Pan Dowdy

My pots and pans hang above the stove and this is so convenient I forget that they are on display although rather the worse for years of wear. Stymied for something to do because my satellite Internet is so bad, my biker bro-in-law on a visit about a year ago asked me if I had any of those copper-colored curly-scrubby-scouring pads. I said no, why. He said he wanted to clean my pans for me.

 

I had long before ceased to be conscious of the state of dishware and cookware 10 to 20 years old. That it functioned was all I cared about. But after the visit I reproached myself and bought copper-colored scourers. It took half an hour to shine up just the interior of one small "stainless" skillet, using first soaking and dish liquid, then baking soda, then vinegar fizzing the baking soda, meanwhile scrubbing until the copper scrubby was in shreds. Then several rounds in the dishwasher. All this did not vanquish the brownish varnish, but it did make the pizza pan peel.

I settled for 50 percent improvement. Then on another day I began lapidary work on the pan's exterior, but soon lost heart.

One day this summer I bought new dishes and bowls and felt like a bride. But I forgot about the dowdy pans until today. Not an hour later I ordered a new nonstick pizza pan, small skillet, and omelet pan. Please see the photo, which I display as art, hoping you might validate my inkling that buying new was a good and reasonable thing to do.

Please Re-Lease Me

October 1 came and went and no new lease arrived in the mail, and the landlord's office said somebody else had to decide, and meanwhile I feared that the delay meant eviction.

Months went by. I kept paying rent thinking, where would I go?  I guess I could be happy anywhere, I said, knowing that each day I woke up in a tiny (affordable) apartment or trailer or shack, even with better carpeting than now, I'd be heartbroken: 100 acres, gone! Porch, lizards, woodpeckers and hummingbirds, crocuses and mushrooms, firebowl and two-car garage -- gone! I couldn't live -- I couldn't make it! (Oh, come on, I thought. This is not Syria. You could rent a two-bedroom in the part of the city that only looks like Syria.)

Crocuses appeared March 12 this year.

After five months I learned that the people who'd routinely mailed the lease had retired and the new employees were months behind on their work, and the lease was now ready to sign, all backdated to October.

But modified, so that every year the lease will renew automatically.

So relieved I nearly fainted. I will probably stay here the rest of my life, I thought, and began making plans.

The Latte F-f-f-actor

A guy figured out that a millennial enjoying a $4 latte each day should invest the money instead so that 45 years from now $4 a day plus interest would amount to half a million dollars she could use to support herself in her old age. From this he developed a popular trademarked book and calculator called "The Latte Factor."

I've seen this argument also with a millennial buying and enjoying a fruit-vegetable smoothie.

Sure, "little things add up," but, did you know, fella:

• That millennial with her indulgent whipped cream mocha latte or smoothie in early afternoon might not have eaten all day. She lives with roommates (unlike Mr. Latte Factor) and one terrorizes her so she flees her dwelling and cannot cook breakfast or fix a lunch because said roommate steals or eats her food or smears it on the floor or screams when she uses the kitchen calling her a fat pig, and for some reason (like, she lives at home and the sicko is her mother or brother or nephew and half her salary goes for room and board) can't move out.
• That millennial is insomniac or severely depressed and by having coffee midday is trying to have a second start to her day to see if it will start any better.
• That millennial owes thousands in student loans, has a crummy job and boss, is the only single left among her friends, and without the daily latte there is nothing to live for.
• That millennial grew up poor and graduated from the public school system and has no idea what an investment is.
• She and her co-workers pooled what money they had and drew straws to see which one of them could have lunch that day, and she won enough for a latte and scone at the nearby coffee shop because any farther away from work and she might get sacked for coming back late. (There is a reason those scones are 700 calories apiece. They are the only food some people get all day.)

