Turkey for Easter?

As I talked on the phone this morning I happened to glance out the kitchen window to see a huge bird running across the street toward my house. I continued talking while squinting my eyes to focus on the unusual sight before me. Was this a duck or a goose approaching? Nope, upon closer inspection the bird now heading toward my porch was a wild turkey of the Thanksgiving kind. Now I would fully expect at this time of year to see Easter rabbits hopping about the yard, but a turkey? Really? I quickly said goodbye and ran to get my camera. The big bird strolled along the edge of my driveway pecking away at the sodden ground for unseen morsels. As I cracked the door open to ease the camera lens into position for the photo op the turkey nervously glanced in my direction then continued its leisurely meandering across my yard. It strutted among the trees, stopping occasionally to look around, then moved on toward the neighbor's yard and the open nine acre field of grass beyond that.

I was reminded of the morning years ago when I was busily getting my children ready for school before I headed to work. My husband rushed out the door to go to work, then popped his head back in the door just long enough to inform me that there was a cow in our yard and it looked like it really needed to be milked. Then off he went, leaving me to deal with this cow mooing in agony, with swollen udders nearly ready to burst. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't just leave this poor animal unattended. I tried to call a couple of the farmers that I knew who lived nearby to no avail. I had no idea whose cow this was. I finally called the local police. When the officer arrived we tried to approach the cow but it bolted away, then looked forlornly back at us. It seemed to want our help but was too afraid. The officer contacted a local farmer who arrived with a cattle trailer. After the cow was safely loaded onto the trailer I was able to get my kids to school and myself to work, much later than originally planned. Explain that one in a note to their teachers: please excuse my children for being late due to udderly unforseen circumstances!

This reminded me of another incident involving an animal in my yard years ago. It was a drizzly spring morning and my children were entertaining themselves while I was tidying up the house. Our dog began barking furiously outside and then the whole house trembled. I wasn't sure what was going on. I ran outside and there stood the neighbor's biggest bull, escaped from its prison of fencing, face to face with our dog. The dog kept barking and began chasing the bull, round and round our house, the bull occasionally crashing into the siding, shaking the house like an earthquake. I struggled to get the dog onto the screened porch so the bull would calm down. Then I had to figure out how to get the bull back into its confines without getting myself hurt. I had lived in the country but I was not a farmer so I was not quite sure how to force an animal at least ten times my weight into a space it wanted to be free from. I tried the only thing I could think of at the time. I opened the gate to the field, walked through, called out to the bull several times, then began to sing. Don't laugh. I was not completely insane.

When we first moved to the country the year before I was out mowing the grass around our home. With headphones on and the walkman cranked up on high I pushed the mower up and down our lawn, singing out loud as I went. After mowing the first few strips I turned to make another pass. I was astounded to see a row of twenty or so cows lined up along the fence row watching me intently. I slowed my pace as I walked past them, wondering what it was they were fascinated by. Was it my singing, the humming of the mower, or were they plotting their escape? I felt a bit creeped out as I recalled the plot of "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. The cows just stood there watching until I finally made the turn toward the back side of the house. Then they simply walked away one by one, back to grazing in the pasture.

Back to the bull: it finally heeded my cajoling and singing and wandered into the pasture. I slipped back out through the gate and wrapped a chain around the gateposts, very tightly. Then I headed back across the yard to let out the dog and continue with my chores after assuring my children it shouldn't happen again.

Such is the life in small Midwestern towns!

Splenda'd Morning

On the weekends I generally cook breakfast for my husband since he cooks most of our dinners throughout the week. I am always up before him and have already enjoyed two cups of coffee while I peruse my emails and blogs before he eventually wakes and makes his way down the hallway. This morning he wanted biscuits and gravy but I had no sausage thawed so I fried up some crisp bacon and cheese omelets. Then I surprised him with a treat that I had forgotten about for quite some time. I quartered the canned biscuits, lightly rolled them into balls, and dropped them into hot oil . After they were evenly and lightly browned I drained them on paper towels then dropped them into a plastic container filled with a cup of Splenda with just a couple of tablespoons of sugar added for better flavor. After attaching a lid I shook them to coat each one with a dusting of sweetness. Voila! Homemade little donuts.

