Summer Goodies

Whirring up a cooked pie pumpkin for lasagne and pie.  I got that Osterizer as a wedding gift in 1966.

At my daughter-in-law's suggestion I've been following a blog called Once A Month Mom with recipes and methods to freeze up a month's worth of meals at a time.  The portions I freeze are small in the main.   Dinner for eight is eight dinners for me.  I'm nowhere near a month's worth of food but have been making 2-3 servings and freezing the extra so the inventory grows.  I'm certain there are many of you who figured this out long before I did.  I got tired of having toast and cheese or canned soup if I was tired, lazy, or uninspired about cooking.  I've invested some bucks in freezer containers that are microwavable.  I didn't think I'd be interested in a day of marathon cooking but it turned out it was fun if tiring.

Lately regular tomato sauce laden recipes are giving me heartburn and was delighted to find this lasagne recipe butternut squash lasagna on Once A Month Mom.  I substituted pie pumpkins for butternut and it was delicious.   And it keeps well if you put it in the freezer unbaked.

During my whole day cooking I made my first ever chiffon pumpkin pie from scratch.  It was good too.  I took it over to my son's house as two days with a pumpkin pie would fatten me up, but they have 10 people to feed so no one is likely to gorge on it as I would. Especially after two days of toast and canned soup.  I still have several 1 1/2 cup containers in there to do it again.  I'm too lazy to want to bake and scrape pumpkins anytime I want to make a pie.

Here's the sun trying to shine through the thick air one morning last week.  You could have watched an eclipse with your eyes.  Today is clear and glorious.  I went for a walk this morning and the air smells clean, crisp, and the leaves appear to be falling because of the season and not just from lack of water.

Anyone know why what is typed in a new post looks so different than in the preview page?  I'm not the best at this but what a puzzle!  Hope your weekend has been good to you.

 Not new but I like it.

 

The young man who mows my lawn came by today to say we might as well go back to twice a month.  In spite of water and fertilizer nothing is growing but some weeds.  The smoke has left us in a half light for weeks now.  Good for my budget not so good for his.  It has produced some early fall colors.  Tomorrow I think I will drive up into the hills to the south and see if I can get some pictures.

 

I just finished reading the most recent translation of the Wallender mystery novels, "The Troubled Man."  It was good if dark but then Mankell's mysteries are always on the dark side as is Wallender himself.  The author made it the last one for the protagonist who is aging, has diabetes, and is dealing with the beginnings of dementia.  So it's a mystery, wrapped in the issues of aging.  I sent it to a friend of mine to add to her collection of Wallender books.  I will miss them but I intend to visit some of Henning Mankell's other works.

 

Today from Amazon, I got two copies of "Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease."  It's subject that has interested me for some time.  I'm sending one to my sister.  My family history is rife with traumatic early childhoods.  My paternal grandfather was virtually orphaned at 4 or 5, with his slightly older brother.  Their mother died, their father left, and they raised themselves on the streets of London.  They became sailors, Grandpa's brother having been conscripted into the British Navy at 14, Grandpa on a merchant vessel at 12, and made to this country in their early teens.  They jumped ship off their different vessels and stayed here.  My maternal grandmother and her sister, as toddlers, ended up in an orphanage several states away from their large and poor family.   Now we have several adopted as well as (hopefully) soon to be adopted foster children in our family.  I say hopefully as the foster to adopt process is a long and stressful one.  One child is only 16 months old and was mistreated by someone along the way.  This baby startles easily and even after many months of a stable home with many loving people still doesn't sleep well, waking several times a night, not for long, but you have to wonder what is circulating in this tiny person.  So tonight I am going to a Dr. Foster Cline Love and Logic seminar about "Parenting all children and parenting children who struggle with illness or challenging behaviors."  Sometimes it takes more than love to raise healthy kids.

Thoughts on a Chilly Morning

Fall wildflowers at Lake Bennington outside Walla Walla

Started writing while waiting for the bathroom to heat up.  The last two days the house was in the 50's in the morning.  It's still warm in the PM.  Fall has come right on schedule.  These are the days students are made to wear a jacket in the morning and lug them home in the afternoon.  Seems to me this is when the most of those kinds of garments get lost.  S(he) who waits for a grade schooler to bring anything home is an optimist indeed.

This morning I learned that my feet crepitate as I walk as do my knees going up stairs.  Crackle that is, thanks to Wordsmith. New word to me.  Something to replace some of the ones I've forgotten.  Speaking of forgetting or remembering how about passwords?  I just changed one last week and felt proud of myself for not forgetting it, and then changed another, trying to make it a difficult one.  I was thrilled to find I still knew it the next day.  I used to have a job where one of my more nitpicky duties was to maintain passwords for a dozen applications.  I had to change them frequently and couldn't write them anywhere.  I don't know what was supposed to happen if I got run over by a breadtruck or kidnapped by aliens.  I suppose I should put my passwords on paper and into the lock box for my kids, the heirs to my nickles and little Felix the Cat collection.