Wish I could locate another such study: A psychologist watched amazed as people waited in a long line at the bank for their entire lunch hour trying to cash their weekly paychecks, instead of eating lunch as the psychologist thought they should. Dear amazed psychologist: Until they cashed their checks they couldn't buy any lunch. Maybe their nicely bagged and frugal lunch was at their work station. Even so, the banks open at nine and close at five when these people are working, and the lunch hour is the only window of time they had.

That Is Our Choices!

Above: from the town's official newsletter

Pardon that I'm breathless, weak in the knees, I am so relieved. I fixed the dishwasher. It has taken all month. Please understand that the Divine kitchen sink -- a single sink -- is an inch too narrow to hold a nine-inch dinner plate. I'm not exaggerating. There is no space for a rack or drainboard. The dishwasher solves this. Otherwise I do dishes by washing and immediately rinsing, drying, and storing each piece before I can wash another; or do them outside.

After installing first a new latch and then a new motherboard and the dishwasher still wouldn't start, I put off and put off installing the third new part after it arrived. I couldn't face failure, nor $125 for an appliance-repairman housecall (that doesn't include labor and parts) after the $207 already spent on new parts; or a sickening $750 for a new dishwasher. Buying a used model would need a truck and friends to haul the used one in and haul the fritzed one away -- to where?

Fed up with being responsible for everything, absolutely everything, with yet more snakes wriggling out of my fireplace (!), I cried while unboxing the third new part and facing the screws and wires and pressure of high-stakes better-do-it-right -- without knowing how! Why not just call a repair place?! I almost did.

Yet if I installed the part and the machine didn't work, I'd be no worse off than I was. I gave it one last shot. It worked. The stress in my body released all at once. Shaking, I carefully placed a single dish inside, and sat next to it reading a book for two hours as it cycled, in case it flooded (flooded the new kitchen flooring and all the related, detailed wood-filler, paint and caulking?! I would die!) or exploded, etc. Works great.

I had promised myself ice cream if I repaired it. Actually, I promised myself fine pearl earrings but that money went for replacement parts. I was, and remain, too spent to go get ice cream. And so ends the month of Clean It Up, Fix It Up, Paint It Up -- the City of Pacific's motto. That is our choices!

Trying to Give Money Away

I've always hated tipping, thinking I always do it wrong, just as I hate splitting restaurant checks 50-50 and seeing in my lunch-mate's eyes that they feel screwed and think less of me because I had wine or dessert and they didn't, and I also hate the math of figuring how much to the dime I owe, or pulling out the calculator. You know what I really really hate? A first date who takes me for coffee, and I always order only a coffee (rarely, if I'm hungry, a roll too) and he pays for mine and his, like, $5.50 total, and then he takes the receipt and CAREFULLY FOLDS IT, like, with two hands, actually taking his time creasing it, and carefully tucks it in his wallet, and elaborately restores his wallet to his back pocket with the air of having just sacrificed his firstborn for the good of the tribe, and next time that happens I will run away screaming.

Ahem. 'Tis the season to tip the mail carrier and the trash-pickup man. The trash truck arrives about 12:30 on Thursdays, and when it does I plan to trot down the hill with a holiday card and envelope with money and wish him "Much Joy," he whose fate it is to smell my trash all year, and once it had maggots and I hope he will forgive me. Outside starting at 12:15, so I won't miss him, I do some raking and yard work, glancing downhill toward the road, hearing cars approach and pass, but not the trash truck's snorting and apnea.

I am in fact deeply ashamed because the last few years I have not tipped him. Things were too tight to give a proper tip; it might be insulting if I gave less. The trash-truck driver had for a couple of Christmases left a blue envelope wishing me season's greetings, signed Dale, and I filled it only once, and I wanted today to make up for that and be appreciative. Somebody loves him. (I always used to say when construction workers blocked the roadway and Demetrius, who was driving, would swear and mutter mean things about their bellies: "Somebody loves him as much as I love you.")

