A Nice Way to Spend an Evening

Ah summer how I love you.

Well, I am not to happy with you today because it is hotter than heck around here at the moment and that means air conditioning and I really hate A/C. I am odd that way.

But one of the things that I love best about summer, besides BLTs of course, is baseball.

I might have mentioned my love of baseball before. Maybe here…..

So Friday night HHBL and I wandered down to The Jake, OK OK Progressive Field to see the Indians inevitably lose play. The daughter of some friends was singing the National Anthem and the weather was beautiful and it seemed like just the right thing to do to start the holiday weekend.

Tori did an awesome job singing the National Anthem. You can bet your bottom dollar I wouldn’t have done as well. And I don’t think that the Indians are going to be calling me any time soon.

HHBL and I decided that we were going to sit in the bleacher seats for this game. We have been attending games at the stadium since it opened in 1994. We have sat in just about every portion of the stadium at one time or another, except the bleachers.

Not bad for bleachers. The thing that was always nice when we had season tickets was you got to know the people that sat around you. For many years we had seats in the upper deck, sort of in the left upper corner of this picture. 20 games which was more than enough. And the same people were always sitting around us. There was the father and son team who always brought deli sandwiches with them. And then there was the husband and wife who sat in front of us and always had a huge bag of peanuts in the shell. They spent the whole game eating peanuts. But in recent years we have decided that 20 games are just too many for us to attend, 3-5 games a season is the perfect number. This would be game #2 for us this season.

So we purchased our tickets at the ballpark, indulging in the “pre-loaded” tickets which means that you pay $8 extra and they load $10 on your tickets for food. Great marketing strategy that makes you think that you have gotten a good deal. It would be a good deal if they weren’t charging $9 for their “premium superdooper bratwurst”. I might have added the “superdooper” to that description. But I wasn’t joking about the cost. Just because someone in a white chef’s coat cooked the thing doesn’t make it worth the arm and leg that they charged me.

I got over it with a good beer. If only I could remember the name of it. It was very much like Blue Moon. Really, life is just too short to drink bad beer.  

HHBL was hoping to catch some spectacularly hit ball……but that didn’t happen. The only ball that came our way was thrown up into the stands by the outfielder. It sailed right up to where HHBL was sitting……or where he would have been sitting…..if he hadn’t been someplace else getting something to eat. So the kid that was sitting next to us had the good fortune to catch the ball.

But I almost took it away from him later because he kept taping it against the metal seats and he was driving me bonkers.

This is “The Beer Man”. Everyone who goes to games regularly knows him. You can hear him all over the ballpark with line, “It’s not the Tax Man! It’s the Beer Man!” He has been selling beer as long as we have been going to the ballpark. It really wouldn’t be quite the same experience if we didn’t see him.

Ah yes, usually around the 5th inning Ketchup, Mustard and Onions run their “race”. Ketchup always cheats and Mustard usually wins. I am not sure what purpose this serves but I always root for Onion.

And then I got bored.

And I am so sorry.

We have been to some games that were absolutely electric with everyone on their feet and yelling almost the entire game.

This was not one of those games. Usually I keep myself in the game by scoring. But I didn’t do that this night and so my little gray cells started to wander down highways and byways.

And I had my camera with me….

  You know it’s bad when I start taking pictures of my feet. Cuz my feet aren’t the most beautiful things in the world, especially in my traveling and tramping shoes.

If I had had the chance I would have taken a picture of the young fellow walking up the bleacher stairs with the ultimate “Refrigerator Repairman Pants”. Not only did we get a particularly clear look at his boxers we all got a particularly spectacular view of most of his buttocks. A tad drafty there son?

And finally we decided that we had had enough and left after the 8th inning and drove home, stopping on the way to get ice cream at Mitchells.

We needed something to help us get over the pathetic and lack luster performance of the Indians.

LookLeap and Debbie Garden (Vol 2 I think)

Garden update because I know that you are absolutely dying to know. By the way, the following pictures are SOOC (straight out of camera) because, well, I just don’t feel like fiddling with Photoshop Elements today.

I am lazy, what can I say. The sun is shining as I write this and I am overcome with summer lassitude. So any blurry or off color pictures will just have to be excused.

Things are growing. Which is good because it is a garden after all.

