Word From The Weeds

I'm up in the Pennsylvania mountains where there's nothing but dial-up...powered by one thin elderly hamster on a ricketty wheel. Since April 27, I've been paying for broadband courtesy of Dish Network. However, of course, there's no service.  I called the 800-number and was told that I have service.   

After I finished sharing my actual opinion of this notion, I was told that I've got to wait until sometime next week, or whenever there's peace in the Middle East...whichever comes last.  That's when a service technician will appear. Under the circumstances I'm unmotivated to blog. It took me an hour and a half to simply check e-mail. I have a crick in my neck and a heart seething with resentment over this appalling no-service service.

Perhaps you're saying, "What a whiner."

Uh-huh.  All I can say is, try it.  Just see if it's possible for you to communicate via internet under similar conditions.

So, what else is new?  Yesterday we all sat and watched as a garter snake slooooooowly swallowed a big fat frog. The frog fought all the way down that snake's throat.  Lydia told the kids, "This is an example of someone taking on the impossible and succeeding."  The snake was very small.The frog was not.

Last night as Lydia let Leroy, their Boston Terrier, out for his final potty break, Leroy met a skunk and was liberally sprayed in the face.  This meant that Leroy had a late-night bath in V-8 juice.  Did that work?  Sort of.

Day before yesterday Lydia and the kids, out for a sixteen-mile bike ride on Western Pennsylvania's beautiful paved trails, ran into a bear.  Ulp. Scary moment. Right behind them on the trail, a couple of tourists who also saw the bear were gasping and choking and saying over and over how amazing and frightening it is to see the real thing outside of a zoo.

The temp here is 64 degrees this Sunday afternoon.  Very chilly at night. We sleep under piles of quilts, wake up to breakfast in front of a roaring fire in the living room fireplace. T-bone and Porque Choppe do a lot of shivering.

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Looking For Work?

Not long ago a friend told me that she keeps twenty-one resumes on file in case there’s an opening at her place of business. Suppose opportunity arose. If I told her, "Hire Bubba.  He's good and you won't be sorry," she'd never even look at those resumes.

I got an e-mail from another friend.  A mutual acquaintance just got laid off.  The man has a family, needs work. Everyone will help; this chap will be back on some kind of job before he has time to wonder what hit him.

What to do when you need a job...and there are no jobs? Polish up your resume?  No. Forget the resume.  It's all about WHO you know.

Someone the other day made fun of a woman dragging her son around to various places of employment.  I didn't laugh.  The lady is known and respected.  That boy will have a job in no time. Way to go, Mom.

Here's how it works...find your first job through friends and/or family. Once hired, work like your life depends on it. This is where things go wrong for many. They tell themselves it's a dead end job, a dumb job, a worthless job not deserving of their best effort.  Wrongo bongo. Whatever the work, it's important to build a reputation as a person who does better than everyone else who ever held that position. This serves two purposes. The job's more interesting if you treat it as a chance to beat down everyone else in your category of employment. Also, you become known as a fearfully competent individual, one the company can't live without. At layoff time, you're the last to go.

I've never applied for a job; work always came looking for me. Family and friends recommended me to employers who later came to know that  I could run the whole place if no one else showed up. For a long time I was a teacher and I survived lots of situations where the district had to downsize. When half the staff disappeared, my job was secure.

Lots of teachers sat in the faculty lounge, bad-mouthing everything about the place...tpay was terrible, conditions were outrageous, kids had almost no brain, administration was corrupt, parents didn't care, supplies never showed up on time. These folks worked as little as possible, and in a downsize situation, they were the first to go, complaining bitterly of unfairness. Meanwhile I kept the place humming.

The other day it occurred to me...I have never actually prepared a resume. Family arranged my first job and after that I depended on a hard-earned reputation.

