Friday 19 April 2024 post begun 1321hrs BST (forgive errors, no time to edit)

 

Right, so a few days ago I looked at the calendar and realised my 50 year high school reunion is coming up in June. Blimey. Fifty years, really?!

 

Right, so the reunion realisation led to the memory of the march along with my classmates (soggy football field, quite ruined my shoes) to drop my folding chair seat to await my turn to be presented my diploma hoping the scorching Southern California sun (omg, blazing down like an oven broiler element) didn't cause me to collapse (stoopid heart thingies). 

 

Whammo, first memory to hit me about that June was waiting to hear back from Garden Grove PD about my academy application. I didn't hear and I didn't hear and I didn't hear back. Ffwd to mid-August and I still hadn't heard.

Which led to deeper rumination on 'what I did the summer after I graduated from high school' and the memories rushed back of touring Sanford University (my step-parents wanted the wine tour and dragged me along claiming the trip was to visit potential universities so they could charge all the expenses to my father), Santa Rosa campus for University of San Francisco, and of course Berkley. 

Which led to recalling crystal clear memories of sitting in a Carmel bay-side restaurant watching a USCG small boat heading out on a SAR...

The rest is history. When I got home from the wine country tour I almost immediately went on an August camping trip with my then very serious boyfriend Gary everyone expected would propose and we would live happily ever after in the married student dorms while he did his med school course and I did my psychology course...

About five days into a 20 day camping trip I knew three things - I did not want to go to Sanford or Berkley or USF. I did not want to marry Gary. I did want to join the USCG because by then I'd given up on GGPD bothering to at least kindly inform me I was not accepted to police academy.

Two years later I was looking for something else whilst on a visit to the step-parents and whoa-ho, what did I find hidden at the bottom of a drawer? The acceptance letter from GGPD dated ten days after I'd applied. The letter arrived to the house but my step-mother hid it, I never saw it. Every now and again I do think about what life would have been like had I seen that letter in time. 

And then I looked at the calendar again and realised it would be the 19th of April in a few days and it hit me it's been 29 years since the OK City bombing.

I was in Guatemala City that day in 1995 watching the nightmare live on television. I can still see the damage to the building, can still hear the sounds coming over the live feed. I remember thinking 'Here's another day I'll always remember where I was and what I saw that day'.  

 

And I remember thinking 'This is the day everything changes', and I was right although at the time I recall thinking I was losing the plot to think the OK City bombing was somehow a global 'game changer' because I hadn't thought that about the 1993 WTC bombing (in the underground car park). But OK City was somehow a very real 'game changer', looking back now, more than anything else to that day, the OK City bombing caused a global dimension shift. 

Seven months later another day I would always remember - 4th November 1995 when live on television Rabin was assassinated. 

As I type this post I have the news on as 'background noise' - currently GB News is reporting two things - late last night Israel retaliated against the monstrous Iranian regime (rightly and with restraint to prevent civilian casualties as they always do - there is NO genocide being committed by Israel and anyone saying Israel is enacting a genocide is insane). And a man claiming to have a grenade with which he intended to blow himself up in front of the Iranian Embassy in Paris. (he's been arrested, his grenade is a fake, and doubtless he will soon be identified as either a mental patient (current code for muslim) or a 'far-right white supremacist'. 

Fifty years ago we graduated from high school. I doubt any of the 566 kids I graduated with 13th June 1974 imagined anything like what was coming in our future.

 

 

Tuesday 13 Feb 2024 post begun 0900hrs GMT

American style pancakes made, American pancake syrup (Aunt Jemima and trust me it was not an inexpensive purchase to make here in the UK!) ready to be warmed. King Cake beignets piled high on the sideboard...

LAISSEZ LES BON TEMPS ROULER! (Let the good times roll!) 

Mais oui, cher! (But yes, cher!)

My daughter has been honing her King Cake skills, sending me photos of beautifully decorated cakes so inspiring I decided to haul out the baking equipment and make our favourite gluten-free King Cake Beignets (cake tends to either be gobbled up in an hour out of the oven OR let to dry out so I make cake doughnuts instead - easy to make more if scoffed quickly OR bagged and put in the freezer should there be a surplus). 

Dinner tonight will be Cajun fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and sweet corn. Beignets for afters. 

Mardi Gras WINNING!

Meanwhile, knowing Lent begins at midnight, I have already suspended my eBay jigsaw puzzle searches - yes, that's right, I am giving up eBay for Lent this year. 

