Hughey Waldman

My husband and I were down in Historic Gibbsboro yesterday for my grandson's christening. My son-in-laws family flew in from Romania (first plane ride ever!) to join in the happy event. We speak no Romanian, they speak no English. Well, we can say a few words, like car, and how are you, and dead and sugar. They can say a few words too, like very hot, and beautiful and good. My husband was a little nervous about interacting with my son-in-laws father, but as the day went on, I saw them in the yard, walking around, pointing at trees and talking! On the ride home, my husband told me that although they did their best to communicate in the language of gestures, facial expressions and hand waving, he really had no clue as to what the other father was trying to tell him. He said, he kept telling me, "Hughey Waldman" and my husband was trying to search his brain to figure out who this Hughey Waldman guy was since it apparently was an English name that this Romanian guy knew very well. They repeated it slowly to each other, stretched out the syllables, broke it down into sections, each repeating the mantra back and forth to each other. My husband kept asking, is he a famous person and other such clues to arrive at who this Hughey Waldman guy was. My daughter called as we were driving home, and I said, ask Sorin to ask his father what he was trying to tell Dad. He kept saying Hughey Waldman, Hughey Waldman. Sorin came back with the translation, what his father was telling my husband, in his little grasp of English was - You/Me Old Men. We laughed the entire way home.

If you are in Jackson, wave when you drive by~

We've been spending a lot of time in the yard lately, since our air conditioner blew. But that is another story. I happened to see this guy walking around across the street with this metal thing that I can only describe as a divining rod. You know, the Y-shaped stick that people used to hunt for water in the olden days? You would walk with it in front of you and when it slightly tilted downward, you knew there was water under the ground. You could scream, Eureka! and everyone would come running with their shovels and a well would be born, or so they tell me. I guess it is something like a Ouija board for pioneers. Anyway, this guy was walking around with this thing, it was metal and sort of like a rod with two antenna's on it. So you know, I just had to walk across the street and ask him what he was doing. Seems he is from the cable company and he is looking for stray signals. He told me that normally he just sits in his truck and rides around the neighborhood, and then if he gets a signal, he can explore it with his divining rod (my term, not his!) Well, this was really interesting, and I walked back home to tell my husband when the guy crossed into our yard and proclaimed that the problem was coming from our house. He put a doorknocker thing on the door and told us to call the number immediately for a service call and then he got back in his truck to scan the neighborhood. A few days later the water meter reader came, he had to get in our house, seems they are going to be reading the meters remotely, you guessed it, from the truck! So they had to put a gadget on our meter so that they can just drive by and find out how much to bill us! Gee, I remember when we first moved here, we had some drive bys too, but they sure weren't anonymous! They actually got out of the car, and we kind of looked forward to seeing them. We had the egg man, he would come about once a week and deliver eggs if you were on his list, we had the soda man, he lived off of Addison Road before they shortened it to build 195 and he would deliver any flavor of soda you wanted, and then pick up the bottles the next week. We also had the gypsys that lived in the trailer park on the edge of town. They made some awesome patio furniture and picnic tables, and they would drive around with their pickup truck loaded, selling them right from the curb. Of course, we had the paperboy, but they did away with them in favor of adult carriers, that . . . . drive by and throw the paper from the car. Yea, the good old days, friendly faces, familiar faces, a little conversation, a laugh or too. Gonna miss that, so to the water meter reader and the cable troubleshooter, can you do me a favor, can you wave as you drive by!

What a crazy few weeks it has been

I realized today I have really neglected my blog postings. So I just jumped off this crazy carousel to bring you up to date! The last I wrote was about my daughter's baby shower in April, I didn't add that we were babysitting my son's animals while he and his partner went on a wonderful two week vacation to Portugal! It was my son's first visit there to see his partner's "homeland" and the pictures they brought back were awesome! So much white and red, concrete buildings, tile roofs, blue skies, just breathtaking. We had an early Memorial Day get together while anxiously waiting for the new baby to arrive. The night before my son's birthday, May 21st, he was mugged while jogging on the boardwalk (he is fine) but just another confirmation to me that exercise can be dangerous! On Friday, May 29th, we were sure it was the day for the baby! I rushed down to my daughters and we walked and got a caffeine loaded cappucino, timed contractions, and the following day everything stopped! Then my son called, his partner was in the hospital with a collapsed lung! Apparently this is something that can sometimes spontaneously happen, so went back home to visit the patient. Still no baby so my husband and I tackled a big job in the yard, we dug out (I mean he dug out) a seven foot tall Mimosa tree that had grown through our fence and transplanted it to the front yard. ( I dug out that hole). We just finished and decided that we would shower and collapse when daughter called, contractions were five minutes apart for three hours! I rushed down and the following morning my new little grandson, Marcus Cornel, was born! You can see his new baby pictures on my friend Denise Snyder's blog. So I spent the week with my daughter's family and am now trying to land back on earth! Check out the pictures! http://dsnyderphoto.blogspot.com/

