NEW RIDE!


She's not my little deuce coupe, and I won't ask her to do 140 . . . but she's a sweet ride!

I discovered there's nothing like having no vehicle to make me feel that I don't belong to the world at all.

Last week's day-by-day replay for you had a lovely ending when I picked up my new vehicle on Friday.

So far she's been to church, to my usual shopping stores, to the P.O. drop box, and the bank. Last night she took me to see my Ohio daughter who works in a nearby town.

Today--big trip!--we're taking friend Jane to Shipshewana, Indiana, a quilting and craft mecca in the heart of Amish country.

So far, my new baby has no name. Would you like to suggest names for her? Here are her specifications:

     - Chevrolet Equinox, 5 years old
     - Silver
     - AWD, nice CD player, back-up camera (never had one of those)
     - great gas mileage (another luxury for me)
     - more seat positions than I thought possible, and lumbar support
     - and more bells and whistles than I've had time to explore

Drop us an email or visit in the Comment section below. Your email addy and any other personal info will not appear on the 'Web, just your name.

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While we're on the subject of naming a car, I'll segue into the subject of anthropomorphism. 

Anthropomorphism has been around probably as long as the planet Earth. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities."

Do you talk to your computer? Your car? Your refrigerator/television/lawn mower? Your dog/cat/horse/iguana?

Do you treat those non-human entities as if they could answer your questions, respond to your commands (animals will sometimes do this), or explain why they aren't in the mood to do what you're asking of them? (In my experience, computers are about as moody as a 13-year-old with zits.)

You've probably read a number of fiction works that rely on or employ anthropomorphism. Here are some examples I found when I researched the subject:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll
The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) by Carlo Collodi
The Jungle Book (1894) by Rudyard Kipling

The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1901) and later books by Beatrix Potter
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1908)
Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928) by A. A. Milne
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950) and the subsequent books in The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis
The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), both by J. R. R. Tolkien

Fiction, fantasy, fairy tale--all employ anthropomorphism.

Also--movies:

The Wizard of Oz
E.T.
The Lion King
Star Wars
Harry Potter and the . . . .

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While you're thinking up great names for the Equinox (my new car, remember?), I'll get out the manual and see if I can ring some of the bells and sound the whistles. Next time we meet, I'll give you an update.

STONE TABLETS...

Every day I write a Today List. You remember the Today List? I put down on paper the tasks or chores or reminders I'll need to get through the next 12-18 hours.

Since I also make a list for the following days, clear through the week, I have a sense of satisfaction that I won't make horrible blunders (arriving on the wrong day for a dental appointment is one red-faced memory) or miss an important event (nothing like showing up early, late, or not at all for a party/study group/rehearsal) or finding the fantastic discount on a product I really really need expired the night before.

Some people call this trying to control everything. They're probably right. But I work more productively when the events of my everyday life are corralled on paper.

One lovely feature of the Today List is the opportunity to enlarge it. Or mark through one of the items. Or put nice big check marks by the things accomplished.



What if--heaven forbid--I'd had to create my list with chisel on stone? How do you correct any errors? Or change dates and times? Or add another item? (Currently I squeeze add-ons in between the lines on my paper.)

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Two days ago I took my car for its regular oil change-etc. Usually I wait while the guys do the service thing, but they planned to flush the cooling system so I got a ride home and waited for a call. While I waited I did some other things on my list--started laundry, cooked apples, talked with two of my daughter on the phone.

No phone call from the service guys. Okay, they were busy at the automotive center. When it became obvious I wasn't going to get my car back in time to knit with my friend during her lunch hour, the phone rang. "This isn't the call I wanted to make today," the owner of the shop said. That's a  heart-stopper if I ever heard one.

Turns out my 19-year-old Buick was very terminal. As in, not safe to drive. 

Well, that certainly wasn't on my Today List.

First things--call and cancel knitting. Call and cancel an evening visit to my daughter who works second shift in a nearby town. Call a friend to arrange transportation around town on the following day to do important errands.

