It is time again for the Student/Faculty Art Show at the SB Museum of Art. I have to have my entry ready by tomorrow and deliver it first thing in the morning. I was hoping to have the turtle ready but it didn't make it into the kiln for bisque firing before the end of the session. Because I refuse to pay $10 to go into the studio between semesters, I won't be able to glaze it until the Winter session that starts in January! That means I'm going to enter my zinnia.

It missed the deadline last year in a similar fashion to the turtle this year... Seems only really big things win. I'm hoping it will be big enough to win this time around! If you are in the area, the Opening of the show is free admission to the museum and free nosh-y things with wine or juice. Usually one of the local HS choirs performs their holiday show too. It will be December 2nd 5:00 - 8:00 PM.

I have never been a drinker of alcoholic beverages. I can't handle my booze. In fact I've never been drunk. Don't think I didn't try. I attempted to drink alcohol in college. But the sad truth is I'd fall asleep before I'd ever feel the effects. I know if I need a sleep aid that a fourth of a cup of cheap wine will put me out like a light. I used to drink Dr. Pepper regularly. I was addicted to the caffeine and without a can at lunch I'd get a raging headache. I've been decaffeinated for about 5 years now. Recently I've been thinking I'd like a really ice cold can of carbonated full sugar and caffeine soda pop!

Just when things are going well life throws you a curve ball. Life throws a mean curve ball. In the last 2 weeks I've had bad news and worse news. At every turn there is a new disaster. I received the news that a relative has only a few months to live. The cancer she was fighting for 8 years finally has won. As the cancer advances in her spinal cord and into her brain she will lose her sight, her memories, and finally her ability to breathe. She fought hard. She had lots of victories. She was able to be a grandmother to 3 grandchildren. She continued to be active in her community, church and career. Now we are praying that she can hang on until her immediate family can gather at her side. And that isn't the worst news. Then there is the whole election debacle. There has been a great deal of angst across the country. If you listen closely you can hear a low moaning. I'm hoping it isn't the agonal gasps of democracy. Then there is work. Yep. That's all I'm gonna say about that. Then there was Sparky's work. Nothing I can say about that either. It is what it is.

So I've been thinking about that can of Dr. Pepper. But I know it isn't good for me. The last time I sipped a little of the stuff I got heart palpitations and my hands shook for 30 minutes. But it did taste good. I have it on good authority that some ex-smokers still dream about the taste of a cigarette and that they often have to fight the desire to have a smoke. I can sympathize.

We went to the Amish market in Shipshewana last weekend to stock up on some deals. I got Carnation evaporated milk 2 cans for a $1, Nestle baking chips (white chocolate with raspberry filling) 2 for $1, and the big cans of tomato basil soup 3 cans for $1. But the real deal was the produce. They had cauliflower and broccoflower (the green cauliflower type) 2 heads for $4. Now this was the same price Meijer was selling their cauliflower but the difference was enormous! I mean huge, gargantuan, ginormous!

This is the head of the green cauliflower I bought. I debated getting the purple one but decided that one was more than enough especially since I'd gotten a white cauliflower at Meijer.

I steamed about a quarter of it to have with the fish. I'm using about a quarter of it in my crockpot for the cauliflower soup since that is all my crockpot can accommodate (should make 6-8 servings). Sparky may put a little in his salads. The rest is being blanched and frozen for another day (so much for clearing out the freezer)! Just so you can appreciate the scale of this thing here are the 2 heads of cauliflower.

The $2 white cauliflower from Meijer and the $2 broccoflower from Shipshewana. Seeing them side by side makes me think I should have waited to shop at Meijer until after the trip to the Amish market...

This last week I finally did my part to clean out the freezer. I cooked some fish. My coworker Mr. Fudd, who is anticipating getting his limit in the Spicer Lake deer control hunt, has promised me a deer should he get more than one. Of course he says that every year and so far I've gotten zilch. However this year I'm feeling lucky. I found not one but two pennies in the parking lot and I did win that gift card. The fish in this story were all caught at different times. With a family of 5, bringing a single fish home meant having at least 4 unhappy people thus he gifted them to me. So I had 3 blocks of ice in my freezer taking up space. They were field dressed (gutted but not filleted or skinned) so they might be a little off putting to some. There were 2 rainbow trout and a brown trout. They were so pretty before cooking and afterwards they were very tasty!

Next to be eliminated from the freezer are some packages of soup bones - both beef and turkey. This week will be soup week!

