Popeyes

The music at Oak Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Hernando, Mississippi, is pretty amazing, but it's not the funk or the faith that sets them apart in the Deep South - it's that fried chicken is banned from church socials.

Rev Minor enforced the ban after he became worried about his congregation's health - he was conducting too many funerals.

There goes another good thing!

You Are My Griping Team

I saw this story on the BBC News iPad App and thought you should see it:

TV star suspended for anti-gay views

Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson has been suspended from the show following derogatory remarks about homosexuality.

This is typical for the liberal media. My view is that the guilt lies with the one who asks the question: do not ask, if there is a chance to get an undesirable answer. Unless they give me a list of questions with the desired wording of the answers, I will utter my own opinion. If their specified answers do not reflect my own views, I will not consent to be interviewed.

Read more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25444631


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The BBC is not responsible for the content of this e-mail, and anything written in this e-mail does not necessarily reflect the BBC's views or opinions. Please note that neither the e-mail address nor name of the sender have been verified.

To Beauty queens and those who wish to compete, as well as to all gullible health nuts.

All around the globe there is talk about medications that will reduce wrinkles, one of the major concerns with people who wish to "remain young". Some of these treatments are truly effective. They use compounds that relax facial muscles which, in this example, cause one to raise one's eye brows which leads to wrinkles in the forehead. The treatment, of course, work on the flow of the appropriate signals to and from the brain. A study conducted in Zurich - my hometown! - indicated that in the test case not only the targeted muscles were affected. It turns out that very near the area of the brain that controls the facial muscles associated with forehead wrinkles lies the area that controls sensitivity and reflectivity in the hands! It should not come as a surprise that the study revealed a change in dexterity / sensitivity in the hands as a byproduct of the 'treatment to reduce wrinkles on the forehead'. The point is that chemicals (more approvingly known also and pharmaceuticals or medicines) introduced into our bio-system do not necessarily restrict their influence to the areas targeted by the designer. Of course there was no time lost to object by the various national and international health authorities and the manufacturer of the medication in question. One said the treatment in question has been proven safe and the other insists that the medication had been approved and the test sample was too small to be significant.

I have the feeling that the pharmaceutical world and the producers of iPhone and smart phone apps have the same problem: they must be out on the market before the competition, or they lose practically all the investment made in the preparation for the 'coming out'. In the case of an app, that investment is small. In the case of the pharmaceuticals it is often mind boggling huge. While the apps creators simply harass you with a never ending stream of 'updates' which simply address mistakes that could have been prevented if proper diligence had been exercised earlier in the game, there is also no time for the pharmaceutical industry to exercise proper diligence, so, once out on the market with a product, they keep their fingers crossed and wait for the complaints to come in. Then, they first take cover behind the  'authorities' who approved the product in the first place, and only next will they go to work on remediation.

So, my thought an my advise are: be aware of the snake oil salesman. His actions not only concern forehead wrinkles, but everything from anemia to zits.

Boccalino

A boccalino is a small ceramic vessel shaped like a little jug. Whatever its origin, it is used as a drinking vessel in the areas around the Veltlin. It is for the enjoyment of red wine, like the Veltliner, of course. We have twenty-four of then, one set in blue and another in a red pattern on white base. The pattern is  a sort of folkish design, like fern leaves wrapping themselves around the vessel. I'm telling you all this because I do not expect you to know about it. This is not part of a standard liberal arts education hereabouts, nor is it what one would seek out when traveling Europe. Guide books and booked tours don't get you there. I had the advantage to have lived thereabouts for almost thirty years, so it is part of my mother's milk.

The way we got two dozen of those is common. One day, coming home from work in NJ, I was received at the door by Tiiu, my beloved, then my wife of about four years. She wore a puzzled look on her face which noticeably contrasted with the usual glee she displayed on my return home in those days. She also began to hum and haw during the early stages of our reunion that evening, until I finally received my prompts and asked "what's the matter" perhaps even adding 'my love' or something to that effect but I do not remember things that clearly after forty five years. She led me into the family room where she pointed to a shipping box, open, with wrapping materials flowing about and said "Look!" As I looked and searched the packaging I came across a boccalino and, holding it up, exclaimed, "A boccalino, how nice! Mims (my mother's nick name) must have sent us these. Did she? How lovely! Let's open a bottle of Chianti (the closest thing to Veltliner one could find then and there) and try them. Tiiu's puzzled look increased. "Why," she asked, "would your mother send us twelve of those little creamers? And how do you relate this to opening a bottle of wine?"

Some years later, we were living in Switzerland then, Lulu came visiting and we took a trip up to Bivio on the Julier Pass. We stayed in the Post Hotel there, which I "knew" from the years before the war, when our family used to travel south for Easter to visit my dad's lather in Desenzano, Italy, on the south end of the Lago di Garda. Our plan then was for Lulu and me to hike across the mountains, south to the shores of the Silvaplana Lake, where Tiiu would pick us up, having driven the car over the pass into the Veltlin, bringing Iivo and Kaarin along. Bivio is a small place on the way up the pass when you come from the north. It is on a sort of a large shelf just before you get into the serpentine that leads up to the the mountain ridge and back down the south slope to St. Moritz. We always used split our trips south at that point. The owner of the hotel had a son of our age, that is just between Lulu and me, and we always had a memorable time playing outside at the back of the hotel. There was a little brook babbling down the rock-strewn pastures and it made a beautiful place to build dams and cause floods and get all wet and dirty. One visit we constructed a little waterwheel from twigs and scrap wood and mounted it of small rocks in the course of the brook and watched it turn in the bubbling flow of the clear water that we would unhesitatingly drink while playing, dipping our faces right down into the chill.

During this visit that I am talking about, some thirty years after the events I just related, Iivo and Kaarin were asleep in their beds upstairs, the three of us sat in the dining room of that hotel after a wonderful dinner of Bündnerfleish (the air-dried beef of the Grisons), dark, crusty bread, sweet, fresh butter, and Veltliner, which we drew from a large barrel set into the wall of the dining room, into our boccalini. It was an honor system maintained by the hotel management  and we kept tabs with a ballpoint pen on a coaster so we would not short the house. We saw our host come in and greet his guests and eventually he made his way to our table, introduced himself, and said to me, "I noticed your name in the registration book and it looks familiar. Can you give me some help in finding if we have met before?" Well, making the story short, he was the son of the owner who had hosted us before the war, the same boy we had had so much fun with some thirty years ago.

You see, life is full of discovery, and if you keep your eyes closed, you miss a lot of good stuff. So, sitting down in the dining room, I explained 'boccalino vs. creamer', opened a bottle of Chianti and reminisced with Tiiu, and we spent yet another a delightfully memorable evening together.

Later, Mims sent us another dozen, having forgotten that we already had a fair share of those treasures, and they all became part of our household, traveled with us from NJ to Switzerland and down to VA and up to VT and over to MA and back down to NC where they are now, with hardly ever any use for them except stirring memories.

Today, I prepared my dinner and decided to have my wine from one of those boccalini. Yesterday I used a red one. Today it is a blue one. The wine I have is neither Veltliner nor is it Chianti. There was a bottle of Rex Goliath Pinot Noir in the rack and it serves well. After cooking and dinner and all this reminiscing and writing, it is still more than half full. Who cares it is a 1.5 liter bottle? Memories - that's all.

Technology

There is the 'big Mac', and then there is the iPad and also the iPhone. I should be allowed to think that this is enough to keep me going.

But no!

There is also the HP air printer down here in NC and the one up there in VT and together they amount to a heap of trouble.

I just had an encounter with one great business I am dealing with. They had put completed forms relating to transactions I had initiate on my web account and I was expected to print them out, sign them and return them to their address. The law, apparently, does not allow electronic signatures in the present case, so we were locked in with USPS or Messenger Service.

Well, in anticipation of this important and time sensitive event I checked out my systems and found everything working just fine. The log-on worked and the site opened up and the place where the forms were going to be were accessible and a trial print with a document from another file worked very well to expectations.

