at what point the ball would come flying over.  We didn’t even keep score as far as I remember (Geez, that was a stupid game now that I think about it!)

     We also played “”Cowboys and Indians”.  Seems like most of the time, the boys got to be the cowboys and the girls had to be the Indians. I don’t know exactly why that was, as our “guns” and “horses” were all equal (unless your stick was bigger than the other guys stick).  Some of the fancier cowboys got to ride the broomstick or mop handle, but only if you could get it out of the house without your mother seeing you.  We would run and scream and “shoot” each other, falling on the ground and rolling around in all sorts of horrible “death” scenes.  In the sense of fairplay, if you got shot you had to stay on the ground for a short time, but as the invisible bullets were hard to track, it was up to you whether you were “kilt” or just “winged”.

       We had bicycles and rollerskates.  The bicycles were a little less sophisticated than they are now, and the skates were the kind you had to clamp onto your shoes.  These were great fun, if you were lucky enough to live on a PAVED road.  The skates were useless if you lived on the gravel roads, but sometimes you could find a sidewalk or a paved driveway to skate on. 

     Those of you who enjoyed some of these activities, can also remember the skinned knees and rock bruises that came with it.  If children today went to school with the number of cuts, bruises, scrapes and bumps that were normal for us, the parents would be locked up!

      All those things aside, I would trade a year off my life to go back for one more game of “Annie Over” or another “shot” at my cousin, Larry.  Heck, I’d just like to have that kind of energy for one more day!

     “Annie Over” - coming your way!

      TO DISSIPATE is to spread thin or vanish.  According to the newest figures released by one of those groups that seem to know everything about statistics, Medicare will be out  of money by 2012.  I’m not quite old enough to be eligible for Medicare yet, and I’m not surprised that it won’t be there when I AM old enough,  but it does give me cause to wonder what will happen in the next 3 years.

     We should all concentrate on being more healthy ~ this is true, and fine for all the young, still flexible people. We would all benefit from exercise and eating right. Maybe I should start walking again.  Right, I’m going to put on my spandex shorts and jogging bra (stop right there, even I can’t picture that without laughing).  But dressed in my sweatshirt and sweatpants, by the time I got to the end of the driveway, I would be sucking up way more than my share of the air. (See a previous blog for explanation).

    And if I could make it all the way to the road, nobody in their right mind would take a chance on walking or running down that speedway. (Except the turkey that I mentioned yesterday).

     I could get a new tread mill, but the cost involved in treating the sprained knees and pulled muscles, would defeat the purpose of trying to run.  No, I think I’ll just have to eat smarter and pass on the excercise bit.

     Speaking of eating smarter ~ how much sense does it make that we can buy junk food at much cheaper prices than we can the fresh fruits and vegetables that we should be eating?  I’d grow my own vegetables, but until they create plants that will grow straight up, and at least four feet tall with the veggie at the top, I won’t be picking my own.  No way I’m getting down there in the dirt on hands and knees!  There’s nothing to hang on to so I can pull myself back up.  The last time I got on my knees at the grocery store to read the labels on some generic canned foods on the bottom shelf, it took me so long to get up, I had to pretend I was praying so other people would walk around me.

      You may have noticed that I wrote this whole blog today without mentioning the “big to-do” that is going on in Washington.  It’s like having a big pimple on the end of your nose, you can’t really ignore it because it’s right there no matter where you look, but if you try hard enough, you can overlook it until it fades away.

   “I used to care ~ but I take a pill for that now.”

     Most of you are familiar with the song: “Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, Where the deer and the antelope play,”  and so on.  How sad that the country that was written about exists no longer.

     “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.”  All you have to do is walk down any street in America today, and you can hear PLENTY of discouraging words. 

     Something is happening tomorrow that will be history-making; they keep telling us that.  But what part of this history will the future remember?  The part about a new president - or the part about millions of dollars being spent for a “big show”, when millions of people are out of work in this country, and that money could have been put to much better uses.  Time will tell on that one.

