Got Bread?
Just about the time that I think that I have the whole making-bread-from-scratch thing down pat, I have a week like this past week. I made hamburger buns. Things were going along just great until I set the dough to rise the first time. There, right next to my Kitchenaid mixer, was the three tablespoons of sugar that were supposed to go into the recipe. Dang. So I text my brother and asked, If I forgot to put sugar in my hamburger bun dough, will it affect only the taste, or will it affect the rise and baking? I held my breath, and his reply came back, saying It will affect everything. Well, darn. I baked them anyway, and he was right. They didn’t get very brown in the oven, and they were kind of flat little disks. Yesterday afternoon, I attempted to make hot dog buns. I think I did everything I should have, but I just couldn’t get the yeast to bloom more than just a tad. I tried twice with the same result. Thank goodness Basha’s is close by, because they came to my rescue both times.

Birdless
I keep waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Quail to decide to lay their eggs in my flower pot as they did last year. Two quails walk by my fence several times a day, and I swear they take a peak at my geranium plant. Maybe that’s just my hopeful thinking. But I peeked as late as yesterday evening, and there are no eggs as of yet. Perhaps they are still house hunting.

This…..is American Idol
I’m finally getting caught up in American Idol. It started out slow for me this year for some reason. Though I don’t enjoy it quite as much as The Voice, I still like to hear the people sing, and it’s the only way I keep up at all in current music. I think that Luke Bryan, Katy Perry, and Lionel Ritchie blend together more this year than ever before. And for the first time, they actually seem to provide some constructive criticism. I rarely get a chance to watch it on Sunday night for reason, so I’m putting my Hulu streaming to use, both for that, and for The Equalizer.

Yippee-I-O-Ki-Ya
One of the best ways that I can keep up on what’s happening with my grandkids is via Instagram. Despite the fact that none of them post very often, I love it when they do. Yesterday, Adelaide posted a picture of herself doing western dancing at a club near their dorm that provides country music and dancing on Sunday nights. The girl was wearing cutoffs and cowboy boots. Yee haw! My own Daisy Duke.

Ciao.

The days are ticking by as we get closer to our halfway-point-trip-back-home-to-Denver. Since we decided to spend winters in AZ (as opposed to traveling back and forth between Denver and Phoenix as we did when we first purchased Club 9109), we have always returned for a few days in March to relieve my homesickness for my Denver family and make sure our house hasn’t burned to the ground. To be honest, it’s more of the former as I’m pretty sure our daughter-in-law would have mentioned it to us if she had arrived one day to water our plants and found a pile of smoldering rubble.

Stranger things have happened, however. It was during our Denver trip home in 2020 that I first realized the seriousness of the COVID-19 situation (which was then still called Coronavirus). I recall being at a restaurant with three of our granddaughters and saying, “Some people say they should close the schools. Have you ever heard of anything more ridiculous?” Addie replied, “Nana, I’m pretty sure when we go to school on Monday, they will announce they are closing schools. That’s what we were told by our teachers.”

Wait, what? I was living proof that denial is not just a river in Egypt.

We will fly home on March 30th and fly back on April 4th. Quick trip. In addition to checking for loose electrical wiring, we will also be watching a Middle School play in which our granddaughter Kaiya performs and our granddaughter Mylee participates on the tech team.

Speaking of Mylee, every once in a while I will send her a joke or riddle. I can never stump her, but I thought I’d give it another try.

Me: How many months have 28 days?

Mylee: 1, February

Me: Ha. I finally got you. The answer is ALL OF THEM.

Mylee: February has 28 days exactly, so technically both answers are correct.

Me: Let me win, just this once.

Mylee: Oh, okay.

If a text could sound grudging, her last one did.

In preparation for the trip, I got my first pedicure since my foot surgery. My doctor had told me I could get a pedicure right away after he saw me the last time, but I felt like my foot was too yucky-looking and swollen at that time. The incision is more healed, though my foot is still swollen. Still, my toenails were begging to be trimmed and my heels were begging to be softened. I warned the technician before she started that my foot was recovering from surgery. She was very nice, though heaven only knows what she was saying to her coworker in Vietnamese.

One last thing about going back to Denver: We both miss our Honda CRV. I’m pretty sure Bill misses it more than he would ever miss me.

“A horse is a horse, of course, of course, and no one can talk to a horse, of course.” 

There were a lot of bad things about the 1950s and the 1960s. Segregation was condoned, both legally and emotionally. The Cold War reminded people that the world was just a power play away from someone pushing a button that could annihilate entire countries. Polio was a genuine threat and people around the world, whether rich or poor, were gripped in fear whenever they or one of their children ran a fever. Being gay was against the law.

Still, our memories tell us that the mid-20th Century was a simpler time. If you don’t want to take my word for it, Baby Boomers, think about the television sitcoms that were popular when you were a tike laying in front of your parents’ television soaking in radiation that was almost certainly being emitted from the television tubes. The TV consoles were huge pieces of furniture, but the screens were the size of iPads.

