Category Archives: Of This and That

Georgia Trip, Day 2…….

Posted on by
Reply

The Hampton Inn had biscuits and sausage gravy as part of the breakfast so Hubby was happy. Lunch later at his sister’s was perfect with a taco salad that included wonderfully fresh tomatoes from a local market. They did a great job remodeling the house and it fits nicely into the old, established neighborhood. The incorporated some of the original features like leaving one of the corner cabinets in the dining room, The other one went as that wall came down allow for a much-needed expansion of the kitchen. The old den is now a designated playroom for the stair-stepped three grandchildren as the oldest is now a young man. While there are a few things she said they would have done differently, it is a warm, welcoming place complete with a front porch and adult and two child-size rocking chairs.

We got caught up on everyone and they are going to the reunion tonight so will pick us up which makes it nice. I spent part of the afternoon working on an article for the paper as Hubby listened to a photography podcast (or something like that). We went into the town square for dinner which has indeed become incredibly crowded. There are multiple tours as “The Vampire Diaries” continues to be popular and there are also ghost tours. We were glad to see the former Irish pub was replaced by a Gastropub, The Social Goat. Apparently it recently changed hands and our waitress didn’t know where the name came from. I thought there might be an explanation on the menu, but no. It was a fairly short menu with a focus on gourmet burgers, a long list of taco options, a few entrees and nine rotating beers on tap in addition to the bottled beers, plus some intriguing sounding cocktails. We did the burgers; Hubby with The Social Goat version which included pimento cheese and bacon jam. I went traditional.

Goats Added To The Mix…..

Posted on by
Reply

Another couple of days slipped by as multiple extra tasks were added in. As I mentioned when writing about the May trip, we went through Abita Springs on the way back to have a short visit with my brother and sister-in-law. We did not have time to go to their new place and will schedule that for perhaps next year. They are almost completely transitioned from the house in Mandeville to what is sort of a “family complex”. My sister-in-law’s mother made it to her 100th birthday and passed away several months ago. There had been the agreement she would stay in her home and while both sons were able to help and there were visiting nurses involved, a large part of the assistance came from my sister-in-law and brother. She left the house to them and there are some number of acres where the two brothers live nearby. (I;m not entirely clear on the proximity). Anyway, my brother and sister-in-law have always taken in strays of everything – and I mean lots over the years. If I recall correctly, at their peak there were like 6 or 7 cats, two dogs, and a neighbor’s pot-bellied pig that seemed to constantly come over. At some point I think there were guinea pigs, too. In all fairness, my sister-in-law did have a business for a while before they married doing children’s parties with a pony and maybe a few other animals. That was in addition to her extraordinary creativity as a fabric artist and a horticulturist.

Anyway, they have space at the new place to where a friend was going to give them a goat as a housewarming present and according to my sister-in-law, goats are social animals. They now have two goats and while they can be great fro helping keep brambles, weeds, etc, under control apparently there are other issues to be worked out with eating the wrong shrubbery and flowers. Ah well, I’m sure they will all come to agreement.

Days Slipped By Again…..

Posted on by
Reply

I would ask how almost a week passed since my last post, but barring computer or internet issues, it’s the usual answer of extra tasks thrown in to get me off-schedule. Nothing bad although a couple of genuinely annoying things to deal with. They aren’t worth getting into. I had vague hopes of being able to dive this week and that isn’t happening.

Speaking of diving, a friend who has found and/or identified numerous shipwrecks has done it again. Michael Barnette (met him while working on Mystery of the Last Olympian) has done exploration in many places and apparently, a famous yacht sunk in 1931 is his most recent success. Here’s part of a Facebook post from earlier today. “The wreck of INGOMAR has eluded divers until just recently. A survey conducted by William Hoffman, Joseph Hoyt, and William Sassorossi documented the unidentified yacht in 2017. Imagery collected by John McCord revealed the graceful lines of an elegant yacht. Using their baseline data and looking through archival information, I suspected the wreck was INGOMAR. The dimensions, machinery, and position largely match the attributes of INGOMAR. The wreck rests on her starboard side in deep sand. While not a conclusive identification, the available evidence coupled with the lack of other suspect sites strongly suggest this shipwreck site is indeed the historic yacht INGOMAR.”

The process for officially identifying a wreck after it’s located can easily take years and when I wrote Idyllic Islands, I did a few chapters about how it works. (https://charliehudson.net/books/idyllic-islands.html) That part of the book served two purposes. I needed to introduce a character who would become important much later and the reason I chose that way to do so is because it is such an intricate process. In this case, I made it fairly easy to better match the rhythm of the story.

Lessons From “The Gambler”…..

Posted on by
Reply

We support and attend an annual fundraiser each year for the Military Affairs Council that does different things for the military community. It’s a Casino Nite and I think I have explained before that neither Hubby nor I gamble. As I explained, I have nothing against it as it’s been going on for thousands of years and it’s as good a source for entertainment as any. While it can also bring tragedy through addiction, that’s a different issue. The corruption and crime are also other issues.

