Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: January 2025

• Another Saturday (Day and) Night

  Posted at 7:14 pm by kayewer, on January 25, 2025

  It seems that every time I want to make the most of a weekend, my plans are thwarted. This week I had a three-day weekend, so my plan was to start on Friday by running errands, then making my own fun on Saturday and Sunday.

  On Friday I went to a location for an errand which involved parking in one of those vast lots covered completely by solar panels. I wanted to get some additional exercise into my day, so I parked in one of the free lots requiring a considerable walk to my destination. When I pressed the buttons on my car’s remote, however, nothing happened. No locking, no unlocking, no trunk function. Considering the climate of the world today, I would not leave my vehicle unlocked and to chance, even in the middle of the morning. Fortunately, I was within twenty minutes of home, so I got back in the car, drove home and, before going inside for my backup remote, I attempted to use the first one again. It worked.

  My best guess is that the solar panels were interfering with the ability of my remote to communicate with the car. Nobody else has ever mentioned this anomaly, but then I don’t get to talk to many people who park under solar panels when I work from home, so there has never been a need for the subject to come up. It may be a thing. It may be my particular car or remote. I’m certain the people using the lot think nothing of this problem. Anyway, I returned to perform the task, and this time I parked in one of the spots in the open. No remote issues.

  On the way home, I stopped by a new business I had been meaning to visit and managed to overspend on a few luxuries. I got home in time to avoid the school and rush hour traffic.

  On Saturday I slept in and, upon checking the morning email, found that a package I was expecting would arrive during a time I would normally be at another appointment, so I texted apologies and rescheduled the regular stop so I could wait for the delivery.

  In the good old days, there was no such thing as porch pirating. You could order anything and expect it to be on your doorstep, even if you got home late. Today we depend on delivery photos and home cameras pointed toward the street to give some sense of security, or even accessible lockers at remote locations. Even then, sometimes things still don’t get delivered as they should.

  I have a second package at this moment which has been stuck in transit at the USPS for eight consecutive days. I have had past deliveries get lost or come to me from two blocks away. I don’t know if the delivery personnel can’t read or don’t pay attention, but if it were my job to deliver things, I would check at least twice; when putting the items in the truck, and when I drop the delivery off at each location. My merchant said to give it a few extra days before they do a re-order.

  The original package I waited for came about ninety minutes after my original appointment would have ended. I didn’t leave the house at all. So much for a Saturday. Delivery time windows are worse than cable television appointments: sometime between 2:00 PM and 6:00 PM. Don’t have a life or try to have one. Or don’t order anything for delivery and find it instead at a store near you (if you have one).

  So much for a three-day weekend and the conveniences of present-day processes.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged business, money, renewable-energy, solar-power, technology

• No Chef

  Posted at 4:07 pm by kayewer, on January 18, 2025

  I took a moment to look at the many pieces of paper posted on my kitchen cabinet doors. Some of the papers are mementos, or the magnets holding them there are; one says, “My friends live in Oklahoma, and they sent me this magnet.” Many of the papers being pinned to the metal surface are recipes.

  The collection started back in 2020, when I took the time that summer to attempt baking my own bread. The loaf didn’t look like anything artisanal, let alone artsy, but it was edible. Over the past five years, the number of papers has grown to include oatmeal raisin cookies, which is a favorite of a friend of mine. I also have some guidelines for banana bread, snickerdoodles, simple cakes and frostings.

  One day while going through a box of little paper slips my mother used to keep with the zeal of a typical Depression-born parent, I found a treasure in a shrimp and rice dish long thought to have been lost, and which I have since remade.

  When I follow a recipe, I make sure, first and most importantly, that it’s something I would like to prepare and eat. Next, if I have planned to prepare it, I want to have the ingredients as specified. I will hunt them down when I need to, but nearly all the recipes I keep and intend to make include what I can easily find at the Acme (or Ack-a-me, if you’re local) up the block, or one of at least three grocers within a short drive.

  However, not everybody follows such a sensible protocol.

  Occasionally I’ll see an article about people who should, perhaps, not seek out recipes online. These hilarious gems could be interpreted as evidence of our sociological decline or brain dysfunction, but one thing is certain: these social media posters have a lot to be grumpy about for no reason.

  Take, for example, the person who posted that a recipe she made for peanut butter cookies put her husband in the emergency room because he has a nut allergy. She must have read the ingredients, prepared them, then fed them to her spouse, all the while knowing he can’t eat nuts.

