Yep! Today, February 14, is Laura’s birthday. I know which one it is, but no, I won’t be posting it here. In part I won’t do that because it just wouldn’t be the gentlemanly thing to do (For those of you who are wondering, "Since when is Blair a gentleman?" my answer is, "Oh, hush."). But another important reason for not posting which birthday is because I’d probably screw up the math (I recently got my own age wrong for gosh sake).
There’s also a minor holiday today. It used to be an important one, but never to the point where you got the day off from work or anything. These days, any celebrations of that holiday are mainly held for the benefit of the greeting card, floral, candy and restaurant industries. Laura’s birthday is much more important!
P.S. Don’t worry sweetie, you’re the only person who reads this part of my site.
Category Archives: Assorted Ramblings
Winter Wonderland
It was rather late by the time Wylie and I went out for our walk last night, past 11:00 (Wylie’s become quite the night owl since moving here) and the snow had been falling for hours.
One of the neat things about being outside at night while it’s snowing is that even at 11:00, the ground seems as bright as day. I’m sure the reason behind it has to do with the snow, both on the ground and in the air, reflecting light from the nearby houses, street lights, and even from sources some distance away.
But it also seems quite magical, and that’s a good explanation too.
Stamp Quest
I guess everyone knows by now that postage rates went up on January 8. From various news reports, there was evidently a run on one and two cent stamps during the days leading up to the new rate going into effect.
As luck would have it, the rate change caught me with a half roll of 37 cent stamps and several pre-stamped postcards. A day or two after the rate increase went into effect, I managed to buy a dozen two cents stamps, but the post office didn’t have any penny stamps. No big deal, or so I thought.
Two weeks later, I found myself at the post office in the evening and decided to at least get a few postcard stamps from the machine. Even two weeks into the new rates, the only stamps the machine had – for letters or postcards – were the old demoninations. The displays in the machine had notes next to them saying that the stamps required additional postage and even listed how much. But there was no way to buy the additional postage!
Finally, in a stroke of what I briefly mistook for genius, I visited the Post Office web site and learned that I could buy the stamps online, and for the same price you’d pay at the post office. Only thing is, if you buy stamps online, they charge you for postage!
I’ve been buying stamps by mail for the past several years – just fill out a form, write a check, and stick it in the outgoing mail, the stamps are delivered a few days later. No waiting in line and no extra charge. Not even postage.
So I got clever again. I sent in a Stamps by Mail form, but instead of ordering any of the stamps listed (all at the old rates), I wrote in an order for the stamps I needed. While I was at it, I also ordered ten 24 cent stamps for my next batch of postcards.
The stamps arrived today. But instead of my 24 cent stamps, they sent 23 cent stamps and an equal number of 1 cent stamps.
Evidently the Post Office can’t find the new stamps either!
Breaking the ice
While taking care of some grocery shopping (the cupboards were getting rather bare), I wandered through the "Seasonal" aisle. This occasionally doubles as the "clearance" aisle and is a great place to find candy marked down the day after Christmas, Easter and (to a lesser degree) Halloween. So, on the off chance that there was a candy holiday I’d overlooked, I wandered through.
There wasn’t any candy, but I did notice a rather strange pairing of products. On one set of shelves there were three kinds of rock salt for folks who might need to de-ice their sidewalks if any happened to form during the 60-degree weather we’ve been having. I briefly considered buying a bag for use with the ice cream maker I got for Christmas, but decided I might already have some. On the shelves to the immediate right of the salt, there was a display with three brands of charcoal and two brands of charcoal lighter fluid.
My first thought was "Who the heck is going to have a cook-out in January?" (True, I once went on a picnic in March with eight inches of snow on the ground, but I suspect I’m unique in that regard.) After thinking about it for a moment, I realized that, when applied correctly, either rock salt or charcoal (particularly with lighter fluid) could be used to melt ice.
So perhaps it makes sense after all.
Now that's impressive!
It seems there were people in Europe making cheese all the way back in the stone age.
I suppose that’s a really ground-breaking discovery, but that’s not what impresses me about it.
No, what impresses me is how they discovered it. They did this by examining dirty cooking pots from 8,000 years ago. Isn’t that cool? There’s some guy out there (and it must have been a guy, a woman would never do this) who every night for the past 8,000 years has been saying, “I’ll do the dishes tomorrow.”