 

I'm not a 'giving up chocolate' kind of Lenten observer, I tend to focus my Lenten sacrificing on genuinely bad habits - profanity, procrastination, and forgetting God loves everyone including (especially) people I could happily never have to cope with ever again.

 

However, I usually do make at least one 'sacrifice' of something best described as 'secret guilty pleasure' and this year it is eBay browsing. Browsing that almost always becomes 'OOOOOH I have SO got to have that!' as an auction bid or a 'buy it now' indulgence. 

I knew from Epiphany (6th January) I would be giving up eBay for Lent so I planned ahead - comprehensive stock-take and carefully budgeted top-ups/replacement of things like blankets, kitchen tools, craft supplies, etc. A few of my items are still in transit but for the most part the house (and my craft cupboard) are now restocked. I have been on a mission to find non-electric household goods, in part to reduce our energy costs but also to mitigate the problems my mild Rheumatoid Arthritis and worsening Essential Tremor causes. 

 

For example, I love a good silicone coated balloon wire whisk - I have several in various sizes. But the arthritis has been 'flaring' more often since having Covid - whisking leaves me with rather painful hand and wrist ache - and the ET has progressed to the point I have had some difficulty keeping the whisks in the mixing bowl. 

Days long browse sessions of several 'foodie' sites plus several discussion threads on my ET forum site tipped me off to an interesting kitchen gadget that acts like a whisk but only requires a light grip and 'pogo-stick' bouncing the tool around the bowl...lol, bouncing this tool just seemed tailor made for a person with ET! 

Oh WOW, where has this been all my adult life??!! So easy to use (as long as the bowl is deep enough:) and no hand-wrist ache. Honestly that gravy recipe has never come up so smoothly as when I gave my new kitchen tool a go the first time. A quick kitchen brush rinse then into the dishwasher had my lovely new gadget back in the drawer next to its brothers (I do buy multiples for spares) for next time.

 

I wouldn't want to try mixing a cake or cookie recipe using this thing but I make a lot of sauces, gravies, and egg recipes so this tool is a marvel of off-grid efficiency.

 

More than anything else, my Lent 2024 observation will primarily be used to pray. I hope you will join me, if not for the entire Lenten period, at least for Holy Week which runs from Palm Sunday (24th March) through Easter Morning (31st March).

Now more than ever the world needs prayer. 

Peace be with you.

posted 0959hrs GMT

 

 

Weds 24 Jan 2024 post begun 0915hrs GMT

 

Well, I've done it - Christmas season lighting is now all converted from battery (OH MY GOSH EXPENSIVE, those batteries!) to solar for outdoors and USB for inside. One only exception is the front window display which will remain a battery powered item but everything else is now solar and USB. 

 

No rush (hahahahahahaha!) but I am looking forward to Christmas 2024, God willing I'm here to see it. The multi-colour solar powered lights for the front garden promise to be the best light display we've had ever - 300LED micro lights means a much larger coverage (ok, yeah, 300 lights doesn't sound a lot unless the reader understands my frontage is two 'postage stamp' beds with the entry door between the two beds). On arrival of the new lights, we charged the solar battery then did a test run - WOW - plenty of lighting to cover both beds AND over the doorway, and bright enough to give a good display without going over the top. Space station crew will not be able to see our lights from space and the neighbours will not have to get a public nuisance order owing to any annoying excess light.

Speaking of neighbours and our annual Christmas lighting, several expressed some disappointment our formerly traditional blue lights on the evergreen hedge went missing this past 2023 Christmas. Our little cottage is at the side bottom of a popular dog-walking lane and they all said they missed the blue lights but understood the cost of batteries has risen so shockingly high as to preclude battery lights. 

 

Rechargeable batteries have always been ouchie-priced but this past year even the cost of non-rechargeables sky-rocketed. The blue lights took a total of twelve AA batteries twice during the lights-on season (Advent Sunday through 2 Feb)...ouch ouch ouch.

 

So Christmas 2023 saw us using a five pack snowflake stake lights - one set of three AA batteries and so far we're on the initial set. OK-ish but not great, the snowflakes can be seen from the lane but just aren't as pretty as the blue lights were. And not at all as cheery as the blue lights were. Everyone, from DH Paul to neighbour dog walkers, said the same thing - 'If ever we needed a cheery Christmas light display, it is this year' and they were spot on. 

I knew there had to be a better way...

The multi-colour set is very very good - great coverage, can easily be seen from the lane, and is quite charming. Did I mention the lights are solar powered? WINNING!