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WEATHER FORECASTING THE OLD FASHIONED WAY

There seems to be an awful lot of discussion about the weather. I guess it coincides with the high tech age that we are in. At work invariably the subject comes up, usually, within the discussion of the weekend, or whether or not to take the free Blue Claws baseball tickets that the firm just offered. Once the question is popped, “What’s the weather going to be like?” it starts a free for all to get instant data for future events. Of course, if you are sitting by the computer, it is easy, Accuweather or the Weather Bug are the most popular among my crowd. With weather bug, you can have a pictorial forecast right on your tool bar. You don’t even have to open the program, a quick look at your monitor, and either the sun is out, or there are clouds. If there is a cactus there, better crank up the air conditioning, that means it is going to be a hot one! I fell victim to virtual weather predicting myself while waiting for my daughter’s wedding in August of 2007. I found out that with Accuweather you can really extend the forecast out, like for up to 15 days. So of course in the two weeks before the wedding, I was checking it every day. “Please let it be sunny, please let it be sunny”, that was my daily mantra. I think I overdid. It was sunny alright, like about 99 degrees, in the shade, it was so hot most people skipped the stroll around the historical grounds that I plotted out to fill the gap between the ceremony and the reception. Another furtive week of praying preceded my daughter’s April 2009 babyshower. I even recruited for that. Most of my emails ended with Pray for Sunshine. You think I would have learned my lesson. The big day came, almost topped 90, in April. I had the oven on, cooking and sweating. The guests were cooking too, it was boiling in my kitchen. We turned on the air, but it needed freon or something, it was blowing out the vents, but warm air. I thought I heard the AC hissing “are you freaking kidding me lady, its April! ”, but my husband said it was just the fan blowing. Be careful what you pray for, with the weather, it seems that Mother Nature has a direct line to God’s ear. At work, the lady that does our calendar every day has started printing a weather forecast in the corner. It is a clip art icon, but very cute. We wait every day for the calendar to come out to see if there is a smiling sun, an umbrella, a cloud. This is a good way to know what the weather is going to be tomorrow. There is so much anticipation for that emailed calendar, that we have started saying, “who needs Bill Evans, we have Cathy.” On Cinco De Mayo she put a cute little sombrero on the calendar. It was nice, but we really needed to know if we could eat on CHEVY’s Patio, or have to say inside on May 5th. Another good indicator to know what the weather is going to be is the Weather Channel on cable. How can we live without the weather channel? Think of the unnecessary raincoats, umbrellas and snow boots you would drag out if you didn’t have the weather channel to tell you how to dress. How many mothers are shushing their kids while buttering their toast, waiting for the forecast. How about the people who want to fly a kite and they have to find out how fast the wind is gusting, or if it is gusting at all. A lot of planning revolves around the weather. And what about outdoor chores! Saturday is the usual cut the grass, trim the hedges, do the outdoor stuff at our house. If you have a tremendous amount of outdoor work to do, it is crucial to watch the weather channel with your morning cup of coffee. Now why start mowing the lawn if there is a chance of rain? Who would want to be outside mowing around the patio when a drop of rain fell? Also, you have to consider the dampness, the humidity, the barometric pressure how is that going to affect the blades of grass, whether they will get caught up in the lawn mower. I mean, mowing the lawn consumes about an hour total. Why risk getting wet, better check the weather channel first before going outside. Hey if there is a chance of rain, why even bother starting any chores, better to wait and watch the forecast to know when the perfect time is to spend an hour outside. Sometimes we finish a whole pot of coffee watching the weather channel on Saturday morning so we can find out if it is a good idea to mow the lawn or not. Now, my son just got back from Portugal and brought us the most amazing weather forecasting device. It is a Blessed Virgin Mary barometer. Our Lady is wearing a beautiful cloak, and depending on the weather, it changes color. Now, if it is sunny, it is blue, pink means rain. So any variant between those two colors gives you the forecast. I put it on my window sill, this way I can check it every morning to see what it is doing outside. So, for instance, yesterday afternoon, Our Lady’s robe was really blue, blue means sun. So that means it was sunny outside. My husband confirmed it with the Weather Channel. Mary was right, it was sunny outside. This morning, I raced to the window again, and picked Her up, pink, it is going to rain, pink means rain. Rain means I can’t do what I wanted to do, I wanted to rake, I wanted to put some seeds in, do some weeding, but that is not going to happen today. So what does that mean for us, what of all our plans, all our chores, what we were going to wear. I told my husband, Mary says it’s raining, how could it be raining again, we have so much gardening to do, I wanted to wear shorts and flip flops today, when are we ever going to get our weeding done. He said, “Ellen, look out the window, it’s not raining.” Just because Mary is pink does not mean it is presently pink, it could be a future pink she is warning us about. And that was my Eureka moment, as Oprah says, the Ah Ha Moment, the necessity is the mother of invention moment. It finally hit me, it was like a flash of lightening, a clap of thunder, a blinding beam of sunlight, hail bopping on my head. I have a great idea, even better than Mary, even better than Bill Evans, even better that the Weather Channel, or Accuweater. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize it. I feel like a genius, my own absolutely accurate, foolproof way to find out what the weather is like.


