Rosie's Blog!: National Poetry Month

Rosie's Blog!: National Poetry Month

Channeling My Finnish Grandma

Last week I decided to try this bread recipe whipped up on the Ciscoe Morris show on Channel 5.

The No-Knead Bread recipe has all kinds of wonderful ingredients, like quinoa, pumpkin, flax and sunflower seeds. After letting it rise for 12 hours and just folding it over and letting it rise again it’s ready to go into a Dutch oven pot in a 500 degree oven.

I followed that recipe to the letter. I cleared away everything from my counters to have enough room for the mixing and patting down and transferring to a greasy bowl, etc. I was on a roll.

It was 11 p.m. by the time I had finished the bread project begun at 10 a.m. I carefully stored it until morning because I was too pooped to slice off a hunk for sample taste. In the morning I unwrapped my beautiful round loaf and proceeded to slice off a piece for toasting. Not one of my sharpest knives would cut through the crust!

I called Rich, from whom I had borrowed the Dutch oven and promised to give him a chunk when I was through. I asked if he had an electric knife. He did not, but he had a chain saw, which I suspected was the only implement that could cut through that crust.

Long story short, I think my Grandma Hilda was looking over my shoulder as I struggled with that super-crust surrounding that beautiful bread. Grandma never prepared anything in her kitchen that didn’t burn black and hard as a rock. She was the only person I knew who could turn an apple cake (apel kaka) into a Frisbee.

I used to joke about how our old Samoyed, Chris, used to bury my pancakes. He’d have taken this specimen and dumped it off the dock.

I finally found a knife that did the job, not without some brute strength, and the bread under the crust was delicious.

Will I try the recipe again? Probably, but I won’t channel Grandma while I do it!

Belly Buttons

I ride an elevator up to the dining room for lunch every day. You hear the most interesting things in elevators. One of my neighbors in the Retirement Home where I live said, “Did you know that Alfred Hitchcock had no belly button?

I hadn’t really thought about it, but I suppose there are a few among us who have missing body parts. But I always thought belly buttons were a necessary anatomical feature. It’s there because it was once attached to your mother in her womb. It’s the little thingy that the doctor cuts when baby plops out,  and somebody yells: “Cut the cord!” then, usually the same person, says: “Now tie it off neatly with this piece of string.”

If the delivery room nurse ties it off in the right way you wind up with a nice looking (?) belly button. If not it is referred to as “an outie”. (I have “an innie”). When I was around 5 or 6 I used to play in the apartment building sandbox with other kids in the building. Hermann, one of the boy-kids, had an outie and his mother taped a half dollar over the protrusion, a regular practice for kids with outies. I guess it was supposed to flatten out the outie.

This kid was always losing his half dollar with the sand and all. He was chubby and always sweating which caused the tape to become loose. One day when I was playing alone in the sandbox I found a fifty-cent piece. I took it up and gave it to my Mom instead of heading for the candy store, my first impulse. She said, “You can’t keep that, Rosie.  It belongs to Hermann.” Then I wished I’d followed that first impulse. So I took the half dollar to Hermann’s flat. I didn’t want to.  It would have bought a lot of penny candy. But Hermann’s Mom was so overjoyed at getting the coin back for her son’s outie I didn’t feel so bad about it. I wonder how long Hermann had to wear that half dollar on his belly button.

Back to Alfred Hitchcock. I figured it out. He was an alien from another galaxy where babies don’t have belly buttons.  It is the only logical explanation.

On the other hand, Alfred may have had an outie when he was little and when the half dollar didn't work he just decided to grow a large tummy and the darn thing just flattened out by itself, making it look like he didn't have one.  And that's the other only logical explanation.

The Other Me

Me. Pronoun. Singular. As in “There is only one me.”

But what about the other “me”? People with multiple personalities are said to have  several “me”s. Eve had three. If I admit to having another me, does that mean I am schizophrenic?

When I was rearing six children while holding down a full time job in the 70s I felt there were at least two or three of me.  And now that I am again “re-potted” and living in an apartment instead of a house or a motor home, I am trying to concentrate on my new status while desperately trying to hold onto the old me.

My cardiologist has created yet another new me through a procedure called “catheter ablation”. I am no longer short of breath or collapsing from rapid heartbeat. The atrial fibrillation, with me since my first bout with congestive heart failure in the 90s, is apparently gone!  So say the docs. So I have this new energized me.

Charlie Rook is still regarding me as the old me but wants the new me to keep bringing him a cut-up apple every day along with sacks of sugar free candy to hand out to the caregivers at Stafford Healthcare. He loves giving away the candy and it satisfies his urge to still be a provider.

I also am writing again, this blog for starters, and trying to catch up to what the old me made notes on years ago. So many stories, so little time!

I can’t wait to see what the new me has in store for me! Stay tuned.

News item about boats:

Boats tip. Boats rock. Sometimes they roll.

It is amusing to read that ferry passengers in Seattle don't think the boats should do that! They are upset because the new ferry built to transport people and vehicles lists to one side when it is empty!

My advice to these scaredy cats is do not get on a ferry! Go back to the plains or mountains where you only have to worry about earthquakes or tornadoes!

News item about tanks:

Nuclear waste is leaking out of the tanks at Hanford. Where is all that plastic and other materials that folks say will never ever, ever go away!  Put people to work gathering all that stuff and then put more people to work building new tanks to hold the waste!  They will never ever, ever, ever leak. (Where's Taylor Swift when we need a new song?!)

What’s

with

all the As

on the TodAy

show? When Ann Curry left

the show I thought to myself: “There

goes the best “A”. She wAs replaced

 by NAtAlie, a womAn with two As in her

 nAme. MAtt remAined as co-Anchor and Al wAs

 still doing the weAther, and SAmAnthA stayed on at the news desk

 with three As. Then they hired Bill Geist.  Not An A in a carload! Where does he fit in? Nobody disputes the fact that MAtt LAuer is the biggest A on the show.

This whole situAtion is driving me bAnAnAs!

Just Askin’…

The 97-year-old woman on The View this morning wanted to get a pet peeve off her chest.  She told about a recent shopping trip with her daughter. She sat in her wheelchair in the clothing department and a saleswoman finally came along to help them.  She asked the daughter: “What size does your mother wear?”  The saleswoman was rude to have ignored the mother

Last year I needed something from a lingerie department.  The department stores couldn’t help me so I went into Victoria’s Secret at the Mall. I asked if they carried thigh high support stockings and the saleswoman said I might find what I need at a nearby pharmacy. I walked out of the store red faced but didn’t make it to the door before I heard a couple of the girls laughing.

Some people feel they are entitled to exercise their right of free speech knowing full well their words may be insulting to others. Persons who made the insensitive remarks were much younger than me.  If they are lucky, they will one day become old. They may some day need support stockings as well. Just sayin’…