Author Archives: kzmclain

Guest Post: Pizza Day

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This guest post was originally run on March 27, 2015. though she is no longer a student, and, in fact, is a real-life engineer,  I believe her opinion about pizza remains the same.

I think I have indicated in the past that my brother David wholeheartedly believes that I am making a grave error by having Friday be a day that I review a book. Instead, he insists Friday is Pizza Day and I should therefore be reviewing pizza restaurants instead of books on Fridays. In fact, I have made it perfectly clear that I — a pizza lover married to a pizza lover — have nothing against pizza or Pizza Day. I often eat pizza on Fridays. I just enjoy my book reviews.

Not to be dissuaded, he called in reserves — his middle daughter — my niece and namesake — Jessika Kristine. You would think being named after me would make her a bit more understanding, but apparently love for pizza knows no bounds. 

Therefore, I acquiesced and am giving her her day in court, so to speak. Food Court, at any rate.

Jessie is an environmental engineering student at the University of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff.

I must admit, she makes a compelling argument…..

Pizza Day

By Jessie Gloor

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The weekend started off not unlike any other: me working on some project with some grand plans of maybe drinking too much. And then I got a call from my dad that would change the course of my life forever. Okay, maybe not my life, but certainly my weekend. And maybe not forever. Maybe just for the weekend.

“Do you think that Friday is Pizza Day?” he asked me. “Definitely,” I said. “It’s a fact. The Aquabats wrote an entire song about it.”

jessies band

…and they are totally trustworthy people.

Before I get any more in to this, you should know that this question was inspired by the fact that my aunt typically reserves her Friday blog posts for book reviews. Crazy, right? Who wants to read books when there’s so much pizza to be had in the world? My father suggested that she should, at the absolute minimum, also review a pizza place and stick that at the very end of her blog post. Is that too much to ask? A shout out to pizza? After everything pizza has done for her?

But how could I get her to throw out whatever book she was reading and replace it with a hot, glorious slice of pizza? My aunt is, after all, a well-educated pizza skeptic who would need some serious convincing.

I set out to navigate the dangerous waters that are the Bashas’ grocery store (which is where I work) to collect some hard data.

jessies scientific documentation

This was super-serious stuff, guys.

This highly organized and completely scientific tally sheet that was definitely not written on a piece of receipt paper represents the amount of frozen pizzas bought on Friday compared to Saturday.

Personally, I visualize things best when they are presented to me graphically, so here you go.

bar graph

Figure 1: Friday is definitely Pizza Day.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I wanted to mathematically prove my thesis that Friday is indeed Pizza Day. Please view my findings below.

jessies calculations

And this isn’t COMPLETELY made up, either.

If you’d like, you can take a moment to imagine a montage of me spending hours after hours on the math, frustrated, falling asleep at my desk, and a concerned friend trying to get me to eat something, probably pizza. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

As my final thought, I would like to offer a one-paragraph review of my favorite pizza place as a template for my aunt (who is surely persuaded by now). Ahem. Deep breath, here it goes:

My favorite day to ride my bike to school is Friday. It’s my favorite day because I allow myself the detour that takes me in front of Fratelli’s Pizza. The smell is in the air. Oh yes, they are firing up the stone-deck oven. I’ll see you later, Fratelli’s pizza, I say with a thumbs up. Thankfully, the only class I have on Fridays is fluid mechanics, and we always, ALWAYS have a quiz. I spend hours studying extra hard for these quizzes so I can finish and get out of Dodge with enough time to make it back to the pizza place right when it opens for lunch. Fratelli Fridays, that’s what my climbing partner and I call our weekly gatherings here. Fratelli’s has a “slice of the week” each week. Past weeks include “The Dude” which is ranch, chicken, bacon, and kettle chips, or “The Elmo”, tomato, zucchini, garlic, and feta cheese. My personal favorite is The Flagstaff, under which the description reads: “the hippies keep ordering this, so we put it on the menu!” Basil pesto, sun dried tomato, mozzarella, artichoke heart, ricotta, and garlic.” I’m going to go ahead and leave it at that. I could go on about the atmosphere of the place, the friendliness and good-humor of the staff, and maybe throw in a slightly irritated comment about how the food never seems to come out fast enough. But then I would follow it with the observation that good food rarely does. I’d rather leave the audience with the thought of a hot slice of The Flagstaff. Leave em’ with their stomachs rumbling and their mouths watering, that’s what I always say.

