Thursday Ramble - Late April edition

I have made the first purchase for the kitchen replacement, a new faucet, and the next day the kitchen sink.  Both should be here by the time this posts.  The faucet is black and square, there was a TV commercial of a couple walking into an architect, placing a faucet on the desk and saying "design us a house around this."  Yes, that kind of a statement piece.  Appliances remain the major loose end.  

I am in a crazy busy cycle at the work, three major trainings in two days, and another next week.  My first board meeting since becoming director is Friday, I get to shake things up. And it is budgeting season. And we are officially returning to the office.  Glad I am taking a week off in May.  

I am back in a reading frenzy, I bought a stack of books in NYC, and I am almost done with those.  More on the Kindle to read.  It was nice to get into ink and paper bookstores a couple of times.  There is a nice small bookstore in the New York Public Library.  And one down in the garment district that specializes in drama. You have to love a city that can support specialty bookstores.  

On the east coast of the US there are three types of long distance trains.  North East Regionals,  Aceela, and named long distance trains.  I have ridden all of them.  The Acela is supposedly high speed, but not by much, not really worth the extra.  The NE Regionals are older cars, not the nicest, often the cheapest.  The named long distance trains have nicer interiors than the NE Regionals.  On the trip to New York we took a NE Regional going up, and the Sunset Limited that goes to Miami on the way back,  The seats on the Sunset where more comfortable and a little farther apart.  If they are the same price, take the nicer train.  Any train is the best way to travel on the upper east coast.  

   

The Way We Were Wednesday - Rollo

This photo of my mother's parents was probably taken before I was born, definitely before his health forced them to retire.  He looks very robust in this photo. He was born into a large family on a farm. He preferred to farm with horses or mules, resisted using a tractor (and a tractor accident started the cascade of health problems that led to his retirement.)

When I was sorting photos after my parents died, I came across a baby photo of him, and discovered that his middle name was Rollo.  I have no idea where that came from.  The best I can determine his family was primarily German in ancestry. As was my grandmother's. She had an unusual first name, Mina. (Yes like the bird.) 

Any unusual names in your family history? 

Travel Tuesday - The Stories

 Almost every photo triggers and memory, or a story.  When I travel I take lots of photos, I come home and sort them, and some stand out.  But many are just there.  I find as I go back through them weeks, months or years later the memories and the stories are triggered.  This photo was pulled at absolutely at random from a list of over 60,000.  It was taken shortly after the first snow of 2022. It was a heavy wet snow, that brought down a lot of branches and trees.  This one was taken near home, as the eagle flies only a mile away near the river.  This is the entrance to the Dike Marsh trail,  I have walked there hundreds of times in the past couple of years.  My estimate would be that 33% maybe more of the trees along the trail lost major limbs in that storm, a couple of dozen trees were toppled. I walked the trail that day. 

This image triggers that memory, and all of the stories related to my time on that trail.  We should all take more photos, trigger more memories, tell more stories. 

Music Monday : The Weather Girls - It's Raining Men (Video)

Something very upbeat this week, we need this. 

The Sunday Five: How Will We Remember - Or Do We Want to Forget

I saw an interview with a New York based Psychologist who estimates that 90% of us will experience post-covid trauma for up to 9 years.  

1: Do you feel a need to remember or a desire to forget? 

2: What artifact of this era will be you memory trigger? 

3: What will be the longest lasting change from the experience? 

4: What can we do to help future generations learn from our experience? 

5: What are you most looking forward to returning to as it was before? 

My Answers: 

1: Do you feel a need to remember or a desire to forget? At my age, this is a part of my life experience that I will never forget. 

2: What artifact of this era will be you memory trigger? Face coverings. 

3: What will be the longest lasting change from the experience? Working from home, I think this flexibility will be retained (I hope so.)  

4: What can we do to help future generations learn from our experience? I am starting to take photos, of what it was like.  Photos that tell a story. 

5: What are you most looking forward to returning to as it was before? Maskless air travel.   

Please share your answers in the comments. 

 

The Saturday Morning Post - Going to the Edge

Over the last few trips to New York we watched the skyscrapers at Hudson Yard be built.  Hudson Yard was a rail yard, one of the last underdeveloped large areas in Manhattan.  We noticed the cantilevered protrusion, near the top of one of the towers, it is called the edge.  It is on the 100th floor, 1,100 feet above ground level, and open to the public.  (Also available for private parties.) I kind of like this kind of high up observation level, so we booked tickets for the elevator ride.  We tried to get lunch reservations on the 101st floor, they were closed for a private function.  Lunch comes with a free elevator ride, well at those prices not exactly free (about $100 per person for lunch.) The morning of our reservations it was cloudy.  Low clouds, as in about 700 ceiling and we were going up 1,100 feet.  And why not?  We could have tried to rebook, but the weather forecast was not promising (it cleared out the following day.) Most people skipped it, the elevator up we had to ourselves, there was only one person with us on the trip back down.  There is a glass section in the floor, but it was wet and slippery and view was into the clouds.  

How many times do you get to go for a walk in the clouds?  

 

Fabulous Friday - Food Alchemy

Real men make quiche. Recently I was bored, looked in the fridge, I had a couple of dozen eggs, cream, a lightly smoked very lean bacon, forbidden cheddar, mushrooms, we always have butter in the freezer, the perfect cold day to make quiche. 

The pastry was a variation on Mary Berry's grated frozen butter, flour, salt, a little cold water and an egg.  Americans don't usually put an egg in pastry, it works.  Pastry is really alchemy.  You mix together simple ingredients and make something devine.  

The filling was 7 eggs, a chunk of grated forbidden cheddar, onions, mushrooms and bacon lightly fried, a dash of heavy cream.  

I blind baked the pastry for about 20 minutes at about 400 degrees F, then added the filling and baked at about 375 degrees for about 20 minutes, turned the oven down to 300 F for another 25 minutes. 

It was good, very good.