Pressure Points

"The uppermost portion of the ear is directly connected to your back and shoulders. Applying a clothespin for about a minute should go a long way to reduce built-up tension. Try this several times a day to lessen that back and shoulder pain."

Thanks to Mom's cousin Karen for forwarding the email about this. 

If anyone would like to read the entire thing and find out what each numbered area is for, email me.

My galpal Cathy was having sinus and headache issues, so gave it a try. I think the jury is out on whether it really was the clothespins rather than time itself that made the difference, but she's feeling better. 

I don't use clothespins to stimulate the pressure points. I bought magnets expressly for that purpose. They aren't necessary, but at least if I forgot about them (as opposed to clothespins) and went out in public, I might not get so many stares! 

Actually it's only a minute or two that one leaves the pressure on. No biggie.

What do you mean, do I really believe this works? 
I don't go for a regular shiatsu massage treatment every month for nothing, my dears. 
Now I'm not saying shiatsu or any other kind of therapy always works, but it does help some people some of the time, and I also think preventive maintenance makes as much sense as healing after an injury. 

Here I am, one of those crazy ladies who wears magnets on her ears! 

One magnet on each side of the ear holds them on; they could pass for earrings.

Me and Frida

One of the characters in Barbara Kingsolver's novel The Lacuna is Frida Kahlo.
I finished the book, its most interesting aspect the friendship between the main character, cook-turned-writer, and his friend Frida.

A print from a calendar or magazine was mailed to me months ago by my friend J, and is tacked up on the basement door. It is Kahlo's painting, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird. 

I see it every time I come into the kitchen from the porch, and maybe that is why I don't see it. 

I fell in love with the handmade Frida Kahlo doll made for Cathy B by a dear friend, a mutual friend who went on to sew me a doll with my mom's physical characteristics.

From the library, a book showcasing some of Kahlo's belongings or collections is coming my way. 

Meanwhile, I poke around on the internet.

My Grandparents, My Parents and Me

By Frida Kahlo

I am doing a little reading while I wait. 

http://www.fridakahlofans.com/c0160.html

Thank a Feminist

If you're female and... 

...you can vote
...you get paid as much as men doing the same job
...you went to college instead of being expected to quit after high school so your brothers could go because "You'll just get married anyway"
...you can apply for any job, not just "women's work",
...you can get or give birth control information without going to jail
...your doctor, lawyer, pastor judge or legislator is a woman
...you play an organized sport
...you can wear slacks without being excommunicated from your church or run out of town
...your boss isn't allowed to pressure you to sleep with him
...you get raped and the trial isn't about your hemline or your previous boyfriends
...you start a small business and can get a loan using only your name and credit history
...you are on trial and are allowed to testify in your own defense
...you own property that is solely yours
... you have the right to your own salary even if you are married or have a male relative
... you get custody of your children following divorce or separation
... you get a voice in the raising and care of your children instead of them being completely controlled by the husband/father
... your husband beats you and it is illegal and the police stop him instead of lecturing you on better wifely behavior
... you are granted a degree after attending college instead of a certificate of completion
... you can breast feed your baby discreetly in a public place and not be arrested
... you marry and your civil human rights do not disappear into your husband's rights
... you have the right to refuse sex with a diseased husband [or just "husband"]
... you have the right to keep your medical records confidential from the men in your family
... you have the right to read the books you want
... you can testify in court about crimes or wrongs your husband has committed
... you can choose to be a mother or not a mother in your own time not at the dictates of a husband or rapist
... you can look forward to a lifespan of 80 years instead of dying in your 20s from unlimited childbirth
... you can see yourself as a full, adult human being instead of a minor who needs to be controlled by a man

-author unknown (plus I've removed the repeated 
"thank a feminist" at the end of each sentence in the original).
-with gratitude to nagonthelake.blogspot.com for posting it   
   I might add that if you're a male, you can thank a feminist 
if you are not looked down upon for not bringing home all 
the bacon because your wife can now get a job outside the 
home and people no longer think you're a poor provider or 
less of a man because of it.
     Maybe you can also thank a feminist because you can now
 be more actively involved in the care and raising of your 
children and enjoy the pleasures and closeness that brings. 
     You might thank a feminist if you know how to do your
 own or your family's laundry, make meals, wash dishes 
and clean your house. There is a certain satisfaction in 
this kind of self-sufficiency as opposed to being served
 by someone else. 