Twelve-thirty passes and the truck does not come and still does not come. Finished raking, I commence sweeping. It's been a half hour. Has he already made his rounds and the trash bin at the foot of the hill is empty? I go and check. No, he's not been here yet. He's late. I don't know him. It doesn't matter. I'm tipping today.

Everyone knows, right, that if you want your name to be called or your bus to arrive, you go to the lavatory or get a drink of water or light a cigarette, and the minute you do that here it comes. So, at about 1:30 I slip indoors for a drink of water, watching out the window all the while. Outside I keep the weather eye -- dark clouds blanketing the west and southwest -- holding the card in hand, and finally I hear a truck and walk down the hill. The mail carrier's vehicle pulls up to the mailbox.

I have no choice but to hand the envelope to the mail carrier with good wishes; she's truly the greatest, and I bet she makes four figures in tips at Christmas, and walking uphill with mail I realize with chagrin that I wrote on that card "Waste Management," but a tip is a tip, and my heart's in the right place, and I guess it's okay.

Maybe, I think, I got the pickup calendar wrong and the trash truck won't come at all today. In the house I prepare another card and envelope with money in it, and just as I rip open the day's mail, the trash truck roars up and halts with a great squeal of brakes. I grab the envelope and lope down the hill waving it, calling "Wait, wait!" And the truck pulls away without emptying the trash and goes on its way!

Did I look crazy or threatening? Is a 60-year-old lady wearing sweats and rhinestone specs running toward your vehicle and flailing a terrifying vision? (I can see how it might be to a guy in his 20s.) Did he interpret my signaling as "Don't take my trash"? Had he perhaps not showered today and felt he wasn't fit for human contact? Did he know it was a tip and he is one of those too proud to take anything? Did he think I might have an emergency and he didn't want to get involved?

Now I must phone the trash company and tell them he didn't take my trash. Or rather, so he won't get in trouble, phrase it in the passive voice: "My trash was not picked up."

I Don't Miss T.V.

I love TV and I owe it for all the Three Stooges, Mighty Mouse, Red Skelton, Dave Clark Five, Monkees, Partridge Family, America's Most Wanted (my favorite program for 11 years!), and Beavis and Butt-head it's given me. And Judge Judy. For the last three years hers has been the only show I DVR'd or sat down to watch. I pay only for local channels; no HBO or Comedy Channel, so I never saw Stephen what's his name or the Jon guy who just retired, or binge-watched anything, nor have I ever seen Downton Abbey or Orange is the New Black, or watched anyone beheaded, so have no water-cooler talk whatsoever. Even this little thread-end of satellite service cost me $36 monthly.

Furthermore I heard someone say CNN stood for "Constant Negative News." Called the Dish people and "suspended" my service. That costs $12 a month and after 3 months it goes back on full blast.

In the surprise of the century, fearing withdrawal symptoms, within a day I lived just fine without it. The days have more hours. I wake earlier. When I see TV at the gym -- often tuned to a "house hunting" show -- it looks and sounds absurd. Glimpses of dramas show me lots of dead bodies. Maybe breaking a habit that stretches back at least 55 years -- almost back to the dawn of television itself; I never knew a world without it --was so painless because it's summer. I ordered some books. I'm trying new habits of thought. TV was filler. No one ever died wishing they'd watched more TV.

Does Your Car Stink?

Cars mostly don't stink unless owners treat them like garbage scows, as did Demetrius, who also cut personal physical gases in his car, locked and left it so that the smell marinated all night, and to his surprise in the morning it had persisted and was enough to choke a moose, knock a buzzard off a shitwagon, et cetera, and enough so he accused me of sneaking out while he was sleeping and farting up his car just for spite. This past Sunday my car began stinking, especially when I used the blower or a/c. I checked myself first. It wasn't me, nor the hiking clothes in the trunk. Drove around with the windows open. Next day, worse. Checked beneath the seats; maybe a passenger had left food there?