      I won’t be in Washington.  I don’t even plan to watch it on television.  I’m sure I’ll see it, whether I want to or not since it will be repeated over and over until we want to throw the TV out the door. (You know, that’s not a bad idea in my book)

      No, I’ll be here in my country home.  I don’t have any buffalo roaming around (wish I did).  All I have are turkey, deer, dove, and lots of buzzards.  (The buzzards make me nervous when they circle the house - do they know something that I don’t know?) 

     I find comfort in the simple things - like the turkeys.  I was driving down our country road the other day, and three turkeys stepped out of the woods to cross the road.  I slowed down for them since picking turkey feathers out of the grill is not a favorite past-time, and two of them trotted on across, but one did not.  He (I assume it was a HE- due to the attitude) stood in the middle of the road and looked at me.  As I inched forward, he turned and started running down the middle of the road.  As he ran, he turned his long neck to look back every few steps, to see if I was still coming.  This guy must have a television stashed in the woods somewhere, because I swear it reminded me of a recent movie.  Why is that?  When the victim is running away from the bad man in the car, they run right down the middle of the road!  Anyhow, the turkey finally decided that I was not going to leave, so he gave up and jumped into the bushes at the side of the road.  Life is interesting in the country.

     On a final note today, if you pray, pray for our country.  (Maybe if somebody had prayed for the buffalo, they would still be here today - and the buzzards wouldn’t!)  Yes, there is a hidden meaning there.

     Quote for the day: “TV is very educating - every time it is turned on,  I go in the other room and read a book.”  (Groucho Marx)

     “A  “NO SMOKING” section in a restaurant is about as dumb as a “NO PEEING” section in a swimming pool.”

      My husband and I went to a local restaurant for a nice not-cooked-by-me meal.  One of those where the service is great, the food is good, and you can find a quiet corner to enjoy your meal and talk over the crap that went on this past week.  I knew we might be in trouble when our waitress showed up with 3 “visible” things pierced (nose, eyebrow, and 4 on one ear) and a spiked hairdo.  Not that this would make her a bad waitress, but the piercings are usually accompanied by a certain “attitude”.  She was, however, a very good waitress ~ almost too good.

      She asked, “What would you like to drink?”

             Coffee and water, please.

      “With lemon?”

               No, not with either one, please.

      “On the coffee -  regular, decaf, french roast, hazelnut or chocolate truffle?”

             Just plain old coffee.

      “Cream?”

              Yes

       “Regular, half n’ half, or skim?”

              Regular cream please.

      “One or two?”

              One or two what?  I’m totally lost now!  Just bring me some coffee!

      She’s back a few minutes later:  “What would you like to order?”

              Ham & Eggs

      “How many eggs?”

              Two.

      “How would you like those? Scrambled, poached, over easy - medium - or hard?”

              Scrambled, please.

      “Would you like cheese with those eggs?”

              Yeah, why not. (To my husband -”If she asks me what kind of chicken I want the eggs to come from, I’m going to pull those earrings out thru her nose.”)

        “Now for the ham, you want country style, sugar cured, or turkey ham?”

              Country style.

      “Pancakes come with your meal, what kind of syrup would you like?  Maple, blueberry, strawberry, original, or sugar-free?”

               Oh my God!  I’ve lost my appetite.  Just bring me an order of toast!

      “White, wheat or sourdough?”

               ARGHHhhhhhhhhh————–!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      “WE ARE NOT OLD - We are just on over-time!”

      Hooray! Saturday!  When I was a kid, the best entertainment for Saturday was the matinee at the local movie theater.  My next door neighbor/good buddy, Shirley, and I would each get a dollar from our parents and run uptown (we didn’t have a downtown), all of three blocks away from our houses.  There we could spend a whole Saturday afternoon watching one or two movies, complete with popcorn, candy and a soda - all for $1.00.  It was a safe way to spend the day when you were about 10 years old.  If there were any perverts, I don’t think they attended the movies.

      We watched mostly Westerns, because that’s all the movie theater could afford to show.  We didn’t get a lot of first-run stuff, and there were lots of Westerns to choose from in 1959.  We did get the occasional “horror” show, which was our favorite.