Yesterday was my father's birthday. He would have been 84 years old. He's been gone eight years and yet it seems like just yesterday. There is so much dysfunction in so many people's lives that it makes me appreciate the complete normalcy of my childhood, my parents, and my adult life. I was never abused. I was never neglected. Instead I was nurtured and cherished and brought up to believe I could be anything and everything. My parents never told me that I was incapable of achieving any goal. They never put limitations on my dreams. So I look back at the lives of my parents and especially my father. He grew up in the throes of the Great Depression. He refused to eat cottage cheese to the day he died due to having to eat so much of it as a small child (it is a cheap source of protein). He and his twin sister were the only children my grandmother ever had. She did her best to raise them in unstable times with an unstable marriage that eventually disintegrated. She remarried when my dad was 10 years old. He served as the best man. He reprized his role when my grandfather (his step-father) remarried in his late 70s. That tumultuous childhood had one thread running through it - he was always loved. His mother and step-father loved him. He had extended family and all the kids were valued. I know that it is never about the material things to determine success in life. Yet I see so many people stuck on the idea that to love their children they must provide things and more things. My father provided me with what I needed - food, shelter, clothing. And in addition to those material comforts I always knew I was safe. If my dad was there, everything would be alright. I knew that he would defend and protect me against all the dangers of the world. Now he's gone. But he gave me the foundation to be safe, to be loved, to be worthy. I hope I have been able to give my sons the same necessities in life - self confidence, self esteem, self reliance, and the knowledge that they are loved unconditionally. I look back and smile. I do not cry over his death. He's still with me.

Dear America,
We've been friends for as long as I can remember. I consider you family. Because I love you I have to tell you the truth. Now, I know you were having a lot of fun during the Primaries. You partied with a lot of guys. Of all the men that wanted to dance with you, you had to pick the one that treated you the worst. I tried to warn you. Everyone tried to warn you. But you kept saying that he was just a passing thing and you weren't serious about him. But you kept dancing with him. When we tried to get you to dance with someone else you said he was the best dancer in the place. Honey, I know you like to have fun. And I understand that maybe you lost your head for a bit. I cried with you when you discovered he knocked you up. But I have to say, cut your losses now. It is much better to be a single mom than to be in a bad relationship. He says he loves you but then he turns around and insults your mother, and all your sisters, and tells you that you've got to dump all your long time friends. Well, that's a big red flag. He's acting like those abusive guys that isolate you and then chain you in a storage shed. They make you believe that without them you are nothing. He's pretending that he is the only one who cares about you. But he's wrong. You are great. You've always been great. You're beautiful too. Lots of people love you! So I'm here for you. I've held your head while you barfed in the toilet after one too many and I'll do it while you suffer morning sickness. But for the love of all that you hold sacred and dear, take off the beer goggles! Don't let him move into your house! Don't compound the mistake! I know you don't want to hear it so I'll leave it there. You know I'm just a phone call away.

Your BFF and nasty woman,
murisopsis

This is our fork in the road
Love's last episode
There's nowhere to go, oh no
You made your choice
Now it's up to me
To bow out gracefully
Though you hold the key, but baby

Whenever you call me, I'll be there
Whenever you want me, I'll be there
Whenever you need me, I'll be there
I'll be around

I knew just what to say
Now I found out today
That all the words had slipped away, but I know
There's always a chance
A tiny spark will remain, yeah
And sparks turn into flames
And love can burn once again, but I know you know

Whenever you call me, I'll be there
Whenever you want me, I'll be there
Whenever you need me, I'll be there
I'll be around, yeah

Whenever you call me, I'll be there
Whenever you want me, I'll be there
Even if I have to crawl, I'll be there
I'll be around

Just call me on the phone, I'll be there
I'll never leave you alone, I'll be there
Just call out my name, I know I know you know
I'll be around.....

I participated in the Technician Fun Fair at the conference. They do this every meeting and it serves as a way to get participants to visit the booths. It works like this: You sign up for the fun fair and are given a question sheet. You answer the questions by visiting vendor booths. When you have all the answers you turn it in and if you get a high enough score you are placed in a drawing for prizes. As with any of the raffles you need to be present to win. So there I stood applauding all the winners. They announced the last prize - a $50 gift card. I was ready to walk away and hurry to the next session that had already started. I was grumbling that I would never get that hour back when they announced my name!!! I'm not real lucky so it came as a surprise! I might have let out a whoop. I maybe jumped up and down. I know I claimed my prize. Funny how I always thought the contestants that won on those game shows were faking it... Now I can appreciate that they really were that excited.

And here is a photo of me with "Fiona the Ferret" the official mascot of the Fun Fair. Fiona gets the credit for drawing my name!

From the title you might think this post is about Mick Jager. Well, he is looking pretty old these days but that isn't really what I want to discuss. Several weeks ago Sparky informed me that the hippie neighbors down the street were having a garage sale. Their garage has been packed with boxes since the day they moved in. I mean packed as in a floor to ceiling wall of boxes. There was a narrow path from which they would exit the garage. They had dragged tons of stuff from the interior of the garage and placed it on the driveway for sale. Among all the junk was a rocking chair. It is the same style of chair as the long sought Schroeder family heirloom rocker which will result in a real fight among Sparky's sisters when it comes time to divide the parental estate.

