WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY

A couple of thoughts crossed my mind today … along with a pair of favorite Christmas songs.

Little Saint Nick …

The local news sure was hopping today as Downtown Detroit dealt with a massive power outage, followed by the anticipated booting out of U of M football coach Brady Hoke.

And, at the bottom of the news items … bum, low-beam headlights in 273,182 GM sedans and SUVs.

It was the 79th recall by General Motors in 2014.

And the 2nd recall this year for my 2009 Buick LaCrosse.

Luckily I only commute from my room to the kitchen to get to work, and rarely, if ever, drive in the dusk or dark.

I concluded today it’s a good thing Santa doesn’t drive a vehicle to distribute all the gifts on Christmas Eve, but uses his sleigh and trusty reindeer. He at least has no issues with a headlamp since he relies on Rudolph’s nose to be his beacon.

Up on the housetop, click, click, click …

I called the handyman service at 7:15 a.m. and said “if you’re planning on doing my gutters later today, don’t come … the remnants of the hulking hut that blew over in last week’s windstorm are still taking up a sizeable chunk of my backyard and it is unsafe for your guy to work around it to clean the gutters” … he assured me “you are fifth on the list ma’am – the gutters are still frozen and we need a pickaxe to get at the leaves so we’ll get back with you when we’re ready to do the job – it’ll probably be awhile anyway” ….

In my mind I imagined ice dams gumming up the gutters in the dead of Winter.

And popsicle-looking ice formations in the downspout.

Meanwhile, six hours later, next door at Marge’s house, her son finished up her gutter-cleaning chore and she called to say he was headed over here. He climbed up on the roof, blew down the leaves and cleaned the gutters and it was done.

Funny, Jeff didn’t have to borrow an axe from Yukon Cornelius either.

Where did this long weekend go?

The prospect of a four-day holiday loomed large on Wednesday and suddenly it is Sunday afternoon and I’m wishing it was just Wednesday.

The weather here is downright crazy – 62 degrees right now and 32 degrees this time tomorrow. When I was outside this morning, some of the neighbors were putting up their Christmas decorations up in shirtsleeves.

Well, we’ve dispensed with Thanksgiving (unless of course you are still eating turkey sandwiches, hash, etc., etc.). Black Friday has come and gone and Small Business Saturday as well. Sunday is just kind of hanging out there and now it is all about Cyber Monday.

The cyber security experts are already issuing a caveat to clear your cookies wherever you order items online. There’s something strange about that expression, and clear your cache sounds much more eloquent … but I digress.

Somehow, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday have nearly crowded out the events in Ferguson, Missouri and the Ebola crisis from the main headlines.

Recently, the 2014 version of the song “Do They Know Its Christmas?” debuted. There are new artists and they have a new cause – getting funds to West Africa for the fight against Ebola. The original version, released around Thanksgiving or Christmas of 1984, helped generate money for the Ethiopia famine, already well into its second year.

Three decades ago, that song and their plight stirred our emotions, and made us aware of the dire conditions in that faraway land.

Thirty years ago on the Sunday after Thanksgiving my mom and I were busy baking cookies for a cause.

We had a regular assembly line going as we rotated cookie sheets, loaded with Mom’s specialty, her extra-large, chocolate-chip raisin oatmeal cookies. We shuttled the cookie sheets in and out of the oven at a breakneck pace, then lined the warm cookies up along the countertop to cool. I was in charge of eating any broken ones.

At the time I was working at a law firm in downtown Detroit. In mid-November, I polled my co-workers to see if they would participate in a Firm-wide bake sale to raise money which would be donated to the Red Cross for their efforts in Ethiopia. Everyone was agreeable and eager to help.

I tacked a calendar onto the bulletin board for the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Soon it was filled up with signatures … three or more promised items slated for each day.

I kicked off the bake sale on the Monday after Thanksgiving with ten dozen cookies which I arranged on Christmas plates in the kitchen area. I might as well have left them in the Tupperware container. They were gone in a heartbeat as everyone congregated around the coffeemakers and chatted about their respective Thanksgiving break. I had back-up brownies in case we depleted the goodies quickly and soon they were gone too. Well, the price was a steal – $0.25 for each item. One of the young attorneys had signed up to bring donuts the same day as me and he barely removed his coat and set his offerings out when a second wave of eaters were soon there to snarf ‘em down.

