deanna a long time ago

This is Deanna, a long time ago.
I have loved my kids from the beginning, and I do love that red hair.
Happy Birthday Deanna
For a later picture of Dea and Arline. http://arlinegriffithnash.blogspot.com/

Happy Birthday Deanna

Yesterday was Deanna’s Birthday.

She was thirty nine yet again, or as they say in another context: adult.

She has been a wonderful daughter. I loved her since I first knew she was on her way. In those days we did not have the option of learning the gender of our babies until they are actually born.

And, to make it more interesting, she was born exactly 10 ½ months after her sister. There is more than one way to get twins! Right now for the next month and a half, Deanna and Lora are the same age.

Happy birthday my dear. You have been a blessing.

plumbing

It started innocently enough. I had a bath tub drain that was plugged and I had two sheets of white low pressure laminate, the kind we make cabinet boxes out of.

I reported a few posts back about getting the tub drain cleared out. Once the drain was open, I brought the new cabinet I had just made, into the Utility and put it in place. There was a matching cabinet on the other side of the Washer, and while making one it was easy to make the other.

So yesterday I took the other old cabinet apart, threw the pieces out to go to land fill. My purpose was not too complex. I wanted to hook up that new utility sink I bought for this new cabinet.

The supply lines were in place, but not the drain, Hmm. So I took the panel off that covered all the plumbing on that wall. The drain was roughed in alright, and only needed an extension to work.

So I tried to turn off the water so I could disconnect the Washing Machine, and those valves that had not been opened in decades were corroded tight and nothing would move them.

By the time I got finished, I had new washer box, the one that holds the drain hose, as well as the two supply lines. There is a nice simple valve that opens and closes that water source all inside that little box.

A wile back our pastor went on an extended trip. While he was gone the washing machine hose ruptured and ran water for days all over his new house. The damage was huge. So I am going to try to remember to turn off the washing machine, and turn off the water heater when we go for a few days.

All of the new pipes are in, there does not seem to be any leaks. I found a couple fitting that had some corrosion (the house is plumbed in copper pipe), suggesting a little leak so I replaced them and all is well now.

Tomorrow I get to put it back together, mostly.

my aunt

The day I was born I had two aunts.

My father was the oldest child with his sister being next (followed by three more boys). My mom was the oldest child and her sister was born when mom was 12, one of those little sunrises!

I still have two aunts, seventy some years later.

Aunt Ruby is 93. When she had her 90th birthday party, she said it was her last party and her last year, that she would die before the next birthday, but she did not and now 3 and a half years later she is still with us.

I remember her as being full of energy, a person who never stopped doing something all the time (“it is against my nature to slow down” I remember her saying). She and her husband had a lot of rocks in their life, but had a lot of very devoted years at the end.

Uncle Chet (he was younger than Aunt Ruby and when they first started going together, I am told that my father, Ruby’s brother, did not like Chet any to much, and called him: “The Kid.”)

A few years ago Chet went to see the doc and they decided his arteries or veins or whatever it is that plugs up (remember I am an artist/craftsman and not remotely medical). Chet was otherwise very healthy, so they recommended a by pass surgery. It took a few months but that surgery killed Chet, and they were miserable months. There is a lesson there I think.

Before Chet had his surgery they had rented a suite in a retirement home. But Chet never actually lived there. Ruby has though. She enjoyed the retirement home as there was always people around to talk to. Some people like solitude and revel in aloneness, others are petrified of being alone, and Auntie is in the last category.

But at 93, she is not able to take care of herself as she should and did. So a week ago her son and daughter in law moved Ruby into their house.

Tom and Kathy’s house is the one that used to be Ruby’s house. Right after she sold it, they made a few changes and Ruby was not pleased, now some years later major changes have been made. I am not sure how she is adjusting to that.


But the biggest thing is that she is away from her friends.