Bill and I were driving somewhere the other day, and we passed a group of people on horseback (because we live in the WILD WILD WEST). Suddenly Bill said, “Hello Willlllbur,” in a funny voice. I immediately knew to what he referred. The ridiculous but compulsively watchable sitcom Mr. Ed appeared on CBS in 1961, and ran for six seasons. SIX SEASONS.

You remember Mr. Ed. He was the palomino horse owned by dorky Wilbur Post who suddenly started talking one day. No one knows why. The reason is never explained. The one who came the closest to an explanation was Mr. Ed himself, who said, “Wilbur, this is bigger than us.”

I was 8 years old when Mr. Ed began appearing on CBS. I remember being amazed that the producers of the show could get Mr. Ed to move his mouth as though he was really talking. Apparently, in the beginning, strong thread was used to move the horse’s lips. Eventually, Bamboo Harvester (which was Mr. Ed’s actual name) learned to move his lips when someone touched his hoof. It seems that the television executives were too busy trying to figure out if anyone would believe two men would drive up and down Route 66 solving mysteries to worry about animal abuse. Nowadays the animation would be amazing, but I thought Mr. Eds’ mouth moving was in itself amazing. As I said, simpler times.

Not only did I love the mid-20th Century sitcoms, but I remember the words to many of the opening songs.

Green Acres is the place to be
Farm living is the life for me.
Land spreading out so far and wide,
Keep Manhattan and give me that countryside.

Come and listen to my story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
And then one day he was shootin’ at some food,
And up through the ground come a-bubblin’ crude.

They’re creepy and their kooky
Mysterious and spooky
They’re altogether ooky
The Addams Family.

I didn’t have to look up any of those lyrics. I have them memorized. The truth is, I could go on and on, but it would only remind me of the space in my brain being used to remember the lyrics to old sitcoms rather than versus of the Bible.

I took piano lessons for five years as a kid. I started when I was 7 years old, and finally gave up the ghost when I was 12. I don’t know if my mother got tired of hearing me “find the lost chord” or if I finally convinced her that I totally lacked an ounce of talent. Maybe it was because I discovered I was more interested in boys and shopping than I was in practicing piano.

I took lessons from one of the best piano teachers in Nebraska, likely the very best in our small community. Her name was Isabelle. She was unmarried, someone we would very unpolitically correctly call a spinster in those days. She had brown hair that she wore in a pageboy style, and glasses that sat on the bridge of her nose. She had attended a prestigious music school in St. Louis (which for this Nebraska girl might have been as good as in Paris). Her last name was the same as my mother’s maiden name, and we were purportedly related somehow. Second cousins was what I was always told. Now that I’m older, I’m pretty sure it was more distant than that, perhaps one of those once- or twice-removed thingys.

Isabelle’s studio was across the street from Dad and Mom’s bakery, right next to the movie theater. You would enter in a door sort of hidden from the street, and would find yourself in a foyer with stairs leading up to her studio. The studio contained two pianos — the one at which she gave her lessons and the one at which we performed our recital performances. She might have allowed those with considerably much more talent than I use that fancier piano during lessons. Why waste the precision tuning on my banging on the keys?

I hated recitals. We were required to memorize our pieces of music. Before every performance, I sweated bullets worrying that I would forget my piece of music, despite the fact that Mother made me practice every single solitary afternoon for a half hour. I pounded the keys with one ear waiting to hear the time ding when I could run outside and play with my friends. I am living proof that worrying really is a waste of time most of the time, because I couldn’t tell you whether or not I ever forgot a piece of music. What I can tell you is that my mom and dad were always present at the recitals, as were my grandparents, dressed in their church clothes.

I credit Isabelle with my knowledge and appreciation of classical music, such that it is. We rarely played popular music; instead, we played Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven. Even today, when I hear someone playing Fur Elise, it takes me right back to that music studio.

By the way, I wasn’t the only one who learned to play piano. Bec led the way, also taking instructions from Isabelle. She always had considerably more talent than me, and I would bet she would attribute the fact that she originally majored in music in college to Isabelle’s influence. Jen, too, took lessons, but not from Isabelle. She was able to play those popular songs for which I yearned.

While it’s been years since I’ve played piano (despite the fact that it was one of the first things I insisted we buy when we bought our Denver house), Bec has never stopped. In fact, she plays every day for a certain amount of time. She loves music, and she loves playing the piano. She also believes that playing music helps keep her brain sharp. I’m sure it does.

Maybe when I return to Denver, I will brush the Cheeto crumbs from the piano keys that were left by my grands and see what I can remember.

From the time Jen and Winston got to AZ in January, people kept telling Jen that he was gaining weight. In particular, Jen’s daughter Maggie was convinced that Winston needed less food and more exercise. Unfortunately, Jen was unable to take him for many walks because she had just had her knee replaced.

As for me, I kept assuring Winston that he wasn’t overweight; instead, he was just very furry because he hadn’t gotten groomed prior to coming to AZ. No one took me seriously. Yesterday, Winston was finally groomed, and Jen sent me this picture…..

Poor Bud. He’s as skinny as can be. Two words: Body Shaming.

Have a great weekend.