For Lorna

Lorna, this is for you:

Part One
http://www.wavescore.com/video-profile.php?u=Rvm6ZOYmPB&p=7

Part Two

Geese are Back

"Honk! Honk Honk Honk!"

I wasn't quick enough to get the camera out of my jacket pocket, unzip its padded bag, turn it on and focus it before they'd flown past, but I was quick enough to count 'em: 10 Canada geese, heading northwest!

Ooh, the excitement. The pleasure of the sight. The thrill of the sound.  Woo hoo!

A gorgeous day for a walk and, apparently, for a flight.

Looks like it's going to be another sunny, sparkly, shiny day, the kind where one wishes there was something to do out there besides walk, because you simply don't want to come indoors. Maybe I'll build a bonfire in the front yard.

It was warm enough yesterday that I thought maybe I could wash Little Green when I went to town to ferry Emil from his place to Everett's for the night. All I had to do was remember to take a fistful of loonies and toonies. But the road was slippery with mud so it would have been wasted effort, and Little Green remains a mudpie.

That's the case whether the roads are dry or wet. If it's not mud, it's dust that will stick to the car even when it's totally dry. Why wash it? The very next day you're right back where you started from. Is there a product that repels dust from clean auto exteriors?

Please note, if you are using the homemade toothpaste recipe that I posted on my Stubblejumpers Café recipe collection site, that I have updated it: CLICK HERE.

Baked Potato Chip Nachos

You may note that I never share recipes people post on Facebook. You have to "share" them in order to save them for your own future reference, don't you? I won't cooperate.

I will, however, occasionally do a search on YouTube to find the recipe video.

Here's one I'm going to try. How about you, Everett? Is it up your alley? Guaranteed, Emil will love it.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNumh7pGpE4

In the Kitchen

For once it's not me doing the dishes!
Can't complain about that.

They look like a matching set:

L-R: Scott, Melissa, Gunnar

Pitchforks to Pitchers

From The Lacuna:

"From three-thirty to four, it rained pitchforks."

So simple, yet what a picture.

We've got company.

I've made a dozen loaves of bread: yesterday, so as to please them while they're here; and today, to send back to Calgary with them on Friday.

This morning:

Father and son

Darling daughter-in-law tackles my filthy keyboard

Beast on my couch

Brother-in-law Bruce 

Did get out and walk two miles with Bruce's two dogs while he cleared deadfall from the bush next to our driveway.

My dogs stayed indoors, as if it was too cold out; or maybe guarding their territory from the two temporary dogs that are house dogs. Whatever the case, it's a doggy zoo around here.

The title promised pitchers:

Belonged to my grandmothers

There Goes the Wind

Then one evening, I jumped out of my chair.
It was time! Tonight, I'd cut those lengths of parachute cord and tie them in place to make — voila — zen birdsavers!
Out came the scissors and cord, and I began to measure, snip and knot at the kitchen table.
Until Scott said, "What are you doing?" and proceeded to suggest a different and, to his way of thinking, better way.
It would mean I had to prime and paint a couple of boards, and cut the cords a different length because they would be attached via a whole different mechanism than I had visualized.
He wanted to hang the birdsavers two feet from the window, not at all what I was visualizing, and —
And there went the wind out my sails.
I couldn't paint that night, and couldn't continue as I was.
I set the cord aside and it's been there for several weeks.
In the meantime, the birds are still hitting the window once in a while, but it's not as bad as it was.
I hung half-a-dozen scarves from the curtain rod and lined up vases on the window ledge; whatever might catch the attention of a bird in flight and warn it that there is "something" there.