I remember my Mother fixing this treat for us when I was a child. It was an easy and inexpensive substitute for bakery donuts. It was fun to help cut the biscuits up into fourths and watch her drop them into the hot oil. We got to take turns shaking the little donuts in the brown paper lunch bag that she used for the sugar. Then we would divide them up evenly between all of us. Six children and sugar donuts. It doesn't get better than that. After washing them down with big glasses of cold milk we would be sufficiently hyped up for a morning of play. Oh, sweet childhood memories!

KISS Excellence Goodbye

I know I tend to be a stickler for detail but it seems as if our society has accepted mediocrity as the norm in our work and education environments. Is it wrong to circle the errors on the notes my children brought home from their teachers because I expected that teachers should set a good example to their students? Whatever happened to proof-reading their own work, especially if the teacher in question was the Advanced English class teacher? My children would complain about having to take these corrected and signed notes back to school, partly due to embarassment and partly due to fear of teacher retaliation. I tried to explain to them that it was the principle of the matter.

At my job in the healthcare field we have written policies and procedures. Sometimes when there is a breach of these policies and I try to report it as instructed I am treated like a tattletale who should mind her own business by the higher level managers, directors, and administrators. My feeling is that if they don't really expect that the policies will be followed then they should not have them or they should amend them. It is very frustrating to try to do a good job and follow the rules and then suffer the consequences. This is not just the principle of the matter, it is the legal and moral issue of the matter. I have read many publications over the years and attended enough seminars and education meetings to understand the implications.

Today after taking a test for my online coding class one of my answers was marked as incorrect when, in fact, it was not. There were two correct answers for the multiple choice question but I was instructed to only select one. Was it petty of me to email the instructor of the course and inform her of this error on the test that kept me from getting a 100%? I scored a 96% on the exam and I only have to obtain a score of 70% or higher to pass each module in the course so did it really matter? I considered just letting it go but I was aggravated that I would pay $1300.00 for this course in order to obtain a certificate for something I have already been doing for years on the job and the creators of the course could not even make sure that their exams are accurate. It was a simple medical terminology question. This does nothing to boost my confidence in the accuracy of the more complicated coding issues to be addressed in later modules.

I feel like a dinosaur in a world of complacency. The dumbing down to the lowest common denominator seems to be so much more acceptable in our society now than when I was younger. Somehow we have moved away from striving for excellence to just striving for fairly average. Once we are all just fairly average where do we go from there? I suppose the acronym KISS (keep it simple, stupid) is more appropriate than one might think.

Sugar Sugar

"I like water."

"Wait a minute. Who are you and what have you done with my wife?"

For those of you who know me or who have read my previous post about my obsession with soda of the reddest kind you will understand my hubby's concern. After polishing off the last of the Big Red over the weekend I began my withdrawal from sweetened sodas. I know I am getting a late start as I was supposed to begin on the first day of Lent, but what the heck, I'm a little slow at fasting. There will be extreme fatigue, excruciating headaches, sluggish motion. The flow of profanity, the hissing, and the tantrums as the sugar demons attempt to control me will rival Linda Blair in The Exorcist. As my husband dons his silver cross and douses himself with garlic oil I slump in a near-coma in the rocking chair. Quickly he passes a brownie under my nose, trying to revive my limp body as he whispers a short prayer, though I am not sure which of us he is praying for. With shaking hand I press a glass of water to my lips, my third of the day, and let the clear liquid trickle its way down my esophagus. I begin to shiver uncontrollably as my body temperature drops. The endless yawning begins and I fight to maintain control as my head bobs helplessly. I finally give in to the exhaustion and settle back for a quick sleep. When I garner the strength I trudge off to bed. One day down, thirty-four more to go. Yay God!

