Is this real?

   All other absurdities aside for the moment, and there are many of them, let's take a single issue:
      Should a person remain on a commission for investigating someone if that person has secured and secreted pertinent information about that someone, and, instead of referring that information to the commission who is charged with the investigation, furtively relays that information to the very person who is being investigated?
   This issue should not need much consideration to reach a decision. Yet some profess it's a quandary, endowing this course of action with a guise of normalcy.  There is only one answer to the above question.   No.  Absolutely not.  No one can be an impartial party who divulges  information to the  person being investigated.  No reasonable person can come to any other conclusion, right?

Today

    Thursday, March 30:  a day destined for attendance at the VA.  The driver called the day before with pickup time scheduled for 7:00 a.m.  He  typically arrives 10 minutes early so that means an early wakeup call is needed. The designee to do so leaves for work  in the early hours, so she usually calls before 6.  That being in place, I set the oven timer as a backup. We don't have a working alarm clock anymore or if we do I can't relate to it.   I brought in the favored transport chair, different from the in-house model and fitted it with his duffle bag containing his clothing change because Thursday is shower day at the VA.
     The phone wake-up call came at 5:50 but I was already awake.  It takes time to get ready. I put the water on for the instant Maxwell House, put 2 slices of bread in the toaster, pour Raisin Bran into a bowl and slice a banana on top.  Then, a call from the bedroom.  He didn't sleep all night, he says, and is too tired to go.  Understandable because he had a busy weekend, a trip to Florida which also resulted in sleeplessness for him and his advocate as well.  So breakfast will wait but I need to call John, his bus driver, to tell him not to drive over.  It's just 6, probably too early to call, don't want to wake him up, so I wait until 6:20 and succeed in reaching him to cancel.  That done, I also need to contact the VA Adult Day Care, as they need to adjust their staff assignments and probably lunch provisions.  So I wait until 7 to call.  No one answers yet, and they want to be notified before 9:30 so I decide to go back to bed.  I'm tired and just on the verge of falling asleep when he calls from the bedroom.  It's 7:10 and he wants to get up.  He's probably hungry.  He always wants breakfast as soon as he gets (is gotten) out of bed. Until a year and a half ago, he always fixed his own breakfast, but that has changed so I tell him he's going to have to wait a few hours. I go back to bed, but am now awake for the second time that morning and can't fall back asleep, so I sneak out to the computer, but leave him in bed.  I feel cruel, but tell myself I need alone time to unwind.
   The day proceeds from there as expected with the usual duties.  Nothing to write home about, but here O Blog is different.  So I write.
    I had planned during today's "free time" to drive to HRB to pick up my tax returns, that unexpectedly "complicated" undertaking, already having been delayed due to circumstances beyond MY control. So I wait for the 9-year-old to get off the school bus, and make my escape.
     OMG, LOL, WTF, SMH  I left them with the advice that if you're going to fact-check, make sure you get the facts right. Mic drop ensued.
  I stopped at McD's to get a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.  I usually get myself a Cheeseburger, but was reminded that last time I thought it tasted like dogfood so I skipped that and had oatmeal for my supper, and I feel like I swallowed a ton of bricks.
    Saturated with weather reports of snow upon snow, I stopped at S'N'S for provisions.  I didn't feel like lugging my pocketbook in for just a few things, so I took my credit card out of my wallet.  To make a sad story less sad, I lost the card, but found it in the parking lot where I'd dropped it.
  And that's the way it goes.