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Yesterday my friend Jane chauffeured me around--all the errands got done. We spent a half-hour or so looking at vehicles--I found one that pleased me, asked a lot of questions, and what I forgot, Jane asked for me. Took the vehicle for a test drive, had it vetted by the guys who always work on my vehicles (it got an A), and by two o'clock I'd done part of the paperwork to purchase a new set of wheels.

All the running around and lunch at Jane's house and the test drive took up most of the day. I got home at 2:00 and crashed. Had to cancel an appointment at the church, but arrangements were made for a telephone conference call for that meeting.

In the evening I cancelled the Friday meeting of Heart & Hands, not knowing if I'd be able to pick up my "new" car in time to get to church to sew blankets and pillow cases for the NICU.

Today I'll visit my friendly banker to see if she'll let me take out some of my money, and Jane will drive me and a check to the car place.

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Thank heavens my Today Lists are on paper. I don't know if the dust would have settled yet if I'd had to chisel all those appointments off and carve new ones.

BACK IN THE DAY - Comfort Food

[The weather is changing--every half hour a new phase, it seems--but right now we're in cool, windy, almost-autumn days and downright chilly nights. Weather like this leads me right into thoughts of good, warm, filling food. After I read this blog, posted in 2014, I knew it was the right topic for today. Hope you have great memories of your own comfort foods.]

After a recent influx of children and visitors, I found myself with odds and ends in the refrigerator. One day we had chicken breasts simmered all day in the slow cooker, which yielded a quantity of homemade stock or broth. We'd eaten all but one portion of the chicken in various guises--chunked up with rice and steamed veggies was a favorite.

Last night I discovered the remains of the broth and the last portion of cooked chicken, plus a few steamed carrots that somehow escaped being eaten. There was no leftover rice, but--in the pantry, I had packets of instant mashed potatoes, all flavors, that cook in three and a half minutes and are creamier and tastier than any I can make when I start with raw potatoes and good intentions.

The chicken and cooked carrots were easy to heat up. The potatoes did their 3 1/2-minute turn in the microwave. And the broth--heated to boiling with the addition of a little cornstarch, salt, and pepper--became gravy. It's been ages, maybe years, since I've had mashed potatoes with real gravy.

But, back in the days of my youth, I recall simple meals, well-seasoned, hot and tasty, that were what we now call comfort food. Potatoes and gravy would have been one of the easiest. Once the potatoes (from scratch in those days, naturally) were cooked and mashed with butter and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper, and served for supper, we always hoped for leftovers for potato pancakes another day.

We used no convenience foods, except canned tuna and salmon, Spam (which I actually ate and liked, I'm sorry to say), and canned soups from the Campbell Soup Company. And if there were other things available, my mother never bought them. She could make the best meatloaf and baked potatoes I ever ate. I have no idea what she did to her meatloaf, but mine never tasted as good.

I remember starches figured in most of the meals--macaroni with cheese (baked, not cooked on top of the stove); spaghetti with a mouth-watering meat sauce made the same day, or my personal favorite, meatballs--they took longer so that's probably why we seldom had them; fried potatoes with hamburgers, mashed potatoes with fried chicken, boiled potatoes with pot roast; sweet potatoes for special occasions, like Thanksgiving, though I don't remember turkey was a regular on the holiday table--probably a roasted chicken.

These are fond memories--food has always been one of my favorite things--and I'm glad my mother and her sisters were such good cooks. They've inspired me down through the decades of my own  planning, preparing, cooking, serving, and (of course) eating. For years I used only fresh ingredients, but as life got more hectic--four children in six years, going back to college to finish my degree, getting a job once the children were in school full time--yes, life became hectic, so I learned to use some prepared foods to supplement what I cooked from scratch.

All of my children cook--some like it more than others, but they all know how. My son and middle daughter like to experiment to come up with new things or twists on old faves. They all like to eat, as well, so our family gatherings are gastronomic delights.