D-day came and there was a conference call and the various steps were discussed and explained and the web site was opened and the forms were displayed and the print button was found and activated and - nothing. The printer that was supposed to spring into action and shake, rattle and roll before starting to produce an orderly print issued not even a faint hick-up.

It was decided to abandon the high tech path of action and engage a messenger service for overnight delivery of the documents to my door and I would receive, sign, repacka nod return by fax. This thing is time sensitive, you know, and if things don't happen, the law has means to transfer slices of the object to undeserving recipients.

So, to give greater assurance to eventual success, I started to trace the problems. First, I found out that my the 'big Mac' could not find the printer! Hear, hear, where did you find it yesterday? Well, today it was not there. I went to the HP hep site and was told to check for software updates. I did. Turned out that my Mac wanted to receive Mavericks X so the air printer would operate properly, and I spent about two hours to get that downloaded over the super fast network connection. Then, back to HP we went and I was asked to look for more software updates. There were five of them. Attempting to get them all, I hit the bitten 'Update all' and things really got rolling. Two of them started right away and spent some time calculating the length of time to complete the transfer of the updates. The first one reported in with a frowning lay accepted 4 hours and 20 minutes, the second one wanted one day, seven hours, and 45 minutes.

Forget the time sensitivity. I have sensitivities also. Mine come first. If I had not in time remembered the price tag attached to this communication system, it would have gone out through the window. But let's give it another chance.

Sometime day after tomorrow I should be back in business again, in the meantime, I expect that Mac to work without breaks, without water, without sleep . . . Which reminds me - my settings allow it to go to sleep after about thirty minutes without keyboard activity. If I go now to settings to eliminate this contract clause between and the Mac! Will I have to start this process from scratch?

I was around at the beginning of the computer age. I worked with the old, early IBM Machines that were programmed to perform their specified tasks, using peg boards. Do you remember peg boards? If you watch very old movies, sometimes you catch a glimpse of a maid operating the party line on the local telephone net. She manually establishes connections between phone partners using long wires with plugs on each end that were pushed into hole on a large board in front of the operator and so connected the calling party with the called party. That's how early IBM business computers worked. I wish we could go back to those simple days and get on with what really matters.

The Weather Channel: Pufferfish Love Explains Mysterious Underwater Circles

 How amazing this is. Share that with my grand kids.

Cynical side thought: Darwin insists that our evolution line goes through the fish. Is this then where we must originate our love for beautiful houses?

Small pufferfish make beautiful, strange circular patterns to attract mates.

http://www.weather.com/article/pufferfish-mystery-circles-20131003

This message was sent from a friend using The Weather Channel's iPad app!.

Poached Trout

http://blogs.kqed.org/essentialpepin/2011/09/19/poached-trout-in-vegetable-broth/

The other day, I got two brown trout from Chip. He had cleaned and frozen them, and, knowing Chip, they can safely be considered fresh.

We used to have a trout feast now and then in Switzerland. There was a fish farm near Sargans and that was not a far drive from Zurich, where I lived with our parents, and it definitely was not far from St. Gallen, where we lived all four of us when I was working in Switzerland back in the first four years of the 70’s.

Trout was always considered a delicacy. It has such a tender, sweet taste, and the only way it should be eaten is fresh (!) and poached. Pan fry and grilling and all other methods just toughen the meat and take the taste out of the fish and you never know what you eat. Some recipes will just try to put some taste back into it but they never succeed. They simply want to cater to those habitual fryers. You'll agree with me once you had 'truite bleu', or 'Forelle blau'. This name, French and German, means 'blue trout' which I have never heard used here in the states. The name comes from the fact that the skin of the freshly caught rainbow trout takes on a soft blue hue when it is poached. But it must be fresh! Wherein lies the problem for us.

Anyway, there were the three brown trouts Chip had caught one recent morning at the Harriman Reservoir down near the Whitingham water lock (where the water enters the pipe to the powerhouse). The first one I tried grilling - more for speed than expecting good taste and only I can be blamed for the relative disappointment. I grilled it in lemon butter and while the taste was not bad at all, the texture was totally wrong. I served it with stir fried peppers, yellow, green, red and orange, and a fresh spinach salad with Catalina dressing, of course. I also served some St. Michelle Gewürztraminer. As far as it goes, it was not a smash, but it was good.

So, for the next round, I planned my preferred poaching. The link above gets where I was while I prepared the meal. Since I usually have not much luck by cutting recipes down to 'serves one' I decided to serve four, the original recipe. After all, I had the fish for the four filets Pépin is asking for.

Let me tell you: Jacques Pépin tells you to serve the meal on a soup plate. That's OK, but choose a soup plate with a low rim, because you'll want to lick the plate. The four servings are so small, the little bit of fat you cannot show at all;) I did use only one potato instead of the two, which is prolly why the serving looks more like an appetizer than a meal. But then, we wanted trout, not spuds. Right?

Because I did not find anyone game to come and join me on short notice - that's because we all gallop through life instead of taking it at a comfortable canter - I wound up with four plates. And I ate two servings, and licked both plates. If you are alone, you can do that, even though - in my case I heard Mims call out her sharp 'Richard', which always meant that I had shocked her in one way or another. Quite a shake-up, if you think you are alone.

I used a South African Chenin Blanc in the recipe, to keep me from suffering in the kitchen, to stay with me for dinner.

This wine was produced by MAN Vintners in 2011. They give their address as Paarl, In the South African Republic. If you search for that on Google World, you see what an obviously blessed wart of our world this is. I won't give you all that talk of berries an fruit and oak and stuff. This wine is good! Balanced, pleasing bouquet, not overly dry and by no means sweet. Just beautiful. 

I send you this a a monument of a memorable dinner.

With love, and never fading wishes to share some of all this with you,

Isa 

Evening

The sun is setting. The sky is a beautiful azure blue, tinting to yellow and pink at the eastern horizon. Clouds are drifting slowly, sharply defined in white and black and all tones between by the sun, which is from our view already below the horizon. The cows are out on the pasture. Jason has opened another strip of unmowed grass and they are all crowding the new fence line. Slowly, this line is moved up the hill and soon will reach the fixed fence line up by our house. All is still. Once it is dark, the air outside wil vibrate with the calls of the croakers in the pond.
The 'Chipsters' have just left. We had Market Basket Pasta Salad mixed with hot Italian sausage, and fresh spinach with Catalina Dressing, Grüner Veltliner and Paisano, and lively talk and a good time.
Tomorrow, to my great surprise, the 'Dougs' will come for another evening of BBQ pizza - stuff heaped on factory made pies by Mama Mary. They are not bad at all. On the fire, they turn nice and crispy by the time the cheese on top starts bubbling.
After that, I think I should plan to get Winnie and Poo over here. Then Tiido and Anni, the super liberals. Gotta keep the talk away from social policies and politics! By that time, my social pool will be exhausted and I will probably start a fresh round. The DePalos will lead. With Italian and Allemanic genes, liveliness is assured.
I closed all windows. It is getting seriously chilly outside. The forecast calls for 32 degrees as the low for the coming night. In the house, the temp barely reaches the upper sixties. One does get hardened up here! How am going to take the balmy weather of the NC winter?

Protect the criminal!