"Another April"

   I graduated from college when I was still 21 years old, and  by the time I began teaching I was 22.  I began by teaching  English at the junior high level, and one of my first forays into the short story genre was the works of the author Jesse Stuart, much in academic vogue at the time. He was from Tennessee and wrote about rural life in his home state.  I was not too far removed from my own childhood back then, and felt curiously moved by his narration. Much of his description of the lay of the land and the interactions among family members could have been descriptive of what I recalled about my own grandmother's home and family.
    I introduced my young students to a short story titled "Another April," a narrative that dealt with coming of age combined with the cycle of life. I knew my seventh and eight graders were too young to fully relate to those themes, but from what I perceived as my age vantage, the reality of the subject struck home to me.
     Now I've lived long enough to know that I would be unable to read the words of that story in a classroom situation. The story told has become  too poignantly and achingly true.  Reading it now brings about the same level of heartbreak that I feel when I read Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" or Truman Capote's "Christmas Memory."  Literature is capable  of unlocking  deep and beautiful truths, the meaning of life itself, though a lesson best interpreted through the sheltering  veil of youth.
 

Accent or Accusaton

  This morning on channel 13's Early News, I heard Sabrina Dhammi report on a story where she said National GREED had responded. Clear as day, that was how she pronounced it. Her co-anchor  re-pronounced it twice, but of course made no reference as to the "correction."  You've got to be on guard against such slippages, Sabrina, even in the wee hours of the morning. Let's hope the greedy ones were still asleep.

Keeping Tabs

I consider these single-use items.  Does anyone ever re-use them?  They're a pain in the neck and I throw them away and use a twistie or a clothespin to reclose the item, so I don't know how they accumulate.  Bad Cess to them!

Fading Away

     Holidays.  There are so many "Days" in the present time that little or no attention is paid to the old-time observances.  Christmas has become a commercial monstrosity with Halloween not far behind.  Yes, there was plenty of corned beef and cabbage for sale on St. Patrick's Day, but I didn't hear a single Irish song played anywhere. Truth is, now that I hardly drive anywhere I don't listen to the radio, so I'll have to accept that apparent omission.
   But outrage persists.  We're well into the Lenten season, and I can't find Hot Cross Buns.  Well, not the kind I'm looking for, which are Entenmann's, formerly Freihofer's Hot Cross Buns.  When I was a child, Freihofer's offered 2 versions, one with the dried fruit and the other with only the frosted cross on top, no fruit.  Then, I would only eat the plain version; if I had to partake of the other, I would pick the fruit out.  But time goes on, we grow up and our tastes change. Now I yearn for those raisins and candied fruit pieces embedded deep into a bun, and optimally iced generously with whiteness.
     It's not that I haven't tried.  My first attempt was Price Chopper's package of Hot Cross Buns.  The bun was quite dry with hardly any fruit, and very skimpily iced. I wouldn't buy them again, but guiltily confess I ate them anyway.  Then a mercy offering---a pack of buns straight from the bakery, a gift.  The buns were much better, but with few raisins and I can't even recall if they contained other fruit. Today, there was a display at Shop&Save.  The offering looked promising so I bought a package. That turned out to be the most disappointing of all.  The buns were heavy and the fruit seemed overly-dried, dried up even.  These buns were so unappealing that I may not even eat them.  That's how bad the situation has become.