Thursday Thoughts

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Weather Event
The so-called weather event that the weather forecasters have been predicting began Tuesday night. It rained all night and into the morning. Yesterday it rained on and off most of the day, negating our eagerness to attend the spring training baseball game at Salt River Field, Rockies V. White Sox. I simply don’t like baseball well enough to sit in the rain. The rain was predicted to continue through Wednesday night into today. Here is a photo of the side of our house yesterday afternoon…..

Come and Go
As you know, Jen and Winston returned to Fort Collins this past Saturday. They have settled in quite well it appears. Winston didn’t even smile at me when they Facetimed the other day. Apparently I’m dead to him. I, on the other hand, was sad to see this toy that he left behind…..

I felt sort of like when my brother or sister come to visit, and I find something of theirs. Although I didn’t hold the toy fox up to my nose to smell it.

Out With the Cold, In With the New
Despite the rain and cooler temperatures, Bill and I are deciding that cold weather clothing is unnecessary in AZ from here on until we return to Denver in May. So I’m taking home all of the winter sweaters I brought in December…..

I’m happy to say I barely wore them this year.

Nana’s Whimsies
Between tomorrow and Wednesday, I will be publishing past blog posts, which will allow me to spend as much time as I can with family. Oh, and with doctors. Sigh. Nana’s Whimsies will begin again on Thursday, March 19.

Weather or Not

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First I will give you some good news. Today’s blog post has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH TOILET PAPER. I’m sure you were all ready to push the DELETE button if I was able to dig one more story out of the panic buying of toilet paper.

Instead, I’m going to talk about my next favorite topic: the weather.

Weather is very important to the citizens of the Phoenix metro area. I speculate that this obsession with weather stems from the fact that most of the days of the year include blue skies and sunshine. It’s true that for much of the year, people see the blue skies and sunshine from their windows because it’s too dang hot to go outside. This time of year, however, the weather is perfect. Blue skies and sunshine and temperatures in the high 70s or low 80s.

Except when it rains. The television meteorologists (even if they’re just pretty young women barely out of college wearing high heels and cocktail dresses and tossing their hair a lot) get very excited when they can report that rain is in the forecast. The weather is changing, they will say, barely able to hide the glee in their voices.

And Arizonans are excited as well. Jen’s son-in-law likes to stand at the bottom of his driveway and watch the palm tree fronds blow in the wind as the weather front moves in. I’m pretty sure I’ve overheard him saying, “A-yep, thars something blowin’ in fer shure.” Weather phenomenon excitement makes everyone sound like they’re from the heart of Appalachia.

As for me, weather changes are disheartening. I like my weather to be predictable: 75 degrees and clear skies. That’s why I bought a house in AZ. I take any unpleasant weather as a personal affront.

The news has been reporting that rain is coming to the Valley of the Sun. I awoke yesterday morning to mostly gray skies and few sprinkles. By last night, it was raining pretty steadily. This weather pattern is supposed to continue — in fact worsen — over the next few days. I’m not too distressed by that because Bill and I are leaving on Thursday for our Denver home, where he has a few doctor appointments and we will see as much of our family as possible in a few short days.

Of course, my sister Jen has already rained on my parade by telling me the weather people are predicting a rain/snow mix on the weekend. I’m pretty sure there would have been glee in her voice as well, but she texted the information to me. She managed to refrain from including the snowman emoji.