We continued for three weeks and raised $250.00.

Even one of the partners, who was rather a stuffed shirt about frivolity in the workplace, noticed the gathering every morning and contributed his special recipe Gorp (trail mix for those, like me, who’ve never heard of the term). He brought in gaily-wrapped baggies full of Gorp and surreptitiously watched to see who bought his contributions.

We had a ton of goodies and obviously some people must’ve put in more money than required. Probably a few goodies were snitched as well, but it didn’t matter in the end. The Firm’s partners matched the amount collected and I proudly zipped off our donation of $500.00 to the Red Cross to aid in the famine relief effort.

It was a great humanitarian experience for all of us, and one which was repeated over and over again, annually, and sometimes in the middle of the year just to raise money to set aside for a good cause. It gave us all a warm and fuzzy feeling to help out.

I never knew there were so many different ways to make brownies, and the eaters, er … coworkers, never seemed to tire of anything made of chocolate to get them through the hectic weeks leading up to the holidays.

Freezing drizzle in the early a.m. kept me housebound this morning. No errands beckoned me to scurry out in that mess and I was happy to linger over breakfast and enjoy that second cup of coffee before getting my day started.

Today was relegated to Christmas activities – decorating and addressing cards.

Decorating was placing Marcella the Christmas Moose on the corner cabinet in the kitchen. She is about 8 inches tall, soft and cuddly with red plaid antlers and makes me smile every time I glance over at her. The wreath, adorned with a row of Christmas characters, was hung on the steel door before the screen door freezes up again. It took me five minutes and I was done.

Gone forever is the all-day tree trimming and decorating as detailed in last year’s post (https://lindaschaubblog.net/2013/11/30/on-the-sunny-side-of-the-street). In a small house, for every item you remove to put out a Christmas decoration, you must find a temporary home for it. That’s a rather tedious affair, and now I find it easier to simply remember what the whole house looked like when it was so very festive and save myself the aggravation of all the work.

Next on the agenda was addressing the Christmas cards. I gathered the address book, cards, stamps and stickers. I have enough return stickers to last me the rest of my living days, and then some. Over the years I’ve contributed to charities for guide dogs, wildlife preservation, animal welfare and veterans – my reward is calendars, cards, notepads and address stickers – endless stickers.

I perused the list of addressees and noted happily that I was not crossing anyone off due to their passing or just dropping off the map. Sadly, it seems like the past few years, I’ve written out less and less cards for just those reasons.

It is hard to lose someone near an important holiday time because that holiday will forevermore be tainted by that loss. My good friend Marge lost her son Easter weekend, her grandson Mother’s Day weekend and her mom just passed away Wednesday, so this Thanksgiving and going forward will be bittersweet for Marge. My heart goes out to her.

The past two weeks a thought has niggled at the back of my mind and I cannot shake it free. It revolves around remembering a woman that recently passed away, but whom I never met.

Marge and I went to Elizabeth Park two weeks ago today and on the way home we passed a sign advertising an estate sale. “C’mon, let’s see what they have” Marge said and I responded that I’d never been to an estate sale. So this was my first time.

We looked outside, then entered through the sunroom and stood in a short queue which soon dispersed as attendees made their way to different rooms. While we didn’t know anything about the homeowner, we knew it was a woman by the array of goods available. As I walked around I felt as if this band of folks, including myself, were intruders as they perused the woman’s possessions.

Yet … I felt a small connection to this person.

Her interests mirrored my own.

In the basement were various pieces of exercise equipment, among them a bicycle, very similar to mine.

She was an avid reader – paperback novels lined several bookshelves.

But the items that captured my attention the most were dozens of red plush Christmas stockings, some stacked, some strewn about on a long table. Nearby was a plastic bin that contained baubles, ribbons, trims and packages of unopened glitter, no doubt intended to personalize those plush stockings. One day. Someday….

I have, through the years, been somewhat of an “artsy-fartsy” type myself as that expression goes.