This is only a temporary and poor solution, however. In a certain light and from a certain angle, the bird sees only sky and trees reflected in the window glass. It can't see inside.
The birdsavers must still be made, and soon.
I just have to work up my enthusiasm again.

August Flowers

This morning:

Coffee while propped up in bed reading The Lacuna.

Notebook at my side to write down things I want to see again or do something with. For example, this quote from the book.

Frida Kahlo's cook has just delivered a meal to her studio, and she asks what he thinks of the painting she's at work on. He says, careful not to offend, something like "We're making good progress" and she responds wryly:

"As the fly said, sitting on the back of the ox, 'We are plowing this field!' "

The Lacuna is a novel I almost set aside without reading more than 50 pages. In the beginning it did not hook my attention. But before reaching its hundredth page, it had redeemed itself. From now on I'll give every book my devotion for 100 pages; that's fair as well as self-serving.

I don't know whether the following is a translation of a real saying in Mexico, or if author Barbara Kingsolver has written it herself, but it comes out of the mouth of a hardworking servant in the early part of last century.

"God gives money to the rich because if they didn't have it, they would starve."

For full dazzle, click to enlarge: the flowerbed in the front yard.

I receive some photographs and am sorting them, finding a folder on my computer, when I see "august flowers.jpg" in the list and click on it just because.
And voila! Wow! If I say so myself. You'll have seen it or something like it before, but if you're like me it will give you a lift anyway.

This LadyHeads for Her Pillow

We're out of the office early tonight; five o'clock, for me.
The streets are wet and crunchy with slush, ice and water. I bundle up and walk over to Everett's to get Little Green where I left her this morning. Everett is already in his housecoat.
I drive over to Emil's place. He meets me at the door and gets ready in record time.
I have to stop for a few things at the store and convince him to wait in the car. It's just easier that way when I'm hoping for a quick trip in and out.
When we arrive home I drive Little Green right up to the step and make four trips between car and house, hauling in my purse and some fresh farm eggs and a bag of buns I had in the fridge at the office for lunches, and Emil's backpack and the sack that carries his braces and indoor shoes, and three 10-litre jugs of drinking water, and two cloth shopping bags full of groceries. 
Then I back Little Green out to the parking area and, on my way back to the house, detour past the oaks to refill the feeders for the chickadees and redpolls. There's still a little light left and they may nibble a while yet.

Emil, with genuine enthusiasm and pride, followed by curiosity:

I like my new job, sanding. We have a store at Mallard Industries now. Do you ever go shopping there, Mom?

Me, as if a light's just come on:

Why no, I haven’t! I guess I could though, eh?

Emil, Most Matter-of-Fact Guy Ever:
That’s what stores are for.

Night of the Son

Come into my hallway ... heh heh heh ... (my Count Dracula impersonation) ...

Leaving the Christmas bulbs up. They're good feng shui.

It's the best place to stand while brushing your teeth in our house. Minutes of entertainment!

Click to enlarge.

I'll see y'all tomorrow night, if I've any energy when I get home Friday after work. Usually after a long day at the computer, I still sit down here and check my mail after being away overnight, and I still post something on this page. It might be crazy, but it's a habit.

Everett and I will be watching Rick and Morty this evening. Have a taste:

Cardboard Boxes

This cardboard box with its hinged lid has been kicking around for several years. Where did it come from? I don't remember.

Just this weekend I realized it's a treasure.

I've been storing paper mementos in it, awaiting the day I get around to doing something with them.

I've also been eyeing up empty notebooks with a view to getting the travelling journal on the road. Very nearly got things onto the kitchen table one afternoon this week, but somehow never.

Prezzies

My phone, laying on the desk, warbles a spooky tune. Karen is texting me.
"Can I take you out for lunch today?"
But of course.

Lunch is at the Greek restaurant in town. We both order the chicken burger special. I eat all the salad before taking more than a bite or two out of the burger, and am full before it's half gone. Good thing Scott and his brother and Leonard P join us; I can always count on Scott to finish my meals.

Does it occur to me to snap a few photos? Apparently not.

From me, Karen picks up a bagful of flower-arrangement sponge that a gal had dropped off at the office for her.