When we got up in arms against Iraq, the talk about chemical weapons soon became the chief theme. There were the attacks by Sadam's forces on the Kurds and it was basically understood that in these attacks chemical weapons were used by the Iraqis. Nothing affirmative was done by the the West in response, except voicing regret over the loss of thousands of civilian lives. Other than 'humanitarian reasons', the second Bush war, as it sometimes was named, had one of the main objectives to capture Sadat himself and to find these chemical weapon arsenals and to finally prove that he actually had them, and their use against the Kurds was 'very probable' and the danger of their use against the US and UN troops was considered very likely as a last defense once the noose around the Iraqi troops tightened. Of course we never found this evidence and had to live with these traces of egg in our faces. By some 'sources' it was implied that we had been making war against an upright and honest leader of one of the world's nations. We became the bad guys.
Technology that came into use during this second war against Sadam was amazing, even in its reduced form in which it was presented to the public. Among other tools used was satellite communication and high altitude radar surveillance and troops were directed by their commanders sitting in front of computer screens fed by GPS systems, displaying the location of every vehicle and sometimes every soldier. In connection with other information about the enemy's position, they conducted their campaigns pretty much like playing a war game on the computer. So we were told.
Soon new reports about the imminent collaps of the Iraqi defense were heard. Also, it was reported that columns of trucks were observed moving east through the desert of Iraq towards the Syrian border. Speculation was heard that these transports were carrying the very chemicals the West was expecting to find in Iraq. No action was allowed. International law and bunches of other liberal arguments were used to justify the allied inactivity to stop these transports.
We now have to face the reality: Sadam, for whatever reasons he had, did not wish to use these weapons, and, realizing that his cause was lost, sent his arsenal to his brothers in Syria. We knew that, did we not? But we denied it or simply never again mentioned it. Now in the civil war in Syria we have to face up to the fact: Syria does have chemical wheapost. And the 'most likely' used them in an attack by the dictatorial regime against its native opposition. The UN, which has sent 'experts' to 'investigate' the 'truth' of these reports (of the use of chemical weapons against civilians) continues to 'investigate'.
I was a young boy when I overheard talk about the split tongue of the Nazi regime which eventually, with the aid of Chamberlain's umbrella diplomacy ended in WWII. And again, we watch the modern Chamberlains in action. Buckle up!

Evening

Evening

Last evening, sitting on the deck, I heard the bellowing of a cow down below. She was hidden from my sight by the dam of the pond. Some of her companions browsed in the grass, visible from where I sat. After a while, the bellowing stopped; Morse's farm was richer by one calf.

This evening - the same scene. The herd is browsing in a section of the pasture down towards the wood line, opened by Jason just today. I miss the ringing of the bells cows wear in Switzerland. There is nothing more expressive of peace than the soft clanging of the bells around a grazing herd's necks in the evening. The bellowing has stopped. Another calf is born.

The sky is covered with a grey haze, slowly turning pink in the setting sun. A gentle breeze rustles the leaves of the linden tree next to me. And sporadically the croakers holler up from the pond. Else, all is quiet. The low, constant roar I hear is but the rushing of my own blood.

There are trees that show unmistakable signs of fall in the woods. Some tree tops are brown. It cannot be the result of drought, as we claim in other years. this summer we had was so wet as to worry the farmers. Steve Morse must have lost tons of hay and much of what was gathered was of low quality because the seeds remained on the stalk too long before cutting was possible. On the side of the road leading down to the school there is a young maple fully dressed in the beauty of fall colors: red, yellow, some green leaves remain. The tree next to it, a mature, tall maple, it still fully green. Prosaic Chip's answer to my remark is a laconic 'bugs'. I look at him. He repeats 'bugs'. If he is right, it seems to me, the woods around here will not survive many years. This is just the end of August. Yet another four weeks before the end of summer. 

But the moment, today, tonight, are full of miracles.

Harvest

Ever since Karl left, and also left his very fruit production behind for me, I had progressively decreasing harvest in the berry patch. So, in order to increase my haul, I left the bushes alone for the last five days. They are loaded with green berries, our nights are cool, so I thought I give them a bit more time tha rad them daily.

Yesterday, I went to pick again, like I said, after five days, and carried a big bucket to hold the expected bounty. Below is a picture of what there was to harvest. What is going on? I at last remembered my observations from last year and, indeed, there was this tell-tale double track of some heavy animal coming from the woods to the pond in a straight line, broad legged and with inward turned front paws. The tracks are not photogenic, else I would send you a picture. But it seams the bear is back and eating my breakfast under cover of the night.

I tried to get this picture on the blog, but could not. I signed up to 'g+' and got the app. I found many pictures there, all of those shots from Ema and my trips that were not even taken with the iPad or the iPhone, but practically none of the recent shots taken with one or the other of the two. I wish I could figure out what makes these systems work? Does anybody know?

------------------

Laurie's Editorial Note:
I received this as an email, with photo attached. 
I cut and pasted the content of the email into this blog post. 
As for the photo, I told it to "download" to my computer when I opened the email. 
I saved a jpg copy on my desktop. 
I chose the little "add photo" block on the taskbar within Blogger.  (It is next to the word "Link" just slightly left of center.) 
When it asked me to select files, I chose "from desktop" over on the top of the menu on the left sidebar, then selected the jpg I had saved and told it to import selected. 
Voila!  The photo appeared above. 
By clicking directly on it, you can change the size, the position, whether text wraps around it or leaves it alone, etc.
Hope that helps!

Old man sailing

You an'me, we sweat an' strain,
Body all achin' an' racket wid pain,
Tote dat barge!

Lif' dat bale!

For two days now, 'my body's all aching' . . . But at long last I did get my boat in the water. She floated! The sails went up, I cast off the dock lines.

The outing was planned for Monday, but early morning there were thick clouds in front of the rising sun and no wind. Sailing with no wind - well. After weeks working on a system to get that mast up by myself and then working on this messed up rigging that she brought with her, I wanted to see her and feel her in her element. But without wind - well . . . So, I postponed my departure from home for the lake and somewhere around nine or a bit later I saw some leaves shake in the trees and decided to try it anyway. Got to the lake about ten and worked with this mast raising system and got the boat ready to launch by about noon. 

The launch was a first for me. I had never before practiced to back that trailer, but eventually I got it down into the water. That ramp on the Harriman reservoir is so flat, I wound up with my car standing in water with all four wheels, the exhaust bubbling under water before I got that boat to float. I set sail and cast off in a nice breeze a little later, heading south towards the dam. The wind was fresh and the boat felt fine. Cruising comfortably before the wind, she was very sensitive to the rudder and felt properly trimmed, keeping on course even when I let the tiller go.

About two miles down, the lake takes a turn and I drifted into chaos. Either the light air we had so far had died that moment, or it was belt back by the surrounding hills. When there was a puff, it came unpredictably from any direction of the wind rose. The sails hung from the mast, flopping back and forth and the boom swing overhead you would not have dared raise your head from between your shoulders. It is kind of frustrating to see swarms of  kayaks pass you while you are fighting to catch every breath heaven sends you. And there were many, many Kayaks. I really felt in the wrong company. The vision of a yacht slicing the waves majestically under full sail remains a dream under such conditions and is replaced by a vision of laundry hanging from a pole.

After a long time of fruitless maneuvering I gave up on reaching the dam and turned back. As soon as I turned the bend of the lake where this mess had started, I caught wind. The turbulence on the water then was on account of the hills. The breeze had freshened to about seven or eight mph and made for nice runs, tacking up to the north. With every stronger puff the boat luffed determinedly and one had to give constant attention to tiller and the control of the sails. The kayaks were on their way back up also, hugging the shore line and it so happened that at every point where I intended to tack, there were some of them. This lake is a bit narrow with the wind coming straight down through the valley. Thus, I had only a few hundred yards of straight sailing before I had to get out of my seat, switch to the other side and reset the sails. Also, the wind kept turning about ninety degrees and just when I got all settler after the turn it would shift ant instead of coming hard on the bow it would hit square into the side and the boat would leap forward with sudden speed and heel, at one point some thirty degrees, at which point the water is rushing past the gunnals. Action was uninterupted. But she kept moving along and after each heel righted herself proudly.

Eventually I got to the northern end of the lake. No big kayak traffic there. I had space to take the sails down and get my electric motor started and cruise back down that half mile or so to the dock. Maneuvering the boat to the dock with that motor was a joy. fortunately, the dock lies in a protected area and I had not to fight strong wind with its mere 3 HP. I got packed up and ready to head home just before total sunset.