I took art classes and liked doing pastels of flowers and animals.

I designed and did crewel work onto sweatshirts. They were beautiful, then I didn’t want to wear them in case they got ruined.

When I worked onsite, my mom and I crafted small holiday items and filled them with treats to surprise my coworkers when they arrived for work on all the traditional holidays. It was a pleasure for us to do so, and, though their treat was not unexpected, I enjoyed seeing their happy faces nonetheless.

This woman obviously lived alone, and, somehow my glimpse into her life made me gulp a little and I felt somewhat sad. Wow, this could be me one day.

Just before we left, I noticed a digital burglar alarm in the kitchen with the words “Navarre residence” displayed. When I was online later in the day, I matched the name and address and put a face to this woman – Jane Navarre. Somehow, it seemed to personalize her a little more, for me anyway, and take away from the harsh reality of seeing her treasures and trinkets scattered on long tables throughout what had been her home. I looked for an obituary notice but could not find one.

I’ll guess I’ll just let it go now, since I’ve committed my thoughts to this post.

I am, however, reminded of Jane and others, who have left us too soon, especially every time I hear James Taylor’s melancholy rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and the words about being together if the Fates allow.

It’s all heady stuff.

Hug those who make you smile.

Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.

It was a petite promenade for me on a rather gloomy-looking morning. It took forever to get light and I stole out the door, knowing I was only going to make a short hop around the ‘hood.

The scrapper was scheduled to come and get my hut and haul it away and I wanted to get Buddy up and in the kitchen before that first horrible screeching sound of his metal saw would wake him out of a dead sleep. As of now, the hut is still in the backyard, looking like the Costa Concordia at Giglio, though my backyard is just a little less picturesque.

The rather ugly weather out there right now makes it seem that cutting up metal, and/or walking, will not be good prospects for tomorrow.

Did you go Christmas shopping for all the Black Friday sales?

I don’t buy gifts for anyone, but myself, so shopping is a real breeze for me. I got my convertible mitts to be used for taking pictures in the Park a couple of weeks ago and that was Buddy’s gift to me. The other Christmas gifts were two new lamps to put in the kitchen as the lighting is so poor since I switched to a CFL bulb in the swag lamp after it had to be rewired last year. Buddy and I are now bathed in soft golden light. In this ambiance, we both look better and see better and it eliminates the need for spectacles for my little bird down the road. Since I work from home, a good portion of my day is spent on my laptop at the kitchen table and I was finding it harder and harder to see. Well, I will concede that getting older may have a part in that not seeing so great as well.

Since there was no maddening crowd for me to deal with, this was the day to set aside to do Christmas letters. I still correspond with my mom’s friends who do not use social media so I hand-write a letter to tuck into each holiday card.

That task done, it was time to relax with a nice warm cup of cappuccino and nosh on a crispy bagel which I shared with Buddy. He always passes on the honey-nut schmear for some reason.

Are you still eating leftovers? Mine were scant and I was lazy today and just ate them cold, remembering, with a little pang, how my mom would make dressing sandwiches the day after a holiday. We Canadians stuff our holiday bird with “dressing” and my mom still referred to that gooey, yeasty treat as “dressing” though we moved here in 1966.

Hope you found all the bargains you were in search of and it’ll be toes up for you the rest of the holiday weekend.

Now, I could have chosen a picture of a Thanksgiving Day table laden with turkey and the trimmings and groaning with goodies. But, there was no holiday bird for me, so, instead I am sharing shots of the chubby squirrels at Council Point Park.

Every year around this time, the media makes the big proclamation of how many pounds the average American will gain through the holiday season. Well, who is going to pass up the endless stream of goodies brought into work by co-workers, the extra-rich nog, all the fattening hors d’oeuvres and feasting with the family? It is a non-stop gobblin’ time, starting today.

Which begs the question of whether your New Year’s resolution will involve the perpetual losing weight and being healthy in the new year or remarking to your significant other: “Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? When I’m 64 pounds overweight from all the holiday goodies?”

