Saturday, August 2, 2008

Gadgets and Things

Wow, August all ready – where in hell did July go? Am I the only one who thought July flew by? Make that “rained by?” Whatever I hope August will be a bit dryer but who in hell knows, the forecast for Saturday indicates “thunderstorms and scattered showers.” I may never get my lawn mowed but then, tall grass has a certain appeal too!

Anyway, last week I went to Syracuse and spent a few days with my sister and then, she brought me back home and spent a few days with me – needless to say, we have had our sister fix for a couple weeks! Ya gotta understand we have a great time together and laugh a lot and somehow we “push, encourage, force, stimulate, convince,” each other to do things. Like she needed to weed her garden and mow her lawn but just hated doing this alone, so between us we got it all done!

I arrived around 8am Tuesday morning and we immediately did breakfast – that was the first strong signal that any diet we were on was lost for the next few days – and I do mean lost! Not only would we eat whatever in hell we wanted, we’d consume as many beers as we wanted too – so screw the diet crap! Amazingly enough we discovered the store we really wanted to check out didn’t open until 10 a.m.! We looked at each other like everyone else had square heads because us farm girls get up before the sun and figured so should everyone else, and although we didn’t expect stores open at 6, 7 or even 8, we did think 9 was a reasonable hour! So we had time to kill and went to check out stores that did open at 9, and yes we did find some.

Ya gotta understand, we are gadget missionaries. We love to find new gadgets and search high and lo for these suckers. Now, admittedly at times we had no idea what a particular gadget’s purpose is but we usually buy it. Then the fun begins when friends come over and we leave it where they can’t help but see it and we wait for them to tell us or ask us what it is – talk about a wild discussion!

Now not everything can be classified as a gadget – some items are kitchen tools used on some cook show and we (1) want to see it with our eyes and/or (2) decided we want it in our kitchen! Unfortunately we are not always “clear” on what this tool is called but we usually know what it looks like. For example I was looking for a long handled square soup ladle ---we didn’t find one but that doesn’t mean we shan’t continue to search for one. Also we have found that some gadget or tool that seemed really cool and we’d like to have, is bloody damn expensive and loses its appeal PDQ (pretty damn quick).

Once we came north and now we had a new mission. My daughter wanted a homemade birthday cake, so my sister and I undertook that mission – do you know how long it has been since either of us made a cake from scratch? Ya, that long and it’ll be that long before we make another one!

Friday we decided to go fishing, and we did and we caught a few fish and tossed them back into the river – we just couldn’t image us cleaning fish. It was damn hot at the river and the sun was relentless and as it was humid, we were not having that much fun. So we came home and the birthday girl and hubby came over and we have birthday cake. That spoiled and negated any reason to fix dinner – we were full!

I settled in to watch Tennis but Sis was antsy and decided she’d “rearrange my cupboards.” Oh this is not new but it has been a few years. In fact, 20 some odd years ago she visited and at that time I tended to line up my spices in alphabetical order and this was enough to drive her nuts, so she switched them all around. I never lined up my spices after that number!

Now she was on a new mission and soon discovered we had quite a few items (cans and packages) of outdated (make that expired) goodies and it was time to toss them. This madness lead her to not only tossing the expired items but decided to arrange the cupboards so all the soups were in one spot, all the baked goods in another, canned veggies in another, pasta, etc, you get the picture right? Now, I am still trying to watch a tennis match and I’d hear; “1978! 1978, don’t ya think this should be thrown out? Holy Martha, 1978!”

Yes, all these items needed to be tossed and I would never have used them and eventually even I would have cleaned them out of my cupboards, one of those chores that just escape you. Finally at 9 p.m. she quit and we both sat down watch some TV (you see, I also got involved in the cupboard cleansing!). She told me she was leaving early Saturday morning, rushing home and cleaning her cupboard and refrigerator before I show up down there again because pay back is a bitch! Are we strange or what? [Sis called once she got home, unpacked and seemingly settled in for the day. She decided she'd best clean her refrig before I came back and did it and called to tell me "I think I'll just buy a new one, this is way more cleaning than I want to do!"]

So Sis, thanks for everything and as usually, I had a great time and now we can rest and I think my next visit will be during the New York State Fair, and we’ll drive other people crazy!

Speaking of fair – The Governeur-St.Lawrence County Fair is next week and you should plan to attend and by all means, stop by the 4-H Youth Building, they always have some pretty amazing items on exhibit and prove again and again, not all youth are trouble makers or lazy, but rather ingenious kids who have found a great way to show off their talents through a proven “learn by doing” educational program.


He thinks Beethoven's Fifth is a bottle!

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