This is a jalapeno in case you can’t tell. The camera evidently focused on something other than what I was telling it to focus on and I didn’t have my glasses with me but it is a jalapeno. There are others on the plants. I am hoping for enough to enjoy pico de gallo later on.

The basil continues to be awesome. Picked a bunch and just waved it in the still, humid air so that we could enjoy the fragrance. Of course, I also took it home and made some pizza for lunch. Yum. And there is a bunch sitting in water on the counter ready to be made into pesto sometime next week. Be still my palpitating heart.

Oh and there are tomatoes. But darn it why can’t they ripen faster. They are calling me. I can taste the BLT’s in my future. And the tomatoes and mozzarella cheese and basil with just a drizzle of olive oil.

I am drooling.

Oh yeah, power tools. Lookleap brought the little rototiller. There is nothing like the smell of gasoline and the roar of gardening equipment early in the morning. Amazingly the ground wasn’t all that wet. Believe me when I say that earlier in the week part of the garden was under water. The zucchini hills were islands.

We took turns tilling the earth. I felt very Johnny Appleseed. Only without the apple trees. Cuz this is a garden and not an orchard.

                                                      Weeds Fear Me
At about this time LookLeap suggested that I might want to stop taking silly pictures and get back to work because there was stuff to weed and plant.

She is such a slave driver.

Does anyone have any idea what kind of plants these are? Seriously we don’t have any clue. Someone had left a bunch of plants on the trailer that holds that water tank. We looked at each other and thought, what the heck, lets plant them and see what we grow. But it might be nice to actually know what we are growing.

I am pretty sure that it is isn’t marijuana……..

The nice person who had left the unknown plants mentioned above had also left an entire tray of tomato plants that were tall and a bit spindly and crying out to be planted somewhere. No tags to tell us what kind of plants they were.

But we are risk takers are LookLeap and I. And beside, they were free. I love the word free.

So we rangled out 6 of the better looking plants and stuck them in the freshly tilled ground. It is a bit late to be putting in more tomato plants but what the heck. That will make 18 plants I think. If they bear even half way well we will be drowning in tomatoes.

Really, we should have our heads examined.

In all seriousness, and yes I can be serious upon occasion, this garden is just what I need. Soothing, a chance to dig in the dirt and then eat what we manage to grow. And we have met some of our garden "neighbors". It is a community garden after all and I think that it is a good thing to use it to get to know some others who live in my little town.

It was really the nicest thing for LookLeap to ask me if I wanted to be involved. She could have just done it all herself but she was a good friend and asked. Of course, she then has a second pair of hands to weed....but I am sure that wasn't her first thought...

Was it?

And then, when I was filling up the water cans to water the plants I happened to look into the large garbage can that sits next to the water tanker.

Doodee doodee doodee. Waiting for the water to run into the can.


Hey! Those look like little tiny baby radishes that someone has culled……


Oh aren’t they lovely. They are so tiny and lonely and lovely. I know that you have to prune/cull them to make the rest of the radishes happy and grow better. It is one of the painful things about gardening. A necessary evil

Hmmmm? What? The baby radish is gone?

Ummm, well, you see……

I ate it.

And it was good.

And it was very zippy.

So shoot me. 

The Saturday Evening Blog Post (Vol: who the heck remembers)

Yes, I know that I don’t usually post on Saturdays. I love you all, you know that, but I have really important things to do on Saturdays like drink some elixir of life and maybe beat the back garden into submission….

Or maybe just read a book

But this being the first Saturday of the month Elizabeth Esther is hosting her monthly “The Saturday Evening Blog Post” where we can pick our favorite blog post of the month past to repost without fear and trepidation.

This is mine

The Brides Just Keep On Coming

Click on the picture above to be whisked over to ElizabethEsther to see what others have written. And if you aren’t reading Elizabeth’s blog on a regular basis you should be.

Now back to the garden

7 Quick Takes (Vol 76)

Here we are again my little Quick Takers, gathered on a Friday to read snippets of my life that I couldn’t stretch into an entire post. Remember to click on the picture above to be whooshed over to Conversion Diary to read the rest of the Quick Takes.
And now on with the show!

1.
I made homemade mayo for the first time this week. Oh my stars and garters! Why did no one ever tell me about it’s deliciousness and how stinkin’ easy it is to make. I may never go back. Thank goodness I found this out before stocking up on the Hellman’s that is on sale next week at Giant Eagle.