For $10 Sparky was able to own the rocking chair. I took one look and said that the seat cushion had to go. Before I could snap any photos, Sparky had ripped off the needlepoint cover (a filthy butterscotch background with pink, red, and yellow roses in the center). He found a taffeta burgundy fabric beneath the needlepoint. It was in even worse shape than the needlepoint so it was quickly removed. Under the burgundy was a sturdy brown fabric with slubs. Besides being very old it was also worn and downright ugly. Sparky didn't have to ask - he ripped that away as well. What he found beneath that was a time capsule. The top layer was a compressed fiber sort of like a felt only made of shredded cotton. Stuffed under the felt was shredded newspaper from 1922. I didn't get a photo as I didn't know Sparky was taking it apart and thought a shot of the inside of the trash can would be pointless. Here is the rocker as it stands right now:

This is a close up of the chair seat - you can sort of see the area where the felt corners were folded under to hold the newspaper.

This shows the legs with the runners. They need some work but I'm fully confident that the chair will be a grand addition to the family room!

Another post about the conference - sort of. I went to the conference sessions from 8:00 AM until the last session was over at 5:00 PM. Because I'm at the conference to get as much information as possible, I attended everything I could even if it meant skipping lunch. By dinner time I was usually famished. Luckily every night was a reception or dinner sponsored by a company or an organization that had free food. Some evenings there were dueling parties. One evening we attended a soiree at a downtown bar, "Howl at the Moon", which is a piano bar. My coworker really wanted to attend since she loves piano bars. Having never experienced a piano bar in full, I consented to accompany her as the designated walker to make sure she got back to the hotel safely. The food was very tasty with barbecue pulled pork and teriyaki chicken wings. We arrived before the piano players (there were 3) and selected our table fairly close to the stage. My coworker explained the pads of forms on the table. "These are request slips. Just fill it out with the song title and artist. You can add a comment then take it to the piano and set it on the pile. If you really want them to play your song put a couple of dollars with it." She proceeded to fill out about 6 sheets and took them up to the piano. I looked at the songs she was requesting and realized I didn't know any of them. They were country songs.

After about 30 minutes the piano players switched spots to allow a woman to take a seat at the piano. One shifted to guitar and the other proceeded to play the drums. At the urging of my coworker I submitted 3 requests. She shook her head - they would never play those songs. I had requested "Let It Be" by the Beatles, "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba, and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". The people in front of us were requesting a ton of songs and plopping down some serious cash. The piano player was sorting the requests. The next song they played was Billy Joel's "Piano Man" which apparently is NOT played at the beginning but saved for the finale. Then they announced they would play the next song "Just because." Yep that was what I wrote in the comment section for Tubthumping. And to my coworker's surprise that is just what they played! Then they played Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" announcing my comment that "It is kind of true." That pushed my coworker over the edge. She wanted to hear her songs but for some reason her requests were not making it to the top of the pile. We waited until the 9:30 PM last call for the open bar before giving up and heading back to the hotel. She just couldn't believe they played my songs...

I always forget that I have a camera until its too late. I had the aisle seat on every flight this time so my access to the window was limited. On the flight out we went from South Bend, IN to Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN and then on to Charlotte, NC. A little round about but that was what the travel agency (through work) deemed the cheapest. Being the rule follower I turned my phone to airplane mode and stowed it away. Of course that meant that I didn't have it in my hand when we were below the clouds. I was able to snap one photo as we were approaching North Carolina. It was a sunny day with a slightly hazy sky.

It was hard to appreciate the lovely mountains from the air looking down but they were a nice green even through the haze. I'm guessing they were predominately pine as there wasn't the color we saw on takeoff from the fields and forest in Indiana.

The return trip was of course by a slightly different route - we flew from Charlotte, NC to Detroit Michigan and then on to South Bend, IN. It wasn't quite as out of the way and made a little more sense. I again turned my phone to airplane mode and forgot all about it until we were flying over Lake Erie!

I managed to get my phone out as we passed over South Bass Island and Put-In-Bay. I thought we might be close enough to be able to see the column erected for Oliver Hazard Perry's victory over the British Fleet in the War of 1812. The monument information according the the US Parks Department is: "Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial was established to honor those who fought in the Battle of Lake Erie, during the War of 1812, and to celebrate the long-lasting peace among Britain, Canada and the U.S. The Memorial, a Doric column, rising 352 feet over Lake Erie is situated 5 miles from the longest undefended border in the world." I tried anyway but by the time I figured out the zoom we were past the point where I might possibly maybe would have had a chance to see it. So yeah, a dollar short and a day late with the camera to satisfy the inner history geek.