About half way home, the trailer hitch released and the trailer reared up on my tail gate and the boat came through the rear window with a sound like a canon shot and in the rear view mirror the bow of the boat inside the car  looked as if the great white shark was rearing up behind me.

I was able to unhook the trailer, but it was too heavy for me to get the nose wheel down so I drove home and went looking for Chip. It was a little after eight and he was in bed already, getting ready for his early rise for work the next morning. Brenda talked to me through their house door and Chip woke up and heard us and came out to see what was up and then got dressed and we headed back to the trailer. Checking everything in the beam of his flashlight, we found no damage to boat, trailer or hitch. I had put no pin in the lock because in the dark I could not find the hole and so I put my fate at his mercy. That was my mistake. But we hooked up to my car again and drove home. The abrupt stop the trailer made had caused the boat slip forward some four inches into the nose cradle and that was enough of a weight shift to give me real positive tongue weight and the boat followed the car like a well trained dog. Before the rig was bouncing around like an unbroken bronco and you could feel the jerking in the steering wheel. with the boat in the position where it settles naturally when it is pulled out of the water, it sits behind the nose cradle and leaves a tongue weight of next to none to perhaps 50 pounds. The next day I spent getting quotes for repair. Then I negotiated with the insurance agent in Goldsboro. Now I am hoping to get things rolling and the rear end repaired before the rain starts again. We have yet a few days of dry weather in the forecast.

But my physical reaction to that day on a sail boat? I am aching from the soles of my feet to base of my skull. Every muscle hurts, every joint feels like it was overworked, and I'm dragging through the day like a grandpa under the weight of a hundred or more years of his life.

But it was beautiful. For the time being, I got my fill. Four to five hours set-up and take-down is in no relation to perhaps four hours or fewer hours of sailing. But it was, all in all, a very good day. I am very much looking forward to haul this boat down to the coast of NC and have it rigged and ready to spend whole days on the water and in the winds that we often have down there.

Sailing

Sailing has been on my mind ever since I learned it as a kid in Senior High. The way this came about is a story in itself.

A school friend, Heinz, and I, in preparation of the approaching summer vacation of somewhere around 1951, developed plans to take our two paddle boats from Basel in Switzerland to Marseille on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea in France. You can follow the proposed route on a good map: our starting point was on the Rhine, just upriver from Basel, where  Heinz's parent owned a house. From there, we were to to follow the Rhine north, or downriver, to a point north of Basel where a canal crosses over to the west to connect with the river Doubs. On the map, this is by the town called Niffer, in France. We would follow tfirst this canal and then the Doubs south to its juncture with the Rhone, coming out of the lake Geneva in Switzerland and following the course of that river to Marseilles. It looks like a tremendous stretch to do if you consider that our summer vacation in Switzerland is just four weeks! But we allowed for the possibility to hitch rides with freight barges wherever the going was heavy and slow and there was no doubt in anybody's mind that the thing was doable. Our return home wast to be by train, another option that would not normally enter a native American's mind as feasible for a couple of teenagers.

I shipped my boat - a two-seater Klepper - by train from Zurich to Basel and further preparations were to be made at Heinz's house. The weather was somewhat upset. It would rain, and then the sun would break through for a few hours and we allowed some time for this to settle and enjoyed our time at the starting point. Then the rain began to get serious. We waited days, and more days, and it did not cease. One day, the news reported that the situation on the Rhine had become serious and all shipping was stopped.

You must envision the Rhine not as a placid waterway for pleasure boating and rafting and such amusements. It is a serious means of carrying goods between the sea shore through Holland and Germany and up to Switzerland. North of Basel, some substantial rivers contribute to the size of the Rhine and make traffic with deep draft boats and commercial shipping possible. Indeed, the rhine is rated the busiest shipping route in the world. Thus, when the traffic on this major artery of European Life was shut down, it meant that the situation was, indeed, serious.

We waited some days in the hope that things would clear up and then came a cal from my mother. In an newspaper ad she had discovered the Swiss Sailing School on the lake of Thun, west of the Swiss capital Bern. And she proposed that we could spend our time there more profitably than waiting at the shores of the Rhine for the waters to recede. We accepted happily. Time was running short for our original plan and we had no wish to perform a race against the calendar and wind up with only half the adventure behind us.

We loaded our camping gear on the train together with Heinz's bicycle, my mother shipped my bike to Thun; sailing was exclusively on our minds.

We set up camp on the lake shore, pedaled around the south end of the lake and registered and already on the following day we started our lessons. We liked it enough to stay two weeks, in which time we rose to the level of  'midshipmen'. At that point, Heinz packed up and went home and I staid on for another week and got to 'captain', ten, through active racing during the last week of vacation I achieved the highest grade, 'regatta sailer'. When I left, the school invited me to come back and help teaching. My parents were about to move from Zurich to Bern and I gladly accepted that invitation. Thus, I spent the next two summers on the lake of Thun, sharpening my skills in teaching and almost weekly races, and when school was on I would sometimes play hooky and pedal from Bern to the lake and go sailing. the distance was just a little over twenty miles from the school in the city to the docks at the lake and with sailing on my mind, what distance would have kept me?

On the lake of Thun, I got my 'time before the mast' on a 35 and a 45 design, both gaff rigged and like all boats back then completely mad of wood. That word 'design' signifies that the class designation was derived from a mathematical formula. The designer takes data, such as sail area, draft, displacement, beam etc. into a pot, studs it well and out come designations such as 5.5, 12, 35, 45, and so forth. The 35 was my favorite. She had been named Najade, a variation of the Greek Naida, which means water nymph, and that is what she was. A sleek little boat of about 25 feet, with a small cabin and plenty of sail to thrill the most demanding sailor, even in light winds, and with those heavy cotton sails that were in use back then. While I was there, talk began to sell the boat and I was the first to enter my bid. I was turned down! Rot had begun to show in the keel and the directors of the school said they would not sell this boat 'to one of their own'. The was a whole fleet of Pirates with which we sailed almost weekly regattas in summer, and there was that 45 design which was our major school ship for beginners' classes. The jewel of the fleet was a 12 meter design. It had been brought up from the Mediterranean Sea and converted for the use of the school. That was before the days of the 12 meter yachts used in the America's Cup. It was outfitted as a comfortable touring boat but also a very good racer. It usually went out with a crew of eight, but four could handle it in moderate winds. It's cabin was roomy and comfortable. During my vacation weeks on the lake with the school, I lived on that boat, a concession from the school because I gave my time for free. Another concession was that I could pick any boat for my private cruising unless it was scheduled for school activities or I was scheduled to take students out. In this way, I spent every summer vacation day from early morning to the evening hours on the water - two seasons of total bliss. My mother was very supportive, too. She picked up a newspaper add for a Star boat for sale on the Lake of Constance and she and I drove there to investigate. It was 'just what I always wanted, and, as a matter of fact, I had sailed on it as crew during a regatta series some time ago. I got on the boat, a wooden beauty, and eventually crawled under the fore deck where I found why the owner wanted to sell: rot in the wooden beam. That glimmer of a dream too was over. 

The next years brought college and some loss of the freedom I had enjoyed in the prior years. However, I did find entry into a sailing school in Zurich, where I attended college, so on some weekends I taught, and dating back to the days of the lake of Thun I had enough connections in the sailing world to always have more invitations than I could accept to crew in this or another regatta almost every weekend. 

The end of college brought all of my sailing to a halt. My first job, and then three years later my emigration to the US did not leave much time to even think about sailing.

When I settled in New York and later met Tiiu, I tried to interest her in my hobby, but after a couple of outings on Long Island Sound she announced with grave determination: Rich, I'll follow you anywhere, as long as the ground under my feet is solid and level.