Seriously you have to make this stuff. What started this was my reading of Michael Ruhlman’s blog (which I love!). Of course when reading the comments I was led to Operagirl Cooks and her take on homemade mayo. And I was toasted for the rest of the day. The heavens opened and the angels sang when I tasted what I had made.


2.
I am in love with the smell of laundry that has been dried outside. Always have been, even when little. I am not sure that there is anything that smells better than sheets that have been dried out on the line. You crawl into your bed and take a good whiff of your pillow.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

What? You don’t do that? Why not.

At any rate, for the last 10 years I haven’t had a clothes line and I have been bereft. Bereft I tell you. I had one stretched between two trees and it wasn’t working. And then I thought I would have it in the backyard but…..Max does his “bidness” back there and I didn’t want to think about my nice clean laundry falling into that. So I just gave up.

But, about a month ago I had an epiphany, a thought bubble, lightening struck my feeble brain. I have a deck, a big deck, and it has a railing. And so, I have been “hanging” all manner of things out to dry on sunny days.
And it is wonderful.

3.
Next week I think we will talk about these, aren’t you excited. I have an obsession with Daylilies. Yes, I know I have more than one obsession but this is my blog and you have to put up with it.

Who else would I tell these things to?

4.
Do you have words that you just love to say? I do. I am weird I know. Here are some

Cad – I have no idea why but I love this word, not what it represents but just the word
Vociferous
Uvula – do you know what that is?
Borborygmus – it just rolls off the tongue

There are a ton more and that might just be an entire blog post but I am still thinking about it.


5.
Look what is growing by my office window!

Black raspberries by the look of them. I did not plant these they just appeared as if by magic and I only discovered them when I actually weeded that area on Wednesday. There are enough to have one serving on my ice cream. I am waiting a few days and then I am going to eat those things sour or not.

I will feel like Euell Gibbons foraging in the forest. Only I am hoping not to choke to death on an aspirin.

6.
I was also going to give you a LookLeap & Deb garden update because I know that you all are dying to know.

But there really isn’t one. I was there on Monday and it was just too wet to do anything. And when I say wet I mean that there was standing water in one corner of the plot. Our hills of zucchini were actually islands. It was so muddy that I couldn’t do any work and just gave up before my garden clogs became so encrusted with mud that I couldn’t move.

But the beans were growing, there are banana peppers and green peppers and jalapeno peppers. There are some tomatoes. There is broccoli and cabbage and brussel sprouts and of course there is basil. I will take pictures today when we are over there.

Why do tomatoes have to take so long to grow?? I want them NOW. 

7.
What are you doing for this 4th of July weekend? Ours is packed. Tonight we are attending the Cleveland Indians game where the daughter of some friends is singing the National Anthem. I have no expectation that the Indians will actually win the game but it should be a good night for baseball.

Tomorrow night HHBL and I are going to Blossom Music Center to listen to the Blossom Festival Orchestra perform. Ahhhhh, music under the stars. It is so nice to live in an area where we are able to attend concerts at a lovely place like Blossom.

And then Sunday we might possibly go to the parade and then fireworks. That one is up for negotiation but we will see. The parade in our little town is always the same year to year. This year, because the 4th happens on a Sunday the parade time has been changed to a bit later in the afternoon.

Have a wonderful 4th of July everyone!!

Oh This Parenting Thing.

This parenting thing is hard sometimes you know. I mean, where is the manual? Where are the instructions?

Where is that box that I ordered years and years ago so that I could put the progeny in it and they wouldn’t grow up any more and I could keep them at like, say, 8 years old when they were fun and not that much work. Not that they aren’t fun now mind you.

So Shoe Queen and some of her closest buds leave tomorrow for Florida….driving….all by themselves.

And I am a tad nervous. Can you tell? I actually had to have a Dr. Pepper this afternoon to calm me and I am eating everything in sight even though I am not hungry. Yup, nervous.

It isn’t that these girls aren’t responsible, they are. They have calm heads on their shoulders and they don’t panic…usually. And it isn’t that I am worried about where they will be staying. They will be at the condo of one of their parents. No it is the driving there and back thing that has me all jittery and heeby jeeby.

