Going on 80

As promised, niece Chris continues last week’s story below:

The Magical Power of the Blob – Part 2

Hello, again! As an update of our last adventure, after baby Fitzpatrick was born my sister, René lived with us into the summer of 1982 . During a visit in Cedar Rapids she met her then to be husband, Dan Melchior. Later that fall they were married. This is a photo of René and Dan’s wedding in October 1982. Dan said he wished they’d met a couple months sooner because he would have happily welcomed baby Fitzpatrick. Knowing that always gave René the freedom to search and know she had his support and help.

Baby Fitzpatrick was adopted by a loving couple, Dave and Kathy Turnball, and they lived a short time in Ankeny. Who knows how close she was to us then? They later had another
daughter, Megan, and moved about 30 minutes south to Indianola. Who knew she’d have two sisters named Meg? The story they had always told Sarah about her birth confirmed they were the couple Mark saw in the elevator. Dr. Naanep had delivered her. They had driven through the snowstorm to get her.

As Sarah grew up, her family was open with her about adoption, in age-appropriate bites, even eventually making her adoption papers available. Sarah and her family participated in an article about adoption in a local magazine. (indianola Living Magazine
October 1, 2017).

Now more on that October 6th 2017 event. After Sarah contacted me that evening, we kept coming across so many connections.

• One of my teaching colleagues went to church with the Turnballs.
• One of my high school friends had gone to college with Sarah’s dad.
• Sarah’s dad had taught Phys Ed in Ankeny, where Mark also taught, but they hadn’t been in the same building.
• Remember the Summys, who René nannied for? Well they relocated to Indianola. Mary
taught 3rd grade across the hall from Sarah, and Dave was her social study teacher in high school.

The phone call to René that next morning started the conversations between mother and
daughter. A shared photo album was created and we saw lots of similarity between the two of them and between Sarah, her kids and all the Fitzpatricks.

About 3 weeks later I got a message from Sarah “Hey, can you take a quick call?? I have a fabulous idea!” Remember in part 1 of this blog I ended with “You’d think my part in all this was now complete. Oh, no dear reader! There’s more” ? Here it comes…

Sarah had decided to drive with her kids to surprise René in Texas and she was asking me to help. Hmm, trip? Surprise? I’m in! So the scheming began. Fortunately, I’d lived 46 years with the King of Tall Tales (he once convinced my brother that his parents were KGB).

I’d need help so I once again enlisted Dan to be part of the scheme. We knew where Sarah and kids were staying. Next I called and asked René if I could come and visit for a long weekend and would it be okay to stay with them. With that in place I secured my ticket and a week later landed in Houston. René explained she had a meeting at school the next morning but after that we were free to spend the day.

When we got up the next morning I was showing René a few new things I’d purchased and suggested she might try one on. I needed her cleaned up and picture ready without saying so. We attended the school meeting, which was a benefit for me – you have to comb your hair and put on makeup for those things, right? When we returned René noticed Dan was home and questioned him, “you never come home this early”. Dan smoothly offered to take us out for lunch.

Dan drove and while on our way René got an unplanned, but perfectly timed, call from her son Dylan, who was newly deployed to Niger, Africa. Dan and I had worked out that we’d lunch close to our prearranged meeting spot with Sarah, so when he pulled into a little dingy strip mall we heard René say “I don’t know why your dad’s not taking us someplace nice for lunch, he’s driving up to a crummy Subway!” Well, while we enjoyed our crummy Subway, (I actually really enjoy their sandwiches, but René was not impressed) my tall tale began to unfurl.

I explained to René that on the off chance that I couldn’t stay at the house I’d booked a room at a hotel. If I could go there to cancel I could get my deposit back directly instead of waiting, but then I was free to do whatever she wanted. I felt pretty safe that last part wasn’t a lie, because she’d definitely just want to spend time with these new family members! She said sure and so I showed her the hotel on my phone and she and Dan said “Oh, that’s easy, it’s right across the street!” (How convenient!)

We finished our lunch, I had tuna with cheese and tomato on a 6” Asiago bun, and proceeded to the hotel. But what’s this? “Dan, why are you driving past the door? Are you making my sister walk all the way around to the front?” Geesh! So much for gentlemanly behavior!

From the parked car we could see the swimming pool with a beautiful blonde tending kiddos having fun. “Those kids must be on vacation!” Dan led the way and I took up the rear, surreptitiously holding my iPhone with camera turned on. As we passed the fence with kids’ faces pressed up to it, René said, “look at those sweet things” and waved a greeting to them. Oh, boy are you clueless! Again the complaint, “we’re not going to be able to get in through that door without a key, then we’ll have to walk all the way around”. Oh, René, you sound like your mother!

