Insect Effects

Last month I told you about our periodical cicada infestation. I forgot to tell you that it's over.

Cicadas only live for a few weeks, mate, then die. However, when millions of the insects come out at the same time things get a little crazy. At its peak, their mating call hum was like your neighbors all cuting their lawns at the same time, all day long. Then as quickly as it started, the hum it stopped.

After the cicadas mate, the female scrapes a channel in small twigs or branches (anything up to the diameter of a pen) and deposits her eggs. Here's an example, with the scrapes circled in red.

 lorax /Wikipedia 

When I didn't see or hear the cicadas any more, I promptly forgot about them. Last week I had to pick up a couple of small branches from the red bud tree in the back yard, but that's not unusual; the tree has soft wood and loses branches all the time. Then we had some pretty strong storms and there were branches from the neighbor's ash tree in the yard, but I attributed that to the wind. However, I started noticing a lot of small branches (some with leaves still attached) when I walked around the neighborhood. I wondered what was going on.

Thanks to Saralynn at Yeah, but Houdini didn't have these hips., now I know. If too many female cicadas use the same branch, the twig gets weak and fall to the ground. The process is called flagging, and just like the cicadas, flagging is temporary and will be over soon.

Ooh! Shiny!

Two weeks ago I painted the living room. The majority of things are back where they're supposed to be, but the light switchplate was still in a bag on the kitchen table. The switch is on a wall that can't be seen from the hall or family room, and we rarely use the room, so I figured I'd get around to putting it back on it when I had a chance.

Before:  Dirty Yucky.

Today is housecleaning catch-up day, so the project got added to my list of things to do. Why did it take so long to get to it? I thought the switchplate needed to be replaced. Several years ago I bought brass light switch covers for the living room and hall at an import store. They were beautiful, but soon started showing signs of tarnish and spots that looked like rust.

Assuming the switchplate was cheap brass plated, I thought things were hopeless and I'd have to buy new ones. This morning, though I decided to see if I could do anything to make it look acceptable. The first step was to figure out if I was working with solid brass or brass plated steel. The easiest way to check a piece is to put a magnet on it. If the magnet sticks, it's brass plated steel. If the magnet falls, the piece is solid brass. I was amazed to find out that my plate solid, and I moved on to researching cleaning methods. Since it seemed like it would be worth my time, I removed the cover in the hall and worked on it, too.

After: It's so shiny I can see my reflection!

There are a lot of homemade recipes for brass cleaners, but I decided to use salt and vinegar. The ingredients are cheap, and I had everything in the house. I started by soaking the plates in a bowl of vinegar, then combined equal parts salt, white flour, and vinegar to form a paste. With my fingers, I applied the paste and let it sit for thirty minutes, rinsed them thoroughly, then dried them. There were a couple of small spot that didn't come off, but the majority of the tarnish was gone; the covers were bright and shiny. To prevent more tarnish, I used a bit of car wax. and was pleasantly surprised to remove even more dirt.

I rehung both covers, then admired the way the looked on the walls. I also admired the extra half square foot of my kitchen table that's now empty.

My First Day

Yesterday I went to the first event, a team meeting, for my new job as a Customer Service representative at a mall. Including the supervisor, there are six people on the team. It's a mix of ages, but I'm one of the older ones. There's a few college students, and a couple people who also have full-time jobs. They all seem very nice.

Today was the first day of training--daytime for those available, and after work for the others. I had to be there at 9:30, and despite giving myself twice as much time as I though I needed, thanks to an ill-timed rainstorm and resulting traffic jam I was almost late. Fortunately, I didn't have trouble finding a parking spot that early in the morning and walked in with a couple of minutes to spare.

One of the things Customer Service does is sell mall gift certificates, so everyone had to be trained in the proper procedures. The training is computer-based, and there was only one computer available, so one person could do it at a time. I volunteered to go first, and they set the computer up in a back room.

I'm not sure if it was because of my location, but The. Program. Downloaded. Very. Slowly. I could have gone for coffee and come back before it was finished. Even after it had downloaded there were problems. Every few slides the program would freeze. Sometimes for a few seconds, and sometimes for a minute. It made for a very frustrating experience. Finally, I got though it and joined the rest of the group for a short HR presentation.

After that I was free to leave. They were going to try to move the computer to a different location so another person could start their training. I wished them good luck as I walked away.