At times when we don't have a big meal, we enjoy simple things: one of the evening meals I shared with my daughter last week was scrambled eggs, bacon, and gluten-free pancakes with real maple syrup. We both agreed breakfast foods could be eaten any time of day.

Although my childhood memories of food are good ones, I don't yearn for those times. I've cooked on a wood burning stove, a one-burner camp stove, a campfire, gas ranges, electric ranges...but I don't need to return to homesteading days. They're romantic to read about, I'll grant you, and we can learn a lot from the trials, tribulations, and triumphs our forebears went through. I'll stick with my modern range and refrigerator, cook veggies and poultry or fish from scratch, and once in a while whomp up a batch of gluten-free pancakes. Then I can eat a meal like those from my childhood while I read that book about homesteading.

SOME PITFALLS OF

Everyone speaks of downsizing in positive terms--pass along unwanted items, my trash may be someone else's treasure, make room in closets/drawers/storage space (not sure what the space is for), and so on.

Downsizing being one of the bandwagons I hopped on a while back, I've been working on the tasks required to achieve the removal of unwanted, trash-to-treasure, space-occupying Stuff.

Take yesterday, for example. Really, go ahead and take it. I don't want it back.

Here's how it all fell out:

--I made a firm decision to clean out the two 4-drawer filing cabinets that have accumulated their trash/treasure over a period of years. (This was intended to be a manageable task for a morning. Or maybe the week.)

--After my morning walk at the Y and a session with my journal and breakfast, I was ready to tackle those filing cabinets.

--Dressed in old clothes, face mask for the dust, and vinyl gloves to protect my hands from whatever might have migrated into those eight drawers, I moved the car to the driveway to give myself more room, and I opened the first drawer.

From there it seemed an easy-peasy task. Look through the Stuff stored in the drawer, decide if it was recyclable, disposable, or keepable. (Sorry--I wanted a parallel word. Just roll with it.)

All went well into the first and second drawers, but I discovered quilting magazines and even hard-bound books cowering in the third drawer. Those required closer examination.

Then there were the seven 3-ring binders that were perfectly good items to have on hand. (Not sure what I'll do with all seven; maybe use them for stocking stuffers at Christmas.)

Also found art supplies, along with sketches I'd made in the early '80s--they looked like something from an art class that I vaguely remember taking.

And another find was a package of long-lost brown lunch bags--they're used by some quilters for small trash bags for clipped threads and snippets of fabric trimmed off--not so big they get in the way, and easy to attach to a sewing table with masking tape. When the bag is full, it's whipped off, the tape closes the trash inside, and the whole thing goes in the big wheelie bin.

What delighted me most was a brand new, perfectly preserved, 2004 J. C. Penney catalog. I set it aside to browse through later.

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So what are the pitfalls, you ask?

#1 - Distraction. I never got to the second 4-drawer filing cabinet. There were so many neat things to look at that I used up my energy in the hot/humid garage on the first cabinet and had to quit after an hour.

#2 - Satisfaction too early. The trash pile (after an hour's effort) was sufficient to fill three garbage bags--though "fill" is misleading: I can't lift a full 55-gallon bag, so each bag was only about a third full. They made a resounding and satisfying plonk in the trash bin, though. I have a feeling I'll be buying more boxes of bags soon.

#3 - Discovery of Usable Resources. Some of the quilting magazines and books will have to be read, that's all there is to it. They've been around long enough to have some value (to me) as the patterns will appear new--never mind that the magazine was published in 2006.

Thus what I'd considered an hour's work (both filing cabinets) turned out to be two hours; since I did only one filing cabinet, I expended only one hour of effort. (Caveat: If I apply that equation to the rest of the garage, I may still be sorting and discarding in 2025.)

And let's not even consider the house, which has its own accumulation of treasures, etc.

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I'm thinking of staging a Trash Party--everyone brings a big trash bag, wears old clothes, and we all downsize together. I'll provide the lemonade (hot weather) or coffee & tea (cold weather). Feel free to bring your own food.