America is nearly 10% unemployed. Tough times.  Should you give up and try for welfare?  Absolutely not. Work your friends and relatives. Make them help you. Still no job? I'd identify something for which I was surely competent and then   I'd say to the boss, "I'm so certain I'll be the best employee you ever hired, that I'll work two weeks for free. At the end of that time, you won't be able to live without me." Then I'd live up to my boast.

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A Hot, Itchy Solstice

Question: What diminishes the likelihood of Summer Solstice tomorrow night being celebrated by witches dancing naked in the moonlight? Answer: mosquitoes.

I have never seen so speedy and so thick an infestation. I don’t dare to sit on the porch. President Obama distinguished himself by hand-swatting a fly in the White House, thus drawing the ire of PETA. A few minutes ago, I joined the president as a menace to insects by hand-catching a mosquito in my foyer. That doesn’t mean that I’m speedy. It means there are so many mosquitoes, you have to be a blind paraplegic to avoid snagging at least one.

So back to the Solstice, how might one celebrate? It’s not an indoors event. For a while my Wiccan neighbors did the dancing around a fire pit thing, clothed as minimally as they dared, here in the city. They frolicked and cavorted, drank libations intended to promote Solstician enthusiasm. I miss those people. They moved and were replaced by a family of stern workaholics whose idea of festivity is to cut the grass.

Since tomorrow’s the longest day, I could celebrate by doing something unusual for me throughout daylight hours. In my case that would mean standing up and working. Maybe better not.

Tomorrow’s the Solstice, the longest day, and it’s supposed to set a record for heat. I heard one reporter claim that temps will at least reach 97 and probably soar over a hundred. I could fill the bathtub with ice, lie in there until it melts, breathing as shallowly as possible.

Lydia and her home schooling friends planned a tour of the Dismal Swamp for tomorrow. Bad idea. Imagine staggering through the brush, blinded by sweat, lightheaded from dehydration, weak from loss of blood to mosquitoes. An education in how to be supremely miserable on Solstice Day.

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Staph Staff

My poor neighbor, the fellow who walks Porque Choppe and T-Bone…

Part way through college, he decided to take a job as merchant seaman. This turned out to be congenial work. All went well until an experience that mode him averse to further time on ship. Recently, when he mentioned going back to college, encouraged by all, he applied at TCC.

Then one day he asked if I’d go online, check the status of his application. He’d not heard from TCC. That was the beginning of long travail. I know the situation because he asks me to go online for him; then we always have to give up and use the phone.

This morning he sat here for over an hour. I heard the lady on the other end tell him again and again to spell his name. Then she asked him what that was. He reminded her that it was his name. Then she instructed him to write down his name so he wouldn’t forget. I HEARD HER. Then she asked him to spell it again.

She made him spell Norfolk. Twice.

After a long time and great exercise of patience, he was told that TCC has no record of his application.

I hinted that there are other schools… Among my acquaintance are three people who either teach at TCC or have done so. All three complain about the quality of their students. As of today, I wonder about the quality of TCC’s admissions staff. Spell that staph.

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Service

I admit to enjoying the news story from Denver…a policeman, angry over slow service at McDonalds, brandished his gun at a kid in the drive through window.

For uniquely eccentric McDonalds service in Norfolk, visit  Riverview on Granby. Many a time I’ve sat there wondering, “Why?”

Representative episode…Benny and I stopped for lunch. He ordered a Happy Meal with sweet tea; I ordered fries and coffee. We paid at the first window.

Second window. They ignored us for a long time. Then a girl turned to me and said, “You have your food. Move your car.”

Me; “We never got anything I ordered.”

Girl: “Oh, yes, you did. Leave the window area right now.”

Me: “I refuse to leave until I get what I paid for.”

She looked at her screen, gave me a dirty look, handed over coffee and sweet tea, then said, “Now get going.”

Me: “What about my fries and Happy Meal?”

At that point she was joined by another girl. They both stuck their heads out the window and berated me for not moving. Blahblahblah. They threatened me with “security.” It seemed to go on forever but eventually I prevailed.

