Skeptical

  Two teenage girls in Cohoes were accosted by a man as they sat in the park at 8 o'clock at night.  The man gave the impression that he was a cop, and made them feel he thought they'd done something wrong.  He flashed a police ID on his phone, and then another message asking if they wanted sex.  They fled.  They described him as a man in his late 50's or so, about 5 feet, 8 inches and 150 lbs. He had salt and pepper hair, cut short. They gave details of his clothing, and sneakers, and said he had an unshaven mole between his nose and his lip.  They added that he had greenish-gray sunken eyes.
     The police are looking for him on the premise that such predators usually strike again.  I hope they find him before that happens.  I am impressed with the girls' attention to detail and their night vision as well.

"He Shook It..."

  I have the TV on all the time now, but during the daytime, I'm usually in another room, at the computer in the kitchen or downstairs setting mousetraps and coaxing my washer into action, or in and out to the car,walking to the mailbox, tending the cat-care station, etc.  So daytime television is usually background sound for me.
   I hear the guest singers on the various stations, and usually I don't pay much attention.  But on the Today Show this morning, a voice was so compelling it actually drew me in to the living room to see who it was and listen to the song.  It was Tom Jones. (We saw him once, long ago, at the Colonie Theater.)

Psycho Cycle

   My new, well fairly new, washer is on the fritz.  The button that I push to start it has been temperamental for some time, I realize, now that the one-year warranty has expired.   Sometimes I would push the button to start it, and since there is quite a delay while the computer genius it possesses would sense the volume of the load of laundry, I would be upstairs before the process even began.  When I'd go to the basement to put the clothes in the dryer, I'd find nothing had happened and would assume that either I hadn't pushed the start button firm;y enough or had forgotten altogether.  Just another brick in the wall of my self doubt.
    When the washer wouldn't start at all, I was told by Customer Service to reboot it.  So I did and it worked. Once.  So I tried rebooting again, and again, for longer and longer times with no results. Since the Whirlpool rep had said the next step would be to schedule a repair visit, I  tried another option. I went on the internet and contacted an appliance question service where you interact with a repair technician, and you pay what you think the service is worth, if you're satisfied.
    I stated my problem.  His reply was to ask me if I had recalibrated the washer.  I told him that I didn't know what that meant, and even if I did, I wouldn't know how to do it.  Here's how, he told me:
   "Rotate the knob, slowly, 2 full revolutions counterclockwise, stopping at 12.  Then slowly (1/2 second between clicks) rotate the dial 3 clicks forward, 1 click back and 1 more click back.  All lights should light up if done correctly.  Then rotate forward until only Rinse is lit and press Start.  See if it completes a calibration and try it."  And oh, the washer should be empty.
    So I removed the load of laundry and tried it, several times.  It didn't work. So I combined the calibration with  the rebooting and eventually it worked, or at least it completed the Rinse cycle  on an empty tub.  I dumped the laundry back in and tried again, pressing the start button several times before it made a struggling sound and I could hear the water slowly entering the tub.  By this time, I'd made several trips upstairs to communicate my progress to the tech.  After a while we agreed to wait and check back to find out how the process worked out and if I'm satisfied enough to pay him.
   Caught between the Rebooting and the Recalibration, I'm reluctant to ask the washer to perform.  If it does work, I don't know how to tell which procedure is effective and how often will I need to employ them?  Every time?  Dirty laundry is taking on new meaning.
   

Thanksgiving Turkey #48

    Beginning with Thanksgiving Day 1968 in our Schaghticoke apartment, I have cooked, if my count is correct, 48 Thanksgiving turkeys.  Fresh, frozen, injected, not injected, about as many different brands as there are, or were, all of them over 20 lbs., as there were many people
at the table and a few take-out dinners for homebodies.
    This year's is from Market 32---Grade A Shady Brook Farm Fresh Young Turkey weighing in at 21.28 lbs. and at $1.29 a pound costing $27.45.  I wasn't committed to buying a fresh bird as the frozen Butterballs were .99 a pound, and others .59 or less, but my shopping time was delayed by an unexpected interlude, and I didn't think a 20+ pounder would have time to thaw.
  I plan to do most of the cooking, as usual, and since I have only one stove and oven, start preparations early.  I made the cranberry sauce, so we'll have the whole berry as well as the "Canberry" sauce, the kind with the markings from the can. A certain guest used to mock that, but the year I omitted it, he asked for it.  Kids!   I baked a shell for the lemon meringue pie, which I'll fill later.
   Today I turned the oven on to bake the mincemeat and pumpkin pies.  I remembered too late that I had laid the bread out to dry for the stuffing and had put it in the oven for safekeeping.  I'll need to buy more bread.  Before I reconstituted the mincemeat mix, I read the list of ingredients I'd need and laid them out on the counter.  I hadn't recalled there being an egg in the recipe, but it has been a whole year since the last time I made a mince pie, so I added the egg to the mincemeat mix.  Then I realized the egg was for brushing on top to make a nice brown crust.  Oh, well, the egg will provide added nutrients, and the top actually got a little too brown anyway, especially around the edges, although I protected it with an aluminum crust protector that Dorothy gave me. Now I have to make room for them in the space-limited refrigerator.  And then on to chopping the celery and onions.