She leaves me with belated-birthday presents: a new garbage can she'd bought as per my orders when she was shopping somewhere, and a set of (when I get home and look in the gift bag, I text to ask if they were meant to be wall hangings or what?) "coffee mug mats."

I won't set coffee mugs on them; they'd get stained. 

The flip side.

You can't tell by the photos, but the mats are small, like a half or even a third the size of a regular place mat. They're cute as can be. Click on the images to enlarge them and have a closer look.

I get a kick out of the gift bag. Look at the extra expense that went into the making of this one:

It's an actual piece of wood. 

Suzie Was Sizzlin'

"Is it all right," I asked, ever so politely, "if I take a picture while you're singing?"
"Of course!" she said, also politely.
So I found a spot near the back of the room and got my camera ready.
My camera, my sweet little camera "what I luv."
And then I thought, why don't I make a wee video of Suzie singing and playing?
Might as well.
Now, she was playing her bass guitar for a change, for one song, so you won't get the full flavour of her concert this afternoon at Charlene's house.
And you won't get the complete song, because the friggin' camera quit on me just a minute in.
Damn machines.
This is the second time in several days that it's given me this kind of grief: "No more internal memory. Need new memory card," or somesuch thing. Baloney, of course, unless memory cards wear out like recyclable batteries eventually do.

Anyway, here's a taste of Suzie Vinnick's performance today at a farmhouse near Wadena:



Scott examined the camera when we got home and says I didn't have the memory card in correctly.
We shall see. Hope he's right.

City Slickers

When we get company who've never been here before or it's been too long, they often phone from Wadena. I give them directions to the corner three-quarters of a mile south, and wait for them there.

I drive to the correction line and make a u-turn before pulling over to the side of the road.

Out the passenger window

It usually takes about 10 minutes till they get here. I sit and listen to the radio (today it was Quirks and Quarks on CBC; guests were talking about "fake" tattoos that can read physical conditions like high cholesterol, cancer, etc., and about gleaning electronic energy from human sweat; wow, I say).

Out the driver's window. Hm, where are they? Should be here by now.

Text:
We're on Lone Tree Road by the greenhouse sign.

Text:
By the sign or by the actual greenhouse?

Text:
The greenhouse.

Text:
Oh. Okay. You can get here that way, too. Drive straight, another mile to the four-way stop, and turn left; I'll be in the little green car.

And so I back up onto the correction line and mosey on over to the Kylemore grid and toward Lone Tree Road, and soon see Kathy's car approaching from the distance. She blinks her headlights a couple times and I do the same before turning around in a driveway so the car points toward home again.

This time the girls have a pilot vehicle and pull into our yard right behind me.

Little Kath and her daughter Jessie come out from Saskatoon for the afternoon. 

 I'm meeting Jessie, age nine, for the first time. Kathy and I have known each other since she was 11 and I was 23, when her dad was my new beau. For four years Kathy and her two younger siblings spent their summer holidays with us.

Ducky thinks he's died and gone to heaven. Two more laps to sit on, four more hands to pet him; what's not to love! And when Jessie leaves her mom and me at the kitchen table and moves to the couch to draw and write in her book, Ducky goes along.

•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>

How's this for an answer to the unspoken question, How do you account for your long life?

"I pick all my own fruit," he said. "It gives me a reason to stay living." -"Jam Man" in Prince Albert
FULL STORY: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/jam-man-vows-continue-1.3453544?cmp=rss&cid=news-digests-saskatchewan

•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>•••<>

Response to comments:
• LORI - I went to your webpage this morning again. Looks like you guys had a great time. So interesting to one who's never been up there ... like me.
• ANNETTE: Cameras, eh? I like my little digital, mostly because I've dropped it a half-dozen times and it keeps on ticking! But it does do weird things with perspective, like bring a field close that is a mile away, that kind of thing. However, it's all in fun and that's enough for me.

Foggy Morn

Brrrring! Brrrrring! Brrrrrring!

Wha...? Is that my phone?