Dan opens the first gate, turns and gestures for René to enter. She looks back at me, befuddled by this behavior and sees my camera in her face. She turns and notices a teenage boy also holding a camera, then she sees Sarah! Purse drops and, well, I’ll just let you see the rest for yourself, excuse me while I blow my nose and wipe the tears off my keyboard.

Right away, Dan and I went and visited with the kids while the other 2 played catch-up. They FaceTimed Meghan, laughed and cried. Later that day René’s kids and Sarah’s kids got together at the pool, Ian and Gracie joined and we brought pizza in. The next days were spent sharing stories and catching up.

In months to come there were more meetings like this, even one in Florida on the 4th of July 2018 that included all the Melchior Mob!

There was even a meeting of Turnballs and Melchiors in Indianola, with stories of love and thankfulness.

And so the book has been opened and the new chapters were beginning. I’m so proud to have had a hand in it.

P.S. if you’re looking for a miracle I’d recommend talking to my Aunt Octo-woman…her blog is pure magic!

Of the 467 blobs I’ve posted on goingon80.com, the one I’m in awe of is the one numbered 348, not because of its content, but for the event it accidentally triggered.

In case you don’t know the story, I asked niece Chris Milner – who was one of its principal players – to narrate the tale just as it unfolded..

Chris started off with a partial image of the blob. The subject was Chris’s birthday, but later on, it happened to mention another important character in the story. . .

The Magical Power of the Blob

by Christine Fitzpatrick Milner

Wow, that title sounds a little like science fiction, but it’s true!

When I talk to my friends about the blog (or blob as my mom called it) written by my 91 year old aunt, they roll their eyes. This might be because 1) I talk about it a lot and they’re tired of hearing it, 2) I use it as evidence to confirm my stand on an issue, or 3) my friends are all around my age and their eyes just roll, probably because they’re nodding off. Regardless, I’m here today to tell you my aunt’s blog is magical and powerful!

To prove my hypothesis I’ll have to go back several years and set the stage. In1981 my sister, René, came to live with us in Ankeny. She was just barely 20, newly pregnant and wanting a new location.

We got her all set up with a room in our lower level private apartment (it was pretty much just a basement with some carpet remnants on the concrete floor and old paneling on the walls).

She started seeing my favorite gynecologist Dr. Ishmael Naanep who, when asked for a referral said he’d take René as a patient free of charge and arrange for an adoption for her. She took on a job as nanny for friends I worked with at North Polk Schools, Mary and Dave Summy, and we all began to take on our new routine as time moved on. 

Now it’s December 1981, and here is the story of labor and delivery from my perspective. When René came to live with us, which was probably sometime in April 1981, we’d kept her pregnancy a secret from Mark’s family and our extended family beyond her siblings. So since it was now Christmas and we always went to Cedar Rapids for the holidays we devised a secret plan and said René and I had the flu, so Mark and the kids went alone. To this day I don’t know how my kids didn’t let it slip!

Anyway, on Sunday the 27th things started happening, we waited it out for the magic 15 minute contractions then we made the call and headed into Des Moines to Mercy hospital. They kept us for a while but then sent us home because things weren’t moving along as quickly as they hoped.

It was a wintery night and driving was terrible so rather than drive back to Ankeny we went to our friends, Sue & Craig McCoy, in the Beaverdale area of Des Moines. They set up a cozy bed by the fire on their main floor and we spent the night there. Sue and I took turns with back rubs and coaching, she made tea, and throughout the night we carried on in the comfort of their home.

I don’t remember what time we re-checked into the hospital. It was morning though, and I’m thinking rather early because Sue and Craig had small kids then and I don’t remember the kids being awake. I don’t recall that Rene had a long labor. My more vivid memories are right in the delivery room. I don’t remember that as a long time either, but of course I wasn’t doing the work so René might remember it differently. 😉

I just remember that euphoric feeling seeing little Rena Jo enter the world and holding her for a time. Throughout those days after her birth I saw her one other time in the hospital room and thought she looked so much like my Heather as a newborn. That made the parting so much harder, too. Mark and I were in the room when the attorney came with all the paperwork and we all said our good-byes.