 

We used a 2ft 'snowy' (flocked) tree indoors, another set of three AA batteries to feed a 20LED micro wire string and I had to change out three times to get from Advent Sunday through Epiphany. grrrr! Worse, the battery power light set I used seemed to have too many green lights overpowering the too few other colours. 

I knew there had to be a better way...

 

I went looking and discovered USB light sets - well hell, who knew?! BONUS: I found JUST the right set (blue, snowy trees demand something tastefully special) in a number of lights (50LED USB power) that will be perfect for the snowy tree - AND best of all, I found, from the same seller, two more 50LED USB sets to be tucked away for when we want to use the 3ft green tree. One set each 'warm white' and multi-colour with the right number of green (meaning not many, lol!). I'll hang onto the battery sets but the USB ones will be our go-to sets. 

Perhaps to some all this fuss about Christmas lights is silly, I know I had difficulty motivating myself to decorate in or outdoors for Christmas 2023 and I don't anticipate feeling much motivation for 2024, all things considered. The world we live in has become so terribly fraught.

 

But Paul (and the neighbours) nailed it - 'If ever we needed...' - when the entire world teeters geopolitically so dangerously close to the edge, we need cheering up, we need traditions that cheer us up. 

 

Post published 1001hrs MT

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 2 Jan 2024 post begun 0650hrs GMT

 

Good-bye 2023, hello 2024. 

 

Our 'festive season' has another four days to run and so far I have to say despite the turmoil the world is enduring, we (Paul and I) have enjoyed a lovely time. The food turned out quite well, the tree is a proper little stunner, and we even received several Christmas cards - bit of a surprise to have done considering the eye-watering cost of domestic post (price rise just before Christmas card sending season with first class having risen to over £1). Gifts elicited genuine gratitude - he loved his and I loved mine. Winning!

 

The little flocked Christmas tree (2.5ft) went over far better than I'd expected - Paul surprised me no end when he said it is too small and expressed his hope we find a flocked 3ft'er for Christmas 2024. He is as surprised as I am that he likes a 'snowy tree' but like it he does and so do I. 

 

I've never cared for flocked trees before, I only bought this one on a whim when I saw the size and quality priced for clearance. But for a tiny tree, it is a proper little beauty. I dressed it with vintage style glass baubles (none over two inch drop and width) and laser cut MDF wood shapes (reindeer, stars, gingerbread men). Multi-colour lights were very pretty against the 'snow'. Paul didn't care for the mix but said he does like colour on a flocked tree so can we have ice blue next year? 

 

God willing we'll still be here for Christmas 2024 and have decided we'll use one colour baubles and lights plus the MDF shapes (lightly gilded rather than full-on painted). I cobbled together a 6ft silk holly and berry garland to dress the mantel with large gilded stars hanging from the garland and Paul said it was so pretty he hopes we use it every year.

Paul's Asperger's means he's not the greatest company and prefers his Christmas decor to be low-key to avoid sensory overload. 

I don't have Asperger's and prefer the full Father Christmas Grotto look. 

 

As noted in an earlier post, he's scattered my Christmas collection (there are times I really hate Asperger's. Love him, hate the condition) so I had to replace everything plus fight off a strong lack of Christmas Spirit. Apparently he feels I managed the replacing nicely. He's apologised (repeatedly) for scattering Christmas Past but says he loves the way the living room looks this year.

I managed to get the halls decked in a way that satisfied us both. I put on a lovely Christmas Dinner (chicken crowns, stuffing, button sprouts, cranberry sauce and a Yule Log cake) with enough leftover for Boxing Day grazing. New Year Dinner yesterday was a smaller repeat of Christmas (no leftovers and I'm glad - bangers and mash for dinner tonight and I am quite looking forward to that!).

Finally, it was 2200hrs GMT NYE and we watched the GB News NYE Live programme through to sign-off. The GB News show was great, London fireworks 15 minutes beginning at midnight (shown live as part of the GB News programme) was a huge disappointment. Little goblin Citizen Con ruined it with his 'Presented By The London Mayor' drone banners and oh so bloody woke music and voice-overs. The fireworks seemed random, no style or design to the display. All in that was 15 minutes of the New Year we'll never get back.

 

The 7th looms - the day I pack away everything but the Nativity (that stays up through 2nd Feb, Presentation of the Infant Lord in the Temple, and Candlemas). Two weeks later it will be Ash Wednesday and Lent begins. 

 

And now it's the second day of 2024. Hopefully this year will be less fraught than 2023 was - but I'm not holding my breath.