Kathy is one of the most wonderful women in the whole world. Her heart is bigger than she is, and she has been a caregiver for many years (for pay!), so Ruby is well taken care of.

Tom is one of my favorite cousins (dare I say that when I am so bent against saying one of my daughters is a favorite -- I’ll try!). He is hard headed, opinionated, a total redneck, and one of favorite souls!

But I think the end is closer for Ruby than we might wish. She has often said that she just wanted to die and my guess is that being alone so much will increase those thoughts. Today Miriam and I will stop to see her for a bit. My sister will visit often. My other cousins won’t make it so often.

Ruby was my mom’s best friend before mom was introduced to Ruby’s brother, who became my father.

Mom loved Ruby like a sister, she has been a good aunt for a very long time.

cold

OK, it wasn't that cold, but we still do have piles of snow.

walking

I have never liked “exercise.”

OK I rode my bicycle a long time and I use to run a few miles a day, but maybe that was an aberration.

But in the last ten years my blood pressure has inched up, not dangerously so, but higher than the doctor likes, and she has put me on two meds now, and they don’t seem to be working too well.

My pulse at rest is perilously close to what it should be when I exercise. That does not seem good at all.

So this week I began walking again. Miriam and Leo go during the day when the weather is good. Walking with miriam is fun, but she is 9” shorter than I am and walks about that much slower. At that speed my heart rate does not go where I want it.

So this week I began walking. It was cold, but I have proper clothes, and rather than walk in the middle of the day, I went at dusk. In fact it was fairly dark by the time I got back. I walked about 2 miles at a good clip and it was good.

But one thing was different than the old days: I had my trusty iPod. Music would be alright, but I had Mark Twain along. Twain was as much a philosopher as story teller and I can surf along on his story as I walk.

My weight is alright, my BMI is acceptable, but that pesky BP and pulse. Maybe I can be motivated. Spring will be here soon and with it the garden. During that season I get a lot of good exercise. Ever spade up a 160 square foot bed with a digging fork?

But what amazed me most of all, was the sheer joy of walking in the cold right at dark.

Nymph by Maillol

This is one of the fist sculptures done of Dina, when she was just 17.
Remember this is meant to not be an exact replica of reality, but a bit romantic with very a classical viewpoint.
While I enjoy modern sculpture with it's emphasis on abstraction to one level or another, these classical pieces give me inspiration.

muse

I saw another obit the other day that brought back memories: Dina Vierny.

Of course I never met her, but when I was in graduate school I studied, and did a short paper on Aristide Maillol, and there I met Dina.

Maillol was a French painter/sculptor, born in 1861. He his early 70’s when he met Dina. His career had flatted out, his creativity seemed to have escaped. Then an artist friend sent the 15 year old Dina to model for Maillol. She became his muse, his assistant and his model.

Their relationship was totally platonic, without a hint of any thing beyond, but she immediately inspired him and his creativity took wings in a flurry of new works that continued until he died in a car wreck at the age of 83.

When he died his family was not very interested in preserving his work, so Dina carefully collected all she could, she set up a museum in Paris, mostly stocked with his work and spent the rest of her life looking after his reputation as an artist. She was his inspiration.

The thing that always interested me was that something happened to light Mailllol’s creative fire at a time when it seemed to be going out. It may not have been her directly as much as the change it made in his thinking. He spent the last ten years of his life producing a flurry of important pieces of sculpture.

When I was a photographer another photographer said that sometimes a simple thing can kick start our creativity. A new lens that offered a different way of seeing, a different process, or a new model, but the suggestion was to be aware that such a thing could transform a career and be ready to experiment.

Right now I am about the age that Maillol was when me met Dina. My art career surely has flattened (at best). That something that lights the fires could be a simple thing like a new welder (which I acquired recently and have not used yet) or any one of a dozen other inspirations.

Hmm.

m and d

Stefanie made us hats for christmas This is this is us clowning with the hats

Really, I am not trying to hurt Miriam.

drains

When we built our house I decided it had to have two bathrooms.