Also earlier I read Rain's blog Rainy Day Thoughts where she writes Romney "when he chose to not take all his deductions for 'charitable giving,' the part he didn't take was to his own charitable family foundation with who knows what it has as its charity."

Thanks to KVEW-TV for this view of the sun four days ago near Kennewick.

Haze in the foothills of the Blue Mountains looking over Lake Bennington, Walla Walla, WA

 

Today morning came with a dirty yellowish light.  Dark enough that my neighbors and I have our lights on.  Sunrise was at around 7am but you'd hardly know it.  We have a thick smoky haze here coupled with an inversion and little wind here.  The smoke is from fires here in Eastern Washington.  It is bad enough to keep people with health problems inside for the duration and to cancel some outdoor school athletics but it is not at its worst here in Walla Walla.  There are over a 240 fires burning in Washington alone, a huge one is burning near Sisters, Oregon, and many in Idaho.  There's an easterly wind that has sent the creeping smoke over the Cascade Mountains and into Seattle today as well as being funneled up the Columbia River Gorge into Portland, Oregon.  In many places it looks like the smokes of Mordor.  We are lucky though.  We are not the ones who have lost their homes, or are packed up watching the fire come closer and the evacuation call to come.   There are more than 4000 firefighters working in Washington right now.  One hundred from British Columbia have arrived and more are expected from other provinces.  No rain in sight.  Good time for a trip to the ocean if you can do it.  Bless you if you are in the thick of this, here or in other states. 

The Other Way

I'm awake too early.  Caught this U-tube video King of the Road on Facebook.  Tried to embed it but failed.  Anyway it really caught me up in Memoryland.  Someone's Dad filmed the returning traffic from a weekend (?) of camping and recreating; miles of traffic on a two lane rural road.  Luckily for them they were going the other way.

Made me think of any number of forays over the Cascade mountains into Eastern WA and OR, car camping with our family .  Dad had supplied us with camp gear from army surplus.  In thin mummy bags, we'd camped on the Olympic Peninsula and had to sleep in all our clothes, huddle together and froze all night.  I felt sorry for soldiers ever after.  We had a large cabin tent that I later camped in with my family.  We had no air mattresses, cooked on a grate over a fire (and scrubbing soot off everything).  No gas stove, no velcro, no lanterns, no down but total quiet at night and a zillion stars to see.  It was fun.  The times we returned from Mt. Rainer were nuts especially on a Sunday. Large crowds even in the 1950's.

We'd be trapped on in the long line home, once behind a trailer with a flat whose driver refused to get off the road until he was off the mountain. No passing possible. Remember when sedans had kind of a large child size shelf above and behind the backseat? As small children my sister and I took turns lying up there and watching the trees go by. No seat belts then. We'd make faces at whoever was stuck behind us. On a daytrip to Rainier the radiator started leaking and Dad had to dip water with a paper cup out of a bubbling small waterfall by the roadway.  A paper cup from drinks we'd nagged him into buying.  "Good thing we got drinks." I chirped.  Not appreciated.  My always prepared father was caught entirely unprepared and was po'd. He was a pepperpot when irritated and the silence in the car the rest of the way was total.  Ever since I've traveled with water, duct tape, and oil everywhere I go.  Not to mention the other stuff I carry.  Rescue stuff and memories.

Living on the dry side now I plan all my return trips so I am going the other way and watch the long lines of campers, semi's, and wind sailors trying to make it back up the Columbia River Gorge into Portland while I drive unimpeded the other way.  I like going the other way, how about you?

Pleasant Weekend

I spent a pleasant weekend. The wind died down enough to quit blowing dirt up our snoots and in our eyes.  Friday I went to my six year old grandgirl's soccer game coached by her Poppa.  Having spent her whole life with 5 older sisters she is quite a hard charger.  Once she learns to aim she'll be pretty good.  There are just three kids to side during play on a smaller field.  They don't keep score and the kids are wonderful, enthusiastic and energetic.  I heavily caulk with a 55 sunscreen, wear a big hat, and recline in my folding camp chair.  Saturday repeat sunscreen, hat, etc. and off to the 10-12 year olds game.  They won.