  Another face-palming post came from a person who, upon reading the recipe, decided to stand on a soapbox and pontificate about the presence of a few items containing sugar in the list of ingredients. She was shocked to find that people do, on occasion, prepare such things. Not her, oh no. And woe to the person who prepares this poison, as it’s sure to give one diabetes or a heart attack, and so the recipe should not appear in anything she might encounter while scrolling for recipes. Try Googling “sugar free recipes,” my friend.

  Next we have the person regretting that they missed the opportunity to fiddle with chemistry in school, who looks at a list of ingredients and decides to substitute other foods, such as limes for lemons, or sour cream for heavy cream. Sometimes the swaps aren’t really from the same family; a batch of cookies turning into a sheet of one big cookie can happen when the original poster (OP) used rice flour and egg replacer for the dough. Or substituting carrots for peaches (the final product “needed more sweetness,” the OP added). And I can top that: a carrot cake in which the–ahem–chef, substituted kale because carrots are “too sweet.” The complaint often comes with the phrase, “I followed the recipe exactly except,” which means one did not follow it exactly.

  How about the person who looked at “2/3 cup of sugar” and interpreted it as three entire cups of sugar. They should get together with the soapbox Karen and ban all sugar from the globe. Along with measuring devices.

  Or the meat-loving person who complained that a recipe didn’t contain any meat: the name of the dish and accompanying notes specified it was vegan.

  When looking at festive dishes from around the world, some people forget that a food for which a place is associated may not be in every dish. For example, a complaint about Mexican sour cream, or crema, because the preparer thought corn was involved in the recipe, even though it wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the instructions.

  A recipe is a plan of action, like any other. You can choose to do it or not, but when you commit, follow what the directions call for. Don’t skip. Don’t substitute. Don’t throw the recipe away or complain to the foodie website if you have not done so.

  I’m not sure if it’s the inability to read or follow instructions that throws these posters off-track, or if people really think they can take detours with carefully laid-out, tested and proven instructions and still achieve success. What I do know is that I have had success with every recipe I have followed, and nobody has had to go to the ER.

  My latest recipe was for limoncello, which involved three weeks of waiting for my prepared recipe to be completed. I didn’t wait one day shorter or substitute anything. In fact, the struggle to obtain the most important ingredient–the lemon zest–was the most challenging. I needed to get the yellow part off three pounds of lemons without including any pith, which would make the finished product taste a bit off. I made six festive jars for the holidays and handed them out to folks. So far nobody has given me a reason to give a one-star review.

  Will I do some of the other recipes on my cabinet? Perhaps. Will I do them properly? You can count on it.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, cookies, dessert, recipe, recipes

• The Bleakness

  Posted at 8:07 pm by kayewer, on January 11, 2025

  January didn’t fail to live up to its natural reputation. This week our area received some snow and cold temperatures. Students got an extra day off, and the normally scheduled routines adults expected to do were disrupted. Not to mention the rotavirus (“stomach flu”) spreading around the area. It wasn’t worth it to get up in the morning.

  Except one must get up and go to work when they have a job, even if it involves a small space in your home dedicated to the workplace you used to go elsewhere to do what brings in your paycheck. Or I should say, because your workspace is in your home and cannot be denied.

  I saw my neighbor for a few seconds as she stepped out, and she informed me that she had been instructed to come in to work for a few days. I had to restrain myself from clasping her knees and begging to go in her place. I am not sure what she does, but I’d learn on the fly (or get her fired).

  When most of the people on the block are back in the workplace, the experience for me as a homedwelling employee is akin to being caretaker at a graveyard.

  Only the graves have house numbers and holiday decorations still up. I can stand in the middle of the street, and not a soul is in sight for blocks.

  We also received an exclusive federal holiday honoring Jimmy Carter, our former humanitarian president who passed away recently, and whose funeral was held in the National Cathedral on Thursday. Federal offices were closed, and no mail delivery.

  Our trash collection was moved to Thursday for the third consecutive week due to the snow.

  It was as if we had moved from December to a new month called Chaosuary.

  However, I was determined not to succumb to the vast white outdoors, the demands of working in a cold home in which every draft felt like a finger down the spine, leftovers for four consecutive days and, for reasons I can’t explain, needing to deal with a puddle in my cellar.

  When I finally got the opportunity to go outside for an extended time without risking frostbite, I walked to the store and bought a few supplies, took advantage of the warmer temps to grab an extra shower, ran a load of laundry and did some housekeeping. And I popped a vitamin D. At least I’m a happy groundskeeper at the graveyard.