The last time this happened I cringed at the smell for a few weeks figuring it was just mold in the a/c that'd dry up, but finally when the fan wouldn't turn and instead emitted a dreadful noise I went to my mechanic. He gave me the look that men give women when the woman says, "What stinks in here?" He returned to the waiting area with a huge wad of fuzz, shreds, and hay: a mouse nest, as disgusting to him as it was to me; the mouse had nested in the cabin air filter, which isn't accessible unless the glove box is removed by someone who knows how. That mechanic retired soon after. So I told my new mechanic what I suspected. Not only was it a mouse nest--Jeff put it in a box and showed me; it was a good 12 inches across--but it had a dead baby mouse in it, which he didn't show me. "Aww, poor mousie," said his wife, the clerk, as I paid her $47.

Propane and Anti-Pane

August is the best (cheapest) time of year to fill propane tanks; and having previously spent $880 for a fill three years ago, I had saved $1000 toward this new tankful.
I hated my propane company, so I phoned the company the lady at the copy shop recommended and asked what the stuff was going for.

"One ninety-nine a gallon," said the clerk, "and one eighty-nine a gallon if you pay within five business days."

I hadn't heard a price this low in a decade. Before signing up on the website I beheld a referral program that gave the referrer a $50 credit--and, unbelievably, $50 credit for me too! So I hurried to the copy shop. "This isn't about copies," I told the lady. Together we filled out and submitted the online form; they phoned within two hours. Three days later the tank-truck driver checked my furnace, stove, and regulator, and cleaned out the squirrel's nest that has occupied the tank's cap for years, and showed me how to shut off the valve in case I had to. They'll also monitor the supply and top it off. Thank you, God, for making me smart enough to relinquish control of my propane supply.

The total for 300 gallons: Abut $570.00. I then went hog-wild and bought a new-with-tags suit on eBay for $30 and two pairs of white double-layer socks. (No, I won't wear the suit and socks together, but there's some folks who wouldn't be surprised if I did.)

Ask and Y'all Shall Receive

I dared myself to attend a "Laughter Yoga" class and became a regular. Our weekly games, exercises, stretches, and meditation are led by a trained leader who knows all the medical reasons why laughter is good for health. "Laughter Yoga" chapters exist worldwide.

We meet Mondays. During guided meditation we are asked to thank the universe for all we have and make one request. Normally I want for nothing, but this time I asked for $300 (heating bills larger than expected). In Wednesday's mail came an unusually early birthday gift from my mother, an unusually generous $300 check, and also -- the cherry on top! -- a letter forgiving a $50 parking ticket I and a dozen others received while attending a special event. We had been told where to park so as not to be ticketed; we did so and all got tickets anyway, and worse, a bill in the mail after we'd complained. As of Wednesday all our tickets were forgiven.

With the day's mail in hand I laughed and laughed, especially at the extra $50.

This had to be the 50th or 100th time in life I've received deliverance on request, of all kinds from all sorts of sources, and it can't be mere 21st-century New Age magickal claptrap. I learned some time ago that "Amen" means "So be it" and yesterday that one possible source of the word "Abracadabra" is the Aramaic phrase avra kehdabra, meaning “I will create as I speak."

I Hire a Wardrobe Consultant

I followed a sudden, unprecedented impulse to hire Dacy of MindfulCloset to re-dress me and yesterday bagged up clothing that no longer fit: 44, count 'em, 44 pieces of business clothing: pants, skirts, suits unworn since the workdays of 1997-2010 or that I wore with safety pins and grieved in because their waistlines measured 26" and mine didn't anymore. This seems trivial, but in business it matters very much. I'm a professional editor and when I go out I have to look well-edited.

I told Dacy, a girlish 36, that although those mostly black and funereal clothes didn't fit, I felt bad leaving them (and thus those days) behind. She told me to picture the future wearing new stuff I'd look awesome in and absolutely love.

