How a building ages is often more beautiful than it's original skin.
In my town there is a big half block long ranch house that was built by a wealthy citizen right after world war 2. It is and always has been painted white. All owners have renewed that white. Not just the house, but the brick walls, the decorative fence out front, everything is brilliant white.
It makes a statement, but it is dull still.

We are traveling again, this time to a family weekend with my 2nd daughter and her husband and kids, the other grandparents and a couple of cousins. I don't think there is internet, so for a few days I may not be writing, or I may write and go to Starbucks to post!
We will see.

The shirt waist

Remember the fire in the "shirt waist" factory?

The building was locked, and the low paid women died in huge numbers when there was a fire.

So, I always wondered (but not enough to look it up) what was a "shirt waist?"

There was a piece about the garment on the front page of today's NYTimes. So I read and learned.

Up to that point women wore really awful clothing.

They lived in a horse economy. Said another way the roads were paved, with horse poop to put it mildly. And women were expected to wear ground length dresses, corsets, bustles and who knows what else (I am a guy so I skipped the chapter on the history of how we expected women to dress).

So a shirt waist was what we might refer to as a "dress". A simple, button up the front, garment made much like a man's shirt only long enough reach the mid calf, but over a foot above the horrors of the day.

Imagine going from a whale bone corset to a simple dress.

Talk about liberation, and talk about moral outrage.

It is always amazing to me what we men have done to our women in the name of something we thought was noble, and was not.

My mother would plant spinach in the fall. In spring while the rest of us were just getting our gardens in place, she was eating and freezing spinach.
I cheat and grow spinach in a simple unheated cold frame.

garden salad

We had home grown salad yesterday.

The cold frame I planted last fall yielded cress, spinach and chard. The kitchen had sprouts, mostly alfalfa, but also radish and broccoli.

The combination was healthy (organic) and simple.

I combined some good olive oil, some lemon juice and some seasoning to make a simple, made on the spot dressing.

On top of it all I added one touch of luxury: a spoonful of Feta cheese.

It was good.

And as a reminder: there is nothing going on in the world today that is going to reduce the cost of food. Whether we call it reality or belt tightening the little people have few choices.

Another abandoned object.
Not the guy in the van, that is good friend David.
This is besides one of the character building back roads in Death Valley.
The van died and unless someone feels duty bound to haul it the 75 or so miles to what passes as civilization, it will stay here a very long time. It won't even rust.
Another time we went to the tourist part of the valley.
There were rows and rows and rows of very spendy motor homes, all tethered to the power and water lines.
If you asked the owners, they would say there were "camping!"
I will be very old when I go back again.

iron mike

There was a piece in the paper about Mike Tyson.

I am not a fan of Mike’s or of boxing, but the rest of the headline caught my attention: “…the ex-world champion learns to love the boring life.”

That is all I need to understand. I didn’t read the rest of the piece, it was enough.

When you are world champion anything, particularly something that has a lot of money involved, it is pretty hard not to live pretty fast, I would guess. Seems like I remember that Mike made zillions of dollars and is pretty well (if not totally) broke now.

Not too long ago I was looking at a series of photographs of abandoned building around the world. There were a lot of former mental hospitals, TB hospitals and such, but there was also a picture of Mike’s gym, the one he had custom made for him in his mansion somewhere.

The suggestion was made that he did not own it any more, probably some bank somewhere does, I don’t know.

The gym had long been abandoned and neglected as had Mike’s fast life. It was sad, even if I did not know the details.

Now he is getting used to the boring life.

Welcome, Mike.

But actually, the boring part is still in your head.

I don't remember my step dad's 36 Ford having that many carburetors.

early up

I am up early this morning.

Way too early, and I will pay later. It is the staying asleep part that I have troubles with, hence these early hours.

One of my neighbors goes to work early. That is OK, but he starts his car and let's it idle while he showers, eats breakfast, combs his hair, walks the dog and does his taxes.

In short that car will idle for a long, long time.

In my subterranean home, I can feel the vibrations of the engine. It is a big engine, probably a V8 and it throbs.

Around here, any caring about the natural world that surrounds and sustains us is considered un-American, so I should not worry, or think of impinging on this man's freedom.

And I don't wish to maim is freedom, but I do wonder about his wisdom and his logic.


When I get up this early, I might start a fire in the stove. I really should. But, usually when I get up very early, I go back to bed after an hour and a half or two, and it would waste firewood to build a fire and abandon it, so my logic goes.

Instead I get out my 1979 North Face Cats Meow sleeping bag and cuddle inside it while sitting in my recliner. The Meow has done well though the years. It was good for it's 20 degree rating for a couple of decades, but now I use it to avoid building a fire.

Oh well.

OK the picture is a "few" years old.
Since I do not have a mustache, it was the Texas years, which was another century!
The picture is of me with my brother and sister.

Happy Happy

This is my brother's birthday. He is XX old now!

My father was killed when I was 4, and when I was 8 mom married brother's dad, so technically we are half brothers.

But technical can go fly!

Happy birthday Bro.

This is the granddaughter Jessica that we went to visit.
She was cute then, now she is beautiful.
We enjoyed our visit.

restrooms etc

Grandparent weekend was a big deal.

The grandparent to student ratio was pretty high, maybe 1/1, when you remember that most students had two grandparents, at least.

When I went to check out and give my room key back at the end of the weekend. I had my checkbook ready to pay for the room (the earlier information was that there was a small charge). But when I went to pay the kind girls dean said: “There is no charge for Grandparents.”

I am sure they would appreciate it if a few grandparents left checks that had a lot of zeros left of the decimal point, but nothing was ever said that direction. I did leave a check, but I am afraid it did not have any where enough of those zeros.

One interesting thing happened.

We stayed in the girls dorm. They have a section that has doors keeping it separate from the rest of the dorm. Guys (even Grandguys) are not allowed past that door without an announcement: “Man on 2nd floor.”

The bathroom in the part where we stayed was for women, of course, but while we were there it was re-designated for the men visitors. The proper women’s restroom was past those big doors and down the hall.

I sent Miriam down there a couple of times, then had to get someone to go rescue her. She would make the wrong turns and end up the wrong way.

So I decided I would take her into the mens bathroom instead.

There was a stall right by the door. I would announce my intentions, in case one of the other stalls was occupied, and then usher Miriam into the end stall by the door.

That is the proper way to handle that detail of life when you are with a handicapped person, as I am told. For durn sure I am not going to go into the Women’s room for any reason other than tile repair.

It worked well and we got to spend a good bit of time with granddaughter Jessica. It was a good weekend.

Ok, I stole the image and for sure it not our farm.
In more ways than I can tell, I am glad my place is not this large.
But no matter how humble it is good to be home.

back to Idaho

we are home.

once more, a short 5 or 6 day trip got extended. I am glad the extension was not because of some calamity, for sure.

it was good to see family and spend serious time with them, but it is oh so good to be home again.

more later

“Stay hungry, stay foolish.” Steward Brand in The Last Whole Earth Catalog, later quoted by Steve Jobs.