Softness Where You Want It

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A representative from CNN must read my blog. I’m pretty sure, in fact, that Nana’s Whimsies is required reading for all of the lead CNN reporters, who are undoubtedly part of the 80 or so faithful readers that my stats show read the blog daily. How do I know this? Because today CNN had a story headlined Why Toilet Paper Has Become the Latest Coronavirus Panic Buy. They undoubtedly read Monday’s blog posting and decided to do some of their own research.

I have always been fascinated by panic purchasing. I vividly remember back in the 1980s when Cabbage Patch dolls were The Item That Little Sally Sue Must Receive For Christmas. Women and men stood in line to purchase the limited numbers of dolls. My own mother — who was not the hysterical buying type — stood in line to buy a Cabbage Patch doll or two for her grandkids. She might even have wrestled a woman to the ground and pried a doll from her hands. Not typical behavior for a 110-lb. nana. But, grandkids, after all.

Panic buying isn’t rational. If you don’t believe me, check grocery store shelves a day or so before a blizzard is forecasted. There is nary a carton of eggs to be found on the shelf. I’m guessing the average family doesn’t go through a dozen eggs in a week, yet somehow they think nothing short of three dozen eggs will be enough to get them through the next couple of days. A soufflé or two to get you through the next few days of falling snowflakes?

A couple of years ago, my sister Jen was shopping for groceries before a forecasted blizzard. Inexplicably, her panic purchase consisted of six cans of whole tomatoes. I rarely use canned tomatoes, she admitted to me later. But just in case she needed to make a pot of spaghetti sauce.

According to CNN, the conflicting messages about the dangers of coronavirus and a perceived lack of direction from our public officials are creating panic. Buying toilet paper is something the average person can control. I have no idea how to stop the coronavirus or even if I should worry about it, but I do know that Charmen Toilet Paper provides softeness where you want it. And once you see a nearly empty shelf of toilet paper, you begin asking yourself, do I need to protect my right for softness where I want it? And so you buy the few remaining packages, and the next thing you know, the shelves on every grocery store are empty. Panic begets panic, according to CNN.

I’m here to tell you people. Now that toilet tissue is unavailable, start buying 1) Wall Street Journal; and 2) corn on the cob. They are great backups.

No explanation necessary.

Facing Armegeddon

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Yesterday morning after we returned home from church, I went to our neighborhood Fry’s grocery store to buy a few things for dinner. It also gave me a chance to see for myself all of the signs of angst about which people have been posting on Facebook for the past week.

Yes, Friends, it’s true. There is scarcely a six-pack of toilet tissue…..

Honestly, I couldn’t help but laugh. Yes, I know that I need to take the coronavirus seriously. But how seriously? Because, of all the things to stock up on in preparation for Armegeddon, you pick toilet paper? Just how much do people wipe their but-tocks each day? (Don’t answer that in the comments section please.)

As I perused the store, I began to notice the things that people WEREN’T hoarding. Things that I think I would be hoarding should I actually believe that I’m going to be trapped like a cockroach in my house sometime soon.

Like bacon…..

Or what about ice cream?…..

Can you imagine an Armageddon without potato chips?…..

Or, for heaven’s sake, BEER?…..

There doesn’t seem to be a run on any of those products. In fact, at least in the store I visited, there was even a fair number of disinfecting products. I picked up a can of Lysol Spray so that I don’t have to carefully make my way over to a neighbor begging to trade my roll of toilet paper for their can of Lysol.

I’m not laughing at people. Fear is real. But perhaps I have just lived through so many so-called pandemic scares that I’m no longer scared. Remember Swine Flu in 1976? Or SARS in 2003? Or more recently, Bird Flu and Swine Flu in 2005 and 2009, respectively? I was also recently reminded about Hong Kong Flu in 1968. I don’t really remember that particular virus strain, because in 1968 I was much more interested in sneaking past Sr. Bernardis before she noticed that I had the waistband of my uniform skirt folded over so many times it looked like an origami swan. Otherwise she would have made me kneel to prove that the hem was more than two inches from the floor. But I don’t recall a tower of toilet paper in our bathroom that Mom had hoarded. And I would have noticed, because our bathroom was about the size of a postage stamp.