Some franchise managers seem able to recruit good help, for instance at the McDonalds across from ODU on Hampton. However, despite a frequent turnover of employees, service at the McDonalds in Riverview is  of a caliber to inspire awe…and not in a good way.

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Parents

Mothers’ Day behind us, Fathers’ Day coming up, I’ve been thinking about my parents.

1) Were I born without a backbone, Mother would have supplied one. She saw the world in stark moral terms, absolute right or complete and total wrong. She was ready at a split second’s warning to launch into debate…and win. Mother reasoned with me, endlessly, again and again. She paid close attention to activity, if any, between my ears, saw me as a potential grownup, under construction. With her, there was no such thing as downing tools in order to give a kid a pass.

2) Dad had very little to say. Endlessly tolerant of others, he lived an odd balancing act. Although he held views as judgmental and harsh as Mother’s, those were theories he didn’t apply to actual people. Dad could shrug, forgive, and forget. When Mother took against someone, I mentally said, “Another one bites the dust,” because she won every battle. Dad had no enemies so there were no wars for him to either win or lose.

Dad was good at everything, universally competent. When he didn’t know, he invented a way, setting an example of, “Yes, you can.” He didn’t expect anything from others but was ready to give and to help in someone else’s time of need. For example, after a tornado took off a neighbor’s barn roof, Dad was the first person up there, nailing down new wood and shingles.

When he died, nowhere in town was big enough for the funeral which overflowed into the parking lot. Teary-eyed, mourners stood, listening through extra speakers. He would have been horrified to know that local Catholics began to pray to him after his death. For several years, Mother continued to receive letters from people who’d heard that Dad was gone and wanted to tell how his kindness changed their lives.

Dad died at age 52. Mother lived to be 93. Loved by everyone, he was capable of uncertainty, blamed himself for anything that went wrong. Universally respected and a little bit feared, Mother knew that she was right. That attitude probably explains her longevity.

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Surprise Yourself

I just watched Food Network's Robert Irvine do his usual miracle.  The man's amazing, but  with organization, we can all do more than ordinary life leads us to expect. For example, could you prepare the food for your family reunion of about a hundred people? Sure.  Here's how...

1) Three days ahead, get on the phone and line up half a dozen helpers.

2) Two days ahead, buy groceries. You need seven ten-pound bags of chicken leg quarters. Also you need spices: parsley, soul food, oregano, tarragon, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, seasoning salt, and black pepper…some or all of those, whatever you like.

Now your potato salad and slaw ingredients: thirty pounds of potatoes, three heads of celery, three red bell peppers, three yellow peppers, three orange peppers, and three green peppers, a ten pound sack of Vidalia onions, a bag of apples, two boxes of raisins, three large bags of shelled walnuts, six bags of shredded carrots, eight cabbages - half purple and half green, six jars of mayo, three bottles of ranch dressing, a bottle of lemon juice, a small bag or box of sugar, a box of salt, three jars of sweet pickle relish.

Dessert: ten angel food cakes, ten containers of strawberry-flavored cool whip, ten boxes of strawberries.

3) One day ahead, season the chicken with your spices, bake it for about two and a half hours, covered. It’s cooked when a kitchen thermometer inserted into the meat measures 165 degrees. However, you want it really well done. Transfer it to refrigerator containers after you separate thighs from drumsticks. Refrigerate overnight.

Peel the potatoes, boil until fork tender. Rough chop into three huge punch bowls. Add rough chopped yellow, orange, and green peppers, two thirds of the onions rough chopped, all the celery rough chopped and half of the shredded carrots. Cover containers and refrigerate overnight.

Shred all cabbage. It will nearly fill three more huge punch bowls. Add remaining onions, finely chopped. Also add remaining shredded carrots. Julienne red bell peppers and add them. Rough chop apples and toss with lemon juice. Put apples in a separate bowl. Cover containers and refrigerate.