Mark has a memory beyond that of going to the cafeteria and when he was coming back to the room the elevator opened and he saw the lawyer holding a baby he thinks must have been her and a couple who were so happy and excited. It scared him that he’d walked in on something that he wasn’t supposed to see and he moved on. Sorry I don’t have more details, I think I blocked a lot of the painful stuff. I know after some time had passed I would create elaborate fantasies in my mind about a beautiful girl knocking on our door in Ankeny. Maybe I remembered our address being on those documents or maybe I just thought the Doctor Naanep connection would lead her to me.

Now fast forward to 2014. By this time my sister is happily married with 4 adult children and 3 adopted preteens. The oldest, Meghan, knows of her older sibling and the family have tried actively searching for her for years. René and her husband Dan have hired a private investigator but no solid leads came of it, until Meghan posted a plea on Facebook. From this, they met a young woman who met all the criteria, same date, same hospital, but sadly after establishing an online relationship, they discovered the DNA was not a match. The news was devastating. 

Now it’s 2017 and my husband Mark and I are enjoying some evening TV on a quiet October 6th when my phone alerts me to a Facebook Messenger post. I don’t recognize the name, Sarah Downard, and usually would just delete, but often I will get a contact request from a former student and in the case of girls might not know their married names so I checked it out.

Okay, have you digested all that? It still gives me chills 5 years later, so let me wipe the tears away and go on. Yes, Sarah had seen my Ankeny address on her adoption papers and did a search on the Polk County Property Assessor website, I guess my elaborate fantasy isn’t so far fetched now! That led her to google search Christine Fitzpatrick Milner and the first hit was…

Sarah and I spent the whole evening into the wee hours (Octowoman’s favorite time of day) messaging back and forth. She had lots of questions and concerns about contacting us. She was especially concerned about the effects on family, both hers and ours and wanting to be sensitive moving forward. I affirmed that she had been loved by this family all along! I knew how sensitive this was and appreciated her need to be careful of her family’s feelings!  I assured her our mom was  aware that René has been searching. Actually one of our touching stories about our dad is just about a year before he died he sat at the table and asked René if she’d had any luck finding her baby. When she told him no he said “I sure wish you could find her soon, I’d really like to meet her”. So I think he’s looking down from heaven saying ‘welcome to this crazy family, little girl!’ 

I TOLD YOU THIS BLOG IS MAGIC!

It was late in Texas so we agreed I’d contact René the next morning. I was concerned because I knew how busy things always are at their house so I knew I’d have to enlist some help. I texted Dan the next morning and asked if he could make some quiet, uninterrupted, distraction free time, with a box of Kleenex, for René so I could call her. (I don’t ask for much) He responded “what’s up?” And I relied “I found her!”  My phone rang immediately! It was Renè calling, laughing, she said “What’s going on? Dan just pushed me into the bedroom, said “call your sister” and shut the door. And now he just threw a roll of toilet paper at me!” So I told her what I’d learned the night before while she slept soundly not even knowing how her life had just changed. We cried a lot and I left her with the information to contact her long lost daughter. You’d think my part in all this was now complete. Oh, no dear reader! There’s more…

To be continued next week . . .

Marshall Joe Kozlovsky (our only family crime fighter, not counting my grandson-in-law Police officer Joe Stark) kept catching the bad guys, but sometimes, the crooks just kept getting away with it. We can only imagine his frustration.

Our two clever pickpockets from last week’s blob – George Sherman and William Smith – seemed to have a way of convincing juries they were as pure as the driven snow. Plus, as we later learn, they had other hidden talents.

Letting them get away with their heinous crimes certainly wasn’t the fault of the ladies. Women didn’t have any rights to speak of in 1898 – including the right to serve on a jury. Even the idea of “the fairer sex” being capable of making such cerebral judgments as to a ten-year jail sentence to be imposed for horse stealing or pickpocketing was a subject of scorn and ridicule in newspaper cartoons like this one.

Just the same, as the story turned out, I like to think it may have been a woman who saved one of the desperados from continuing his life of crime.

The crime of pickpocketing was more “popular” in 1898 than it is today. According to the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, “Most pickpockets are professionals. Theirs is a lucrative and highly skilled art requiring unusual manual dexterity, knowledge of human behaviour and precision teamwork. They often work in crowds that can be just as successful with a lone victim.”

Hint: check out George Clooney in “Oceans Eleven”.

But now, back to our busy young crooks.

Previous to their visit to Cedar Rapids, the two rascals had been arrested on various charges but always escaped from their captors or got away with their misdeeds in court. A few weeks after Marshall Joe hauled them into the Cedar Rapids jail, they were tried in court, but the, yes, all-male “imbecile” jury couldn’t decide if they were guilty. Instead of letting them go, the Marshall delivered them to the sheriff at the county jail in Marion, Iowa. Where this happened….