Which begs the question, where are people putting all of the toilet paper and disinfecting products they are hoarding? Do little Emmy and little Daisy Mae finally have to share a room so that the tissue and wipes have a storage spot?

And there is one last thing that is troubling me. The powers-that-be seem to be particularly concerned about the elderly. If you are elderly, stay inside. Avoid people. Wash the already-too-thin skin of your hands 30 or 40 times a day. But my question is, what constitutes “elderly?” I’m 66. Am I elderly?

I posed this question to my brother-in-law yesterday, because he was celebrating his birthday, and he is the same age as me. He was pretty sure we meet the “elderly” criteria at this point. His rationale was a news story about two “elderly” people who died from the coronavirus. One was 85 and one was, ahem, 65.

But back to my original question. (I know; it was so long ago that you’ve forgotten what that is.) It is in regards to toilet paper. I have no interest in hoarding toilet paper. But I just want to be able to buy a few rolls when my current supply runs out so that I, too, can wipe my but-tocks.

People: leave a few for the rest of us.

Saturday Smile: First Friday

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The first Friday of every month, the community of Las Sendas — which is where Jen’s daughter and her family live — sponsors Food Truck Friday. There is a greenbelt conveniently located just behind her house in which a variety of food trucks gather on the first Friday of the month. Food choices range from Mexican to Cajun to Maine lobster. Live music featuring mostly songs from the 1970s offers toe tapping entertainment. But the best entertainment is watching the kids run around throwing footballs and playing all varieties of games…..

It was Jen’s last night in AZ, and we enjoyed the beautiful evening immensely. Though it was a Friday in Lent, we had plenty of choices. All three of the adults were drawn to the Maine Lobster truck. Jen had a lobster roll, Bill and lobster tail and tots, and I had lobster tacos. They were all delicious……

Despite my sadness in seeing Jen go back to Colorado, Food Truck Friday made me smile.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Wicked Redhead

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Beatriz Williams: Oh, how you mess with your readers’ minds. Or at least my mind, because you had me so confused I didn’t know which way was up.

Back in 2017, Williams released Cocoa Beach, which is referred to as a “standalone novel,” meaning not part of one of her series. I reviewed that book here. I didn’t care for Cocoa Beach much, and was annoyed by the confusion created by references and ties to other of her books which readers may or may not have read. The author does this so often that she literally has a family tree available to readers to keep track of who is whom. But most annoyingly, she ended that book with reference to a redheaded woman and a man arriving at the home of the main characters, clearly in trouble. We are never told who they are or where they came from. Hello Sequel.

Well, if I had been paying attention, I would have recalled a redhead who escaped certain death at the end of another one of her novels, The Wicked City (a book I read but never reviewed).

Here it is, three years later, and we are able to access The Wicked Redhead, and finally tie the stories together. Interestingly, the publishers call The Wicked Redhead the second in “the Wicked City books,” never mentioning the standalone novel Cocoa Beach.

Having said all of that, I must admit that I liked The Wicked Redhead very much. Perhaps it was just because I could finally tie all of the stories together.

It’s 1924, and beautiful Ginger Kelly and her disgraced prohibition agent lover Oliver Anson Marshall arrive at the home of friends, running away from trouble and mayhem which left Gin’s evil stepfather dead. Accompanying them is Gin’s little sister Patsy. Mysteriously, Oliver is asked to return to his prohibition duties, leaving Gin and Patsy behind. It isn’t long before Gin is persuaded to undertake an odd duty by Oliver’s mother.

Meanwhile, it’s 1998, and Ella Dommerich (whom we met in The Wicked City) has discovered her husband is not only being unfaithful, but messing around with prostitutes. She leaves him, and quickly falls for her landlord Hector, whom we also met in that same book. She comes across some vintage postcards featuring a beautiful redheaded woman wearing little clothing. Having resigned her job, she has little to do, so begins researching this woman’s background.