My Day of Infamy: Total Failure All Day Long

     It started out really early----Wait, can't mention that.  Too gross The next thing that happened---No one would welcome hearing about that.   Even worse---let's skip that expected but dreary recitation.  Later I actually left the house----but the first stop on my venture is painful even to recall, so I'll omit that event.
   My second stop was equally depressing, but I'll record the events anyway in case I'm tempted to do the same next year, should I still be recordable.
   I had brought our taxes for HR Block to prepare, and my mistake may have been to substitute proximity for professionalism.  I used the Mechanicville location just because it was closest, but I can't help but think H&R might not assign their best preparers to that city.  As background, know that I have done our income taxes every year since Dave left his employ where a tax accountant was available to its employees, for a small fee, of course.  But our returns were more complicated then, with itemized deductions, business and office expenses, company cars and other benefits.
    Since then, I have been doing our taxes solo, for decades, until I received a bill last year from the IRS saying I owed them $3500 for the preceding year.  It included interest and penalty of $500, so I paid the bill right away to avoid more damage.  I didn't think it could be correct, so I brought all the stuff over to
HRBlock in Clifton Park where a nice man named Ron told me I owed nothing:  there had been a $3000 Capital Gain from our investment firm but also a  $3000 Loss.  The IRS, he explained, only points out what was a gain.  They don't look into losses.  That is the job of the taxpayer. Ron examined and amended  the return, requested that the IRS return the $3500 and charged me a fee of $225 which I gladly and gratefully paid.  IRS refunded the full amount, including the penalty and even interest paid on my money they'd held.
   I thought I'd have HR Block complete our return this year, not wanting to repeat my previous oversight, and lacking the time and space for concentration. So I'm in Mechanicville, as I'd been called and informed they were ready, having dropped them off a week or so ago.  My preparer had told me that the fee would be "a little more than usual."  A complicated return, she said. I started to ask what was so complicated, but the connection was so bad we couldn't understand each other, though I heard her say eFile and the fee of $446.  Oh, I was entitled to  a refund of $1.00.   I walked to the desk this afternoon and identified myself to whom I'd have thought was the receptionist, but she later told me she was the office manager.  Before I said anything, she took out a folder and said she  was going to deduct a $25 Credit and replace it with a $50 Credit. When I asked how the fees were calculated, she told me it was a combination of hours spent and the number of forms used.  With credit card in hand, I asked to look through the folder before I paid, but no, that folder held only the statements I'd provided.  The actual return was on the computer still and she would need to go over it with me.
   Back in the cubicle, the "office manager" told me it was indeed a complicated return, but she didn't know why.  She had to call a preparer from another cubicle, asking to sit in on her explanation to me so she could understand it.  The new preparer said they'd had to compute the taxable amounts of my retirement and our social security payments, but agreed when I said those amounts were already stated on the form. Looking further, she noted that the original rep had filed a form for each investment transaction instead of going by the summary statement.  She'd have to  look into it.  I said I'd return some other time.  (I shall not return in any other year.)
   My final stop on my day out was McDonald's to bring Dave back a Quarter Pounder With Cheese.   McDonald's was crowded with people, at least a hundred, participating in some type of McD sponsored PTA function, kids all over the place, standing room only.  But they were checking in at a special register, so the regular line was not busy.  My receipt was #309, and when I heard them call #200, I was ready to ask for a rain check.  The wait was not too too long, though, because the first digit called indicated cash register #.
    Back home, my day went on----but way too abysmal to recount.
   

St Paddy's Post-Mortem

St Patrick's Day.  Equated with a corned beef dinner?  Maybe, but not part of our tradition growing up.  My mother, being a farm girl of sorts, and a survivor by necessity, knew about the waste-not principle, knew that  beef,  on the verge of spoiling, could be rescued by the "corning" process.  So she was wary of preparing a dinner consisting of salvaged meat.  I never cared for it either, in my adult life, nor did my husband and most of our kids, though they were blissfully unaware of  the shady history behind  the corning of the beef.
   But times changed, with better refrigeration options, and corned beef has become almost a delicacy, or at least a featured and expected offering, so I have bowed to the modern tradition and usually cook a St. Patrick's Day dinner anyway, though nobody eats the cabbage, nor does anything with the leftover corned beef.
  This year I decided to not bother with the dinner, but an unexpected request, from a grandchild no less, had me rethink my decision and do the right thing.  A day late, but it was a Saturday, so all could attend.
   The problem is I'm not that familiar with the mystique of a proper cut of corned beef.  Sometimes I think I've got a handle on it, but I always forget by the next year.  So I'm documenting my findings here:  I bought 2 cuts.  They were not of the familiar brand, but the package was festooned with pictures of shamrocks so how could that not be a good thing.
          Package #1----"Premium Corned Beef Flat Thin Cut"   (I think that's a brisket.)  $3.47 a lb. for 2.375 lbs.=$8.24
          Package #2----"Premium Corned Beef Points" @$1.47 a lb. for 2.325 lbs.= $3.42
      I wanted to compare them, but think I muddied the effort because I cooked them using different methods. The attached instructions gave only 2 options, Slow Cooker and Oven Roasting.  I have a Slow Cooker stored somewhere, but didn't want to unearth it, figuring a slow cooker is the same method as stovetop boiling, just slower.  I'd never roasted a corned beef before, though have, several times,  placed the near-finished product  under the broiler, adding a glaze  to crisp it up a bit.
   I cooked Selection #1 the traditional way, boiled, only briefly under the broiler at the end.  I roasted Selection #2, figuring to sacrifice the cheaper cut if roasting was a bad idea.  The  meat was placed on a rack with water in the pan beneath.
   I tried to compare them.  At first I thought the cheaper cut, Points, was tastier, and maybe a little grainier, but at the end, it turned out that both ended up being quite tender and flavorful.  I didn't track who ate what, but a few diners anyway found the corned beef to be delicious.  I would guess that the Brisket won by a nose.