4) Morning of the reunion…reheat chicken. Prepare potato salad dressing: three jars of mayo, three jars of pickle relish, add salt and pepper to taste. You might want to add a bit of sugar. Taste until you like what you have. Divide it among the three containers and toss until thoroughly mixed. Taste again and add salt as necessary. Top each bowl with a sprinkle of paprika.

Make dressing for your slaw: three jars of mayo, three bottles of ranch dressing, add salt to taste. You might want to add some sugar. Taste as you go. Add raisins, apples, and nuts. Toss with dressing. Taste and add salt as necessary.

To fix dessert, clean and slice most of your strawberries. Horizontally cut the cakes to give each one four layers. Then reassemble with cool whip and sliced strawberries between layers. Save some whole berries for cake tops.

You’re saying, “I couldn’t do it. Not enough room in the fridge. No way I could fit six huge punch bowls and a mountain of chicken in my refrigerator.” Well, ask your helpers to take home food and refrigerate it.

You continue to protest, “And the day before would be such a marathon of heavy labor that on reunion day I’d still be exhausted.” 

You could do it. I know because I’ve prepared this meal for soup kitchen. Norfolk’s homeless people really like my potato salad and slaw. I’ve faced a challenge like this a few times by myself, lots of times with one helper. If that seems to you like a horrible situation, it is. Please consider volunteering at soup kitchen once in a while next winter.

If you actually end up making soup kitchen chow for your family reunion, please tell me how it goes.

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The Unwashed Car

I don’t claim to understand myself but theories abound. Why haven’t I cleaned out and washed my car? Hm?

1) A dirty car is insurance against death. I couldn’t possibly die with all that mess unsorted, could I?

2) A dirty car means that I’m too busy and important to waste time bringing in the dregs of this and that past trip/project.

3) I’m kindly saving the mess for my yard worker, the next time he begs money for his “forties” habit. “Yes, William, I’ll gladly fund your next trip to 7-11, but first you need to do some honest work, none of it arduous. Clean out and hose down my Honda, please.” Got to save the fellow’s nonexistent dignity, haven’t I?

4) A dirty car shows that I take dogs and children here and there, thus participating in the human race, albeit slowly.

5) A dirty car saves me from compulsively offering rides to needy but possibly dangerous moochers. There‘s nowhere to sit.

6) A dirty car is a rich site for cultural archaeology. Sifting through the rubble, one might find almost anything.

7) This particular dirty car demonstrates the extent to which I’ve become a neater person. At least it isn’t littered with peanut shells tossed over my shoulder into the back seat of an earlier car. Yes, I really did that. I spent about a year driving a horrible lemon of an American car, and eating peanuts occasionally as I drove, tossing the shells into the back seat. Then I gave that car to a teenager who didn’t mind the shells a bit, was grateful.

8) A dirty car is unattractive to car thieves who haunt my neighborhood from time to time.

9) A dirty car means that I’m not wasting water. I'm "green.".

10) Should I become overwhelmed with self-esteem, too impressed with my own goodness, there’s the car, evidence that I have at least one flaw.

So it’s a good thing. Right?

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Street Closings In Portsmouth

I read with interest the many comments following today’s story re. street closings in two Portsmouth projects.

1) “The problem is those people who live there.” Truth in that. A few years back I read a study of inner city projects which concluded that while not every resident is a criminal, every extended family enables at least one gangsta.

Many years ago after an evening event at school, I noticed a group of kids without a ride home. It was a cold Michigan winter night, lower than zero with a stiff wind. Driving a big, empty Suburban, I rolled down the window and told all the kids to hop in.

Turned out that they lived in a project more than a mile from school. As we branched off main streets into this infestation of robbery, assault, drugs, prostitution, one little girl whispered to me, “Thanks for this but you shouldn’t have. You could get killed.”