I did my gobblin’ as well, and I was starving by the time I prepared and ate dinner as I walked 6.2 miles – the equivalent of a 5K walk. I decided my boss, who participated in the annual Turkey Trot earlier today, was not going to one-up me, so I walked a comparable amount of miles that he ran, down at Council Point Park.

Once again it was a scant crowd – one jogger and three walkers besides me. I took bread chunks for the ducks to make their day and extra peanuts to lavish on my furry squirrel buddies. I even got them to pose for me to share in this post. You can see their poundage, some of which I contributed to.

After I returned home and got Buddy up, I started my Thanksgiving Day meal. As I stated in my sloppy joes post last week, I’m not much of a cook, having lived at home for so many years. My mom was a good cook and I really never had the opportunity to make anything for myself until after she passed away. The easier, the better is my motto and Thanksgiving Day didn’t make any difference.

I dragged out my cooking utensils – two pots, two bowls, one kettle, three spoons and a fork. Then I assembled my boxes and bags and went to town. In record time my meal was on the stove and smelling up the house nicely. Yes, I had turkey, diced up from a breast of turkey purchased earlier in the week and dropped into my pot. Yes, I had stuffing from a box. Potatoes – yup, them too, from a bag. Green bean casserole – why sure … in one of the pots with French’s crispy onions sprinkled abundantly. My cranberries were not sauce, but Craisins, mixed into the bean casserole. Pumpkin pie spice Jell-O was spooned then stirred into a large canister of vanilla yogurt. Mmmmmm.

I thought I had to loosen my sweatpants – query: how does one loosen their elastic-waist sweatpants?

I think I should create a cookbook of my simple fare and its preparation – perhaps I’d give David Joachim, the author of “A Man, A Can, A Plan” a run for his money.

Hope your holiday feast was shared with family or friends. Mine was shared with my little pal, Buddy, my canary, so “pass the peas please” or “I’d like a drumstick” or “a little gravy over here” was not in the equation.

There was not a wishbone to break either.

But … it was a simple meal, eaten by a grateful woman who counts her health, home, friends and Buddy amongst her blessings.

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” — Oprah Winfrey

Well, it was just like old times as the gloomy morning finally brightened and off I went to Council Point Park. It was nearly two weeks since I’d been here and it sure felt like forever. The sun never did show its face the entire time I was out and about, and the last ½ hour or so of my walk, I was pelted with a snowy/sleety mix.

As I entered my familiar stomping grounds, the first thing I noticed was the parking lot was totally empty. Was I the only person who attempted a walk this morning or was everyone shopping for tomorrow’s feast? I actually didn’t see a soul until I was about to leave the Park – a human soul that is. A man pulled up as I walked through the parking lot to head home.

The stillness on the trail made the walk even more special. The Wyandotte train loudly blew its whistle and it seemed to go on forever in the quiet morn. I heard several birds flitting through the trees, their tails or wings hitting what few brittle leaves were still hanging on and it made a faint rustling sound. Every so often one of them would emit a little peep or a squeak and I’d glance up and quickly find the source of that noise since all their tree hidey-holes are now exposed.

With the trees now nearly bare I caught a glimpse into the Creek where I saw all the mallards frolicking around and the two white ducks were back, silently gliding alongside them. I took a couple of pictures and we’ll see if they turn out better than the last ones that I shot through the foliage.

A half-dozen chubby squirrels scampered as quickly as their now roly-poly bodies would allow. Three of them scrambled over right away, followed a few minutes later by their friends and family. I dispensed peanuts, apologies for taking so long to get back here and, of course, Thanksgiving wishes as well. On the subsequent trip they gathered around and then followed behind me, despite my depositing at least 15 peanuts on the trail for them to share. I love watching them scamper off, nut in between their teeth, to hide that little treasure.

I saw a beautiful Canada goose standing solo, down by the water’s edge. I wanted to warn him (or her) to vamoose because someone’s Thanksgiving turkey may still be frozen solid and the cook may need a quick fix and set their sights on a goose for the big feast. My father liked roast goose and we occasionally had it for Christmas dinner. He was German and a favorite treat for him was goose drippings spread on toast. He made my mom save the goose grease, which she’d pour into a crock and after it hardened, he’d spread it thick on toast. My mom and I didn’t fight to share it with him. He also slathered that stuff on his chest, then put a red flannel over it when he had a bad cold … I got the mentholated Vicks VapoRub smeared under my nose and on my chest to knock that cold down fast. I didn’t like those menthol fumes but I think it was better than goose grease. At any rate, I watched that goose for the longest time. He, like me, was solo and I wondered if he fell behind from the flock. The next time I passed that spot he was gone.