They are all 19 years old, which right this second seems like babyhood. And it is just that…

that….

well, it is MY kid. And she is driving to Florida. And it is hard not to be a helicopter parent. But the Lord didn’t intend for us to be helicopter parents. We are supposed to help them grow up to be smart, responsible adults and then, when they are we are not supposed to reign them back in. That is the hard part.

You can’t raise them to be adults and then not let them practice the skills that you have made them learn.

So, we will wave her goodbye and safe trip. I have already told her that she needs to keep me updated on the drive, call when they get to Atlanta tomorrow and then Sanibel Island on Saturday. She was rolling her eyes the whole time.

YES YOU WERE! (She reads the blog).

And then I will make her do the same thing on the drive home. Mothers can be such a pain.

Oh, and one more thing. Can anyone explain to me why you would actually want to go to Florida….in July.

It is HOT down there this time of the year.

You Just Need the Right Mug

We are a family of tea drinkers. Yes, I know I seem to have a strange and obsessive love for coffee, the Elixir of Life, but that only started when I was in nursing school and had to be able to function early in the morning.

No, tea has always been my ultimate drink of choice. And I have passed this on to the progeny. And also TSiL is a tea drinker so that is good. Of course, he grew up in Pakistan where tea is the norm.

But you see, the thing about tea is you just need to use the right mug or the whole experience isn’t what it could be.

And we have mugs. We have mugs that have stories behind them. Are you surprised at this? How long have you been hanging here? Everything around here has some kind of nutty story attached to it.

This is always a popular mug, even though Mr. Crabby Pants is no longer with us. Papa sent this mug to me. I am not sure where he found it but if the chips around the edge are any indication we love this one.

I brought this mug back from Israel. Purchased in Bethlehem at the shop of the potter who made it. A dusty, dark and dingy place. The chip happened when someone, me I think, dropped a bowl right on the edge and chipped it big time. However, it still gets a lot of use.

  This was purchased outside Ft. Ticonderoga in NY, again, from the potter who made it. A woman who was actually from Canada and was there as part of a re-enactment of a battle from the French and Indian War.

Some people go to the beach for vacation.

We take our kids to museums. They LOVE it.

This happens to be Shoe Queen’s mug. She took it to college with her. She brought it home for the summer.

If you use it and she sees you do it then she gives you the “Stink Eye”.

Sometimes I use it just to annoy her. But don’t tell her OK?

Then there is this little beauty. It was purchased in Idaho at Snake River Pottery. And there is a story of course. We were in Idaho for HHBL’s family reunion (we meet every two years). HHBL, the progeny, Cousin Amanda and yours truly had spent some time driving around the state going to cool things like the National Potato Museum (the progeny’s favorite) and walking up mounds of volcanic stuff and sticking gobstoppers into our noses. Good Times.

I had found a little “blurb” in one of my guide books about this place call Snake River Pottery. The directions to get there had phrases like “If you go past the mail box with the deer horns on it then you have gone too far” and “take a left at the third farm on your right” and things like that. We finally located the place and parked. If you looked at the picture you can see that it is a rather unassuming place that sits next to a rushing river. We walked in and saw a sign that told us that if we wanted to purchase something and no one was around just add the sales tax and leave the money on the counter.

OK

We did hear a voice from the back of the house tell us to look around the show room which was on the right so we did. And then the potter and owner of the building appeared….

In his bathrobe….

His very thin bathrobe….

And nothing else.

Boy did we pay for our purchases with a swiftness bordering on panic.

And then there is this mug. I happen to be having a cup of tea in this one at this very moment. It is my personal favorite….and there is a story lest you were worried.

When I went off to Baylor many, many years ago my momma (Mimi) purchased a bunch of mugs for me. This was one of them. It was my “Tumbling Bears” mug and it was my favorite because the bears look so happy. I finished nursing school, worked, got married, had kids and all the while I used my mug.

Then one day HHBL and I were visiting his mom for Thanksgiving. My BIL, Kidney Doc, was visiting as well. He was wanting to have a cup of coffee in the morning as we were recovering from an excess of turkey and said, “Where is the F---ing Bunnies Mug. That’s my favorite.”

Sorry, I can’t print that word, this is a family blog. Now back to our story.