That was the end of sailing for me for fifty years. The longing never stopped. But the alternative, to make Tiiu a sailer's widow, was no alternative to me

Well, towards the end of my 50 years exclusion from the sailing world I began to itch for getting my hand again on a tiller and the mainsail sheets. I started looking at ads everywhere I could find them and scoured Craigs lists up and down the coast. Some offers I went to look at, many I passed over, but I found that sail boats were not expensive after they had acquired some age. With Kaarin living at the North Carolina Coast, my dream was to keep the boat down there and when we went visiting we all could go for a cruise for a few hours and Tiiu could come with us or would not left alone at the shore. But the search dragged on and several interesting opportunities had to be abandoned for one reason or another.

At last, this summer of 2013, I hit the bait. I bought a 22 foot MacGregor in New Hampshire. I did not much research, but the idea was to get a boat ready to sail, bring it to the Harriman Reservoir by Wilmington in Vermont, and anchor it for the summer in the cove where the local sailing club moored their boats.

I found the boat on Craigs List, went to look at it, found it clean and apparently well kept, and bought it. Mr. B had never sailed it. He had bought it the year before from Mr. A, tried to put it in the water once but found that he had left some essential components at home and had to back with a dry boat. Shortly after that he was hospitalized for multiple bypass surgery and when he came home he decided that he would no longer be able to handle the boat. There are no lakes close and convenient where that boat was located, so I bought it sitting on its trailer and on his say-so that it was good to go. I towed it home and started to work on it. I wanted to be able to step the mast alone in my driveway before I took the boat down to the public boat launch. 

On first try, I decided that the method Mr. A supposedly had developed and used was totally impractical. He built an A-frame with two 10' 2x4 which were supposed to be resting on the safety line posts and the mast would be raised by a come-along using two single blocks, or pulleys. It was not a one-man job to handle this rig. I decided to design and build my own. The first actual attempt to raise the mast came on second iteration of my rig. It ended with a crash. Fortunately there were no injuries nor any damage. But the mast had come out of the cradle and the theory behind the design was proven feasible.

I started to do some research on the web and found that many sailers had taken the same approach to raise their masts. These boats, like the MacGregor 22 are called trailer boats because they can be hauled around on trailers, having a retractable keel. There are many of those all over the nation, many similar designs, all with the same idea and it is just a puzzle to me why there are no ready made, proven mast raising systems on the market. Of course, if you never sail one of those boats alone, you don't need one. The mas can be raised and lowered by two strong men.

That's s exactly what happened. Iivo came visiting with his family and he and Philip stepped that mast in no time. The boat was still in the driveway because I wanted to see it first rigged up completely. I'm glad we did it this way.

The boat had a jib furler which, when we got the mast up, proved to have never been fitted right. Besides, the rigid sections of the system broke at some of the intersections and I believe the thing would never have worked anyway. There were other things wrong with the standing and running gear. Mr. A apparently wanted to improve the boat, but obviously lacking the background and/or capabilities and means made a mess of it.

We took the mast down. Philip was not of the party and we had another crash. I am no longer a strong man. But nobody got hurt and there was no damage done, the mast came down in a somewhat soft landing.

Nevertheless, we decided we would take her sailing. We hooked up and also loaded Iivo's trailer with some essential water fun stuff in case not all of would fit on the boat and took off to the Wilmington launch. About halfway there, the trailer axle on the boat broke. Obviously it had seen much salt water and corrosion had given it what saltwater does to iron. So we had to have the whole rig towed off and waited for the new axel and by that time, Iivo's vacation was already over. We'll have to plan on a cruise on the Chesapeake Bay, come fall and I migrate south again. 

When Iivo's family left, I went back to work on my mast raising system. Yesterday, exactly eight weeks after I brought her home, I had the mast up and rigged somewhat properly. There is more detail work to be done, but I feel like she is ready to sail now.

I wanted to re-name her Najade, but she is no water nymph. She is plump and has a square stern, more like a motorboat than a sleek sailer. I will get her to the water first, after I took the mast down again, of course, and put her through a full days's testing if she will stand for it and then, perhaps, a new name will crop out of her character.

Heimweh

Every afternoon at four o'clock the CD starts playing. I recently loaded Richard Tauber's disk Volkslieder and the first song is Die Lorelei - Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten. . . .
It tells about a Maiden sitting on a mountain and combing her golden hair and singing a song that lets the skipper on the Rhine below forget all about himself and his boat crashes on the rocks.
It is a tale like Homer's Odyssey, the Sirens, and many other folk tales - always beautiful women luring honest working men to their doom through their enchanting music, singing, or playing the harp, or the flute. I don't know about the Sirens, though; they were part bird, part beautiful women. On the whole not very attractive. They live on the rocky shore of Italy near Sicily, probably still, just as the Lorelei is still singing on top of the mountain on the shores of the Rhine; some say she sits on a rock in the middle of the Rhinenear Bingen, a fast flowing stretch of the river where many wrecks have occurred. It does not matter: she sings, men try to reach her, they drown.
Then there is a the mermaid that sits on a rock in Copenhagen's harbor. And then there are all the stories of seamen actually seing mermaids and some ill-meaning individuals claiming that they mistook the sea cows on the Florida coast to be mermaids. I woudn't. Even after months and months at sea, crossing the Atlantic in a wooden boat in the company of coarse men and no charm anywhere.
All these stories have but one thing in common: hard-working men, defying the elements alone, longing for the comfort of woman's arms, even if it means their death.
I got to change that CD!

Reading

It is funny how memories come back. It was in my second year at college. I was a member of the film club. Every Thursday we met late in the evening to watch what we now call Ciné Noir. The title of this particular strip was 'Mephisto' and it was about some artists (in Montmartre, of course), and a motorcycle gang clad in black leathers on big brutes of bikes and they ran down all the bad guys. That's the way one was claimed for hell. The main character, in one scene, was sitting in a cafė and apparently was waiting for someone. To pass the time, he picked up a magazine from a table next to his chair. The cover was blank, except for the name of the magazine: La Nue. He leafed through it, page for page, obviously very interested in the contents of this publication. The camera swung around to look over his shoulder and one realized the the whole magazine consisted of blank pages. La Nue!
There was more content to this movie, obviously, than white magazine pages. It would not have kept its place in my memory without any. However, if you look at today's magazines, how many can claim to have improved blank pages with the contents they print?

There is a fly on my roast.

I guess it is the title that got you, Ha! But I won't keep you in suspense, for long. It is Saturday and it follows another bad night that knocked the juice out of me. There is not much left to do anything useful with this day. I got up at four this morning and read. By about seven, I decided I should start the day. There were eggs and bacon and stewed tomatoes for breakfast and I even made a small pot of coffee, which I appear to have forsaken during the past weeks (?) since Kaarin left. Then I went back to reading. From Jane Austen I propagated to Agatha Christie. Her first book was a turn-down. 'Secret Adversary' is a kiddy tale about a couple of brash, but supposedly smart youngsters bringing a bunch of criminals to heel. Well, perhaps I am getting ossified by now and I don't like brash kids who think they are smarter than we are and eventually turn out to actually be just that. Knowing what we know, i. e. experience demands a bit of respect, and deserves it, does it not?

Well the next Agatha was the Mysterious Affair of Styles and that is much better. My old friend Hercule Poirot is making his reappearance, though he is now apparently sidelined because of 'the war' and he is found in a small town in England. Somewhere near London, of course, but the only role London plays is to be the scene of the final trial and the main characters 'taking a house there' a la Jane Austen's nobility and Mr. Poirot finally getting the real culprit whose identity surprises everybody. Nice plot, nicely told.

But I am stingy: when it comes to electronic books, I don't want to pay a penny and right off the bat I have no line on more Agatha. So my next one is F. Dostoyevsky, The Grand Inquisitor. Nice switch is it not? Inquisitors are also looking out to bring culprits to court, and to make them face their well deserved punishment. Only they act within a very different environment than Agatha does. Less worldly, I guess.