Our free consultation was right here. We did a questionnaire and paged through some fashion books seeking looks I liked (Coco Chanel!) and what else I favored (solid colors, fur or mohair or cashmere, comfort, durability, linings, pants pockets, necklines with space for jewelry). I showed her my closet, what I wore, didn't or couldn't wear. She measured me and gave me a choice of shopping with her or she'd shop for me, bring the clothes over, let me try them on, and return those I didn't want. I chose the latter (I hate shopping for clothes, or rather, I suffer: they never have my size; I don't know who sells classic clothes; I'm hustled or ignored by salespeople; I don't have hours to crawl the malls, and pricetags scare me. I bought almost all my clothes on eBay and paid a tailor to fit them to my then-body). Consultant to many, Dacy  (pictured) knows where to shop and she came over with several armsful (with her own rolling clothes rack) for me to choose from.

I could just weep for joy, imagining the confidence I will have when clothes fit, are pretty colors, hide my figure flaw (yes, I've got only one), and make people say "You look stunning" -- because I am!

MindfulCloset service costs $45 an hour, but my services cost rather more and I know when I'm more confident I'll surely draw more business. I told her I'd pay for quality, durability and versatility. I will take it out of my savings because this is what savings are for. It's also a business expense.

What's left in my closet after the Great Purge: One dress (black). One suit (black). One pair of pants (black). One skirt (brown). One summer dress. One beloved too-tight suit (navy) to take to the tailor to see if she can "let it out" and make it wearable again.

Stripping It Bare

Sav-A-Lot became the Eureka Market this past year, but a few weeks ago it shocked me with a message in stark black Magic Marker on the door: "DUE TO THE ECONOMY THIS STORE IS CLOSING." It is now its final week, has emptied all but about 10 percent of its normal stock and is selling it all cheap. I have shopped there -- not as my primary store but as a reliable source of canned beans and tomatoes, and real corn tortillas -- since 1999, by my reckoning about 200 times. This store has anchored this particular strip mall since 1966.

Its parking lot had cars so I went in there today, surveyed the shelves, got a cart and loaded it to the top with the last of the: pitted kalamata olives, spicy mustard, balsamic vinegar (that item never sold very well), canned tomatoes, canned artichoke hearts at half the normal price, green Tobasco, Progresso chicken-sausage gumbo for when I don't make my own, black walnuts, tiny canned shrimp, tissues, birdseed, heavy-duty foil, boxes of Jello and so on, perhaps 100 pounds of groceries, to the tune of $83, about one-third to one-half of what I would have paid for it in a normal store. Remaining is a lot of bagged candy, cake mix and canned ravioli, and sunglasses 2 for $1; but no bread, meat, milk or produce. If the boxes were mouseproof I'd have bought more cereal. The bad economy has taken so much from so many, me included. I took advantage to stock up for harder times.

I should have known this was coming when I went in needing bleach, found none, and was told "it would be in tomorrow," and when the store cut its hours and its staff (soon to be jobless), but like any death it's always a shock, and it was truly like a funeral in there today.

Bars, Fried Pies, and Stuff

New businesses are sprouting in the area. Good to see there's still small-town business and the owners think there's consumer demand and are giving the people what they want. I'm a mite concerned as to what we seem to want. New businesses:

• Bar
  
• Motorcycle shop (the town's third)
• Fried pies
• Gun shop
• Dialysis parlor
• Car-window-tinting service
• Calorie Comfort ("indulge and beat the bulge")
• 2 "urgent care" walk-in facilities

Says something about the way we live now...

Closing His Estate

I am/was Demetrius' executor, or personal representative, and yesterday went to the bank to have the notary stamp the papers that closed his estate and bequeathed me what was left in his account after his doctors and attorneys were paid. If you can choose, don't be anybody's executor or personal rep. This small estate took two years to close and its file of legal papers is two inches thick.