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W I N D O W !!!!!

The Coffee Pot Game

My father started it. He used to say, "you can get a lot done while the coffee is perking". So being my father's daughter, I have played this silly little game for about the past 36 years or so. It's kind of like that old game, Beat the Clock, but it's beat the coffee pot. Here's how it goes. I get up at 5:30 and the first thing I do is make the coffee. Now, this is often a challenge because most nights I go to bed with dishes still in the sink or junk still laying around on the counter. So just to get to the coffee pot is often a feat in itself! But once I press the button, its like somebody says, ready, set go. I have timed it and it takes just about 16 minutes to get the finished pot. Now, my husband is one of those people that stands around with his empty but well seasoned coffee cup in his hand, waiting for the last drip to drop. Pacing, looking, dawdling, waiting. Not racing, not playing the game. He will occasionally pull out the pot just a little bit to check the progress. When I catch him doing this, it really burns me up, and I usually chastise him with something like, wait till its done, or its not done yet, or something obvious and lame like that. But I digress, that is usually a weekend event because the four days a week that I work, I am up at 5:30 and quite frankly, he's not. Well, not until lately when he started working an hour and a half north, but he usually waits till my little ritual is done. So the game is mine, alone. So back to the button, its pushed, and the countdown starts. Usually, I start with the dishwasher, because typically, I have filled it and washed the dishes to some extent, but there are always others laying around. So I empty the dishwasher and put the dishes away, but, okay, here's another confession, I have this counting thing, so I have to tap each glass before I take it out and count them, I know it's nutty, but I can't stop. So first I count them, then I take them out and put them on a towel on the counter, and make sure they are totally dry, then I count them on the counter, and then put them in the cabinet and count them as they go in. Now if I could stop this obsession, I would probably cut at least two minutes out of my race performance, but it is just not possible. Okay, so now that all the clean dishes have been counted and put away, I attack the dirty ones laying around, wash them out, rinse and put in the dishwaser . . . okay, I count them too. Then slam the dishwahser, wipe down the counter. Coffee is still perking. I still have quite a bit of time to go. If I can perfect this, I could probably try out for the Amazing Race! Next is packing up my lunch for work, and breakfast because I go in so early, so I have to pour out my cereal, get some fruit, cut it up if it is strawberries for instance, then put either a leftover in a container or make up a salad, throw in some fruit, get that all done, put in a bag. Coffee is still not done. Next tackle is the kitchen table, I go through the mail, sort it out, keep checking the coffee pot, checking the clock, okay, I am way ahead of the pot now. Next is my medicine, I put it out on the counter, get a coffee mug out, put the medicine next to the coffee mug. That's done. My father would be so proud of me. Keep the eye on the prize they say. Well that prize is the first cup of freshly brewed coffee, one pink sweet and lo and one coffee mate dollop of french vanilla (I know, the french vanilla kind of makes the sweet and lo seem ridiculous, doesn't it!). Anyway, during all this craziness, that's my goal, and the strong aroma of that wonderfully flavorful coffee, the first cup from the freshly brewed pot, the first splash after the last drip . . . . ok, I am salvating, let me get back to the race. So I am done with my lunch preparations, emptied the dishwasher, reloaded, counted, cleaned off the table, thrown out the junk mail, and I still have time. I check the clock again, hmmmm, just a little over a minute. What can I do? What can I do, I have to be productive, or the game isn't the same, oh yea, I can run downstairs and find the movie I rented from Netflix and package it up, and check my email again. Okay, done, ten seconds to go, just enough time to climb the stairs, and watch the last drip, you know that last drip that signals the pot is done, and the first savory, delicious, rewarding, cup is ready, just for me, just because I have used my time so wisely, my reward, my steps quicken, I am almost skipping, I reach the top of the stairs just to pass my husband as he walks out to the garage, unlit cigarette in one hand, coffee cup in the other, full coffee cup, fresh coffee, first cup, my cup, "Good Morning" he nods as he saunters out to savor that coffee/cigarette combo. For today at least, I know the agony of defeat!