That was very unusual for a thousand feet house (OK 1080 feet). We had 3 daughters still at home and I was not willing to share baths with them every day, selfish me.

The house was all built on the tightest budget iminagable. I barterd with electiricians, heating guys, general contractors to get materials and skills to build the house.

Often it would have been better if we had had a bit more to put in it, but we did not want to borrow money to build, and so we just did it. This decade I have been going back room by room to refurbish: paint, carpet, and wide molding and work to what might have been an arts and crafts look. Mostly.

I got to the down stairs bathroom was a few years ago. The owner of the company I was working for at the time, gave me a jetta tub and the faux marble panels for the shower as a bonus. (The year before he gave me a very nice motor boat as a bonus). The tub worked out well, the faux marble even covered the ceiling. While I was at it I made new cabinets, put ceramic tile on the floor and painted fresh new colors.

But the drain has not worked well almost from the beginning. A while back I washed out a paint bucket in the tub and when it did not drain I was sure that I had clogged the trap, which is not easy but it can be done.

So today I got David’s Jackhammer out, cut out a bit of the wall plate and made a new header, then started hammering out the concrete. It was a hard old slab. It so noisy I brought some hearing protectors over and gave one to Miriam as well, and she wore it.


But as I dug deeper I discovered that the wash machine drained into that line before the trap. If the trap was clogged, the washer would be over flowing, but it was not.

I could not figure how to disassemble the drain from the inside of the tub. So I called David, who is 500 miles away at his sick mother in law’s house. He had me buy a “drain wrench” for eight bucks. But when I got that part off (David was right, of course) What I saw made me know that the problem had not been the trap at all.

The drain was full of hair and stuff and stuff. I spent some time taking it apart then cleaning it all up, (Miriam helped with the cleaning). And then put it back together.

I called David. He laughed and said: “I hate it when the solution is something simple” especially after spending a lot of time and energy with a complex solution."

But now that tub drains big time.

Ahh. Life is good.

crackers

As I do each morning, I was reading the NY Times this morning (on line of course).

Down the home page among the headlines was a piece about making crackers at home. Hmm I had not thought of that, though the article suggested that it is not all that complex.

Any way here is the site: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/dining/04mini-web.html

I will definitely do some research and some baking.

I can skip the preservatives and “conditioners” and be very happy.

And, i maybe crackers, but that is another subject.

hot bread

A bakery that makes good hand crafted bread will make bread as good as this. But, it is not in my budget for sure. I haven't figured it out really close, I will, but I am pretty sure I can make a loaf for less than fifty cents.

bread

Remember the line about asking a guy for the time and he answered with a lecture on how to make a watch! This is my entry in that genre.

Tomorrow I'll show a formula (bakeries I worked in did not have "recipes") for a very simple bread with just 4 easy to find ingredients.


“Arline’s Whole Wheat Bread”: makes 3 1 ½ pound loaves

Put in mixing bowl:
3 cups warm to hot water (I make it 3 ½ and I use it as hot as it comes out of the tap)
½ C raw oats (either Old Fashioned or Quick)
2 T of Honey (I use good old black strap molasses and close to half a cup)
2 T yeast (I buy it in pound blocks at the grocery store, by the package it is spendy)
Since the bowl is cold along with all the ingredients that hot water does not stay hot.
Let it set while you do the next step.

Combine in largw bowl (use it later for proofing)
½ C VitalWheat flour (available in health food stores, though I buy it at my huge market bulk food section. It is a very high gluten flour. If I did not have it I’d use that much more of AP flour)
1 C All Purpose or better yet Unbleached Bread flour (Ok we are wimps, but 100% whole wheat bread makes better bricks than bread)
1 ½ C whole wheat flour
1 T salt

Mix all of those together dry. The point is that the VitalWheat will make horrible clumps if a bunch of it gets wet, so mix them all together while they are dry.