It doesn’t take much imagination to tie the two stories together, but I will admit to being caught up in the process. Even though I find some of Williams’ tricks annoying, I will acknowledge that the woman can write a good yarn.

Some of the story is simply not believable, at least to this reader. Overall, however, I really enjoyed putting the pieces together.

Here is a link to the book.

 

Thursday Thoughts

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Sitting Pretty
Jen and Winston will be leaving to return to Fort Collins on Saturday. Bill will be sad to see his buddy Winston go. Oh, and also his sister-in-law.  But WINSTON. We have multiple photos of Winston choosing to spend time on Bill’s lap. In this particular photo, there is a strong resemblance to the Sphinx, don’t you think?…..

Boiled
Last weekend, Bec entertained us with one of her famous seafood boils. Jen had a visitor from out of town, her friend Anita. We all enjoyed an afternoon of sun and wine and beer and shrimp and potatoes and sausage and corn, boiled together with spices and eaten off of a newspaper. How can you go wrong?…..

Cheers
Following Tuesday’s hike with my friend Jan, I felt the need yesterday to show my sisters just how pretty it was out in that neck of the woods. So we drove out to the trailhead, though we didn’t venture forth given our flip flops and all. Afterwards, we stopped at the Gold Canyon Golf Club and enjoyed some wine on the pretty patio overlooking the course…..

Adios
It will be difficult to say goodbye to Jen and Winston, and that’s for sure! Since we bought the house in 2010, the three of us have rarely been together in the house at the same time for more than a few days. I admit that I was apprehensive about how it would work. I’m so happy to say that it worked splendidly. I will miss my full-time confidante, co-chef, and sister-friend. And Winston-the-dog as well. Who will greet me in the morning? They leave for Colorado on Saturday.

Ciao.

A Hike Worth Its Weight in Gold

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Way back in the 1880s and 1890s, a miner named Jacob Waltz was one of hundreds of men and women who hiked in the mountains of the American West, hoping to be one of the lucky few to find gold in them thar hills. As it turns out, high up in the Superstition Mountains of the Arizona territory, above the fairly new town of Phoenix, Jacob did, indeed, find gold. Lots of beautiful, pure gold. But dang him, he died in 1891 without ever telling anyone where he found the gold. Seriously, he couldn’t have told a single person? Not even a saloon owner or a lady of the night who could have been bought off by a sizable gold nugget or a bottle of rotgut whiskey?

Anyway, as a result of his keeping a secret like he worked for J. Edgar Hoover, every year people hike the Superstition Mountains, trying to locate Jacob’s lost mine and claim any remaining gold and make a fortune so that they, too, can run for president. Well, probably most of the hikers are only looking for beautiful scenery and clear mountain air.

Though I didn’t particularly want to find gold (or run for president), yesterday my friend Jan and I hiked up the Hieroglyphics Trail on Superstition Mountain. Stumbling upon a abandoned gold mine that had been overlooked for 130 years would have been a great bennie, but we didn’t count on it. We did, however, count on a beautiful day with spectacular scenery. WINNING!

Jan and her husband are avid hikers. In contrast, I haven’t hiked a step in probably four or five years. A series of non-serious but troublesome injuries has prevented my annual hike on some trail in Rocky Mountain Park. So I was a bit nervous to see how I would withstand a nearly three mile hike with a fair amount of elevation. I wasn’t even completely confident my feet would accept something as restricting as hiking boots, having worn primarily flip flops for my entire senior citizen adult life.

My feet happily cooperated, and I was satisfied to complete a hike up to the hieroglyphics that were left some 1,500 years ago by the Hohokam Indians to remind us a bit of their life so long ago.

Well, I’m exaggerating a bit. I did, in fact, make it to the end of the trail leading to the hieroglyphics. However, in order to get up close enough to see the Indian drawings clearly, I would have had to join the 22-year-old triatheletes who were clambering over rocks to get to the site, and THAT wasn’t going to happen. If you look very carefully, you can see the hieroglyphics. I’m pretty sure I see a dog…..

