Stephanie says

I'm studying botany; the terminology jostles my memory from Botany 101 some 40 years ago as I fondly invoke the words:  dicot, monocot, stigma, stamen, anther, xylem.  Oh dweeb indeed.  I'm enrolled in a Master Gardener program, all day each and every Tuesday for the next 13 weeks.  Sustainable gardening is the focus.  I envision a riot of vegetables and a profusion of flowers in my garden this season.  I actually imagine that every season but this is the one that will succeed! Oregon State Extension Service provides this training as one of many educational services, for example: 4H, Food Preservation, Animal Husbandry, Trees and Woodlands.   Take this link to visit OSU Extension website  My grandfather, Elmer O Post graduated from Oregon Ag, College ( for a bit about him, click this link) in 1917 and the OAC Extension was already going strong providing education to improve rural life. Along the way, OAC became Oregon State University and OS...

Nearly 20 years ago on a road trip with cousins, the two of us without grandchildren were embarrassed by the behavior of the two with.  I witnessed each of them stop perfect strangers to show off photos of the children.  Jeanne and I declared a vow at that time that if and when either of us had grandchildren, we would NOT carry photos in our wallets, or behave in that manner.  She has two granddaughters, ages 9 and 10, and she may well have school photos tucked into her wallet but I've never caught her flashing photos of them to strangers. I have 18-month Henry and don't have a single photo in my wallet.  However, I do have an I-Phone.  Does that change the playing field?  Herewith, a video clip of him calling me "Grandma." We're not strangers, right?

As evidenced by today’s Christmas shopping trip into the metropolis of Eugene, (It’s all subjective.)   Drain’s population hovers around 1000 souls; Yoncalla has just about the same.   Eugene has a whopping 160,000 AND traffic signals.   Just so you know, red means stop.   Teresa drove today and must have maddened the traffic-light deity because at each and every intersection, the light turned red as we approached.   I didn’t notice this particularly until after our stop at Harbor Freight to pick up a gift for her husband, (an electric wood splitter of all things.   They have been married a very long time…   Wait, wait, is there a “Fargo” joke lurking in there?)   This was a virgin visit for me and I purchased an assortment of flashlights for stocking stuffers, a long-running favorite of my daughter.   I bought a hammer and tape measure for Bonnie – who is closing on a fixer-upper house next week.   She’s gonna need tools. ...

I scored a whole lot of bones today.  Beef bones.  Terry stopped by with skeletal mass from a recently butchered cow, (to the delight of Miss Rose Petal, who adores Terry, peeing on his foot in excitement every time he appears.  She loves any form of meat ever so much more however, "please leave the kitchen.  I won't jump up on the counter and eat the meat.  Really, I won't.  Leave now.) Back to the old cow whose time on this earth was over.  We are utilizing her remains fully.  We are making beef stock. I roasted bones in the oven at a high temperature, turned now and then to brown evenly, then tossed into the stock pot.  Rosie scored a meaty bone, just because she didn't snatch any from the counter, although I know full well that she would have, had she the opportunity.  Dogs.  Predictable.      Bones simmering on the rear burner.  Onions nearing caramelization on the other burner (because I only have two w...

Do people still take tap? For a slim-to-remote chance to land a role in rarely produced musicals like 42nd Street? It appears they do.  The curtain slowly rises with a staccato rat-a-tat-tat beat.  The stage is crowded with tap-dancing feet; Act I begins in high energy with dancers who definitely learned (and mastered) tap.  42ns Street was the 1933 Academy Award-winning musical; Composer Harry Warren, Lyricist Al Dubin, Librettists Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble..  I am considerably younger than that but knew many of the songs: "You're Getting to Be a Habit with Me;" "We're in the Money;" "Lullaby of Broadway;" "Shuffle to Buffalo;" and "Forty-Second Street."   Great songs all.  Terry couldn't make this performance, which he will regret all the more after I describe a sea of long legs clad in scanty costumes performing in-sync intricate dance moves reminiscent of synchronized swimming.  But on dry land of co...