      The one horror show I remember the most vividly was called “The Screaming Skull”.  The basic theme was that the skull of a murdered woman kept showing up to haunt her killer.  The crazy thing would come out of a fish pond behind the house and go flying through the air, screaming and following this guy.  Not a big deal compared to the technology in movies today, but to us it was thrilling.

      Thrilling enough that when we left the theater (in broad daylight) we ran home as fast as we could go, looking over our shoulders occasionally to make sure the skull wasn’t following us. 

      When we both got a few years older, like 16, we still went to the movies, but usually separately, and in cars - with guys.  The drive-in movies were the best!  (I don’t really remember any of the movies that were playing there - I might have been busy).

      The only thing that stands out in my mind about the drive-in movie was the night I think I saw a UFO.  My date and I were (watching the movie - wink, wink) when I saw a bright light come swooping up; it went behind the screen, and did not come out the other side. (This was before pot, so I’m pretty sure it was a real light).  Don’t tell me it was an airplane or a helicopter - it was MY  UFO.

      Today, I do not attend the movies.  I do well to afford the price of the ticket, and would have to hock my stereo, television, and the car, if I wanted to have both popcorn and a drink - forget the candy. 

        I know I have complained about Television before, but here it is again. 

     Ghost Hunters?  Ever watch that one?  These people are walking into a castle, or mansion, or jailhouse, etc. that “hasn’t been inhabited in 150 years”.   One brave (?) person will be tiptoeing into a dark room, whispering about how long it has been since anyone was here. So tell me, did the guy holding the camera not walk into the room before they did?  How else did the camera get there?  And they whisper!  If no one is there - then why are you whispering?  Then they say “Listen - do you hear that?”   No, I don’t - all I hear is you- whispering.

     How about the hunting shows?  There again with the whispering.  “See that big buck over there?”  Yes, I do, I think that’s the whole point of this show, isn’t it?  And we are expected to believe that the huge buck just wandered out of the woods in full view of all those hidden cameras and sound equipment and video technicians, who are all whispering!  Poor critter was penned up and enticed with food to go walking out into the clearing so some idiot with an expensive gun could shoot it! Sportsmanship!  Yeah!!

      The same thing goes for the Fishing shows.  We watch a professional fisherman go out in his multi-thousand dollar boat, using his multi-thousand dollar fishing equipment, to catch a huge fish so he can release it back into the lake.  And they expect us to believe that they sat around all day long with their camera equipment, floating around in the lake, just waiting for that big ole’ fish to come swimming by and take a chunk out of the special, pattented, life-like, one-of-a-kind, can’t miss, fishing lure. Yeah!  So who’s the guy down there in the water, taking the fish out of the submerged cage and hooking it up for the professional fisherman to “catch”?  Then they expect us to believe that the man actually caught 4 more identical fish in another spot within the next 15 minutes.  Sportsmanship!  Yeah!

      Oh, and we can’t forget “Hollywood Housewives” or “Atlanta Housewives”.  Exactly whose reality are we watching?   If I wanted to watch spoiled, conceited, brassy, big-mouthed, created-by-a-plastic-surgeon women, I would go to the nearest high-dollar Health Spa and sit in the lobby.  Five minutes worth of these women and I am screaming for my husband to change the channel, NOW!

      But they didn’t ask me to pick what they put on TV, and I know that everybody is entitled to their own opinion - no matter how stupid it is!

      I’m having one of those days - “If you can’t say anything good about someone, sit right here by me.”

     “Red meat is NOT bad for you.  Now blue-green meat, that’s bad for you.”

      I went bargain hunting today.  There’s a local grocery store that advertises deals on meat - 5 pkgs. for $19.99 and you can pick from anything that has the red sticker on it.  Hey, what a deal - or is it?  When you look at the label under the label and it says that the original price was $3.95 - who’s getting the deal here?  Last time I checked,  5 x $3.95 was $19.75.  Then why would I want to buy 4 more just so they can get my $20?  But you are getting a DEAL!

     I think it’s funny when they advertise 2/$2.00, on an item and the regular price is 99 cents each.  Oooohhhhh, what a DEAL! 