Anyway, by the time I finished the Mysterious Affair I got hungry and cooked a late lunch / early dinner. I coated a top round with Grey Poupon mustard, sprinkled some salt over it and covered it with sweet onion slice - the wide part that you get when you slice large flat onions. I got my grill to about 400 to 450 degrees, dumped a fist full of apple wood chips into the bottom pan, and put the roast on the perforated veggie sheet. Setting the timer for 50 minutes, I the sliced the rest of the onion into about quarter inch slices, sprinkled a little salt and drizzled some sesame oil and soy sauce and about ten minutes before the roast was supposed to come off the fire I put them on the grill next to it. On the kitchen stove, I did a pan of Rösti. If you do 't know what that is, but are truly curious, you must ask me (schwizerbueb@gmail.com). You can also google that, but they tell you how it really is done, not the bachelor-type easy and quick way.

When the roast was finished and had sat its time on the cutting board I sliced a couple of slices and served them with the Rösti and onions and a glass of Paisano. Wonderful! There are no overwhelming or exciting tastes. Everything germanically constrained, mild, subdued, whatever. But the whole combination of flavors came through so satisfyingly, I am now on my third glass of Paisano.

What is Paisano? Well, it is a Gallo jug wine and has been around as long as I can remember. In the 'early' days, i. e. early 1960, the called it Chianti. Perhaps the emerging laws of the European Union put a halt to the naming of products that have a territorial  claim, such as Chianti (Tuscany), Camembert (France), etc. In any case, Gallo's Chianti disappeared and Paisano came in and it is the most satisfying jug wine I know. Did you know that it won the first prize at the Boston Wine Exhibition back in the late 1990’s? The judges, all gold tresses wine critics, selected it from among all entries on the basis of what came from unlabeled bottles. It must have been a riot! The cheapest of all wines on site being judged the best.

I'm getting carried away. The fly? Oh yes, the roast had a streak of fat and I cut it out and set it aside. That's where I saw the fly. There is only one in the house. It Isa true house fly.

There is a fly on my roast

I guess it is the title that got you, Ha! But I won't keep you in suspense, for long. It is Saturday and it follows another bad night that knocked the juice out of me. There is not much left to do anything useful with this day. I got up at four this morning and read. By about seven, I decided I should start the day. There was eggs and bacon and stewed tomatoes for breakfast and I even made a small pot of coffee, which I appear to have forsaken during the past weeks (?) since Kaarin left. Then I went back to reading. From Jane Austin I propagated to Agatha Christie. Her first book was a turn- down. 'Secret Adversary' is a kiddy tale about a couple of brash, but supposedly smart youngsters bringing a bunch of criminals to heel. Well, perhaps I am getting ossified by now and I don't like brash kids who think they are smarter than we are and eventually turn out to actually be just that. Knowing what we know, i. e. experience demands a bit of respect, and deserves it, does it not?
Well the next Agatha was the Mysterious affair of Styles and that is much better. My old friend Hercule Poirot is making his reappearance, though he is now apparently sidelined because of 'the war' and he is found in a small town in England. Somewhere near London, of course, but the only role London plays is to be the scene of the final trial and the main characters 'taking a house there' a la Jane Austin's nobility and Mr. Poirot finally cornering the real culprit whose identity surprises everybody. Nice plot, nicely told.
But I am stingy: when it comes to electronic books, I don't want to pay a penny and right off the bat I have no line on more Agatha. So my next one is F. Dostoyevsky, The Grand Inquisitor. Nice switch, is it not? Inquisitors are also looking out to bring culprits to court, and to make them face their well deserved punishment. Only they act within a very different environment than Agatha does. Less worldly, I guess.
Anyway, by the time I finished the Mysterious Affair I got hungry and cooked a late lunch / early dinner. I coated a top round with Grey Poupon Mustard, sprinkled some salt over it and covered it with a sweet onion slice - the wide part that you get when you slice large flat onions. I got my grill to between 400 to 450 degrees, dumped a fist full of apple wood chips into the bottom pan and put the roast on the perforated veggie sheet. Setting the timer for 50 minutes, I then sliced the rest of the onion into about quarter inch slices, sprinkled a little salt and drizzled some sesame oil and soy sauce and about ten minutes before the roast was supposed to come off the fire I put them on the grill next to it. On the kitchen stove, I did a pan of Rösti. If you do 't know what that is, but are truly curious, you must ask me ( schwizerbueb@gmail.com ). You can also google that, but they tell you how it really is done, not the bachelor-type easy and quick way.
When the roast was finished and had sat its time on the cutting board I sliced a couple of slices and served them with the Rösti and onions and a glass of Paisano. Wonderful! There are no overwhelming or exciting tastes. Everything germanically constrained, mild, subdued, whatever. But the whole combination of flavors came through so satisfyingly, I am now on my third glass of Paisano.
What is Paisano? Well it is a Gallo jug wine and has been around as long as I can remember. In the 'early' days, i. e. early 1960, they called it Chianti. Perhaps the emerging laws of the European Union put a halt to the naming of products that have a territorial  claim, such as Chianti (Tuscany), Camembert (France) etc. In any case, Gallo's Chianti disappeared and Paisano came in and it is the most satisfying jug wine I know. Did you know that it won the first price ate the Boston Wine Exhibition back in the late 1990’s? The judges, all gold tressed and certified wine critics, selected it among all entries on the basis of what came from unlabeled bottles. It must have been a riot! The cheapest of all wines on site being judged the best.
I'm getting carried away. The fly? Oh yes, the roast had a streak of fat and I cut it out and set it it aside. That's where I saw the fly. There is only one in the house. It is a true house fly.

Did you know?

In an article in the Schweizer Revue (www.revue.ch), the changing national energy policies are being discussed. Government proposes to exit the atomic energy world. The timing is clearly to be seen as a reaction to the disaster in Fukushima, of which we have read so much. It also reflects the wishes of the Green Party and a large percentage of the population. A referendum to this effect was submitted in 2012. We will see this in the polls in the not so distant future, I expect. What was new to me was the following statement:

Aufgrund der Erschütterungen verschob sich Japans Hauptinsel um über zwei Meter nach Osten. Die Massenverteilung der Erde veränderte sich so stark, dass sich seither die Erde etwas schneller dreht. 

Translated: As result of the earthquake the main island of Japan moved east by two meters (about six feet). This changed the mass distribution of the globe to the extent that it is now rotating a little faster.

Contemplate this, if you will. The earth rotates faster; eventually, but not immediately, the mass of air surrounding it will pick up the same speed due to its friction with the earth. In my school decades ago, the statement was made that if the rotation of the earth were to be stopped, the mass of air would still continue as before and massive storms would result that would wipe out all matter standing in their way - including buildings, people . . .
Conversely, if the globe rotation speeds up, uncommon air movement in the opposite direction will necessarily result. What effect does this small (?) change have on the weather, on the climate?

Also new to me was one other item: Switzerland operates the oldest nuclear reactor in the world. That means that all reactors built between Rowe in the US and this Swiss reactor are either de-commissioned or destroyed.

And because Knorr contains memories . . .

When I was still wet behind the ears, we considered Knorr to be a Swiss company. They made many things our mother used in the kitchen, not the least being the bouillon cube. But there were instant soups that we took along on hiking trips and, mixed with mountain brook water, they were most delicious, even cold, and they had the strength to keep us going on the hike. Lulu and I one summer hiked from Tunis in the Grisons to Pontresina, right across the valley from St. Moritz. We hiked for five days across the mountain ranges and lived on Knorr. Not exclusively, I admit, but there was Knorr in our rucksack for sure, and other than for breakfast and dinner, we never were near a public house. Lulu was something like thirteen, then, and I was around 11. Times have changed.
But why this talk about Knorr? Well, I was at the Market Basket in Keene today and they had a sale on Knorr side dishes, 5 for five dollars, and I got me some, because of the reputation Knorr has for good stuff, and not unhealthy. And because Knorr contains memories . . .

