Okay, this is not a rant, although it is an expression of frustration. I would enjoy leisure cycling, but it’s not something I can manage with my knees. I’ve never had the yearning for a motorcycle, although I appreciate the passion for those who do (especially after watching the 3-part Harley and Davidson  show). The billboards and other urgings to “Share the Road” with cyclists and motorcycles is something I am conscious of and try to faithfully adhere to. With that said, when it comes to motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic, cutting close to bumpers and doors doesn’t quite seem to be in that same spirit.

On the bicycle front – in zipping through stops signs and red lights I guess the idea is, yes, you do have time to make it through. The idea also seems to be, however, that if no one is coming, the light/stop sign doesn’t count. It is the  sidewalk aspect that disturbs me the most though. I walk 3-5 days a week depending on what other exercise I mix in. I also use trekking poles as I think I’ve posted about before. When I am walking, the odds are I won’t hear a bicycle approaching. Around 70% of the time, I get no warning until the bike is passing me. Okay, I get the cyclist can see me, and I suppose the concept is, they can tell if I am perhaps going to take a step over, or am swinging the poles and can swerve to avoid me. That, however, leaves out the simple fact that  a bike whizzing past me is startling. I don’t understand why it is so difficult to give a simple warning as the minority does. “Passing your left”, “Coming past,” “Bike behind you”, the ding of a bell – any of these work. And I am good about thanking a cyclist for the warning, hoping perhaps they will spread the word among others.

In having a delightful “Girlfriend” lunch today, the subject of several military things came up. We’re having Wings Over Homestead, this amazing air show at Homestead Air Reserve Base for the first time in four years. (Sat & Sun 4-5 Nov). The Thunderbirds have come  in as have other visiting aircraft and there will be all kinds of different displays and demonstrations. I wound up discussing military transport and logistics, talking about how one designs tanks, (that had to do with how many tanks can fit onto a C-5 airplane), water production capability, the extent of the Army’s watercraft fleet, etc., We ranged among a lot of other topics as well – from riding motorcycles to choosing between independent and assisted living. Hey, we never quite know what all we’ll cover when we get started.

Anyway, it brought to mind a meeting last week about a potential project and someone asked my why I haven’t written a book about my military experience. One particular long segment of my career, 1974-1992, saw a tremendous shift in the Army as to how women were treated and policy changes. By virtue of timing, I was a part of events that contributed to some of these changes. So many of them though seem like they should have obviously been changed and it’s difficult for people to realize it “hadn’t always been that way”. Plus, quite frankly, there are certain events that occurred that even with not providing names, it would be really easy to identify whom I would be talking about and I’m not prepared to do that yet. Not that it’s anything scandalous, but it is highly personal. I’ll probably be ready in another ten or fifteen years because at some point I do want my son and more importantly our granddaughter to know about this aspect of my life.

I’ve known  a few people who choose Halloween as their favorite holiday. One neighbor always converted their garage into a haunted house and seemed to come up with a few new ideas each year. They were well past having their own kids at home and the husband just took great pleasure in planning and putting it together. A few female friends have been the incredibly “crafty” type who either make the great costumes or who put together a party with the perfect decorations and clever food. Since son was actually due on Halloween and came a few days early on Oct 25th, for a long time, his parties tended to be Halloween-themed. My “craftiness”, however, was pretty much confined to picking out an appropriate cake to buy. The one extra thing I did when he was young was buy three or four different costumes in the after-Halloween sales and he would play whatever characters they were until the costumes wore out.

Our Halloween decorations for the house aren’t extensive, but we’ve added a few things over the years with mostly a skeleton focus. A couple are scary and there’s a whimsical hanger one for the door. I do always use a witch’s cauldron or jack-o-lantern container for the candy. We generally give out 6-7 large bags worth of candy as there are lots of kids around and I actually have a smaller container with non-chocolate, non-nut for the handful who identify as needing that. (Yes, Hubby rolls his eyes a bit at the gesture.) Anyway, we’re breaking with tradition this year because the Seminole Theater is having the WLRN Radio Theater show of Dracula (adapted for radio by Orson Wells). We are really enjoying that series and I wasn’t sure which way Hubby wanted to go. Turns out he figures the kids do get plenty of candy and they probably won’t have the same production next year. Hmm, I wonder if the theater staff will be in costume?

It’s funny how certain memories come to the forefront. In having breakfast with my dear friend this morning, a conversation worked its way around to dealing with string beans. That led to recalling summers at home of shelling beans and peas for fresh produce and of course putting up many quarts in the freezer. On a larger scale though than the garden Daddy always had were the weeks we kids spent on our paternal grandparents’ farm in Arkansas. I think it was a two-week stretch each year, but could have been longer. As I believe I’ve mentioned in a previous post, none of the four boys wanted the family farm and so Papaw leased out most of his land after they all left home. He maintained a couple of pastures for the cows and a large garden. There was the pig pen, the chicken coop, and smokehouse as well. He even had his own small forge for doing basic repairs and the horse he used for the garden and driving the handful of grazing cows out in the morning and back in the afternoon to the appropriate pasture. The two or three dairy cows required twice a day milking as they do. Papaw took care of all the livestock except the chickens which were Mamaw’s domain. When we were old enough to be entrusted, we would gather eggs for her. So, they had fresh milk, fresh cream, and she made their own butter. The garden, once Papaw plowed and planted it, was also her domain in addition to all the household chores and cooking. There was always work to be done and for the most part, we kids enjoyed helping out during our short visits.

A lot of canning still took place since the farm had been established well before individual families had freezers. And items like pickles and preserves were better suited to canning anyway. What a process that was with sterilizing the jars, etc., in the summer in Arkansas with no air conditioning. (Not that anyone had A.C. in those days).  I have to agree with my sister in believing Mamaw made some of the best pickles in the world. I don’t know if she used a recipe or if she did, if it was passed down. I know neither of us have it. Those are too often the things you don’t think about until it’s too late.

I rarely do brand endorsements of products and in this case, there is probably more than one brand that can accomplish the same purpose. In two very different aspects of little things being convenient, we recently had to replace our washer and dryer. I had thought I wanted one of the front-load washers up on the pedestal, maybe even in one of the new great colors they have. Then I looked at the price and took into consideration the fact our laundry room is exactly that. It’s large enough to have the W&D, the iron and ironing board, various cleaning implements and adequate shelving. It’s not like some houses where the laundry is part of a back entry into a house. I also looked at a Whirlpool on sale (and they have been making appliances for a long time) and saw they had a feature with a specific setting for bulky items/bed linens. You know how it is – you wash sheets and somehow stuff gets tangled in them and literally twists around into kind of a ball. With this new design, the blades of the agitator in the tub are much smaller and between that and whatever else they’ve done, it solves this problem. It doesn’t help in the dryer, but at least there is only one need to untangle instead of two.

Moving into the kitchen, a number of years ago I was put onto the method of making lasagna without boiling the noodles and I love that shortcut. The other  day I was going for lasagna noodles and a box from Barilla caught my eye – lasagna sheets. They are a little thinner, don’t have the scalloped edges and are created as no-boil with a total baking time of 40 minutes instead of the usual 55. They are cut to accommodate a standard oblong baking dish and you place them across the dish instead of down the length. The directions said the noodles will expand while baking to fit the dish. It looked a little odd, but sure enough, 25 minutes later when I removed the foil, the noodles fit the dish as if I had cut them to do so. Another 8-10 minutes for final browning and I couldn’t have asked for a better looking lasagna. Although neither of these things is momentous, they are both time savers.