Calendar Fun

According to TimeAndDate.com a Palindrome Day happens when the date can be read the same way backwards and forwards.  Did you know that we're in the middle of a ten day stretch (from August 10 - August 19, 2018) that when you write dates in the m-dd-yy format all of them will be palindromic?

8-10-18                8-11-18

8-12-18                8-13-18

8-14-18                8-15-18

8-16-18                8-17-18

8-18-18                8-19-18

Five years ago today: The Sad Thing Is, I Think He's Seriously Happy

Gettin' Our Kicks

This summer Son Donald had a job in Rolla working for the university, so we didn't get to see him much. In one week the new semester starts and he'll get busy with class work. So before that happens  Hubby Tony and I decided to take a road trip to see him. While we were in the area, we also made a visit to the self-proclaimed "Entertainment Hub of the Ozarks" in Uranus, just a half hour further down the Interstate.

Uranus, MO

Uranus is not an official city.  Rather, it's a Route 66 tourist attraction that's known for the Uranus Fudge Factory And General Store. There's also a playground, food truck park, bar and grill, tattoo parlor, axe-throwing room, outdoor outfitter, shooting range, escape room, and sideshow museum. Throw in some dinosaur statues, a vintage taxi, firetruck, and double decker bus, the largest belt buckle in the world, and multiple photo opportunities, and it sounded like a fun place to check out.

Rolla is about 100 miles from our house, and we got there late morning. Donald is moving into a new room in his house, so before we got on the road again we helped him switch over his furniture and belongings to his new digs. All along Interstate 44 we saw the billboards, which said things like “We are having big fun in Uranus”, “Family fun in Uranus”, and “The best fudge is found in Uranus!”  (Can you tell that the whole concept is based on puns and tongue in cheek humor?)

When we entered the general store the clerk behind the counter yelled out a cheerful “Thank you for picking Uranus!” We browsed around, checking out the clothes with punny riffs on the store name and the general Route 66 merchandise. Behind the counter there were 16 kinds of homemade fudge, and baskets on shelves held hundreds of different types of candy. I got a sample of fudge (which was very good) but there were a lot of people in line at the cash register so I decided not to buy any. When we left the clerk yelled out "thank you for picking Uranus".

Continuing down the strip of shops, we stopped outside the World’s Largest Sideshow Museum where a man was holding a huge albino snake. He was a really good salesman, because he convinced us to pay the admission to go inside the museum. After being warned not to take any photos inside, we entered through the door into a dimly-lit room. I didn't know what to expect, but the displays were pretty interesting in a kitschy sort of way, with lots of animal and human oddities. After a while a tattooed lady (who had arms and legs covered in leopard print tattoos, with even a few spots on her face) offered a couple of magic tricks and did some sword swallowing.  As we left the museum there was another shopping opportunity, but we passed.  After walking by some of the other attractions, it was time for lunch back in Rolla, at a Thai restaurant close to Donald's house.

After lunch was finished we took Donald back home, wished him good luck in the new semester, and started back home. It was a great way to spend a late summer day.

Five years ago today: Do You Copy?

Thanks, But I'll Pass

One of the companies I'm registered to do work with sent me an email letting me know that they've expanded their payment methods. The default is still PayPal, but if I chose, I could get paid in one of several cryptocurrencies...Bitcoin, Bitcoin cash, Ethereum, or Litecoin.

I wonder just how many people will take them up on their offer?

(I have no interest in alternate tenders, but before I hit the 'Delete' button I did some investigation, and discovered that according to Wikipedia, as of 10 April 2018 there are more than 1565 different cryptocurrencies! Bitcoin was the first, released in 2009, but now there are about three dozen large ones. That's a lot of alternative.)

Five years ago today: Classic Country

Doing My Civic Duty

Today was our state's primary election day. In addition to paring down the field of candidates before the general election in November, there was one statewide proposition and several county charter amendments to vote on.

Two weeks ago Hubby Tony and I both received a tri-fold sheet sent out by the Board of Election Commissioners that included our polling information and sample ballots for the Democrat, Republic, Green, Libertarian, and Constitution parties. That made it easy to research all the candidates. I don't have a party affiliation, but in order to vote for any candidate I have to choose one for the primary. After researching all the options I went into the polling place knowing what the answer would be when they asked what ballot I wanted.

All morning long I saw the photos of my Facebook friends showing off their “I Voted” sticker selfies. I'm not sure when it became obligatory to get a sticker for casting a ballot, but I'm not a fan. Half of the time I forget to take the sticker off before tossing my shirt in the laundry and it ends up turning into a adhesive-removing project.