Monday’s wind sure took its toll on the Park and several old, already long-dead trees were laying on their side and one was split and falling toward the Creek. That wind savagely stripped whole branches from several of the memorial trees and they were scattered about. I saw that the memorial wreath of Sergeant Di Pietro, the young Marine I wrote about on Veteran’s Day, was missing from under the big fir tree. I walked over, hoping the wreath had not been stolen or vandalized, and saw it had blown to the other side of the fir tree and was protected by the heavy boughs. I reached in and got it, then jammed the metal legs hard into the ground and hopefully it will stay put this time.

I was happy to be on the trail again and enjoying my favorite nature hideout. That long walk did me good as it had been way too long … a quick look in the mirror the other day told me that a few more days and my legs, sleek from pounding the pavement for those hundreds of miles in 2014, would soon be starting to look like turkey drumsticks if I didn’t get back on the trail posthaste.

It seems like forever that I’ve had an ear worm with the song by Meghan Trainor “All About That Bass” . I first heard it when a Facebook friend in North Carolina shared a picture of a neighbor’s home that was decorated to the hilt for Halloween. The pumpkin faces that adorned each window in the home were synchronized to that song – even their lips (if pumpkins have lips) were moving. The song has been stuck in my head ever since. I have Christmas music in the background now, to try to filter those lovely songs into my head and chase “All About That Bass” from my head forever.

Well, due to the incessant rain and cold, and, since I met my walking goal last week, my pace has slowed to a crawl, if not slower than a crawl. The steps have been almost non-existent, save walking from room to room in my small house. In fact, I didn’t even leave the upstairs to go into the basement for three days. That is, until today when I suited up to go outside.

This morning I ventured out to check the front and back yards from yesterday’s wicked winds. Yesterday I had been tipped off by my friend and neighbor Marge that my 10 X 4 foot metal shed had gone airborne. This happened right around the time one of her two tall pear trees split in two. She called me with the news. Then, we both worried about the fate of the other pear tree as the winds gusted mightily at around 58-62 miles per hour.

The problematic pear tree crashed into the street. The City workers came and sawed off some of the branches and banked them up on the lawn ‘til they could be dealt with.

The wind raged on and I thought about the remaining pear tree. What would be its fate?

And, long into the night I heard the creaking and groaning of the metal shed each time the wind whipped through it.

This morning I went into the backyard, not knowing whether the shed would be listing to the left, to the right, or, perhaps it had merely somersaulted since it left its rusty moorings after being secured in place since the late 60s.

Well, it was quite a sight out back. The shed looked like a Colonial Blue beached whale, having thrust itself forward, and was squarely sitting in the middle of my backyard upside down and rocking on its roof.

I now have an excellent view of the pit bull who lives behind me since the area is all exposed and open. We checked each other out this morning, as I peered around the corner of the shed, and he warily glanced at me, all the while protecting his turf. Note to self: come Spring, get yourself a large box of Milk Bone dog biscuits and make nice with this dog before backyard chores must be done.

Interestingly, nothing else moved in the area around my house … the “Welcome” sign was not wrested from the wall by the wind, nor did those gusts tear off my carefully-wrapped faucet cover. Everything else was intact; just that pesky shed that went up, up and away.

I walked into the house and soon heard the rumble of large trucks, so immediately I went to the front door to investigate. Two trucks bearing the logo “EJ Tree Service” were in front of Marge’s house. In record time, they unloaded their rigs, and I watched in fascination, while the two men worked industriously to fell those tall trees. One tree trimmer wielded his chainsaw which whirred incessantly as he lopped off huge branches, while the other tree trimmer sat atop a small machine and manipulated its “jaws” to grab long, leaf-covered branches to be fed into the grinding machine. They were done in no time, and all that remains is a pile of sawdust, and no worries now about where and when the trees might fall.