Same Thing

  I ordered the Beef on Weck and asked the waitress what weck means.  "Oh," she said, "That's the kind of roll they use in Boston.  All the restaurants around there have them. "  When I pointed out that the menu described the weck sandwich  as from the Buffalo area, she blithely answered, " Boston. Buffalo. Po-tay-toe.  Po-tah-toe, it's all the same."

Reboot this!

   My 16 month WHIRLPOOL washing machine is failing to start.  The warranty was for 1 year, and I did not buy the extended warranty.  I don't like the washer anyway because it lacks an agitator, which results in rolled up clumps of the washed articles.  I would gladly replace it if need be after 5 years or so.  But 14 months seem rather insulting for a new washer that hasn't seen much use for just 2 people, and no heavy use at all.
   So I called Customer Service and eventually spoke to Gary.  He suggested I REBOOT the washer.  Something about all the electricity gets stored up in there, a surfeit of technical jargon. The washer contains a computer.   "Unplug it for 20 minutes or so and try again to restart it."
    I agreed and asked what my options were if that doesn't work.  He said to call and schedule a repair service call.  I said I thought that it seemed like an awful short time for a service call.  He said, "Yes, it does."

Mouses and Houses

   Off I went a few weeks ago to Country Living Store in Mechanicville in an attempt to thwart the influx of mice into our house.  My goal was to buy some caulk to apply to the crevices in the foundation of our house.  The clerk was a man who looked and sounded a little like Jerry Van Dyke.  He was most helpful, found me some caulk and asked if I had a caulking gun. I knew we did; there are at least 3 in our basement.  I'd noticed them earlier in the year among our cache of 5 lawn sprinklers.  I bought 2 tubes or canisters of caulk; the nice man told me I could return the extra one if I didn't need it.
   I've never actually caulked anything before. Spackled, yes, but never caulked.  But I've seen it done and it looked easy--and almost fun, or at least satisfying.  I loaded the canister into the gun; I did need a little in-house advice for that, but then I was ready to go.  It was nice weather, a good day to be outside.  I'd already scraped out the old loose caulk and brushed it away with a wire brush.  I had come prepared, armed even with the metal scraper thing to smooth it out after the application.
      I pressed the nozzle of the gun into the crevice and pulled the trigger, but nothing much happened.  I tried several times, my thumb getting sore from  the pressure, and only a few drops or blobs of caulk squiggling out.  I had expected it to be kind of like toothpaste smoothly inserting itself into the space and filling it up.  Instead it was more like trying to fill a crack with crumbly cookie dough. It wasn't working and my fingers were hurting.  I stopped.
    But I didn't give up--not then.  I went back down into the basement and retrieved a second caulking gun, a newer model.  It worked a little better, but only a little--not well enough.  I came up with another plan:  I would cut open the tube of caulk  and dab the caulk into the crevices with a putty knife.  The tube turned out to be made of impenetrable steel though, so that approach didn't work either; not even  an Exacto knife could slice into the metal.
  My final strategy was to squish all the caulk out of the tube into a bucket and then spackle it into the crevices.  The weather turned cold, so that hasn't happened yet, though the possibility is there.
  Anyway, the mouse invasion seemed to have ceased.  The lone trap in the basement has seen no action the last few weeks, Maybe no longer stares under the oven door, I still see no signs of mouse presence. I'm feeling relieved.  Surely the season has ended.
   When we came home this evening, I turned on the oven to cook a small roast.  After it was in the oven about 40 minutes or so, I was checking it for  doneness when a mouse ran directly in front of my feet, across the floor from one side of the oven door to the other.  Of course I screamed(though I'm not really afraid of mice), though evidently not very loud as it never woke the cat who was sleeping on the couch.
    I feel I must take action.  I had already looked, admittedly half-heartedly, in Yankee Dollar and Rite Aid for mousetraps, and could find none.  I didn't ask because who wants to admit they have a rodent infestation.  My only recourse was to go outside and retrieve the trap I'd thrown away a few weeks ago with a mouse corpse in it,  the trap in the bag which had mysteriously been torn open and its victim's body removed.
   The trap has been outside in the rain and presumably stripped of all traces of mouse remnants but I spray it with antibacterial cleaner and dab peanut butter on the business part before nestling it on the counter behind the toaster.
   A short time ago, while I was working on the computer, I hear that familiar snap, familiar but still surprisingly loud.  It's followed by a brief spasmodic thrashing sound.  I reach into my supply of plastic grocery bags (I hope they don't do away with them) and put one bag over my hand,  slide the trap and carcass into a second bag, drop the first bag into the second, knot it and drop it into the darkness outside my front door.
 