I went to the poll after lunch, and there was no line.  When it was time to cast my ballot an election authority walked with me to a booth, activated the touch screen, and verified that the correct form had loaded. Because I had done legwork ahead of time it didn't take me long to express my opinion for each of the people and items.

As I walked away from the voting booth a poll worker was standing there holding out a sticker for me. At first I declined, but when she looked disappointed I changed my mind and took it.  Hopefully the colorful red, white, and blue decal will catch my eye when I take off my shirt to change into my pajamas at the end of the night.

Five years ago today: Day Tripping

Here's To Smiles

Last month I got a copy of Richard Carlson's classic book Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff--and it’s all Small Stuff from a Little Free Library. The book was written in 1997. I read it back then, and now I'm enjoying revisiting the book's insights on the meaning of life and putting challenges in perspective.

Every once in a while I leaf through the book and choose one of the 100 short chapters to meditate on. This week I was focusing on Number 25 - "Smile at Strangers, Look into Their Eyes, and Say Hello", and I was able to put it into practice this evening. I was out for a walk and saw what I assumed was a family group of a mother, father, and adult son in an electric wheelchair walking towards me on the opposite side of the street. I could hear them talking, and it sounded like they weren't sure where they were going. In one more block I needed to be on their side of the street anyway, so I crossed early, smiled and greeted them, and asked if they needed some help.

They thanked me but said they were just trying to figure out which house a friend of theirs lived in. Since I couldn't help them I smiled again and went on my way. The little gesture only took ten seconds, but it made me (and I hope them) feel good.

Five years ago today: Getaway

Red Bud Woes

On Tuesday the forecast called for scattered showers, so I wasn't surprised when it started sprinkling as I was driving home from the dentist. I pulled into the garage just as the sprinkles turned into a steady rain. By the time I got inside and took my shoes off the steady rain turned into a hard rain. Five minutes after that it was a deluge. When I looked out into the back yard there was a deep puddle next to the compost bin and a large stream of water running across the grass to the sewer.

The storm lasted about ten minutes. Halfway through the inundation I was in the kitchen when I heard a loud 'crack' and felt something hit the house. After the rain slowed down I went outside and found out that one of the trunks of the large red bud tree next to the deck had fallen over.

Oh no!

Fortunately, the only damage it did was crack a plastic vent cover, which can be easily replaced. However, when I took a close look at the trunk I realized that one of the other major pieces was loose in the ground.

This doesn't look good

That night I called a tree service we'd used before and left a message. The office returned my call yesterday morning while I was pulling into the parking lot of my first errand for the day. The office manager told me they'd just had a cancellation. Could the crew stop by in an hour of so?

I completed my first errand and returned home. The hour was actually closer to two, and I had places to be, but when the crew arrived they quickly removed both the broken trunk and the loose one. They also took care of a branch in the tree crown that was rubbing against the deck.

Trunk and a stump

The arborist told me red buds only live 20-25 years, so if I want something to continue shading my deck in the future I might want to think about planting a replacement tree now so it would be a good size before the rest of the red bud succumbed to old age.

Lots of room for the remaining branches to grow now!

Five years ago today: Overheard After Dinner Tonight...

A Real Pain In The Tooth

For the past couple of weeks I've had an intermittent mild pain in one of my lower left teeth. Over the weekend it became a slightly more intense intermittent pain. Yesterday I called the dentist, and later in the day went in for a visit.

In the waiting room I realized that at that moment my tooth didn't hurt anymore, but was afraid of what would happen if I didn't follow through with the appointment. Once I was seated in the exam chair I did my best to describe my symptoms. The dental assistant did an x-ray, which showed there was no sign of infection. She called in the dentist, who poked around my mouth until he found the sore spot. He couldn't see any damage, but after the assistant took a photo she discovered a small crack in my wisdom tooth. The dentist didn't have time in his schedule to do an immediate filling, and since I wasn't in extreme pain the assistant suggested I come back today.

A little less than 24 hours after the first visit I was back in the exam chair. The assistant swabbed my cheek with a topical anesthetic, the dentist injected the real thing, then we all waited for it to take effect. The dentist came in and drilled away, told the assistant to prepare a temporary filling, and left.

The assistant explained that the dentist wanted to make sure the tooth hadn't been compromised.  He wanted to wait a couple of weeks to make sure the pain was completely gone before he completed the work. The assistant told me today's filling contained oil of cloves, which had some antiseptic properties, and I might be tasting the spice for a couple of hours. (I did.  It made me crave pumpkin pie.)