Anyway, the singer for the evening of course had to do “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers, another of his great songs. In the repeated words of, “know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em; know when to walk away and know when to run” and “never count your money while sitting at the table; there’ll be time enough for counting when the dealings done.”, there are good points for life. However, it’s important to add in the other phrases such as, “The House always wins”, or in the best case, “The odds favor the House.” Whatever the gambling establishment, a certain number of people have to win; otherwise, only the addicts will come. Although there is definite skill involved with some games and even “techniques” for playing something as random as slot machines, chance is ever a factor. A friend from a long time ago said in his one time in Vegas, he was on a streak. He was up by $10,000 and in classic fashion, instead of walking away, he kept betting and lost most of it.  I don’t gamble because I’m no good at it and in Hubby’s case, he doesn’t want to devote the time it takes to become skilled.

A dear friend of mine loves going to Biloxi to whichever of the resorts it is she favors and she frequently takes a group. Her husband and mine grew up together and like my husband, he graduated from Georgia Tech. He, too, understands the math behind gambling and he’s fine with this as a source of entertainment for his wife. He indulgently shakes his head when she “wins” – which she absolutely does at times – because he knows when you add up the losses, the House will indeed come out ahead.

 

Chocolate Musings….

Posted on by
Reply

Watching part of “Brunch with Bobby Flay” the other morning started a discussion about chocolate as he was featuring it in multiple forms for this particular brunch. I do know people who don’t care for chocolate and there are those unfortunates who are allergic to it. My brother is one which is how we discovered white chocolate. Bobby was using it on his show and explained how it doesn’t contain cocoa powder, yet has the taste because it is derived from cocoa butter. I don’t recall who told us about white chocolate all those years ago; perhaps another individual who was allergic and was happy to pass on the information.

There is also the debate about dark versus milk chocolate and while I prefer milk chocolate, dark chocolate with different combinations is delicious – I mean there is a reason Girl Scout Thin Mints has been a best seller for decades. Where I differentiate is if I am going to eat a plain piece, I’ll always choose milk.chocolate. The restaurants’ infamous desserts of Death by Chocolate – and there are multiple variations – probably does it best with between four to seven types depending on the restaurant.

Going back to Bobby’s show, he was also using chocolate in the Mexican/Southwestern style of it as an ingredient for a savory dish. I have found that to be tricky and always follow a recipe the few times I’ve done it. The proportions have to be correct or it tends to end up with a bitter taste.

In an aside, toward the latter part of Desert Storm, we were getting Hershey’s Desert Bars, one they created to not melt until around 140 degrees. It was actually pretty good, but they didn’t produce a great many before the War ended and I’m not sure why it didn’t seem to catch on with the general public. (The M&Ms motto of, “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand”, is correct unless you are in a desert-type climate)

Multi-generation Businesses……

Posted on by
Reply

Rumors had been swirling around that the local family-owned restaurant that’s been in business for 50+ years was going to be sold. Those of us who are regulars have known for a while it was more or less on the market. As often happens, the third generation of the family doesn’t want to continue. It is a “legacy” restaurant and the intent has always been for someone to agree to maintain that aspect, so there was no plan to just sell out. The current deal is still in the “process stage” and we’ll see what actually comes about.

The point to the blog goes back to what I’ve written about the next generation in a small business. In writing for the community paper, I’ve now encountered one family business with the fourth generation, several with three and more with two. A friend and I were discussing this the other day and she quoted, “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” I wasn’t familiar with that one and found this on-line: “from proverbial saying, early 20th century; meaning that wealth gained in one generation will be lost by the third.” In the situation I’m talking about, it isn’t so much the loss of wealth (although that certainly does happen), but rather the loss of interest. In some cases, it’s because interests simply diverge; in others, it’s having “grown up in the business” and deciding it isn’t a fit. That’s what happened on my father’s side. Even though Papaw had the farm in good shape with the amount of land he handled and the acreage he leased out, none of the four sons wanted to follow in his footsteps. On my mother’s side, it was the opposite. I don’t recall if my uncle stepped into the law office before Papaw became a judge or as soon as he did. As I explained, I was supposed to be the third generation and when I stayed longer in the Army than I initially planned, my cousin joined the office. His younger sister did too for a while, then she followed the line of being a judge. In talking with her oldest daughter, now a lawyer, married to a lawyer, whether or not they choose to take it over remains to be seen. Moving back to the really small town where she grew up might not be  in the works.

No Big Celebration This Year…..

Posted on by
Reply

Although the City does a really nice Fourth of July celebration nearby, I’m not going this year and not sure if Hubby will go shoot the fireworks as he has done in the past. We’re also not inviting the neighbors over, but we haven’t done that for a few years anyway since we’d been attending the big City celebration instead.

We do have hamburgers planned and will time that for early if Hubby does go to shoot the fireworks. He was supposed to work all day and the class was cancelled which is part of why he isn’t certain yet of what he’ll do. I don’t think he’s gotten a text from the paper about it, but that could be because they assume he’ll be there. Anyway, we’ll see how the day goes.