Put that dry mix in with the wet (use a paddle mixer, save the dough hook for a bit). The mix will be fairly soupy. Add:
2 T cooking oil (applesauce will work too). Mix for 3 or 4 minutes at medium speed.
I often add ½ C of raw, unsalted Sunflower seeds at this point.

Change to the dough hook and add whole wheat flour. At first you can put in a fair amount at a time, but once it gets doughy be more careful, it is not too hard to get too much flour. The dough should make a ball and should clean the sides of the bowl as it mixes. Mix 3 or 4 minutes.

Dump it out on a table top that is lightly floured. Kneed the dough a minute or so. You can slap it around pretty good and pound it, good for frustrations. The dough should smooth and soft to the touch. Put in a large greased bowl.

I turn the oven on 170 for one minute only and leave the oven light on. Proof for 30 minutes.

Arline puts it in the pans at this point, but I punch the bread down and let it rest another 10 minutes.

I have a small spring scale, so I weigh the dough to make sure I have the same size loaves, but you can guess pretty well. Mould into loaves and put in greased pans (I have used spray oil, but lately have gone back to using margarine and a brush. I grab a hunk of dough and slap it on the work surface pretty hard. That lengtens the dough. I fold the two ends in and carefully roll into loaf shape. Big bubbles in the final bread means that it was not rolled tightly.

Put back in the oven and proof for 20 minutes. The loaves should double in size. It is also possible to over proof. The bread will “kick” a bit more when the oven heats, especially the way I work it.

I don’t take it out while the oven is heating. When the dough is proofed to size, I turn the oven on to 350, and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, depending on how much I want the crust to be crusty.

Take out of the pans, and cool on a cookie rack or a wood cutting board. It is legal to slice off the end and put a bit of real butter on it for a quick taste! When it is cool slice with a bread knife and put in a bag. I prefer not to put bread in the refrigerator. I think it turns it to concrete. A loaf will last about 5 or 6 days (in our climate) before it starts to spoil. If it takes longer than that to eat a loaf, freeze half of a loaf for later. Frozen bread thaws very nicely.

If you want to make bread by hand (no mixer) I’ll give a few tips if anyone wishes. BTW, that kneading is good for the shoulders and pects!

another one

New item: Ingemar Johansson, 76, dies.

Most of the world does not remember Ingemar, but we old guys do. He was the Swedish model who took up heavy weight boxing, started at the top and fought the then champion of the world and won.

His reign at the top was not too long, as he lost in a rematch.

About that time I was out of town working for a bit, Miriam was home with our two girls (this is before the last two were born). She was putting curtains up in our small rented house.

She wanted to use a tie back for the curtains and temporarily held one of them in place with a largish darning needle.

Then she slipped and fell into the wall, but caught herself with her right hand against the wall. She finished the job, but could not find that needle. She looked and looked, but nothing.

And, her hand was really sore. She was sure that was because she had pounded it pretty hard against the wall when she fell, but it got worse and worse. Finally, she called our local doctor who met her at his clinic a few blocks from where lived in our town of 3500 residents.

He looked it over, saw nothing, but said he would Xray it to see if there was an injury that he could not see. He took the picture and disappeared.

When he returned he was laughing.

Right there as big as life was that needle! Right inside of her hand. He had her check into the hospital and the needle was successfully removed. Apparently they gave her a general anesthetic because when she came to, just after Ingemar had defeated Floyd Patterson, she looked at her right hand and said: “Now I can beat Johansson.”

Of course I remember Ingemar.

The sad thing is that ten years ago, when he was 66 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and spent the last ten years of his life dealing with that/this horrible disease.

Of course, I never met him, but I always liked him (what was there not to like), even though I am not and was not much of a boxing fan.

Still it is sad to see a good life cut down by this horrid disease.

RIP Ingemar, another friend that I never met.