So, for dinner I had Thai curry with grilled chicken tenders. The tenders I had bought separately and marinated in Italian dressing for a couple of days and then frozen, still in the dressing, for three or four weeks. Kaarin sais that enhances the effect of the marinade. It does, I now can confirm.
These tenders were the first failure I produced on that wonderful infrared grill I bragged about before.  
When they were ready to come off, I took the heat off and went to the cellar to get the dinner wine and when I came back up, the curry demanded attention and then the phone rang and next I forgot the chicken on the grill. Not bad, but beginning to be a bit stringy and dried out. My fault, not the grill's. but luckily I had the fire off. Dinner was still delicious and the wine wonderfully matched - a white Bordeaux, Chateau Fonfroide 2011; nice and spicy, a great match with the spicy curry and the by-no-means bland chicken tenders. While I am writing this, I'm still sipping it with pleasure.

So now you want to know what I was doing again in Keene, since I was yesterday? Well, the change in the grave-marker lettering required my personal presence, so I went. Opportunist that I am, I stopped at the Market Basket where they sell stuff we don't even know about across the river in Brattleboro. Among my purchases were a series of items to make BBQ pizza. There were those bags of frozen red and green pepper strips, frozen chopped onions, ready to bake pizza bottoms, and so forth, and I feel quite prepared to face any visitor who might find his way up here. It is so quiet after the visits from my children with their children and dogs that I must at least hope.

This is new!

Our Laurie took the time to produce this blog around some e-mails that I wrote over the past two summer seasons, sitting mostly alone 'on the mountain' in Vermont. The atmosphere up here is just conducive to have such conversations with the ones who are most always on my mind - my family, my closest friends. Even alone, one lives life, and the habit of sharing daily, mostly insignificant experiences and occurrences and random thoughts with the ones one loves becomes such a habit it will demand outlet when one is alone. Thus, the blessings of e-mail are real: no search for paper, no search for a working pen, no search for envelope or stamp - you know the tune. And no fixed spot to do the thing, such as a cluttered desk.
But now Laurie has set up this blog and curiosity tickles me. Having been nominated 'author', I must write and publish and experience the scope of this, for me newfangled 'social medium'. This gives new pressure and stress and that is just the thing one needs in this life . . .
Some five years ago, under the pressure from some of my family members, I got into blogging. That was down in our home in North Carolina. It turned out that the place was not very supportive of creative thought, so, after the first posting, I lost interest and the spot lay dormant for five years. Nevertheless, it had received a surprising number of page views from around the globe. There must be people with a lot of spare time at their hands to search blogs at random like this.
So, to return to these 'signs of life', here they are. I'm a shy little boy when it comes to publishing, even though I remember dreaming to become a famous writer with grand book signing sessions in the most glamorous international trading places and living a life of continuous fruitful thinking and writing.
We'll see soon enough where this latest and newest mode will lead to.

Yet Another Blog

Hello there, all you flatlanders,

To avoid the onus of playing favorites, the addresses of the recipients of this note are listed as Bcc.

SignsOfLifeFromTheMountain.BlogSpot.com

This lead will take you to yet another blog. It contains thoughts uttered in the stillness of Townhill in Vermont, random thoughts that mean more to the writer at the time they are written down than to anyone else, including the writer, after he wrote the closing line. This is not intended to be a public site. Hence, the Bcc.

I say 'yet another blog' because it appears to me that if you have red blood in your veins, you already have a long list of other plugs you follow. This one, however, is different. It will not suffer regular updates and new postings and thus it will not put high demands on your time.

The credit for the creation of this spot belongs to Laurie.

Enjoy, if indeed you can find enjoyment in this. You got on my list because I am thinking of you. Instructions for getting off this list are posted 'at the spot.'

Rich, aka Isa, aka Opa

Not A Chance

The temperature on the deck is 53 degrees and the sky is flecked with white feathery clouds promising a continuance of this wonderful NE mountain summer weather. Great days behind us, great days ahead. And a great day just starting.

Up here, house and surroundings in VT have gone very quiet again, more quiet, it appears, than it was before your arrival up here. I find myself thinking about the possibility of just simply locking up and cruising south again. But then I think of the constant hum of the heat pump on Riverbend, and the feeling of being held captive indoors, and I say 'not a chance' out loud, a sound which mingles with the song of birds and the rustle of the leaves in the linden tree.

The Proof of the BBQ

We agreed a few days ago that the acid test of a BBQ's capabilities shall be the outcome of a chicken breast cookout. Well, I did it. I sliced three breasts flat through the middle and brushed the thin halves with a paste of olive oil, sesame oil, paprika, sage, garlic salt and pepper and some soy sauce 'lite'. Put the six pieces on the searing hot grill with applewood in the smoker bowl, but turned the heat down to 'rotisserie' immediately. Turned each piece after perhaps two minutes. Beautiful grill marks,  no sticking. Closed the lid and let them sizzle in the decreasing heat for as long as it takes to enjoy a 12 oz Copper Ale. Turned the pieces once more to get cross marks at least on one side and shut off the fire. Simply let everything cool down. 

Remarkable result, tender and juicy, not to even mention the taste. That sesame oil really lights the fire on all the other spices. This grill really is the best I ever had!

XLVIII

Reading Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility, this being not the first book I have added to my library from this author of two centuries past, and becoming quite disturbed by the never ending single-mindedness and, yes, divisiveness of the female characters so obviously preferred by the author, seeking a favorable anchoring place for themselves or someone they love, as well as, I must add in correcting the impression of my apparent sexist bias, the men who have nothing on their minds but horses and shooting while accepting the need of entering into a relationship with a female only on the attending potential source of income and wealth, I prompted a 'look-up' of the above Latin numerals signifying the count of chapters at which I had arrived at that stage of my current reading.

 

The dictionary on the level of the book had no record answering to my inquiry, so I forwarded my request for enlightenment to the Wikipedia.  Please google the subject line!

 

Knowing, of course, the translation of these numerals to their Roman equivalent, I was nevertheless exceedingly surprised about the wealth of content locked into these symbols, and I refer this to your kind attention, hoping to stir at least minimal interest in the possibility to refer to the same article in Wikipedia that has gained my own deep awareness of the wisdom, nay, intelligence our civilization was capable to raise itself to during the past many centuries since the age of relative innocence in which our ancestors, many generations past, were condemned to pass their time on earth.

 

In my style of writing, you may immediately detect a very imperfect imitation of the style favored by the above mention author. You will also be prompted to reflect on the unfair criticism today's English linguists raise against German writers: they construct interminable sentences, sometimes covering the entire page of a book or more before the reader obtains any conclusive meaning of the sentence through the knowledge conveyed by the one and only defining active verb which is invariably placed at the very end of the said sentence.

 

I rest my case. I came to the USA to learn English as it is used in conducting global business, and in the pursuit of the Engineering sciences, and never would I have thought that my search for technical and practical learning would get me lost on a path such as the one I am following now - and this is not the first time I experience this sense of distraction from my original goal. I'll never be the same again.

Travel Planning, Opa Style

For long distance I always guesstimate the total travel time on the basis of 50 mph overall average.

For instance, the distance from Riverbend to Parksiders is 194 miles. At 50 mph that will take a little less than four hours.  If I don't stop at McDonalds in Emporia, I can make it in about 3-1/4.

The longer the distance the more dependable it gets.

For you, depending which way you come up here, it'll be some 600 miles, so count on 12 hours. For me, it is close to 800 miles and it took me 14 hours, but that was time dedicated to nothing but getting it behind me. The more 70 mph unbusy highway, the better it gets.

Note, this 50 mph average allows for gas stops and eats and comfort stops and an occasional  10 minute shut-eye etc, but no bed-time or detours to visit a museum or watch a ball game in the ball park :-)

Abend Brot

For breakfast I had eggs and bacon, pan fried tomatoes and toast. The calories lasted me all day. In the late afternoon, I went to Greenville to the Home Depot for some more hardware for the mast raising rig. That boat will sink if it ever gets into the water :-)

The breakfast, however, lasted me all day until I came out of Home Depot and perceived my last chance for a quick dinner. Big Y across the street sold Celeste Supreme Pizza, single servings, five packages for five bucks. I bought.