George executed several jailbreaks including this one. Both pickpockets escaped but William Smith (Louis Padden) was caught a month later. He confessed his guilt to Marshall Joe, who delivered him to the police in Minneapolis. He was later tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years in Stillwater prison, but he somehow managed to avoid spending the time, possibly due to his winning personality.

A previous attempt at the same jail failed, but check out the clever tools that were MacGyvered to do it.

George – the apparent mastermind of that and other attempted and sometimes successful prison breaks – was never apprehended. Not then anyway.

In February of 1903, I found two final newspaper articles in the Cedar Rapids Gazette about our two desperados. Both must have been in custody, but before they could be belatedly convicted for their pilfering of the elderly lady’s pocketbook back in 1898, it was noted that she was too infirm to appear in court, and the two other witnesses were no longer available. So they were free.

The second article was even more interesting. During the four years George Sherman was on the run from the law, he must have got married. According to the Gazette, his wife had arrived in Cedar Rapids for the trial and joined up with him afterwards when he was released!

I wasn’t able to find any more references to the lives of our errant pickpockets, but I like to think that they had found the error of their ways and reformed. Either that, or they changed their names once again.

I’m a romantic at heart. I like to think that during his years on the lam, George found love, and this wonderful woman made him see the error of his ways and reformed him. It’s possible.

So okay. Either that, or he taught her tricks of the trade and they spent their remaining years as successful grifters, forever exasperating the efforts of our faithful law-enforcing heroes like Marshall Joseph Kozlovsky.

Whaddya think?

Three times I’ve started writing a blob about the famous crime fighter in our family, Big Joe Kozlovsky. He was my husband Gene’s great uncle, but he was also the town Marshall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa from 1898 – 1906, and the crooks didn’t stand a chance!

Every time I start trying to write about Joe, I get side-tracked with all the fascinating news articles about his crime-busting activities —and the way they were reported.

Take this case for example. This is a two column story in the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette on June 28, 1898. I’m going to present it just as it appeared in print, so you’ll know I’m not making this up. (Sorry about the resolution. You may have to enlarge it).

Just so you understand the horrendous nature of the crime, it involved the theft of the pocketbook of an elderly woman by two alleged pickpockets. Contained in the purse was an envelope containing some pins, a small brush, two hankies, and “a considerable amount of money” – a twenty dollar bill. But fear not. The ever-vigilant Marshall fought for justice and nabbed the two culprits!

You’ll note that at the time of publication, the judge dismissed the case due to its circumstantial evidence, and so the Cedar Rapids jury never got to hear Marshall Kozlovsky’s “evidence” of the villains’ dastardly deeds in other towns. Those crooks must have had winning personalities because this wasn’t the first, or the last time, they were able to convince a judge or an “imbecile” jury of their innocence. That seems to be why the Gazette found it necessary to step in and re-try the case in their trusty newspaper.

The pickpockets might have been declared innocent, but apparently, Big Joe held them in jail long enough to turn them over to the Minneapolis Police Inspector who then hauled them away. If the Minneapolis cop kept his word, the Marshall may have got the $100 reward that was out for William Smith for horse theft.

But what happened to the two pickpockets next reads like a comic book, or a law-and-order Hollywood movie script. Unbelievable but true.

To be continued next week so I have time to recover from reporting all this thrilling drama.

I’m not greedy. Okay, maybe, a little.

I do appreciate that daughter Susy and son-in-law Curt do the lion’s (lioness’s) share of our household’s hard labor, and I know I’ve got Alexa to turn on and off the coffee and lights, change channels on the TV, take messages, reminders, maintain the grocery list, teach me new swear words; and Quicken doing the accounting of my massive Social Security pension, and the bank’s Zelle app instantly paying overdue bills in real time, and Amazon Prime more than willing to free-deliver all the world’s treasures made in China to the front door for at least 1% off, and the well-meaning internet so-called standards which don’t allow me to appear nude on TikTok.

The trouble is, what I really, really need is a really well-motivated armed-and-legged household robot. If I only had one of those! This house would sparkle! I have pristine standards for housekeeping, but they are continually undermined by my habitual exercise of them as a lazy slob.

Every now and then, I have to face the music. This weekend, my niece Chris and nephew-in-law Mark are coming for a visit. Unfortunately, I have good reason to know that they are accustomed to – yes – cleanliness. This is a problem. It means I may have to face scrubbing the microwave and the refrigerator. And, oh yeah, even the bathroom.