Had plans with my daughter’s family to attend an anniversary party.   Got a phone call on the road asking how far out I was?   “20 minutes.” “Okay.   There’s a birthday party for Grandma Muriel today.   I said we’d come.” “Alright.   We’ll go there first.” This being my former (?) mother-in-law.   I was married a very long time to her son and divorced many, many years ago but still consider this lovely woman to be my MIL.   We celebrated her 93 rd birthday yesterday.   It will her last.   Tyler commented “This is kind of weird.   I’m going to be with both my parents together in a social situation for the first time in 20 years.”   “This impacts me how?   This is your deal, not mine.”   Subtext:   It’s not always about you.   Deal with it. My boy Jason, my nephew, arrived same time as us.   Here he is now, pushing 40, unloading his family of three + another baby due soon, fro...

Hey Bets, I’ve just watched the first ten minutes of “The Graduate” and thought about you.   We saw so many thought-provoking late 60s movies on the big screen – damn they were good.   Butch Cassidy, Richard the Lion Heart, Midnight Cowboy to name a few.   An oldie: Gone With The Wind – you just sobbed through that screening - the only reason I didn’t.   Thanks for that.   The Killing of Sister George.   I’m laughing at our mutual discomfort with that movie.   That was when the penny dropped on female homosexuality -  I had no clue.   We drove home from that movie; you driving Uncle Jim’s Nova, and both of us hugging the most opposite sides of the car possible, repelled by the implications of that awful movie.   Maybe it wasn’t awful.   The irony is we shared a double bed.   I remember hugging the far, far side.   You did too – on the far opposite side.   Glad we shared those times.   Love you co...

She’d dropped off the car for servicing one fall morning and foregoing the courtesy ride, walked through Pringle Park enjoying the autumn leaf show.    A young man, a tall blond young man approached, flashed a bright smile and said, “Hello.”   She smiled, said hello back and proceeded on her now merrier way, thinking, “You’ve still got it, girl.”   A couple blocks later the penny dropped.   That was Craig Jordan, son of her camping buddy, whom she hadn’t seen for most of his adolescence.   Camping was a serious party so as the kids grew, they were left at home to allow the parents unfettered adult fun.   That and the group began divorcing like mad.   Maybe due in part to unfettered adult fun.   Maybe not.   She’s not one to say.   Anyway, so there was Craig, walking to his high school, recognizing her when she passed by, saying hello.   It wasn’t a Mrs. Robinson moment after all.   Damn.   She burst out l...

A wickedly delicious cake baked for Ryan's birthday.  Serves 16 so I took 1/4 of the cake to the neighbors, an act we three later regretted...  The recipe called for more crushed cookies than I had on hand - as Tyler and Ryan got into the package while I was away from home.  Brats. Ingredients Cake:   1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 2/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 3 large eggs, at room temperature 1 1/4 cups buttermilk   Filling: 4 ounces cream cheese, softened 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened 1 box (16 ounces) confectioner's sugar 3 - 4 tablespoons milk   Frosting: 1 1/2 cups heavy cream 1/4 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 3 cups crushed Oreos Directions Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat two 8-inch round cake pan...

I installed a dryer in my laundry room over the weekend.   Lest this seem insignificant, my last dryer fizzled out in an unspectacular electrical death eight or nine years ago.   Yep, close to a decade.   Since then, I’ve line dried.   I am a medal-placing procrastinator in matters that are of completely no interest to me.   So it’s been no big deal.   I love the smell and feel of line dried sheets and towels.   Okay, the towels while scratchy, also exfoliate those flaky skin cells that die off daily.     And right here is where I can’t resist (sanctimoniously) mentioning the environmental card about all the electricity I didn’t consume.   Oh, sue me. But those days are over.   In only two trips to the hardware store, (one for dryer vent, the next approximately 30 minutes later for the "other" type electrical pigtail.   If you know what I’m saying, you’ve done this too) the install was complete and successful. ...

That is a bushel basket filled with typically sized vegetables. Dwarfing the basket is a mammoth cabbage, weighing in at 17+ lbs.  The head is tight and slated to be shredded this afternoon and fermented into sauerkraut.  Sharpen the knives. Old fashioned green grapes ripened on the vine.  The fig tree produced the largest ever crop resulting in lots of dried fruit and fig syrup. My new favorite is rhubarb syrup.  The stalks cut today are macerating in sugar for a couple days.  The syrup has the flavorful tang of rhubarb.  A refreshing drink mix with club soda. 