I am feeling very blessed today during this Thanksgiving week.

As I told Marge yesterday when she called me, the damage could have been any number of things – the roof, very old trees that are all around that could have crashed down, and, even our loss of power, along with the other 149,999 homes or businesses that suddenly went lights out. I worried about little Buddy and how I could keep him warm. All those things were racing through my mind on Monday while that wind raged on and on.

A neighbor across the street collects scrap metal and I am hopeful that he would like to add my shed to his collection, and my misfortune might just prove to be his lucky day and provide his Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Are you hunkered down inside the house on this gloomy Saturday? The weather sure isn’t conducive for trekking out to buy the vittles for Thanksgiving dinner and I’m sure no one is working on the outside Christmas trimmings either. Despite the ice, which wasn’t so nice, the Wyandotte Christmas Parade went on as scheduled. Of course, Santa was right in his element as were his helpers and trusty reindeer. I know as I watched the recap online from the comfort of my kitchen. As for me, what a treat to sip coffee and listen to the freezing rain pinging the blinds and patio roof. It is a good day to be thankful for your warm house and food in your stomach. I’m not much of a cook … the easier the fare, the better. Some of my Facebook friends snap pictures of their culinary creations and another friend of mine will share details of her daily gourmet menu, all which sound pretty fancy-schmancy and rather complicated to me, but I’m sure they are a gastronomical delight. Last weekend a friend posted that she was stirring up a big batch of sloppy joes and it got me thinking that I was going to make some for myself the first Saturday that I had a little time … today was that day. When I was growing up, my mom made a big dinner every night of the week, including weekends. No rest for her in the kitchen –ever. Sundays were often roast beef or a chicken, with lots of clean-up as I recall. I never remember having easy or fun food on the weekend. No pizza or T.V. dinners, which made me feel a little deprived sometimes, though I certainly never went hungry. It was all practical food that was good for you. When I got to junior high, the school menu had daily hot lunches. My mom packed me a brown bag lunch, four days a week, but a big deal for me was Mondays as they had sloppy joes, corn and potato chips, so my parents gave me lunch money every Monday for this treat. Well, I thought I was in hog heaven. Back in those days, moms rarely worked outside the home, so most of my peers similarly brought a bag lunch but also got to buy the sloppy joe special every Monday. So, I recreated that lunch today which made me feel like a kid again … a kid from some forty plus decades ago. Even though I skipped the potato chips, I had bought pretzel buns which were a bit of a decadent treat. I browned the meat and poured in the Manwich sauce and I kept sampling the mixture while it was simmering on the stove. Mmmmm, and the kitchen still smells wonderful … whiffing that aroma, while I closed my eyes, I was standing in the line at Huff Junior High’s cafeteria, pushing my plastic tray along the rails, my lunch money in my plastic change purse. All I needed was the small carton of chocolate milk with a straw to complete the whole flashback meal. Who says you can’t go back again?

Sadly, Winter does not officially arrive until one month from today. I didn’t miss anything at all by not going outside yesterday; in fact, it might have been a little depressing had I gone. This morning I went outside to run the car and mail a letter. The driveway already had glaze patches on it. There were countless jagged icy ruts on the City sidewalk forcing me to take baby steps in some spots in order to walk to the mailbox at the end of the street. Can it be a mere week ago when I confidently pounded the pavement as I headed to Council Point Park, then walked loops around that Park? While donning my snow boots on the landing before heading outside this morning, I felt a small pang as I saw the bag hanging from the cellarway railing, filled with Ziploc packs of peanuts, handy to take with me on my walk. I wondered how my furry friends at the Park were doing and hoped they were not patiently waiting on me to come to give them treats. Mother Nature put a very sudden kibosh to the walking and I sure am grateful I made my goal last weekend, since it looks like a smorgasbord of weather issues are looming large on the horizon. As I stood near the garage door while waiting for the fumes to dissipate after running the car, a flock of Canada Geese startled me out of my reverie with their loud honking overhead. I wanted to call out to them: “y’all should you have started out earlier!” but I didn’t want to rub it in.