Table Talk

   The table was in the kitchen of my childhood home, the place where I lived until I was 27 years old, and the place that's still the home to most of my dreams. The people at the table were my mother and Helen.  They'd evidently been in deep and somber conversation when I walked in through the old kitchen door next to the refrigerator.  As soon as I entered the room, Helen turned to me and said, "Will you promise not to let them put me in the home?"  I answered that I would, would not let them do that.  I was thirteen years old then, young and unworldly, but I always had felt that I had an adult mind.  I wanted her to feel reassured but I had no idea how I would keep her out of the home. I was further disquieted by my mother's silence, she who I still depended on to furnish the answers to  such life determining questions.
    Helen was born in 1900, so she would have been then about 52 years old.  But her mother had died the year before, and Helen, as the oldest surviving daughter, had been  the designated one to care for her mother.  Just as Matt, the only surviving son, was the one to provide support for both  women, his mother  and unmarried sister.  If the brother and sister had continued as they were, any unsettling problems and decisions would have been far in the future.  But fate inserted itself,  in the form of a woman who, late in life and on the verge of desperation,  had set her sights on securing her own future, and that meant a  husband, and Matt was targeted as that husband.
    From what my childhood recollections were, from the heard and overheard, she had found there was a single man, of Irish heritage, a necessity to her in those times, who was living on the winding dirt road of a family she knew.  She arranged to live with that family for a while, and would wait for Matt to drive past her temporary residence on his way to work, and be roadside when he passed by.  Now Matt was a good-looking man, tall, lean and muscular, had a good job and drove his own car.  He'd had other women companions, but seemed content to bypass any permanent  relationships, citing, most likely, his commitment to his mother.  Inevitably, though his mother died.  In November of 1950, and it didn't take long for the roadside romantic to take action.  He was reluctant to enter into marriage at that point in his life, but that reluctance turned to submission when she told him that if he didn't marry her, she would throw herself in front of his car when he drove past her house.  So they were married.
   It was a small wedding. I'm not sure who attended.  I think Dorothy did; to keep Helen company, she used to occasionally spend weekends with Helen and Matt in those early years.  I did not. I had a job in the store next door.  Every day, 7 days a week, from 6 to 7 every evening and 1 to 2 on weekends and school vacations and in the summer. It really cut into any social life, except for those who came to the store.
    Matt had been revered as the Irish son, and was used to being in control of his life, but that was to change in  dramatic fashion. His new wife was shrewd but emotionally damaged, and perhaps mentally as well. She was one of 8 children and her mother had been committed to and died in a mental institution, in Poughkeepsie as my childhood memory recalls.  So Matt in his innocence and hopes had thought the two women, his sister and his wife, could live happily in their isolated home, keeping each other company while he was at work.  Not only did that hope not work out, it was a dismal and catastrophic failure, of dimensions almost unimaginable.-----So Helen came to live with us.
   I didn't know how I could keep the promise I made.  I only knew that any home she would have gone to was synonymous with "poorhouse."  The County Home.  The place where people without loved ones ended up.  Alone and forgotten. There were not many "homes"  back then.  The wife, or designated spinster daughter, of the family did not work and so was home during the day, able and so destined  to care for any aging or disabled family members.  A different world.  So as a young teen, I accepted the responsibility.  I suppose I wished it far into the future because I knew I had no skills, no money, no car, no prospects at all.  As it turned out, my mother died in 1983.  I owned her house for a while after that and Helen died 12 years later, still living in the same house, and except for the last 4 days of her life still sitting every day at that same kitchen table.
   