Ten minutes later the filling job was finished, and after a stop at the payment desk I was on my way.  I get to go back in two weeks for either a permanent filling or, if the pain hasn't gone away, more extensive work (aka a root canal). Of course, I'm 'rooting' for the first option.

Five years ago today: If You fill It Will They Come?

Ahead Of Time Anniversary

Next Thursday Hubby Tony and I will have been married 38 years.   Because it's hard for us to celebrate middle of the week milestones, we designated this weekend as the substitute.  And what a weekend it was!

Last night after dinner we went out and helped each other pick out presents. I got the new travel purse I wanted, and Tony selected a new journal and a brimmed hat for wearing in the sun. We ended the night walking along a trail in downtown St. Charles.

Today we spent some time in Alton, just over the river in Illinois, running errands, checking out the farmer's market, and eating lunch at The Old Bakery Beer Company, a craft brewery housed in a converted Colonial Bread plant. I had a Vegetarian Reuben (with juicy tomatoes substituting for the traditional pastrami). Tony chose a Caesar Wrap with chickpeas. We split and shared both dishes equally.

From there we drove back across the Mississippi River and through a naturalized floodplain area (the last ten minutes down a gravel road) to the Edward "Ted" and Pat Jones-Confluence Point State Park where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers come together and Lewis and Clark began their expedition. We left the car in the parking lot and walked the last half mile to the confluence itself. 

Mississippi on the left, Missouri on the right

The point itself is pretty wild-looking, and it looked like a flood had washed away some of the hardscaping, but the sweeping expanse of water in front of us was certainly inspiring. After admiring things Tony and I walked back to the parking lot, then backtracked to the main road.

We headed south, then turned west towards Florissant, a St. Louis suburb very close to where I grew up. Before we reached the small historical area of the city (settled in the late 1700s) we compared the current storefronts and buildings with what was there back in the day. Eventually we reached the Old St. Ferdinand Shrine, the oldest Catholic Church building in the Louisiana Purchase Territory where St. Rose Philippine Duchesne lived for many years. Although the shrine was closed we walked around the park next to it.  Our next to last stop was for mass at the church where we were married. After church we walked around the corner to Hendel's Restaurant. The building had been a general store and grocery for more than 100 years before being turned into an eating establishment.

This time I had a stuffed portobello. The grilled mushroom was stuffed with roasted vegetables and topped with mozzarella and a balsamic glaze. Tony had a huge pork chop, which was topped with blue cheese crumbles and crispy tobacco onions.  Once again we split and shared both dishes equally. Marriage has its privileges.

Portobello with smashed potatoes and cauliflower

Five years ago today: It Was Twenty Years Ago...But Seems Like Just Yesterday

Convertable

You may have heard me talk about one of my volunteer jobs, which is putting together a weekly slide show of upcoming activities for electronic monitors at my church. Each week I look at the bulletin and select six different events to showcase. If it's an event I don't already have a slide for I choose a background or border, add some text and maybe some clip art, and call it done.

Occasionally someone will send me an email with information they want added. The attachment is usually the size of a standard piece of paper, and I've learned that those are much too small and low resolution to show up on the 40 inch screens.  I've had no formal training for this job and don't know a whole lot about changing resolutions, so I have to go back to the person and tell them I can't help them unless they make some changes on their end.

Sometimes the file I get will be in a format the screen (a smart TV) won't recognize. I've learned how to fix many of those, but today I got an email that had a PDF attached. I was able to open it, but no matter how many times I left and right clicked on the page and program icons I couldn't figure out a way to change the file type to the JPEG I needed.

I decided to take the problem to Google, asking if there was a way to convert the two types of files. Would you be surprised if I told you there is? The first result of my search was PDF2JPG.net, which touted that it was a free online service that would easily turn the first type of file into the second.

After uploading my PDF it only took a minute to change it to my monitor-friendly file. I downloaded the result back to my computer, then resized it with Paint and had a nice-looking advertisement for a charity golf tournament.  As a bonus, the website told me that they participate in the Plant a Billion Trees program sponsored by the Nature Conservancy, planting a tree for every 5,000 converted PDFs. They had already contributed 20553 trees, and I did my part to help them plant one more.

Five years ago today: I Love Happy Endings

A Tale Of Three Pits

The last batch of avocados I bought looked completely similar on the outside. Once they were cut open, however, a big difference was revealed:

small, medium, large

Look at the difference in the size of the avocado pits!

Before I mashed all of the avocados into guacamole I took a tiny sample from each of the fruits. Each tasted wonderful; there was no correlation between pit size and taste.