Setting the record straight
Mom and Dad visited this weekend and while we were having lunch with friends of theirs, someone mentioned my first meeting with their minister.
Reverend Macaleer came to their church a year or so after the retirement of the minister who’d been there while I was growing up. It wasn’t planned that way, but I happened to be home for a visit the same weekend that the church had a party to welcome the new minister. Mom and Dad were planning to attend, so they invited me along.
I should have seen it coming. When Reverend Macaleer saw me, he walked up to introduce himself and said, “You must be Ellie’s son. You look just like her.” All my life, my facial features have been similar to Mom’s, but growing up that’s not something I enjoyed being told. But as a grown up, I’ve learned to respond with humor.
Mom says she’ll never forget the look on Reverend Macaleer’s face when I responded, “I’m adopted.”
Now the problem with this statement is, it’s not true. It was all in fun, but the bottom line is, I lied to a minister! That’s just not a good thing to do. So to set the record straight once and for all, I’m most definitely not adopted and even though I give them a hard time, I love Mom and Dad very much.
But I am from Dad’s first marriage.
They're just doing what they were told
There’s been a problem at my office with people putting all manner of things down the drain in the kitchenette. There is a garbage disposal, but there are limits to what it can handle. (Coffee grounds and coffee stirrers are high on the list of things the disposal can’t handle.) The result is that the drain has been clogged on several occasions and the plumbing bills have been significant.
In an effort to put an end to the problem, the facilities management group put up a sign asking people to “Please Do Not throw coffee grounds and/or stirrers into the garbage disposal.”
This didn’t solve the problem. If anything, the problem of coffee stirrers being thrown into the disposal actually became more frequent. That’s when a couple of us noticed something funny about the sign.
It turns out that the woman who put the sign up put it eye level. She’s also five feet tall. Most of the rest of us are taller, so our eye level is a bit higher than hers.
My theory is that the people who’ve been throwing coffee stirrers into the garbage disposal are just following directions. At least, that’s how they see it.
Where's the camera?
There’s been a trend in the media lately to refer to well-known people by their last name only, without any titles or honorifics. This can be downright fun at times. 🙂 For example:
Back in May of last year, The Washington Post announced that I had been elected as the British Prime Minister!
More recently, C|Net News.com published an article about an upcoming documentary from the British Government which includes, "documentary-style footage of Blair on the job".
Wow. I never even noticed the film crew!
Cruel names to give a child
There are some cruel parents out there.
It’s been upwards of ten years since an acquaintance who worked for the company first mentioned to me that the founder of Leer Jet had given his daughter the name "Shanda".
My curiosity got the better of me today and I went out to Yahoo People Search to do some investigation. Yahoo has listings for 13 people whose names are some variation on "Candace Barr" and one more whose parents gave her the name "Minnie Barr."
So far, none of the Barr families have any children named Granola.
Chocolate Chip Mashed Potatoes
When Laura and I were at Mom and Dad’s at Christmas, Mom decided to do a little multi-tasking and mix up a batch of Chocolate Chip cookies while she was waiting for the water to boil for the mashed potatoes she was making for Christmas dinner.
The cookies were nearly finished by the time the potatoes were ready for mashing and so Mom moved on to finishing the potatoes, and once she finished the potatoes, she went back to mixing the cookie dough, promptly dumping the chocolate chips into the mashed potatoes.
Oops.
The resulting creation had a most unusual texture, both potatoes and chocolate in the same spoonful.
And of course, the recipe:
| Mom’s Chocolate Chip Mashed Potatoes | |
|---|---|
| 6 med. potatoes, approx. 2 lb. | 1/4 cup butter or margarine |
| 1 cup sour cream | paprika |
| 3 ounces cream cheese | two cups (12 oz) chocolate chips (optional) |
| Peel and dice potatoes. Cook in salted water, drain, and mash. Mix cream cheese with sour cream and add to mashed potatoes. Put into a 2 quart casserole. Dot with butter and sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. If desired, add chocolate chips. These can be made ahead and refrigerated, but must then bake for 1 hour. Serves 6. | |