Are you ready for this!

Ok, here it is! My newest nuttiness! The apron is hotter than the kitchen collection of not your granny's aprons! Check it out. More patterns to follow!

What's that smell?

Whew! It is strong in here! When you come in from outside it smacks you in the face. I was going to light one of the fragrance candles, but the competition of aromas would be too much. In the crock pot, I have potato and leek soup, and couldn't resist throwing an onion in. That was a very weepy production. But I noticed that Paula Deen was wearing these onion goggles, and I have to get myself some. Between the leeks and the onions yesterday, I could have cried myself a river, literally! Anyway, I am reheating that since I made it yesterday. I have some shredded cheese and crisp bacon to throw on top when it is ready to eat. On the stove is a slab of corned beef with all the seasonings that was in the packet, that has been simmering since about 10:00 a.m., and I just threw in the red potatoes. My husband is telling me to wait on the cabbage, he likes it firmer. Guess that will mask the taste of the corned beef that he hates! Anyway, my son and his partner are coming, so the table is only set for four. Daughter is very pregnant and tired, and the trip is a little too much these days, especially for a meal that you hate! I made cupcakes yesterday and coated them with sprinkles, green and white, and I did my second attempt at an ice cream cake, chocolate chip mint on the bottom, crushed thin mint girl scout cookies, mini chocolate chips and hersheys' syrup, then another layer of just vanilla ice cream. I did that yesterday and just took it out a while ago, and dyed some cool whip green and put the sprinkles on and put that back in the freezer. Hubby just came back from the liquor store with two kinds of Irish beer. Plus our cable company that plays music has all Irish music on the Sounds of the Season channel. It is pretty dreary out, misty and rainy. My neighbor is from Ireland and she tells me that is the way it is over there. I wouldn't know. I always dream of someday going to Ireland, but if that every happens, that would be a miracle. I'm all set for today though, a little bit of Irish heaven in Jackson, New Jersey. Plus, I was busy sewing this morning. Wait until you see what I made, I will post it later, but I want my son to model it for me first! So since my friend Nora asked me to post some pictures of my Irish kitchen, I have put some in here for you to look at! Pretty soon all the Irish stuff will come down and the Easter curtains, tablecloth, etc., will go up. Change, variety, the spice of life! Reminds me, I heard somewhere that change is the only constant thing you can count on. Thats for sure. Lot of changes, from the St. Paddy's day celebrations with my parents when we were kids, my own over the years with the house overflowing with relatives and nieces and nephews and grandchildren, to this simple table set for four. Many empty chairs, my brother and family moved to Illinois nine years ago, Aunt Edna has passed, David has passed, Mom and Dad Tietke, and of course my parents well over 30 years ago. Things have changed a lot, but a lot has stayed the same. Love of family, sharing a simple meal, carrying on a tradition.