Author: Susie (Page 23 of 48)

               I have, I know, complained before about carrots and described in detail how much I detest them.  All other vegetables (save the lowly celery stalk) are good friends of mine.  I will happily dine on asparagus, Brussel sprouts, spinach, okra, eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, and pretty much any other vegetable you can name.  My love of vegetables started as a child.  On one notable birthday (we were permitted to ask for any dinner menu on that one day a year), I asked for creamed spinach, lima beans with bacon, grilled asparagus, and baked potato. 

               That’s one of the reasons my parents’ insistence that I eat cooked carrots once a week astonishes me to this day.  I would have happily eaten parsnips, turnips, or peas, but every Wednesday night we had the orange crud battle.  I typically lost.  And while cooked carrots made me gag (and still do), cold, congealed cooked carrots are another level of pain and agony.  That’s typically when I forced myself to down them, after a couple of hours squirming on the dining room chair and pushing them around the plate.

               My loathing of carrots continues to this day.  Strangely, I was never forced to eat celery, even though my mom stuffed stalks with cream cheese and/or peanut butter several nights a week for my dad as an appetizer.  Apparently, eating veggies as an appetizer was optional in my house.  It was a blessing, because celery never appealed much to me.  It’s stringy and has very little taste (unless you pour a half a teaspoon of salt on each bite).

               This is one reason why I get aggravated at soup makers. I expect it in vegetable soup, but try buying a can of chicken noodle soup that hasn’t been tainted with a few carrots.  Some brands even include celery.  But chicken and dumplings – which sounds amazing – has both critters in it.  So does split pea with bacon, and let me just say that there are far more bits of carrot in that one than bits of bacon.  They should just call it what it is – carrots in pureed pea with a bacon bit waved over it.

               I get annoyed primarily because when you pluck out all the nasty pieces of carrot and celery, you have about half of a can left.  A secondary reason I get annoyed is that if you leave them in, the whole soup tastes awful.

               Now some folks have told me that “carrots and celery absorb the flavors of the other ingredients.”  This is a bald-faced lie.  Carrots and celery absorb nothing but moisture and become large, mushy bits of bitterness.

               Some other folks have told me they use these items to create “that crunchy texture.” First of all, they won’t be crunchy if you cook them.  If you don’t cook them, they will taste awful.  Secondly, soup, by definition, is not supposed to be crunchy.  If you want to add crunch, do what normal people do and use oyster crackers or saltines.  But for heaven’s sake, leave the carrots where God put them – underground!

               Can you tell I made some canned soup this weekend? 

I’ve been on many vacations in my life – some fabulous ones, in fact.  When I go on vacation, I always have a grand time.  Spending days with my hubby is a joy for me, so that’s a plus.  Typically we see people we love and enjoy new experiences, so again, more positives.        

               That said, I’m not a fan, in general, of traveling.  While I’m mostly a homebody, our trips have always involved memorable times – some good, some bad, and some hilarious. Recently, we returned from a week-long sprint across four states to share time with good friends and to visit special places.

               This trip is why I haven’t posted in a while, but it also provides a lot of fodder for this blog.  Highlights – and lowlights – of our trip made for some amazing memories.  For example:

               On the first day, we stopped at a reputable hotel chain after 8 hours in the car.  We were both exhausted and my arthritis was not pleased with my marathon of sitting.  The first clue we had that the hotel might be a “lemon,” was the clerk asking us if we wanted the second or fourth floor.  When we asked for the second floor, she handed us keys to room 414.

               Room 414 was sparse.  And by “sparse” I mean that there was no bolt lock for the door.  One had been there, but had been snapped off.  There were also no drapes on the window.  We called down to tell the clerk, but the phone had no dial tone.

               We finally got a room on the second floor with drapes and a lock and day 1 was considered a success. I won’t describe the elevator, though.  That’s a story for another day!

                The second day found us in the car for another four hours, finally reaching our destination at an Atlantic beach.  The beach is beautiful this time of year, and the ocean astounding.  We were a bit distracted from the view by news that my husband’s sister was in the hospital and that the water line to our cistern had a leak.  But hey, what a vacation without a little stress from home?

               The third day was just about perfect. We walked on the beach, shopped for groceries, played games, ate and drank, and enjoyed good friends.  We had lunch at a wonderful little bistro that gave me my only “twinge” of the day.  It was the sign on the porch outside that said, “don’t feed the alligator.” And that wasn’t a joke!

               Day #4 was our annual Friendsgiving celebration which was, as always, both delightful and delicious.  A moment of hilarity ensued in the hot tub, when the jets gave us an unexpected shower!

               The fifth day found us back in the car, trekking 8 hours toward home.  It was another pain-filled day, with some breaks for fun and food.  In a small southern town, I approached a couple at the gas station for advice on where to get a meal. They directed us to a local spot that turned out to have amazing food, great service, and huge portions. 

               On the sixth day, we drove through southern Ohio to get to Cincinnati.  Of all the scenery we had enjoyed, this was by far the most amazing -gorgeous Midwestern hills and foliage.  It made the driving totally worthwhile.  In Cincinnati, we enjoyed more good times with friends, dining, drinking, and watching Hocus Pocus 2.

               Day 7 should have been a day of rest, but not for vacationers!  We ate some more, went shopping, watched football, and wandered around Blink in Cincinnati for a while.  While doing so, I was introduced to Buzz Bull  – a place that will mix the liquor of your choice into the ice cream of your choice and blend it.  The Angel’s Envy Butter Pecan was a highlight of my week!