I Am The Luckiest Person In The World

Hurrah, whoopee, yay! Huzza, hurray! I have a job!

You might remember that a couple of weeks ago I went on an interview for a part time Customer Service position at one of the area malls. I left the interview with an application to fill out, faxed it back, and didn't think any more about it.

When the phone rang a week ago and someone asked for me with a mangled pronunciation of my name, I thought it was a phone solicitor. Turns out it was the HR office of the company, offering me a position contingent on passing their screenings.

I knew there wasn't anything that would cause me to fail, but I didn't tell people, not wanting to jinx things. Everything went well, though; today I have a meeting with my new supervisor, a team meet and greet tomorrow, and training starting Monday.

Audio Walking

We're having a nice reprieve from our normal humid summer weather here. At 8:00 in the morning the temperature was 66°. It was sunny, and there was a light breeze blowing--too nice to go to the gym! I had to return some clothes I'd bought earlier in the week, so I decided to go to a park close to the store and walk there first.

The other day I found a CD a friend had made for me. It was a recording of a session she had led at a convention almost a year ago. When she gave it to me, I kept meaning to listen to it, but I wanted to do it in one session and never seemed to have the time. Then, it got misplaced in a pile of stuff until I unearthed it last week during a kitchen cleaning. If I'm walking by myself, I like to listen to something, so today I decided to pull out my old personal CD player and listen to the session while I walked.

I've had my "no name" CD player for quite a few years. It got a lot of use when I first got it, but I've since moved on to newer and nicer music delivery systems. The player was waiting for me in the coat closet, right where I thought it would be. Because it's too big to fit in a pocket, I usually carry it in a shoulder bag that Tony brought back from a business trip many years ago. The bag has a strap long enough that I can sling it over my chest, so my hands are free. I got the player out so I could check the batteries, and saw a sticker on the bottom that proudly proclaimed that the unit was manufactured in September 2004. The foam on the headphones (which were probably about the same vintage) was coming off, so I decided to substitute the ear buds I use with my MP3 player at the gym.

When I was using the player on a regular basis, I figured out that the buttons were easy to push...TOO easy. Inside a bag, the slightest bump would cause it to move to the next song, so I always used a case. Enclosed in a nylon and foam padded sheath, the player was bulkier, but protected.

I got to the park and got ready to go, putting the CD in the player, the player in the case, and the case in the bag. I reached in and hit the PLAY button, then started walking. This park has trails meandering all throughout it, as well as paths that veer off to nearby neighborhoods. There were a lot of people taking advantage of the nice weather: pairs of walkers, young mothers with baby strollers, and children were all using the park.

I walked and listened, not keeping track of the time, until I realized I was getting tired. When I checked the clock, I realized I'd been at it for a little over an hour! I went back to the car and got in, still listening to my CD, and drove the short distance to the store. When I got there, I sat in the parking lot until I'd reached the end.

Hooray For Me!

It took me almost three and a half years, but today I'm celebrating a milestone.  I've written 1,000 blog posts!

I started on January 6, 2008 at Kathy at 49. As a way to get pumped up for turning 50, every day for a year I did something I've never done before and documented my progress. When I finished that Thing A Day project, I switched over to this blog. Six hundred twenty-seven posts later, here I am.

Shall I go for a thousand more?

Happy Summer Solstice!

Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. However, if you want to get specific, the Solstice is the exact moment when the North Pole of the Earth is most inclined toward the Sun during its 365 day orbit (at an angle of 23° 26'). That moment happened at 12:16 PM in St. Louis.

What to do to celebrate the beginning of the summer season? I envisioned finding a beautiful sunny spot and raising a glass of iced tea in honor of the solstice. However, nature had other ideas. Today I woke up to lightening, thunder, and rain. An hour later, the precipitation was gone, but the sky was still gloomy, and I kept hearing severe thunderstorm warnings for different parts of the area.

As the morning wore on, I still had hopes that the weather would miraculously clear up, but after lunch I gave up and decided to go shopping to update my summer wardrobe. I made three different stops. As I came out of the last store, I checked the time. It was 12:15--exactly one minute before the official start of summer. In honor of the event, I did a quick dance to the soft-pop music coming out of the speakers above the door, then looked around to make sure no one had seen me before I walked to the car.