Late at night, fast asleep in my bed, Rosie growls and wakes me.   I rouse enough to recognize two men and a woman speaking.   Speaking is not the right word.   “Confessing” better serves.   My neighbors, suffering a horrible time.   One man is so distraught; he is sobbing broken-heartedly, and issues a heart-rending outraged roar of suffering.   It tears me to the core.   My windows are closed but enough sound comes through to recognize another man speaking to soothe, passing through the glass.   To no avail.   The woman spoke too.   Murmured really.   I couldn’t make out the words.   I didn’t want to make them out. The outrage seemed directed at her.   Draw your own conclusions.   Matters of the heart.   Who knows besides the participants? This morning I leave very, very early to walk the dog.   I need to get outside and reclaim my wa on this beautiful morning; dawn is barely breaking; the hor...

Here is a task for you, gentle reader.  Recall a moment of perfect peace and contentment in your life.  Here's mine. I’m somewhere around twelve years, on a late summers day.   Unbidden, I’ve weeded the rhododendron shrubs beneath my bedroom window.   Task done, dappled in shade, I lay my head beneath the plant canopy and breathe in the all-encompassing aroma of healthy soil.   I’m 12.   I know nothing about soil but I trust the richness of scent swirling airborne, caught in olfactory memory forever.   In that moment, (where I can take myself in a heartbeat 50 years later,) I am oh, so content.   I am the world’s laziest kid.   I do things like hide in my closet, nose in a book, to avoid the unending tasks my mother finds for me.   She has to find me first, however.   I’ve got a cozy setup in my closet - a reading light and a stack of pillows for comfort.   The hardest thing is disappearing without a trace.   It re...

My cousin Gayle (and her husband) bought the McGilchrist Building in Salem and invested a couple of long years restoring the monster; just a little something to do in their retirement. It should be noted that they are not retirement bound after all because they've opened an Italian restaurant/grocery/catering business on the ground floor. Lovely, lovely job.  I'm very proud of Gayle, (and Doug, but to forgo any appearance of political correctness and save typing so many extraneous pronouns, I am hereby assigning all credit to Gayle.  So sue me.) Eschewing my hermit tendencies, with Baby Henry in Salem (unseen for a couple weeks), an invite to a wine tasting at a much loved cousin's new restaurant, and committed sherpa duty transporting Tyler's new couch and chair, I drove the 120 miles to Salem.   And thoroughly enjoyed myself at the wine tasting.  It is an Italian market and has a wide selection of Italian products, of which I'm thoroughly enamored....

By now my readers (and hopefully I do have readers,) know I work at an accounting firm.  Wait a sec, I'm the only employee, so perhaps "firm" isn't the right word. Whatever.  Rather than be distracted by semantics, here's the story I'm trying to tell: The local Methodist Church is my client and Mary Lou handles offering deposits and church mail.  By default, as church membership has declined in the past twenty years due to aging and a declining population.  Mildred Whipple, a person I wish I'd known, grandmother to my boys, (figuratively speaking) established an annual endowment for the church.  That's tidbit isn't relevant to this story.  I just wanted to get it in writing that Mildred had much foresight and was a generous, generous woman. On task:  Mary swings by on the Monday.  Sometimes again later in the week should she need a check.  A tiny woman of octogenarian age, (mostly) salt and pepper curls, and a thorough hoot. I'm delight...

Browsing Facebook, an infrequent pastime (hmpft;   I have much better things to do with my time, no judgment of course…), I click through various links and drill down here and there and happen on a previously unseen page for my boy, Don.   Damn, I think he moved to Nebraska.   I feel an immediate loss.   He’s lived in Oregon since college, transplanting from Nebraska a long, long time ago.   I am bereft.   I’m nonplussed at this feeling. I shoot off an email.   Get a reply post haste.   Phew, he’s still here. I can't really express this but  Oregon would be emptier without him.  How do you know when you first meet someone that they’re going to impact your life so tremendously?   I had no clue the first time I laid eyes on Don Willey, a new friend then of my (first and likely only) husband.   We were at a trade show?   My husband had a landscaping display, (he was truly gifted in this trade) and people were...