I was asnooze in Everett's living room in town. Last night he introduced me to Rick and Morty and Ash Versus Evil Dead. The former had its humorous moments. I was bored by the latter.

Scott was calling.
"Ducky is lying there whining, this morning. Can you bring his medication out, or do I have to come in and get it?"

The pills had been picked up from the vet in Yorkton yesterday and delivered to me at the office.

I dressed, started the car, and drove slowly out to our place over icy roads. It was around seven o'clock. Ducky Doodle got his meds (second round; he's been scratching himself crazy for weeks) and I got a big mug of hot black coffee before heading back to town around 8:30.

It was foggy and the sun was barely up and just beginning to burn through. Down the road, I threw Little Green into 'Park' and got out to take a picture.

The camera did not capture the beautiful scene I saw. Alas.
It was quite magical.

Let's Talk Somerset

Laughed out loud when I heard the Bristol accent.
The county of Somerset is where some of the family ancestors came from.

And we do, for sure, come from farmers for generations upon generations.



Some of our English antecedents were wealthy landowners in Upper Woodlands in the area near Frome, which isn't such a long way from the famous Bath, frequented by many travellers. There was a castle surrounded by a moat, on the estate. In 1805 a daughter of these landowners married their gardener or manager, who had been a soldier. It didn't go over too well with her parents and there was subsequent estrangement between the young couple and her family, although when her brother died in 1818, he left some of his valuable worldly goods (like his bed; valuable in those days) to his sister, brother-in-law and one or two of his nephews.

But anyway, I come honestly by my love of flowers.

One's own ancestry is of much more interest than that of others, usually, but my relatives reading this might not have heard me go on about these few details before.

I love the shows on TV that trace ancestry for selected guests. There is a lot of cultural and social history to be learned from them, just like there is from Antiques Roadshow. When it's on, I can't look away.

Sleep-In Morning

Why, I ask you, would a person have a completely headache-free day and then the moment she lays her head on her pillow, it begins? Rzzl Frzzzl Grrr.  It meant I slept poorly and had to get up in the night and take a pill that, unfortunately, didn't do the trick 100% but went as far as putting me into a semi-coma that will make me later than I want to be for work this morning.

While waiting for my oatmeal porridge to cool enough to eat, I might as well update the blog. As if there is anything of interest to report.

Not.

I was telling Dad on the phone last night that we are having the kind of days where, when I go for a walk, I don't need mitts on but still need my hood up because the wind is cutting even in this unseasonably warm temperature.

We've also had a bit of snow in recent days, so everything is blanketed in a soft white.

There, the porridge is cool enough to pass through my lips. I'm off and running on the road to the office!

P.S.
Grandpa Benson's birthday today. I think he'd be turning 102, but I doubt he'd've liked to reach that age, feeling as he did the last few years of his life.

Nothing Fancy

Valentine's Day was sunny and warm, so we thought we'd zip up to the Hendon Hotel for a beer and see what the new owners are doing with the place. Fortunately they'd advertised in the local paper so there was a phone # to call in order to find out whether the pub was open on a Sunday afternoon. It wasn't but as it turned out we came right by there on our way home anyway, so it wouldn't have been a wasted trip had we gone without calling first.

What should we do then? Scott thought it would be nice to pick up some ice cream and take it over to Everett's for the boys, so we did that and visited with them for a few minutes. Everett was finishing up his dishes and planning to bake chocolate cupcakes. Emil had been watching movies all day but graciously paused his film about the Sneetches while we were there.

We stopped at the office so I could pick up a library book I'd left on my desk; it was time to return a stack of them, most unread. No time, no time! Alison was there, working away. A quick chat and I was on my way back to Scott and the truck. We gassed up and headed out for a drive through the countryside, the trees glittering with hoarfrost.

Home again, Scott prepared steak and I prepared potatoes and carrots, and while they cooked, we read through the papers we'd picked up in town. The WADENA NEWS had been delivered to the office on Saturday morning so I'd grabbed a copy, and Scott had gathered the district freebies that are distributed in boxes in front of the library.