Dear Old Dad

The U.S. Census Bureau does more than just count the number of people who live in the country. They're a collector of all sorts of demographic information, and they share that information with everyone.  A couple of dozen times a year, they put together Facts for Features, collections of statistics from their demographic and economic subject areas. Father's Day is one of their observances; here are some of their interesting tidbits:

• The estimated number of fathers in the United States is 70.1 million

• In 2010 there were 1.8 million single fathers; 15 percent of single parents were men.

• As of 2008, there were 8,111 men’s clothing stores, 16,010 hardware stores, and 22,116 sporting goods stores around the country

• The estimated number of stay-at-home dads in 2010 was 154,000.

• In spring 2005, the percentage of preschoolers regularly cared for by their father during their mother’s working hours was 16 percent.

• The percentage of children younger than 6 who ate breakfast with their father every day in 2006 was 53 percent, and those who ate dinner together every day was 71 percent. (The corresponding percentages who ate with their mother were 58 percent and 80 percent.)

• Six percent of children ages 3 to 5 were read to by their fathers each week in 2006.

• Sixty-six percent of children younger than 6 were praised three or more times a day by their fathers.

Tea For Way More Than Two

I'm attending an all-day meeting tomorrow for about 150 people. For lunch they're serving sandwiches, assorted side dishes and salads, iced tea, and lemonade. I volunteered to make the tea, because I figured it would be an easy job...I didn't stop to think how much I'd need for that many people!

After resolving a couple of issues, today was tea-making day. Eight gallons ready to go.

Years ago I used to make sun tea, filling an empty milk jug with water, adding tea bags, and then setting it on the deck for a couple of hours. However, somewhere along the line scientists proclaimed that sun tea is bad, because the sun doesn't get the water hot enough to kill any lurking bacterial nasties.

I had a problem coming up with containers to hold that much tea. When the boys all lived at home, we went through 4 or 5 gallons of milk every week, and it would have been easy to save enough, Since now it's just Tony and me, we drink substantially less. Fortunately Tony had four two-gallon jugs left over from a project. I washed them well and lined them up on the counter, waiting to be filled.

Since I couldn't use the sun's power, I had to make the tea with boiling water. My stock pot, which is the biggest one I have, would only hold two gallons of water. In order to keep the project from taking all night, I made each two-gallon batch double strength. After it had steeped, I poured it into two jugs, then added an equal amount of water. I let them cool a bit, then slid them into the refrigerator, where they took up all the extra room on the milk shelf.

I repeated the process a second time, emptying and removing a refrigerator shelf so the containers could fit. There are jugs of iced tea everywhere, but only till tomorrow morning. After breakfast they'll get moved to my car along with the other things I'm taking.

Brush And Roll

Since I'm not working, I'm trying to tackle one big house project every week. This week's activity was painting the living room.

I can't remember when the living room was last painted, but it's been quite a few years. Back then, I coordinated the paint color with the existing couch, then purchased a harmonizing floral material for window treatments (board-mounted pennant three-point valances with tassels on the bottom of each point) and accent pillows.

I realized a couple of months ago that the walls were looking tired. However, I regularly get compliments on the valances, so I didn't want to change them. Back in the fall I painted the kitchen. Shortly after that I had a revelation--the khaki color I used there would coordinate with the living room! I bought a gallon of the paint and waited for time to do the job.

The project ended up taking chunks of four different days. Monday I cleaned the walls, then (since the new color was substantially different than the old) I primed them. Tuesday I painted. Wednesday and today I did the trim work (it needed two coats). I forgot to take a picture before things got taken out, but here's the room ready for its makeover:

Fortunately, it was nice enough that I could open up the windows to get rid of the paint smell. Pepper appointed himself my assistant. He was quite peeved when I asked him to move so I could work there:

Did you notice the room's crown moulding in the first picture? It's beautiful, but a pain to paint, because I'm not good at detail work. I went to the hardware store and bought a good trim brush, which made a difference. Even though I had to do two coats, I painted the crown moulding, door frames, and baseboards without getting any white semi-gloss paint on the wall which is huge for me.

The room is getting there:

Here's the finished product, sans artwork. I need to decide which pieces will make the grade:

When I was done I was glad to throw my painting clothes in the washer. After this project, I think it will be a while before I use them again.