Most importantly, at least to me, we saw some spectacular scenery as we made our way up and back……

Best of all, while we did see a couple of scampering lizards, the rattlers and the gila monsters were absent, still taking their long, winter’s nap. I, for one, didn’t miss them.

I am now satisfied that hiking is back in my repertoir of activities, and plan on more still before we leave. And many more this summer with friends and grandkids.

Almonds are Big Beesness

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I watched the Oscars this year for the first time in probably 10 years. I’m not sure why, except that for the first time in forever, I had actually seen a fair number of the nominees for best film. I didn’t see the winner — Parasite — and was rooting for Little Women. Oh, well.

But when Joaquin Phoenix won best actor for his portrayal of the joker in The Joker (see how I did that?), I admit that as he began his acceptance speech, I muted the sound before I even know what evil he was trying to condemn. I only knew that he went on for a very long time. It wasn’t until the next morning that I read that his rant was in support of animal rights, particularly, I guess, for the humane treatment of cows.

Cows seem to be the focus of a lot of attention lately. Their passing of gas is being blamed in part for climate change. Good to know that I can still drive my car a block-and-a-half to the grocery store without feeling guilty, and just blame it on cows’ farts.

The latest trend in so-called clean eating is refraining from cows’ milk. You know, the cows’ milk that humans have been drinking for 6,000 to 8,000 years. I guess any milk that comes from cows’ udders should be consumed only by calves. It’s not only inhumane for the little calvies, but bad for our health. Apparently we’ve all had tummy aches for 8,000 years.

As a result, the sale and consumption of almond milk, a dairy-free beverage that looks like cows’ milk but is made from almonds, has skyrocketed. In fact, the sale of almond milk has increased by 250 percent in the past five years. That’s okay. I don’t have any problem with almond milk. I’m sure the American Dairy Association has other feelings, but hey, let them fight their own battles.

Between putting almond milk in our cereal and eating protein bars stuffed with almonds, each American eats about two pounds of almonds per year. And the huge majority of those almonds are grown in California’s Central Valley.

I recently read an article that indicated that not only do almonds take a substantial amount of water to stay healthy, they also require an enormous number of bees to pollinate the crop.

That, my friends, is bad news for the bees. Because at the same time that people are eating more and more almonds that require more and more bees, there are fewer and fewer bees to go around. Hello Colony Collapse Disorder — the phenomenon in which bees are abandoning their hives for reasons that even really, really smart people have not been able to explain. In fact, almond growers require two million bee colonies as compared to apple growers who only require 200,000 colonies.

But thanks to Good Ol’ American capitalism, the problem is being addressed. Almond growers are paying people from other states to haul their hives to California and set up a temporary camp. As you can imagine, however, this puts a lot of stress on the bees. The beekeepers have to wake up the bees a few months early to make their trip to California at the right time.  You know how cranky we all get when we have to get up early to catch a 6:15 a.m. flight.

But perhaps even more detrimental to the bees, California farm country is Pesticide Central. These nice bees that are used to breathing the fresh mountain air of, say, Salida, Colorado, are facing all sorts of diseases contributing to death.

The Almond Board of California, I’m pleased to say, is doing its part to try and solve the Case of the Dying Bees. It makes sense because they have a lot to lose as the bee population dies down. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Managing the changes brought on by our increasingly populated world must feel like that circus game where you hit the gopher on the head and another gopher pops up.

On a happier bee note, I’m pleased to announce that our granddaughter Dagny’s beekeeping efforts will double this next bee season. She has managed to talk her father/co-apiarist into a second hive. Yay on that, because D’s Bees Honey is delicious and more bees mean more honey.

When the time is right, Dagny begins draining the honey from the hive.

She bottles it and sells it.

Dagny is doing her part in saving the bees. I don’t think she even drinks almond milk.