My niece Jessie and her boyfriend Rob announced Monday that they had closed on the purchase of a new home. About two years ago, Jessika Kristine (yes, my namesake, and if I knew how to insert the humble emoji, I would do so) and Rob moved to Denver from AZ. Rob, got a new job, and Jessie loves him enough to follow him to the Mile High City. Up until now, they have rented a cute house in Littleton. However, with Denver area house prices rising faster than a cheetah with its butt on fire, and with the threat of rising interest rates looming, they decided to make the Big Move.

They are happy that they were able to find a house near where they currently live, because they love that area. It’s no wonder, since it’s a beautiful part of the metro area, close to lakes on which to kayak, trails on which to hike, and open space in which to camp.

As it happens, by the way, none of those things would draw me in the least to an area to live. I’m more the close-to-grocery-stores-and-interstates kind of gal. But that’s why Denver neighborhoods run the gamut from the mountains to the plains (with many grocery stores and several interstate highways in between).

Her excitement made me recall the way I felt when I bought my first house. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t my first house, but my second, that made me very happy. My first house was a condominium that I purchased with my first husband. Frankly, though we, too, were excited to buy that property, the bad memories in that house outweigh the good.

But the house that I purchased after our divorce (and, to be fair, couldn’t have done without my ex-husband’s assistance) is the house that I loved. It’s the house that holds nothing but good memories. It was in that house where I learned to set aside my sadness about the divorce and learn to be independent. The little brick house (and it really was little, just under 1,200 square feet) had two bedrooms and one bath, just the perfect size for my son and me. There was a big kitchen and a big living/dining room combination. Our bedrooms had hardwood floors, which I didn’t even realize were a thing at that point.

Court’s school and our church were a mere half-block away, so he could walk to school every morning and walk home in the afternoon. Our one-car garage was all we needed for my second independent purchase — a new Chevy 4-door sedan. With a stick shift because it was cheaper. We shoveled our own sidewalk, I took care of the lawn (which didn’t have a sprinkler system, I put up lights at Christmastime by myself.

When I sold that house following my marriage to Bill, I literally cried at the closing. Sobbing, with real tears running down my cheeks and snot coming out of my nose. While I love both of my current houses, and have such good memories in them as well, I don’t think I will cry in the same way, because these houses don’t represent the same thing that our little house repesented.

To Jessie and Rob: MAZEL TOV. Though I’m not Jewish, there is not a better way to express my happiness for them.

Yesterday I could see some of the veins in my left foot. It was thrilling. It might not seem exciting to you, but I hadn’t seen left foot veins in two months. First there was the cast and then there was the boot. When I finally was able to give the boot the boot (ha, did you see how I did that?), my foot continued to be so swollen that it looked like a sausage ready to burst out of its casing. When I would put on a shoe, by time I could once again take it off the straps of the shoe were imbedded in my foot. But overnight, the swelling had gone down measurably (if you count being able to see veins as a measurement).

Because I was feeling so foxy, I decided I would take a trip to the grocery store. An actual trip into the store where I could pick out my own bananas. There is a Kroger store (called Fry’s here in AZ) down the street about three miles from us. Between our home in pretty Sonoran Village II and the grocery store lies an area of houses whose inhabitants seem to make their living having garage sales. I’m not being mean. They really do. It might even be a lucrative endeavor. I don’t know, having never even had a single garage sale. But the items that litter their yards — items that haven’t sold or are yet to be up for sale, including washing machines, faded children’s toys, and auto parts — certainly don’t add a lot to the ambiance of our neighborhood. Still, I pray for these people every day.

I like this particular Fry’s, despite the fact that several years ago, Bill pointed out to me that one of the many young people that seemed to hang out in front of the store at that time had a face that was covered with red paint. I naively asked him why her face was red, and he explained huffing to me. Ew. Just ew. I might suggest at least a different shade of paint.

I’m happy to say that Fry’s has cleaned up the store. There are no longer huffers (or any other kind of apparent drug users) hanging out in front of the store. In fact, the store is filled with old people like me, cheerfully blocking aisles with their carts as they try to remember if the Campbell’s tomato soup was 15 cents cheaper at Safeway.

As for me, I was looking for apple juice to use in smoothies that I plan on making for Bill and me over the next few days. I must have had a confused look on my face, because one of the stocking clerks walked up to me and asked if he could help me find something. His question caught me off guard, first, because nobody seeks out customers to help them these days; and second, because he had no teeth. Well, that’s not entirely true. He was missing what I consider essential upper and lower teeth in the front of his mouth. Important for eating corn on the cob. The remainder of his teeth seemed to be predominantly black.

It reminded me how difficult it is to find employees these days. Don’t get me wrong. The man was very helpful. Well, mostly helpful, because he actually was unable to find the juice. Luckily, we ran into an employee who both knew where the juice was and had teeth. The complete package. Nevertheless, I am happy that this man, who likely wouldn’t have been hired to work with the public in a grocery store prior to COVID 19, had found a job. And now he knows the juice is on Aisle 10.

By time I completed my shopping and returned home, I could no longer see veins in my foot, which also hurt like hell. Baby steps.

And here’s to hoping that Kroger offers a dental plan.