I had one of those pizzas with Paisano and wished for more. 330 calories, not counting the antioxidants of the wine, was just not enough. But I was tough! I sat out on the deck and let the cooling evening breezes envelop me sensuously and read Emma.

There was suddenly a loud crash. Out of the corner of my eye I had sen some light blinking, but it was the thunder that tore me out of poor Emma's confused sentiments. I watched the clear blue sky overhead and saw not a cloud. Then I saw the tongue of vapor  crossing the edge of the roof to the west. It advanced, and while resting over the horizon at Chips' house, it slowly developed a black belly and I suddenly saw a lightning like I fiery tongue licking out of the cloud towards earth.

I counted, it took about five seconds for the sound to reach me. That means, since sound travels at about 340 meters per second, that lightning struck under two kilometers away from here. Precariously close over Wilmington.

I went inside because I expected the storm to suddenly break overhead and I did not want my iPad to get wet; nor the pillow on my chair as I would rush and stumble to rescue everything.

I went inside and still felt 'hungry'. I poured the last of the 'rethink your pretzels' into a basket and got the Brie out of the refrigerator and another glass of Paisano and set to work while continuing to follow the life of Emma.

Can you imagine opening a tightly wrapped Brie fresh out of the refrigerator and within minutes, literally!, it starts running all over the cheese board? I never in my short life experienced anything like it and the only explanation I can give is that, when I originally brought it home, I left it out on the counter, wrapped up in its original wrappings, and when I finally put it in the refrigerator it felt like heavy cream; very heavy cream, with a crust. Oh, it was so ripe, so very good. Emma got pushed aside. Even the Paisano was forgotten.

But that heat inside the house in anticipation of that storm to hit . . . I'm back on the couch under the ceiling fan. The only pace where one can experience wind 'chill'.

The storm has not hit yet. I suppose it never will; not this one. I just felt like chatting with you guys.

Good night, all.    Love, Isa

Linden Leaf and Flower Profile

http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/learn/linden.php

Try this for size. I did not send this to the boys because I don't think they have time to bother. But for you, the section enumerating the constituents might be interesting. After reading this, who wants to try that tea? In the liqueur at least one gets the disinfectant qualities of the vodka :-)

I did a search under the search word 'lindenblüten" and found much more direct information from German speaking sites than in the English sites. For instance, the Wikipedia states that there is much folk knowledge (do not read 'old wives' tales) and proof about the positive healing properties of linden blossoms, but that there is no formal scientific research published. I suppose the pharmaceutical industry would suppress that kind of endeavor by simply not funding it. I remember we had linden blossom tea just as soon as there was a sign of a cold. It must have helped, because Mims always had it handy, or got it immediately when it was needed for us. That was way, way back when. I also found a statement that it is most effective on young and old people. You gals would still, but not yet benefit from it :-0.

Lindenblüten

The linden tree at the west side of the deck is in bloom. I was looking at it yesterday, thinking that I once again was too late, because all the blossoms had little seed-looking pebbles. But today they turned out to be blossoms that opened almost with a bang - well, many of them did.
I read on the web that one harvests those blossoms for tea and liqueur and even jelly shortly after they break open. The best time to harvest is in the afternoon. And this year, I am at long last 'on location' at the right time. The harvest will be dried in the sun and then crumbled for tea and I will read up a little more about the making of the liqueur and then decide if that is something to have, or avoid. Do not expect to be served any when you come, because like Lulu's rum-topf, it has to ripen over a period of perhaps six months.

Today, I gathered the first hand full of blossoms, but it is slow picking because so many of the buds are still closed.perhaps tomorrow afternoon, or Sunday?

Read up on what linden blossom tea is good for and then be prepared to call on Doctor Opa for your remedy come winter with its coughing and sore throat and cold, or for your stress headaches, or almost whatever ails you.

All responsibilities for any undesirable side effects etc. etc.

With love to all, Isa

Good morning, dear one

I was sitting in front of my 'big Mac' when I heard the distinct bleep of a message coming in. I performed an increasingly frustrated search for the message center on the Mac. There is not any. Then, much, much later I realized that the iPhone was sitting on the night table across the room. So there it was: a 'good morning' from you. Thanks!

Next came the chore to produce an answer. I tried to do that on the iPhone, but those keys on the keyboard are so very small and editing the results of trying to type is so frustrating. So here I sit with the iPad. There was a time I believed in all that talk that computers will eventually simplify our lives. Then, much more recently I was sold on the idea that Mr. Jobs had an outstandingly good idea to develop a system by which all his gadgets are connected. And I bought into that - and look what it did to my simple life!

It used to be two or three pens and two or three pencils in the shirt pocket and little note papers strewn all over the place, sometimes stuck to the desk with Scotch tape so they would be safe from accidental loss. And the telephone actually worked! It either connected you with your targeted partner or it did not, but it told you if the line was busy or the target did simply not answer for whatever personal reasons. Those remained private. So, if the call did not go through, one simply tried later again.

Now, look at what we are getting - message centers answering all calls with long explanations of how important our call is to the recipient, etc, etc. and then an undetermined wait for the return call that is supposed to come right away.

But what am I griping about? I obviously have the time for all of that . . .

Sad News

Just talked to the guy from Trans Canada, the company that owns the Harriman reservoir, a.k.a. Lake Wilmington. He gave me the name of the secretary of the local sailing club and I called him. He was at home, on a Tuesday at 9:00 AM. Sailors don't work, you know, and when it rains, like today, they stay close to their phones. We chatted a bit, and he asked me what boat I had, and he said that they had an agreement with Trans Canada that they would not anchor any boat over 20 feet in that cove. There is no other mooring place on that lake.

It is not supposed to rain today until 3:00 PM, said the weatherman. But it is pouring now.

Well, my contact was no longer active in the administration of the club, but he was nice enough to give me the name of the current secretary and I called him. He also answered the phone right away, which gives credence to my opinions about sailors. During our brief talk, he too asked me about the boat I had and he confirmed the sad news about the size restrictions.

What a bummer! The lake, so they consoled me, has two launching areas, both in the vicinity of Wilmington. And there is lake Champlain, too, you know! About two hours away.
I should have bought that 17 foot Lightning!

What this means, my beloved family, your first lesson in sailing will be in rigging a sail boat. There is much to learn. There are stays and shrouds and halyards and there are several of each and each has prepositions such as fore and aft and port and starboard jib and main sail and some of them are called sheets although they are ropes, or lines and there are spreaders and shackles and - and - and. Do your search on the Internet and then show me off and put me to shame because I don't know them all. I will point and shout things like "pull that one - no! not the green, the blue".

But when you come, you'll find the boat in the driveway and when we want to go for a cruise on the water we must haul it to the launching ramp, step the mast and slide the boat into the water. Reverse that activity before dinner.

I am quite shattered! I thought, whether you are here or not, on a nice afternoon with a freshening wind I go for a spin until moon-up and then come home and have a night snack of bread and butter and cheese and wine and let the glow of the sun slowly seep into the night breezes on the deck. What a bummer. Almost makes you want to forget all about sailing. The essentials- the 'I'm at His mercy' are missing
My alternative, of course, would be to go live on the boat and simply drop anchor somewhere along the shore when I don't want to sail anymore. But I think I would loose control over the grass up here on the mountain.

So there! Now you have all the sad news of the day.
Love, Isa
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Tuesday, July 2, 2013 at 4:08 PM

Discouraging, sad, but NOT TRAGIC!  The restriction is for mooring not for sailing, so with extra hands, you'll have no problem unloading the trailer (thanks to Steve, we know how to back that baby down the ramp and slide 'er off), having someone help the raise the mast, brace the mainsail and keelhaul the naysayers!

Aaaargh!  Drink up me hearties, YO HO!
iivo