I wondered what mug he might be talking about. Then he pulled the mug out from the back of the cupboard and I got a look at it.

HEY! That mug looks just my favorite one at home only with bunnies not bears.

Why does he call it the f---ing bunnies mug. I don’t see……

OH.MY.GOSH!

And then the scales fell from my eyes and I was able to see, really see, what the bears were doing…….
Holy Cow Andy no wonder they look like they are happy. Oh yeah they are “tumbling” alright.

It only took me 10 years to figure it out.

And for some reason this is still my favorite mug. Tea just tastes better in it.

Like I said, you just need the right mug.

And The Brides Just Keep On Coming

The last two months have been our season of wedding around here let me tell you. HHBL’s cousin got married several weeks ago and we partied the night away with family.

And then, of course, there was this little gathering.

And then, this past weekend we attended the wedding of Alison and Brendan, Alison happening to be TMO’s very, very BFF in the whole wide world. They have been buds since they saw each other across a crowded 1st grade room and decided that they were going to be best friends. There was no going back on that. Come heck, high water, or boyfriends…and now husbands.

I really love weddings, especially ones that I am not in charge of and am not paying for. And this wedding was so lovely and unusually. Lets take a look shall we? Cuz, you know, you guys are just my BBF’s (best bloggie friends) and I have to share everything with you. Maybe tomorrow we can talk about the terrible sore throat I had last week.

No?

Fine!

Like I said, Alison and TMO have been friends for a long time. They do not look like this anymore. If they did I am not sure that we would be having weddings.

Unless we were in West Virginia where I believe the age of consent for marriage might be a tad younger.

Where were we? Oh yes. Well, every wedding has it’s on flavor as it were. Some are very formal where you sit in quiet anticipation of the booming organ announcing the arrival of the bride. Or perhaps there is a string quartet or something.

In the 20 minutes or so before the wedding we were treated to a number of different musical interludes.

The Father of the Bride and his siblings sang. They have been singing together all their lives and it was lovely. You can tell which one is Jim, he has the flower.

The the groom and his brother did a song. Brendan (the groom) happens to be with one without a coat on and without a beard.

Oh, and by way of explanation. In a bunch of the forthcoming photos there will be a blurry area or two, right down there in the corner of the picture. The spot that cannot be cropped out even though I tried. Those happen to belong to the two women with big hair who were so kindly seated in front of me.

Sigh.

The parents of the bride sang the song that they sang to each other on THEIR wedding day. There were many eyes that were a tad damp, including the Father of the Bride. The MOB is one of my dearest friends, with just the sweetest heart you will ever encounter.

Why she likes to hang around with me I will never understand.

I have no idea who this little fellow was but he looked like he was plotting mischief.

Brendan gets a good look at his bride.

Alison and Brendan’s wedding was unique in a bunch of ways. I mean no wedding is ever the same but I think that this is the first wedding where the bride and groom led us all in worship. You don’t know Brendan and Alison but let me tell you, that was just so “them”.

       Look closely and you might see a repeat of bridesmaids from TMO’s wedding.
Parents, Bride and Groom prayed together after the vows were said. We have come to know this as the “Shellhaas Huddle”.
This may, perhaps, be my favorite picture from the entire day. It is just so them.

Mr. and Mrs. Brendan Haggerty!

And then it was on to the reception. And I will be honest. I took about 5 pictures after this point. And why did the picture taking grind to a halt you might ask? 

Well, it is because at the reception I got to visit long and hard with some people that I don’t get to see very often.

See that woman in the middle? That is Mary my twin sister separated at birth. She is the sister of my heart and I miss her cuz she had the audacity to move to Little Rock. When I still had short hair people often mistook us one for the other from the back.

And then there was Diana. Oh Diana. It seems like we see each other all the time because she stalks me on Facebook and Twitter we communicate frequently over the internet. For her and her alone I write my Elixir of Life Haikus because she LOVES them so and she thinks that I am a totally terrible wonderful haiku writer. She is the journalist so she should know. I might have mentioned Diana here. Diana is also the founder of ShareWik which is just the most awesome place to hang out. You need to go over there right now and join and get involved in the community.

And so, we partied and talked and ate and then came home and collapsed because it was just an excellent day.

And Sue? You don’t ever have to do this again you lucky girl!!!