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Good household help may be on the way though. Elon Musk expects to have a prototype of his robot available for demonstration by next year. He says the robot is being designed to perform work that is boring, repetitive, or dangerous. Obviously, that must include washing windows, right? I can hardly wait. But, alas, it won’t be in time to bail me out this weekend.

The planned bot will be 5′ 8″ tall and will weigh 125 pounds. It will be able to lift 45 pounds and deadlift 150 pounds. It’s speed will be up to to 5 MPH so it can walk to the corner store to pick up the potato chips and beer.

The description doesn’t include the robot’s gender, but maybe we can choose our pick at the time we “adopt” it. It’s estimated that the robot is probably going to cost at least $10,000, so I may have to save up for a while.

In the meantime, I have discovered a possible hack for some “automated” household help that may assist in my time of need. The three little dogs who live with us – Wrangler, Pokey, and Lattigo, – capably do the work of Roombas, and they don’t even need battery re-charging.

I can count on them to completely remove all crumbs that might inadvertently show up on any floor or furniture in the house. Even dust bunnies are swept up in their faithful fur as they earnestly patrol the terrain searching for all those delectable tidbits.

It got me thinking. They need to have more work to do. Why not? I can spot talent when I see it! Especially after I learned about the work ethic of this gifted doggie!

This story was posted on Loving and Amazing World.

“A dog saw his owner picking up trash and then went and brought him a discarded plastic bottle, earning him a treat. Next thing he knew, his dog was cleaning up the whole neighborhood.”

Who wouldn’t want to hire this dog? Is he available this weekend?

Poor Paddy Works on the Railway

In eighteen hundred and sixty-three,
I came across the stormy sea.
My dung’ree breeches I put on
To work upon the railway, the railway,
To work up-on the railway.
Oh, poor Paddy come work on the railway.
—19th-century Irish folk song

Thumbing through a family’s old photo albums, can be an exercise in boredom or frustration. Who ARE all those stern old-fashioned-looking people? Even if their name, rank and serial numbers are handwritten on the back of their ancient photos, you probably still may not know beans about what kind of people you’re related to.

If you get curious enough, though, the internet can help out. As long as you know a tiny bit of info about Uncle Horatio, if you’re very lucky, – and patient – you may be able to uncover scoops of details about his birthplace; who he’s related to, immigration, military, and census records; his employment; places he lived; parties he may have attended; graduations; possibly his school yearbooks; to whom, where, and when he got married; had children; when, where, and sometimes, how he died; and where he’s buried.

Some of it’s free, and some has to be subscribed to. Typical paid sites include the archives of newspapers. I’m subscribed to one called newspapers.com. People who write newspapers seem to be proud of their work because they archive and make available every word they ever published. If your relative was socially active in his small home town, or was newsworthy because of especially public sins, crimes, virtues, accomplishments, or tragedies, they may have been chronicled. The only difficult thing about the reporting is that sometimes you’re learning stuff about your relative that’s heartbreaking, or that you’d rather not know.

An example is my husband Gene’s grandfather, Henry Patrick Ford. Henry’s is a sad and terrible story. You may have read about it before on my blobs, but, thanks to the web, I keep learning more about it.

Besides what I could glean from the internet, his story is pieced together from the genealogy and documentation my brother-in-law Robert Ford unearthed, and from photos and news clippings that had been saved by my mother-in-law Mabel O’Hanlon Ford.

Henry Patrick Ford was born in Bath, Maine in 1858 of first generation Irish immigrants to the United States.  We don’t know when or why he moved to the Midwest, but Bath, Maine was a shipbuilding town, and the work of building the wooden sailing ships may have dried up after the Civil War.  Henry’s family may have headed west in search of gainful employment.

We do know that on October 20th, 1890, he married Mary Elizabeth Larkin in Tipton, Iowa.  He was 32 years old, she was 28. After the marriage, they lived in West Liberty, Iowa in Muscatine County, where Henry had been working.  They lived in an apartment over a store called John’s Shop on Spencer Street.

Shortly before the marriage, Henry was hired as a switchman for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad there. He earned $45 per month.

 

A switchman worked in the yard under the direction of a yardmaster.  They built trains by switching out tracks full of cars, coupling and uncoupling them with a coupler like that pictured here. It was a dangerous job at best and some of the work had to be done on moving equipment.

At the east end of the West Liberty train yard was a dangerous, poorly maintained cattle guard that the switchmen had to step over while working on the train cars 3 to 10 times per day.