               We were supposed to stay one more night, but in realizing that we were only 90 minutes from home and very homesick, we left, saying goodbye to the trip of many memories and hello to our own bed.

               Vacations.  I’m always glad I went and even happier when we get home.

For decades, I have believed that I was impossibly thick when it came to understanding directions.  Actually, I do have trouble with directional concepts such as left/right, north/south, and east/west.                

               This problem was underscored for me when I married into a family in which every member spoke in directional terms.  For years, my husband would ask me to “mow the north yard,” but never made a comment about the fact that I was actually mowing the east yard.  I had to find this out in an embarrassing manner.

               I mean, if he had said, “mow the yard with the cedar tree” or “mow the yard next to the road,” I would have understood completely. But alas, I didn’t get it.

               His mom would frequently tell me to go get something in another room.  My favorite was “please go get Aunt Mandy’s bowl from the dining room.”  When I inquired where it was, mom would say “in the southeast corner.”  That narrowed the field down to four corners, but in a room that had glass bowls all over the place.  Every corner had a shelving unit, tea cart, or table with at least one bowl, and often several.

               Again, not helpful to this directionally-challenged woman.

               Then this year, we had an interaction that made me question if this problem was all mine.  My hubby and I were moving a chair – a very large, heavy chair – from the family room into the dining room.  This was due to some renovation work that we had going on (which is a story for another day).  To get the chair to the desired location, we had to move it through a door way to the hall, through the slightly narrower entry way to the kitchen (which was next to built-in open shelves holding glass bowls), and down three stairs through another narrow doorway.

               We were doing fairly well with this through the first doorway.  Then we came to the kitchen entry, next to the shelves.  We had to tip the chair up and move it kind of diagonally through the area to allow for the base to get through.

               Remember, this chair was pretty heavy.  So I was doing my best to lift and turn it at the same time, but apparently not efficiently enough.  My dearest began to say to me, sort of sternly I might add, “bend around, bend around.” This chair didn’t “bend” in any manner.

Secondly, he kept saying “bend” to me, when what he really meant was “tilt.”  Or at least that’s why I would have said.  In any event, we began laughing so hard we nearly dropped the chair.  We finally got it through that narrow spot and down the stairs and into the dining room.

Last night, however, the clincher happened.  Hubby drove to town after dark and noticed that one of the candles in our front window needed a new light bulb.  So he called me and said, “Could you replace it?  It’s on the right as you come into the living room.”

There is no window on the right as you come into the living room.  You come in through the front door and on the right is a desk and a wardrobe.

Then he said, “It’s the one near the piano.”  Oh, well, that’s on the left.  If you go into the living room (from the hall), it’s on the right.

He could have just said “by the piano” to begin with, but no! He had to give “directions.”  My contention is that this instruction problem is not all me.

We can battle that out when the renovation is over, and we have to move that big chair back to the family room.

               In my youth, I had a variety of exciting, and sometimes even dangerous, accidents.  Some were so terrible that I’m grateful to be on the planet to remember and share them.  For example, when I was just a child of 8 or so, my bicycle brakes went out.  On a hill.  Toward a busy highway.  I managed to fly down the hill, across the road and up an incline to railroad tracks without hitting anything.  When my front tire hit the railroad track, the bike stopped but my body continued onward, landing painfully in a sticker bush.  (I learned later it was a nest of thistles).  I was stinging all over my legs and other parts as well, but lived to tell about the adventure.

               In my twenties, I was driving down the road when a tire appeared out of nowhere in front of me, rolling rapidly toward my car’s grill.  I could swerve to the right (and go into the Ohio River), or swerve to the left (hitting the oncoming car).  I braked, and the tire hit my grill, bounced up and hit my windshield, and then flew over my car to roll to a stop many yards later.

               I ended up with a bruised knee, a stiff neck, and a black eye, as my head had hit the rear view mirror.  It was perilous and I nursed those injuries throughout the week to get sympathy, free food, and a lot of attention.

               Many of my injuries have had a colorful story to accompany them.  But I realized this year that I have finally reached that age where there is little excitement, not much color, and not a scrap of danger to incidents that give rise to my injuries.

               For example, I broke my toe last summer.  I’ve broken toes before, of course – once when a large and heavy book was tossed on my foot and once when I was riding a bike.  Exciting and funny stories, those were.  What was I doing this year?  Walking.

               Yep, I was walking across a flat, even floor and rammed my foot into a wooden crate, breaking the little toe.  It hurt like crazy and was not the slightest bit interesting to tell people.

               Later this summer, I wrenched my back.  Nothing that a lot of ibuprofen and a few nights in the hot tub didn’t cure.  But was there a great adventure to share? Sadly, no.  What happened you ask?  Well, I sat down wrong.

I. Sat.  Down.  Wrong.

There’s just no way to make that a rousing tale.

And finally there was this past Monday.  I sliced my arm up but good.  It bled on and off for a couple days, but since it was on my forearm, there just wasn’t enough flesh to worry about going to get a stitch.  I just put antibiotic cream and bandaids on it and tried not to lean on tables and desks with that arm.

Was there an exciting and slightly dangerous account of this?  You decide:  I reached into the refrigerator for Parmesean cheese, scraping my arm on the edge of the shelf.

Not exactly Indiana Jones, huh?

Guess I’ve reached the time in my life when “how did that happen?” will require me to make something up.  At least that’s something I do well!