Kids began pointing out to me drug sellers on corners, even in that frigid weather. They told me who was a pimp, who was a ho. They said, “Don’t let’em see you looking. You’ll get shot.” They showed me corners where someone had been killed. I got more nervous the farther we went.

Each of us lands in the environment he/she will tolerate. Low-self-esteem people occupy a crime-ridden neighborhood because they’re unwilling to participate in clean up. If you won’t turn in Uncle Bubba and Cousin It, you’re part of the problem.

2) “Public housing means I paid for that place and I shouldn’t be told I can’t visit.” Whether or not residents want to kaboom crime in the Portsmouth projects, we taxpayers have a right to dial it down. Crime costs us too much in terms of police time and equipment. We need crime to go away. If previous efforts haven’t been successful, I applaud Portsmouth City Council for trying something new.

What did they do? They closed a couple of streets and have posted No Trespassing signs which give officers the right to stop foot traffic for questioning. Yeah, it could be Gestapo tactics left, right, and center, but that’s a good thing under the circumstances. The place is a war zone.

Why it ever seemed like a bright idea to concentrate low-income, no education, zero-ambition masses into one small area of tiny shoe-box dwellings, I have no idea. That idea has created Dickensian scenes of horror in city after city. The problem? Nobody offers a better plan. Until the genesis of a superior scheme, we’re stuck with what we’ve got…and we ought to clean it up.

I have a friend who lives near there. She’s afraid all the time, would love to move but hasn’t been able to sell her house…so far. She’s been beaten up, robbed, had her purse and her identity stolen. The fence around her yard has been partly destroyed. Her car’s been vandalized. How does she feel about this "invasion of citizen's rights?" She's hoping it makes her safer.

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He Tasered Grandma!

If you haven’t yet seen video footage of the great-grandmother tasered by police, you’re missing something. Watch it. Stiffen your spine against oppression from a disrespectful constabulary. This country was not founded by citizens humble under the heel of authority. We question the man up top. I certainly do. That old woman could easily be me some day.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, my interaction with police is pleasant. But not always. There is such a thing as a drunk, out-of-control bully of a policeman. The creature exists. I know. I met him.

One day, summer before last, I made a solo grocery run to Walmart, the only food source within ten miles of our summer home in the mountains. A drunk old man backed his car into mine, doing minimal damage, and started to drive away.

I jumped out of my car, chased him down and shrieked that he’d better not move an inch because I was calling police. I have complete coverage for accidents not my fault. My insurance would require a police report.

Although the police station was less than a quarter of a mile distant, police took more than twenty minutes to arrive. The policeman immediately began a tirade against me. He apparently assumed that I was at fault. When I pointed out the true situation, he shouted at me to, “Just shut up.” Then with the utmost civility, he turned to gently question the at-fault driver.

This officer had been drinking. I could smell it on his breath. The whites of his eyes were reddish. He looked, smelled, and acted drunk. Just my luck to be hit by a drunk and to have to deal with a drunk policeman in making my accident report.

I was very, very polite to the officer, not wanting to get him any crazier than he already was. Eventually, things worked out to my satisfaction but not so with Mr. Policeman. He said, “Now before I let you go (as if there were any question of detaining me), I have a few things to say to you.” He proceeded to bawl me out as if I were a wild teenager joy riding in a stolen auto with a dead body in the trunk and the car’s owner tied up in the back seat. How that man did go on. He just ranted and raved. Literally, he worked up a sweat, kept wiping his forehead.

And then, all at once, I was furiously angry. I thought, “Why am I standing here like a dummy, putting up with this?” I got on my hind legs and gave him the dressing down of a lifetime. He looked like he could explode but, through his alcoholic haze, he heard the voice of an outraged American citizen with rights, and HE shut up.

When I saw that video of a big man tasering a little old grandma, I thought, “Coulda been me.” God Bless our men in blue…and all that…but where you find a rogue specimen, tolerate no abuse.

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