Sunday I bought my first hideously expensive LED lightbulb for the new kitchen light I'm putting in.  Thirty bucks, the box says it may last 23 years.  Twenty-three years of not having to change the bulb!  I spose that means it will have to clean it.  I doubt I will last another 23 years, who knows?  Do I need to put these lightbulbs in my will?  I'm sorry darlings, I'm leaving you no money as I spent it all on $30 lightbulbs.

My last day of physical therapy was Friday, yippee.  They told me I graduated and gave me a tee-shirt.  The group's initials are CA same as mine so now I have personalized tee until you look at the back which has their whole name spelled out.  I am moving around much better so am happy to let the world see who helped with that.

Yesterday a dust storm came in with some kind of weather front so I'm glad I got outside this weekend. It will hang around for a bit blowing and dirt on us.  I fetched the little soccer player to my house for the afternoon, dinner, and a bath before she went home.  She's spent at least a day a week with me, and more for several years.  Now that's she's in first grade and busy with cows and soccer we are both having some separation anxiety.  She wanted to stay the night. We talked about all the fun we've had.  We cuddled on the sofa and watched her favorite, "My Little Pony."  Something very soothing and healing about such affection from a grandkid.  And there's 7 more, I should thank her parents for the kids they've had, adopted, collected, eight now.  Lucky me.

Doctor Shortage

Cartoon by Jean Sorensen

 

I'm off to the physical therapist this morning for the second to last visit for the aftermath of tripping into the bathtub.   Contrary to the cartoon they never make me wait, in fact they scoot me right in even if I'm early.  The problem turns out to be the return visit to my primary doctor. I'm supposed to see her for follow-up for this and a returning infection.  I have an appointment for October 31, Halloween two months away and I had an appointment scheduled for last week.  They cancelled have no openings until the Halloween date, hope they are handing out candy.  I've been waiting for two months to see someone about a possibly cancerous spot on my face, I got moved up two days this week.  It's not just me its happening to many of my friends too.  Doctor shortage?  One son experienced the same thing so perhaps its not just Medicare patients.  Fortunately there is a "Convenient Care" Clinic here run by the same outfit.  No appointment, waiting sometimes an hour, but you get in when you are sick and receive treatment.  I noticed however they are down to two physicians from four and have cut their hours.  My pulmonologist is now running a 6 Sigma program (an efficiency process) at the hospital and is unavailable often for long periods of time.  There has been a new pulmonologist added to his practice though fortunately.

 

A New York Times article dated July 12, 2012 America's Doctor Shortage it says:

"Experts describe a doctor shortage as an “invisible problem.” Patients still get care, but the process is often slow and difficult. In Riverside, it has left residents driving long distances to doctors, languishing on waiting lists, overusing emergency rooms and even forgoing care."  It's a disturbing article.  Living in a small city in a rural area it's true here too.  Yes, I left Seattle to retire here, partly because there were two decent hospitals with associated clinics here.  But until recently if you had a heart event they had to fly you to Spokane, Seattle, or Portland.  The neurosurgeon left and in the time it took to replace him anyone who had head trauma had to be medivaced out the area as well.  Often to Harborview in Seattle.  Medivac insurance is a popular product here.  I see more and more doctor's here from India, all over Asia really, and Romania and the other Eastern European countries; they want to come here and we need them.  Sometimes there are language problems though.  A physician in Seattle from a Middle Eastern country and poor language skills confused my asthma drug Aminophylline with the drug for Amitriptyline, an antidepressant, 300 mg straight across and put me in a coma for a few hours.  No, I didn't sue their socks off, I survived and am much more careful.  I always ask what they are giving me and why.  More reason to accompany your friends and relatives through their hospital visits.

 

I don't have a solution, just pondering.  Tough times.  Meanwhile I keep calling to keep myself on the list for cancellations, or off I go to Convenient Care.  Luckily for me that is only 5 minutes away.  There are advantages to living in a small town.

Life Isn't Fair or Is It?

One more Walla Walla Frontier Days and Fair behind us.  The grandgirls clipped, combed, and cleaned their heifers and tried to teach the little stinkers to behave in the ring.  Most of their animals were very young and behaved like bovine toddlers.  Ribbons were won.  Isabel got cuddled by some fair royalty who let me take snaps and showered her with attention.

 

Princess Joycelin Munden, Cowgirl Isabel  & Queen Taylor Skramstad

 

 Some of the family watching our perches while each girl did their circle around the ring.

 

I ate buttered corn on the cob, a Gyro with lamb, and baclava.

I passed on the machines of torture, er, carnival rides.

Closely inspected all the tiny trailers for sale that could be towed by my van while thinking up escapes in same, to the ocean, the lakes, the mountains.

I ate an elephant ear.
Looked at the art show, the quilts, the bazillion photos.

Ate more baclava.
Checked the trailers out again.

Saw lots of cow output.