      I went to the local “ding & dent” store, to get a  bargain  on some canned goods.  They do actually have some good deals at times (if you don’t mind opening the can with a rock and a screwdriver, because the can opener won’t go around those beat up edges.) 

      My husband is a chocolate lover.  We once found a deal on some chocolate bars at a “ding & dent” store.  They weren’t dinged or dented, but they may have been a little out of date. (Is dark chocolate ever supposed to be white?)  Actually, it wasn’t white yet, it was more like a coffee-with-lots-of-cream color.  Lesson learned on bulk chocolate buying.

      The only bad thing about the “ding & dent” stores (at least the one in our area) is that you wonder if they EVER throw any of the stuff away.  I swear that some of those same packages of cake mix have been on the shelf since Betty Crocker was a teenager.  According to the hand-written sign you can now  “Buy one - get 2 free”!  Now is that an exciting enticement, or what?

      Oh, I did find a good deal on beans!  They have a package (won’t give the brand name, ’cause they might be insulted) of dry beans with a chili seasoning that is just awesommmmme!  The price was right - 25 cents each. I figure that beans don’t go bad, and chili seasoning shouldn’t either, so I’m good on beans until 2015.  So if Uncle Sam pulls the rug out from under any of my friends or relatives, I can keep them afloat (get it?-beans-gas-floating) by sharing my bargain shopping.

      My husband grew up on bargain shopping.  He said he was 10 years old before he found out that bananas were supposed to be yellow and you could eat them before they got those big brown spots on them.

      On a final note -  am I getting older, or is the grocery store playing some really great music?  I walk around singing along, until I get a weird look from my daughter. Oh well, embarassing my children is just one more thing I do to make life interesting.

      “I COOK WITH WINE, sometimes I even add it to the food.”

      Seriously, I am NOT the world’s best cook (not even the state’s, nor the county’s, nor the neighborhood’s) but now and then I get the urge to try to make something like Momma used to make. 

     The main problem with this is that Momma cooked by  pinches and dabs and smidgens.  One of her recipies even called for a half-eggshell full of milk.  Since eggs come in small, average, large and extra large - I have no idea what size egg she was using, so I have to guess at that one.

      I have tried at various times in the past to make Momma’s chicken-n’-dumplin’s.  On one occasion, I had the dough rolled out just right, nice and thin, and after I put the dumplin’s in the boiling broth, they totally disappeared.  All I ended up with was a nice, really thick, chicken soup.

      Another time, I gave it a try and decided to make the dumplin’s a little thicker so they wouldn’t disappear.  Well, they did not disappear.  They puffed up really nicely (and they kept on puffing up and up and up) until they had absorbed all the liquid in the pot.  The sad part was that I had no time to start all over, so I had to serve them for dinner.  I thought it might work out pretty well, until my husband asked why there were 3 bowls of mashed potatoes on the table.  Well, there weren’t - one was mashed potatoes, one was the dumplin’s and the third one was gravy.  

      Now I had also chosen to make biscuits for this fine meal.  I used Momma’s recipie of pinches, dashes and handfuls, and made some nicely brown biscuits.  I don’t know the secret, but there has to be one, because these biscuits were so hard we had to throw them out for the dog.  He thought it was a great game of catch and kept bringing them back to be thrown again.  Since he wouldn’t eat them, I put them in the bird feeder and three days later they were still up there, but covered with “bird disapproval”.   Thank God that somebody thought of putting biscuits in a can!  In fact, if it wasn’t for Swansons, Pillsbury, Sara Lee, and Kraft my family wouldn’t get to eat much. 

      Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray and Emeril, you have nothing to fear!  I don’t want your job!

      It has been pointed out to me that when I say “the simple things in life are free”, I should indicate what those simple things are.  Actually I thought that was a pretty catchy phrase to put under my “Simple Things” blog title, but now that I think about it, I might have to change it.