I enjoy the big event with what is usually plenty of rousing music and people dressed in a variety of red, white, and blue. They have fun activities for the kids, too. The “melting heat” of early July in South Florida can be managed with appropriate hydration – especially making sure to have a water in between the nice cold beers. The jammed traffic in trying to get home is mostly what I don’t have the energy for this year. We can see the high-shooting fireworks from the house and in general, we actually see three different displays as Florida City does one as well and if the sky is clear, we can catch the one from Key Largo. There are usually multiple families who do a lot of fireworks in this and surrounding neighborhoods, too. Not sure what the kids are planning up in Northern Virginia as they had a week-long trip to Maine recently and their month-long summer intensive dance session starts tomorrow. I suspect they’ll stay in and watch specials on TV.

Such A Long Gap……

Posted on by
Reply

I think things may be stabilizing a bit although that doesn’t mean less busy. Among the issues for the past week-plus was a potential problem that required two extra optometry visits. Let me start by saying I’ve been fortunate to have anything other than the occasional painful stye. I do spend a lot of time on the computer and right after Memorial Day I was experiencing what seemed to be shorter times between when I would need a break from looking at the screen and my left eye watering. I wasn’t experiencing any pain. I overdue my annual exam and took that as a sign. The optometrist I’ve seen for years has really cut back her time and I had the new doctor; a very pleasant young lady. They have the type of machines now where your eyes are scanned and photographed from all sorts of angles. Nothing unusual showed up and my prescription didn’t even need to be changed.  The doc gave me mild steroid eye drops for a week with a follow-up. The drops seemed to help and when I returned, she did notice a small cyst in my lower left lid, although I was still not experiencing pain. However, that’s outside their expertise and I was referred to a specialist. Great, just what I needed along with everything else. In not wanting to travel to Kendall, I had to delay the appointment for when the specialist would be in Homestead. It isn’t that I was overly concerned so much as it was I also couldn’t take a chance.

Fortunately, other than the waiting time to be seen being frustratingly long and mild dilation being involved, the cyst is small enough it should resolve without further treatment. (Obviously I let her know if that changes). I was very glad, but there was a different aspect that surprised me. She noted I had some crusting on my left eyelash I hadn’t thought was unusual. She then explained I should wash my eyelashes 3-4 times a week with baby shampoo. Say what? Apparently this is commonplace and having now purchased baby shampoo for the first time in decades, we’ll see how it works.

Another Memory Stirred….

Posted on by
Reply

Last week I attended/covered/sponsored the annual Chamber of Commerce Ladies of Legacy Luncheon. As usual, it was quite a line-up with four panelists and the moderator, topped by the Mayor of Miami-Dade County (first female). The Mayor of course could only stay for a short time and spoke about her “journey into leadership” before the moderator posed questions to the panelists. They represented a mix of profit, non-profit, and government.

Not surprisingly, in listening to them, another memory was stirred about my days of “being the first female to…..” As I have posted before, while I held seven such positions over the course of my career, the first most significant from a “ground-breaking one” was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. That’s because it was a huge installation with a long history and therefore, when I took command of the large maintenance company (right around 300 personnel), it gained a lot of attention. We would also periodically be visited by different general officers, who were almost always unaccustomed to a female being in this position. Not to say they disagreed with it; merely it was a surprise. One time, it was a three-star general I think and during the course of discussion he asked something like, “How long did it take your people to accept you as the commander?” Now, based on his tone and body language, I understood he was actually curious; not trying to put me down. I said something along the lines of, “Not long, sir, everyone got used to it pretty quickly.” We went on through the tour and about an hour after I returned to my office, the Colonel (who was the rank about my direct boss, the Lieutenant Colonel) called me personally to make sure I wasn’t disturbed by the General’s question. I knew the Colonel had been supportive of my selection from the beginning and I assured him everything was fine. It was, however, another interesting moment of “affirmation”.

Memorial Day Traditions…

Posted on by
Reply

I had hoped to get a May dive in, but it looks like that isn’t going to happen. With two different events to participant in on Saturday and two to cover today for the paper, the timing was going to be really tight. Getting away tomorrow meant juggling lots of things and turning my stories into the paper later than I like. On the other hand, it was doable.

Memorial Day, however, is also immensely popular for diving and Hubby is in the midst of  7 or 8 day stretch of teaching. The boats have been crowded and the simple fact is, the spaces really do need to go to clients. So, I’ll pass for tomorrow and take care of my long to-do list. Maybe, maybe I can mange June although at the moment, it seems to already be filling up.

Anyway, my morning started with the Veterans of Foreign Wars having their ceremony at the local cemetery where volunteers take small flags and stick them into the ground of veterans’ graves. We did have rain for a while although people still turned out and Mother Nature did relent before the speech parts were completed so the movement among the graves could be done in sunshine.

The noontime event shifted to the American Legion where the Boy Scout Troop they sponsor has the flag retirement ceremony. This is where the flags are cut and burned in accordance with established protocol. They do this two or three times and year and people can bring their old flags at any time to be stored until a ceremony is held.

Under the circumstances, we haven’t invited anyone over for dinner tonight which will be burgers. We have some corn on the cob in the freezer we need to use, too, and that’s a nice traditional Memorial Day food. Oh shoot, I just realized I forgot to pick up an apple pie. Ah well, I can make the claim we didn’t need dessert.