  Overnight we got another dusting of snow, but at least it was sweepable. I went out with my favorite broom and swept the pavement on the homes on both sides of me, my driveway and apron and my neighbor’s, since they were out. I’m not sure where they went on a snowy morning, but I do know by the footprints in the snow that somebody walked their dog in the early hours (and they don’t own a dog right now). The weather warmed up enough to melt and dry the rest, though on our side of the block, we still have snow on our lawns; the other side is pristine (dried out) green.

  Fortunately I was able to do some tasks today, such as finishing my grocery shopping, without the car digout I was subjected to on Monday. My car was coated, so I needed to dig out twice. Today’s was better, since I could use my broom.

  It beats digging graves.

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• Brother, Can You Fix a Dime?

  Posted at 3:14 pm by kayewer, on January 4, 2025

  In my last post, I mentioned my paper shredder and a dime. I now have an update.

  The device was an Amazon purchase from their everyday product line and is over five years old. The machine worked well for what I needed to do with it, which was mostly destroying personal information on junk mail, or doing away with old copies of monthly bills from a decade ago. The endless piles of old mail are something most children of early Boomers can relate to; our parents or grandparents never threw anything out, so if you were to ask them how much monthly electricity cost in 1969, they could pull the actual bill out and show as well as tell you.

  Well, nobody has asked me how much the gas or electric bill cost in 2021, let alone 1969, so I’ve been slowly working through the ancient paperwork a few sheets at a time. If you’re familiar with operating shredders, you know that they tend to overheat after a certain period of use, so they need to take a break and cool down. This means going off to do something else until that little “I’m overheated” light goes off and the shredder is ready to go another round.

  When construction workers need to take a break to cool down, they just look all hot and sweaty, with no indicator button, and you can hang around to watch them. But I digress.

  Did it just get warm in here, or is that just me?

  The machine started to show signs of slowing down despite my efforts to keep the gears lubricated and the number of sheets per use below the recommended guidelines. At one point, I accidentally threw too much at the poor thing, and it seized up. I unplugged it and cleaned it out, but it never was the same. I was down to one sheet at a time, and then it took about twenty seconds to complete the job. I needed a new shredder.

  I went out and got one from Staples’ everyday product line, and I went full out for this version. This baby could obliterate government secrets in a flash, and in half the time of the old Methuselah.

  Strangely, the old codger machine kept on chugging, so I kept using it. Until I recently made a big mistake and killed the shredder.

  The March of Dimes tends to send an actual legal tender ten cent piece glued to the reply slip, hoping you will send a donation. These are brand new dimes, obviously never circulated. I never understood why they didn’t simply stop sending the dimes and using those expenses for the research they want us to donate for, but apparently the psychology of guilt-based philanthropy is of more importance. Not only will you send dollars more than the dime, but you will pay the post office an extra $73 to forward the donation to them.

  Except I was in the middle of holiday preparations and forgot to remove the dime and its dollop of adhesive before trying to run it through the shredder. I was promptly punished for my failure to give to those less fortunate by hearing the choked distress call of the shredder as the dime became jammed in the works.

  I figured it was over for old Betsy. Until I stopped and took stock of the situation. There was a little round seal over a hole in the shredder’s main component which read something like “warranty void if broken.” The seal had broken itself a couple of years into its life. I figured nobody has ever come after me for removing the tag from my mattress, so the rebel in me prompted a retrieval mission.

  Yes, I took a screwdriver to the main machine, removed the screws and separated the cover, resulting in a shower of paper bits and–voila!–the missing dime. Its edge was dissected so that a flange stuck up while the rest bent backward. Yours truly then went to my late father’s work corner, grabbed that little dime in a pair of pliers and hammered it back into shape with a good old ball peen from the toolbox. That dime isn’t pristine anymore, and it probably would not work in any vending machine, but it should spend just fine. Oh and yes, I looked it up, and the mint no longer accepts broken money for replacement, so my DIY job should suffice.

  Look at me go, all like a farrier and stuff. Except I didn’t work up a sweat, and nobody would watch me while I cooled down.

  So I put the shredder back together, and it seems to run much better now that I’ve cleared more of the detritus from its gears. Seems I will now have two shredders, which should last me long enough to rid myself of the last of the paper trail.

  Those everyday product lines don’t cost a dime a dozen, after all.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged organization, review, reviews, shredder, technology

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