The Coat of Many Memories

While searching for some paint supplies today I ran across a treasured item that I haven't seen for a few months. My youngest daughter's little red winter coat with its bright yellow lining beckoned to me. I couldn't resist the urge to pull it off the hanger and hold it close, imagining her at the age of six proudly walking into school, Minnie Mouse bookbag slung loosely over her shoulder, her blue mittened hand waving me on, blonde hair wisping beneath the bright hood snugged around her tiny, smiling face. I could picture her as she disappeared through the doors, heading down the hallway to her classroom and her friends. Everything she needed for the day would be neatly packed into her bag, milk money secured in the tiny Tuxedo Sam wristband coinpurse easily accessible in the little velcro pocket on one side of her bag, lifesavers and sweettarts tucked into the pocket on the other side of the bag. Inside the bag her homework would be protected inside a folder, neatly waiting to be turned in during class. Her blue plastic school box would be filled with pens and pencils, safety scissors, Elmer's glue, a box of Crayola crayons, and tiny assorted erasers in a small round plastic case. In the pocket of her coat would be a travel packet of Kleenex and some stickers she got from the many trips to the doctor and hospital during the course of her battle with the brain tumor lurking in her head. She would make her way down the hall just a bit unsteadily, a result of the surgery that bought her more time in the world she so wanted to be a part of. Her classmates would greet her tenderly, understanding even at their young age that she was fragile. She would tell them jokes and share her stickers, then take her place at her desk for a normal day of classwork and fun. She loved school. I would have liked to keep her home all day with me, to take in as much time with her as possible, but she needed to live like any other child her age, surrounded by the noise and chaos, the laughter and singing, the structure of the classroom. When she walked back out those doors in the afternoon she would be smiling, full of chatter about her day and all that went on in class. I miss her terribly even after twenty years but seeing her little red coat fills my heart with the sunshine that she was.

Fresh Start

Over the past week I have been painting again. This time I repainted my bedroom and bathroom after having some plaster work done. As much as I dreaded picking up the paintbrush, once I got started I began to feel a sense of peaceful satisfaction. I love the warm, comforting creamy beige color that is replacing the very light lemony yellow that has been surrounding me in slumber for the past ten years. The slightly darker tone in the bathroom adds just a bit of contrast without being too overpowering. I am holding out on painting over my terracotta orange cabinet in the bath though. I simply have to have a little splash of boldness to keep it from being boring. So until we are nearly ready to put our house on the market this spring/summer I will leave the cabinet as it is. The curtains have been washed and rehung, the baseboards wiped clean, the cobwebs cleared, and the dark, scary recesses under the bed freshly vacuumed. With everything clean and dusted and placed back where it belongs I wanted to just lie on the bed and enjoy the freshness of it all, to soak in the calm, clean look of the room before the wear and tear of daily living takes its toll and the freshness wears off.

DayTripping

When I was a child my family couldn't afford to take week-long vacations. Instead, my mother would take us on day trips. Most of these trips were randomly planned, usually at the last moment, but the prospect of getting out of our little town to explore new places was as exciting to us as a real vacation. In the days before seat belt laws we would take our assigned places in the big Buick. My grandmother, who almost always went with us, would sit in the back seat to supervise me and my two brothers while my oldest sister usually got to sit in the broad front seat with my mother. Depending on their age, my little sister and my second oldest sister would be scrunched in wherever there was room. My grandmother made little cloth-covered booster seats so we could see out the windows. With the picnic basket and cooler tucked into the huge trunk we would set off, stopping by the old neighborhood grocery store to stock up with sodas, gum, and other assorted goodies. Then we would hit the road, never knowing exactly what my mother had in mind for the day. Would it be a trip to a state park where we could hike the paths and explore nature, working up an appetite before spreading out the picnic fare in a shelterhouse? Or perhaps a day at an amusement park where we would thrill to the rides and laugh ourselves silly in the funhouse as we attempted to stay upright on the various tilting, turning, shaking objects? Or would our trip take on a more educational tone as we learned about the locks and dam on the Ohio river, a historic village where we could see how pioneers lived, or a telephone museum? Would we seek out covered bridges along the way? Would we go horseback riding? Or would we head to the city to visit seldom seen relatives? No matter where we went we were ready and willing to take on the day. Those trips not only broadened our horizons but they simultaneously tied us to each other for a lifetime. Perhaps with the change in the economy more families will be seeking out their own day trips, exploring the area they live in, learning and sharing along the way.