Chip

    I was in the area today, on my way back from a medical transport, so I stopped to fill my tank at the station where I ordinarily get gas, where gas is  priced  about 13 to 15 cents a gallon lower than the gas station in our area.   It is so easy to pay at the pump, just by inserting my credit card, or so I thought.  Today I tried, and the process didn't go through.  I tried again with no success. I'd just gotten gas there last week, no problem;  I was even using the same credit card.  I tried again, and again.  Then I gave up and walked into the store, to prepay for the gas. When I told the clerk I'd been unable to pay outside, she asked if my credit card had a chip.  I said it did.  She said that only the day before, they had "updated" the system at the pumps, and it would no longer function with cards that had a chip.  So much for progress.

In Pursuit of the Trivial

   The scope of tragedy is too grievous to process.  But still we go about our daily routines, one of which is shopping for food. Ordinarily I find it to be a dull and unwelcome task, but today I almost welcomed its diversion.  I bought sugar----the stuff that comes in a paper sack, the weight of which has shrunk from five to four pounds over the years.  Some health advocates consider white sugar to be almost toxic.  Maybe that's why the bag reads, "Great for Cookies, Cakes & Brownies."  There is even a recipe on the side of the bag for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Brownies.  Nutrition Facts on the side of the bag read that the sugar is Gluten-Free, and contains only 15 calories per teaspoon.  There are far worse ways to die.

Friday the 13th--so far *Update

   The Honda is at the shop for a routine inspection, but we're told it needs new rear brakes and a new battery.
  I go outside to start the Subaru, but the battery is stone cold dead, and the engine won't even turn over.
   With no transportation, we have to cancel this morning's medical appointment.  They seem understanding about the late notice.
    I had been asked to contact a certain telephone number to procure tickets for an event, but the number I was given is not in service.
    It's only a little past 10:00 a.m.
* Minor casualty-----Out of boredom, I made banana bread, before I called to see if my car was ready.  I remembered it when I got back home.  New name for it is Crispy Banana Bread.
** It was a windy day, the 13th on Friday, and because our waste collector bypassed our house this week, the garbage can was still out front, away from any shelter, tipped over, and the recyclables strewn.  Oh, well.

Say What!!

   I use coupons occasionally, mostly those for  fifty-cents or a dollar , so I don't mind it when a store's cash register spews out a couple along with my receipt.  At Rite-Aid today, I got two coupons, one for $2.00 off and one for $4.00 off.  Both were for Incontinence products.  Certainly not based on past purchases, but what?  Age?  I think I'll file a lawsuit charging  elder abuse---of the emotional type.

Operation Mouse Eyes

   In the past several months, I have accumulated enough real-life forensic experience to form a valid conclusion:  the eyes of a dead mouse look just like the eyes of a live mouse.  It is a fact that of late I have seen more of the former, and mice eyes, though sightless, gleam bright and beady.
   A mouse was caught last night, in one of those classic wooden traps,of the powerful spring-loaded type.   I can't bear to touch them.  Thank heavens for the plastic grocery bags.  I slip my hand into bag one to pick up the trap and then drop trap and attached carcass into another bag which I usually throw into the trash can behind the house.  Because it was already dark outside, I didn't want to venture around back, so I deposited the little body-bag outside the front door.  This morning, when I went outside, the bag was gone.  I searched and, while the plastic bag may have blown away in the night wind, I located the trap about twenty feet away.  The trap with nothing in it.  This particular mouse had met its doom caught right in the center of its body, firmly wedged beneath the wire of execution.  The trap was clean as a whistle.

CAMPAIGN m. e..s.s.a.g.e.....

      Because we live in a split-level (party-enrollment-wise) household,we receive political messages from both major parties.  Yesterday we got a call from Dr. Ben Carson.  But his voice was so soft, and his message so lengthy, his words were mostly unintelligible------sounded something like he had tried to stab a relative who was robbing a Popeye's because their grain supply was too old.  Or something along those lines....

To Blog A Tale

   As the narrator of the Canterbury Tales explained to the diverse travelers he'd required to tell a tale: "If a tale has meaning for you take it and use it; if not, be entertained by it on the journey."