Oddly I was not happy to get this out of the way. My eyes filled. (I berated myself, "Don't cry in front of a notary!") Because the involvement with my friend of ten years is now truly over. When we met he was 49 and things had happened to him that I will never know. For two and a half years he underwent gruesome tests and treatments, having to realize that his early death was inevitable and largely his own fault and he couldn't do s... about it except rage and yell. In a fury he informed me, "Dying is NOT FUN!"

But I'm inclined now to quote to myself James Baldwin: "Thou knowest this man's fall; but thou knowest not his wrassling."

And now I have the money, which is soulless, without memory, which will never write, have a name, or be angry, and it's very strange to have it not having anyone to thank.

Nature Wants You to Have the Best

Had a housecat that always claimed and slept on the best chair cushion, and in winter she'd curl up wherever a sunbeam entered the window, and as the sunbeam moved, she'd inch over to stay in it, her black fur getting wonderfully warm. She wanted her favorite salmon for all meals, but she got it only on Sundays, and was persistently vocal about how unhappy she was with dry food. This cat sat on my newspaper while I was trying to read it. I shooed it off. It came back. It was communicating, "What's so interesting there that it absorbs your attention? Pay attention to me."

Cardinals stop coming to my feeder when they've plucked it clean of sunflower seeds. They'll pick them out of the assortment of millet, corn, finch seed, and other grains in normal wild-bird feed, just like they know those seeds are the most expensive in the mix.

Bunnies go right for the tenderest and tastiest things in the garden. The box turtle, like us, waited for the exact day when the cantaloupe was perfectly ripe, and the morning we ran to the garden to seize it we saw the turtle with its head stuck through the hole it'd chewed in the melon's side (even though we had the melons tied up in nylon stockings) shamelessly enjoying the sweet juicy flesh.

Young cedar trees competing with young oaks for good growing spots root themselves just inches in front of the oak, trying to get all the sun and nutrients for themselves.

Everything naturally wants the best for itself -- except human beings. I was raised to settle for what's shabby, secondhand, stale, underpaid, accepting what's below par and be glad I have it at all (called "being grateful"); let others grab the good stuff and take the leftovers ("being noble"); let people exploit and abuse me or mine without objecting (called "being polite"); sacrifice small pleasures like buying a $5 bunch of flowers because I wasn't worth it or every penny must be hoarded out of fear of the future, or to pay bills ("being frugal"). Made for a dull and bitter life. I am learning from nature that what I lived for so long wasn't life at all.

The Propane Man

That's my check for $880 he's holding, so the least he could do, I said, was pose for a picture. Love these trucks, always kept clean and bright. You remember last year I let the propane run out to nothing and sat for three days (long weekend) in a 49-degree house. Not this year, uh uh! No dumb bunny! Plus I turned up the heat by four degrees cuz no matter what you do to a log cabin it's still going to be chilly in here-the logs themselves are solid through with cold. The floor radiates cold. So this man, a very friendly propane man, is one of my truest friends. Will work for $880. (I don't want to divide that by the number of gallons and see the price per gallon, because I'll get mad.)

Recession Chic

Sunday, Hawkeye invited about 20 womenfolk to her house telling them to bring all the clothes and accessories they don't wear. We put the resulting tons of clothes on racks and tables in all five of her upstairs rooms and everyone picked out and tried on what they wanted and took home what they liked; the remainder to charity. We all got new things and no one spent a cent. Try this with your friends. The more women, the more sizes there will be to choose from, so encourage all your Lillian Russells along with your Skinny Minnies, and serve margaritas and Oreos and whoop up the hen party. As part of my haul, I got a pink T-shirt, brand-new, with hummingbirds on it. It doesn't get any better than that.