About that snake...
 
Scene: Deathbed
Moral:   "You knew what it was when you picked it up."

The Claw

Sonic: Way Too Orange

    Last week my appointment, of the medical ilk of course, brought me to the area of the new Sonic establishment.  Since pretty much everyone I know has been to a Sonic at least once, and I had not, I decided to order takeout lunch for two.  I don't get to drive that much anymore, so I'm probably more apprehensive than is called for, but as I pulled into the only available parking spot, which overlooked Hoosick Street, I had the thought that it was a very steep bank and the road looked a long way down: one certainly wouldn't want to overshoot the parking area.  Yes, I know the main feature of Sonic is the drive-through , but I wanted to go in, look at the menu at leisure, and survey the place to see if it could be a possible spot for lunch, not that any date is in the near future.
   The weather was cold and chilly, but the waitress, who evidently doubles as hostess, was very warm and friendly, greeting each customer as they approached, even as she was waiting on another.  Unusual, but she was doing it.
   The food offerings were posted all over the place.  Some of the meals seemed slightly high in price, but there were individual selections as well.  When it was my turn to order, I forgot about the pricing and just ordered 2 Junior Cheeseburgers to go. The total price was under $4.00. And the burgers came with real lettuce and tomatoes. A bargain, I'd say.
  While I waited for the order, not too long, but not short either, I looked around the interior.  One open space but with several semi-closed off areas, with a television screen in each area, where several families and a few individuals were eating their meals
   I wasn't particularly hungry yet, and I could smell the smoke of cooking food, but it didn't enhance my appetite.  The walls were orange, reminiscent of Popeye's, just a block or so away.  That's too strong a color for an eating environment, it seems to me.
    When I got home, I needed to heat the food, so I slid one of the burgers on to the other, threw the bun away, and served the patty-plus to Dave.  He said it was good.  So I still am not qualified to critique the food, but I probably won't choose Sonic on Hoosick for a lunch date should the occasion ever arise.

"I didn't hear that."

    What about that hit and run, John Lithgow?

Easel

     Thanks to the wonders of FB, IM, PM, and GPS, plus a willing driver, an antique artist's easel has found its way from its original home in Millertown, NY to a new home in New Hampshire. A better fate than ye olde dumpster.

Off the Record

     Monday another rep from  The Record called. He asked if I wanted to renew my newspaper subscription.  For the same price I'd been paying, $500+ for 52 weeks, divided in half for 26 weeks.  I have gotten used to being without the paper now, having subscribed for a month to The Times Union, which I hardly read anyway, and their daily crossword is way too simple.  Wanting to avoid the rigamarole of explaining how my subscription ended, I said that the last price I'd been offered was about $366 for 52 issues, so he said he'd offer that price.  I agreed, but I don't really care. My romance with the daily newspaper has ended. I'm over it.
    ***Thinking back, the last rep who called me said he could offer only the 26-week subscription.  Bad times ahead?

Crouched

Everyone in the public eye should avoid assuming any position that makes them look like a gargoyle.
**Unless, of course, you are an exhibitionist who welcomes showing your cuteness in the  opening skit on the next SNL.