      As far as I know, AIR is still free, at least until the government figures out a way to tax us on it.  If they decide to do that, I suppose we will all have to start wearing a device that counts how many times a day you take in a breath (they can’t count how many times it goes out, because by then it isn’t air anymore). Then only the rich people would be allowed to get excited since we always breathe faster when we are excited.  (Guess that means the Viagra people will go out of business!)  And the health nuts wouldn’t be able to go jogging anymore because they would take in waaaaayy too much air. This would cause a decline in the sales of jogging clothing and running shoes.  Since most of those things are made in other countries, this would also affect their exports, and on and on it goes. Thankfully they haven’t discovered this method of taxation yet.

       I thought about what else is still free. Ummmm —–I’m thinking—-I’m thinking.  Oh yeah, hugs and kisses are still free, maybe.  The last time I hugged my grandson he whispered, “Grandma, you want to pay me now for those good grades I got?” And the last time I kissed my husband, he passed on his upper respiratory infection and I had to go to the doctor for some medication. (Doctor visit, pharmacy - nothing free there.)

      The water —- water used to be free.  Yes, you have to pay for tap water but country people once had well water.  You can’t get that anymore because the cost of drilling a well would be outrageous, and even if you drilled one, chances are the EPA would declare the water unfit for human consumption.  Have you SEEN the dirty lakes and rivers that your water comes from? The water that comes out of my tap smells like somebodys rotten old socks, but I have to PAY for it. 

      Years ago, you could go to a lake, river or creek and fish or swim for free.  Not any more!  If it’s not privately owned and you’ve got a deal with the owner, you can bet that the government owns it and you are going to pay to use it.  Think fishing license and parking permits.

      Sunshine!  Now that’s free!  Haven’t seen much of it lately, but I think it’s still up there. 

      And (you lucky people) MY OPINION — now that’s all free, all the time.  Oops — no, it’s not.  If you are reading this, then you have a computer with an internet connection and it costs you every month to use it.  Well–actually, my opinion costs ME as much as it does you — hey, that’s not right! 

      Okay, so here we are, back at AIR.   Please don’t get too excited because you have to practice not sucking up more than your share, just in case the government decides to start taxing it.

     On a final note, I want to pass along something I got in an email today.  “A german scientist from Argentina, after a lengthy study, discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse.

     DON’T TAKE YOUR HAND OFF NOW - IT’S TOO LATE!

     Oh, you have really hit my preachin’ button now!  I can understand why parents today want to know in advance what the sex of their child is going to be.  It sure makes things easier for decorating a nursery or buying clothes, but now some people want to actually have their unborn children manipulated into a specific sex and a specific set of characteristics. 

      Now think about this!  If all the children born in the next century are athletes and geniuses, who will those kids have to pick on?  If there are no more nerds or geeks born, and if everybody is going to be a perfect specimen of health, won’t this create a boring society?  If all the kids in your son’s or daughter’s highschool want to be football players and cheerleaders,  how will it be determined who gets to be on the team?  If they are all fantastic atheletes, then who’s going to sit on the sidelines?  The boys won’t be able to shove around the little nerdy guy and the girls won’t have anyone to snub in the hallways. 

      Wake up people!   We all need somebody who is fatter than us, or uglier than us, or dumber than us, or who can’t hit the broad side of the barn with a baseball. 

     If we start picking out what we want our kids to look like and what their abilities should be, what will there be to make life interesting?  Most of the fun in life is about the unknown.  If you knew your future mate would be perfect in every respect, then you wouldn’t have to spend any time dating or partying - just grab the first one that comes along because they’re all going to be just alike.  What kind of fun would that be?  If I know how the book is going to end, I’m not going to bother to read all the pages, so what did I get out of it?

      I have two lovely grandchildren (one of each) and I would not have changed any facet of their personalities, (well maybe I would have liked it if their tempers were a little less volatile).  But most of who they are is controlled by what we allow them to be, or by fate turning them in to whatever the  creator intended. 

      Would John Candy have been as good an actor if he had been skinny?

      Would Ray Charles have been as good a musician and singer if he was not blind?

      If your life had been perfect, what would you have become?  ( Please, one Paris Hilton is enough!)

      If God had wanted everybody to be perfect - he would have made them ALL left-handed.