Almost a Ripoff

You would have been prouda me. At the Blank Blank in Eureka there was a sign, and here it is, plain as day, oil change for $24.99. I needed one, asked that it be added to my tire invoice, and when I gave the invoice the necessary once-over I see the price is $32.99. I piped up and said, in effect, Excuse me, wtf, and they said "surcharges" and "environmental something or other" and I asserted my Bunbun self and said, "But your sign outside says..." and they gave in, had "forgot" they'd put the sign out, so they said, and then they tapped a few keys and discounted the oil change at the "senior" rate. I did not say, "I am not a senior," because I'd figured out by then that they lived entirely in a fantasy world in which oil-change signs magically appear and disappear and a 53-year-old is a senior. Then they tried to sell me an alignment. I said you have my service record right there, it shows that you aligned me in May. They said, oh, so we did.

In these days it is so crucial to be on guard and assertive at car places; ladies, they think you have the brain of a dodo bird. This isn't the only place I had to make an effort to hold people to their advertised prices. I plan on getting a ring that looks like a wedding band so these guys in their fantasy world can fantasize that I have a husband who will come and beat them senseless.

I Join The Local-Produce Co-op

The Current newspaper announced that the local-produce co-op, Community Helpings Co-op, was going to add Pacific to its list of every-two-weeks delivery points, and it needed 26 orders to make Pacific a regular stop. I've always wanted to join and support a co-op and local farms, so I signed up and paid online -- except I made a mistake. Instead of just one basket I ordered two "baskets" of produce by accident, and couldn't figure out how to cancel the extra order, so I got my new neighbor Sally to agree to take the extra bag off my hands for free.

So on a hot afternoon the refrigerated truck drives up to the picnic shelter and starts unloading, and people start distributing what ends up to be about 45 pounds of produce per order. Each order -- far bigger than any "basket" I've ever seen -- contained (contents differ with the seasons): 1 fresh pineapple, 3 big round red onions, 2 garlic heads, 6 huge peaches, broccoli head, plums and lemons galore, many fat homegrown tomatoes, a huge melon (I just measured mine: circumference 23 inches), 3 LARGE yellow summer squash, 1 large romaine head, buncha celery, 3 cucumbers, 6 kiwis, 7 ears fresh corn.

I'd brought just two small bags. I got some boxes for the overflow and people ("Why, that bag is just 'bout as big as yew are!") helped me stow it in my car.

When I got home I dragged one bag over to my neighbor: the "mistake" bag. She has a big family; she can use it.

I had also ordered from the co-op two optional items, just for me: dozen mangoes (beautiful!) and locally-made thin-pizza shells, thinking to make pizzas with produce and eat them for days. When I get into the house the phone rings. It is the co-op lady telling me I left one of my bags at the park and a kindly couple was coming to my address to bring it to me. I did not have time to say, "But wait; I think I got all my produce," because, omg, there they were pulling up at the house, dragging out yet another loaded blue co-cop bag. I gave them a bottle of port for their trouble, but now I had produce on every horizontal surface in my fridge, kitchen, dining room, and knee deep on the floor. Fortunately I have friends, and whatever they didn't take and I couldn't possibly use I set in a box down by the highway, and marked the box "FREE." Gone within minutes.

Wow, now I want to do that again! If you live in the area, check it out. If you don't, maybe there is a co-op near you.

Boy Bait

I hated selling Girl Scout cookies. I still hold the record for selling the fewest boxes – six – for Troop 114/Racine County, WI, set during the 1969 cookie season. The troop leader chewed me out. I never got over it…

So whenever I see pimply, fattish, greasy-haired, pasty-faced, bespectacled, saturnine, truculent little Girl Scouts such as I was out in front of the Sav-A-Lot or the Wal-Mart, I buy their cookies. The above photo was taken on top of my car because I keep them locked in the trunk. In the house the Peanut Butter Patties would not last four hours. I don’t care for Thin Mints, but everyone else loves them. Ladies, these are major Boy Bait. Give it to the right Midwestern man and he will chase you around the table, if he’s a spry one, or just propose marriage if he’s lazy.

Girl Scouts camping experience gave me my love for the woods and country and rocks and birds and brooks, and that is why I now live in my dream home that has all these marvels and delights on its 100 acres.

Times of the Signs, Part 1: Allenton, Mo.