A cattle guard is used to prevent cattle or sheep from crossing a path while still allowing vehicles to do so.  A cattle guard looks like that shown here, but the one in the train yard was described as follows: “a certain dangerous open culvert or cattle guard composed of ties laid crosswise of the track with open spaces between the same about 8 inches wide, covering an open pit about 3 feet deep.”

The cattle guard was a subject of worry and complaint among the men.  In fact, as soon as Henry was hired, he went to the yardmaster to complain.  He referred to it as a “man-trap” and demanded that it be fixed.

The yardmaster assured him that it would be repaired at once.  It wasn’t. On Wednesday, or Thursday, December 11, 1890, Henry went to the yardmaster again, this time with two of the other men, and he demanded to know why the cattle guard hadn’t been fixed.  The yardmaster equivocated, and finally Henry announced that if it wasn’t fixed immediately, he would “quit right then and go back on the road” and he made it clear that he wouldn’t continue to work over such a dangerous trap.

On Saturday, though, Henry was still working in the yard.  He probably couldn’t follow through on his empty threat because his bride of seven weeks had become pregnant.  He may have feared not being able to pay the rent more than he feared the job’s danger.

That Saturday, December 13, 1890, Henry was attempting to make a coupling on a train that was being set up, and several cars were switched onto a side track.  The train was backing down to some cars that were to be coupled on, and just then Henry stepped into the cattle guard and became trapped. Before he could extricate himself, the train backed down upon him killing him instantly, and four more cars ran over him mangling his body horribly.

In the florid journalese of the day, the West Liberty newspaper wrote that “he was caught by the moving train in such a manner as to completely disembowel him and crush almost every bone in his body.  The remains presented a ghastly sight.  After restoring the body to as nearly its original shape as possible, it was carried home to the family residence . . . “

Henry was buried from this church – St. Joseph’s Catholic Church – in Rock Island, Illinois where his mother lived.

Pregnant, and probably penniless, Mary Ford filed a lawsuit against the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.  After a three day trial, she won the lawsuit and was awarded $5,000. She didn’t receive the settlement though because the railroad appealed, and the case bounced back and forth for years.   Finally, 8 years after the first trial, Mary was awarded what I think was about $1,800 (after paying her lawyers and other fees.)

During those years, she was somehow raising her son – Patrick.  Patrick was my father-in-law.  Sixteen years after Henry’s death, Mary married again, this time to a widower and farmer named James Patrick Downs from Emmetsburg, Iowa. They lived together there till her death in 1943.

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After I heard Henry’s story, I really marveled at the kind of father his son became.  My father-in-law Pat – raised as a fatherless child with no role model to observe and learn from – was a textbook example of how to be a “good father” to one’s children.  Go figure.  Henry may have been tragically absent for Pat’s upbringing but his genes and good character were definitely present and accounted for.  As a role model, he managed to be “All Aboard” after all, and his family has good reason to be proud of him and to remember him.

(Does anyone besides me think that Henry looks like my nephew Eddie and that Mary looks like my niece Leslie?

When it comes to cooking, I acknowledge that I have created quite a few bombs in my time. I have never actually set the kitchen on fire, but not from lack of diligent effort. Many of the dishes I serve are “smoked”. That is why I have sensibly avoided acquiring an Instant Pot. It just seems like a way to burn the food faster. What’s the hurry?

When I first heard about the Instant Pot, I just figured it was a way to grow weed faster. But, no, only God could do that.

Two years ago, the aforementioned pot came to my attention when one of my daughters made friends with one and since then has enjoyed a very successful relationship with it.

It’s fascinating. Instead of normal food like Top Ramen Extraordinaire or Hamburger Surprise, my daughter cranks out mystical dishes like clams linguine or heavenly cheesecake or fluffy egg soufflé that any mama chicken would proudly cross the road for.

You would think that with such fine examples of the pot’s potential that I would become an ardent fan of the Instant Pot. Uh-huh! Not me. Because I know how to stay out of trouble. When it comes to pressure cooking, I am, yes, a snivelling coward.

I acquired my fear of pressure cookers in the 1950’s. That’s when they first became popular in the United States. Unfortunately, like meth labs, they acquired an ugly habit of occasionally blowing up.

I only knew one person who ever used a pressure cooker during those pioneering times – my fearless mother-in-law, Mabel. There wasn’t anything Mabel could concoct in that thing that wasn’t mouth-watering delicious! She’d try anything, anytime, in that pot. One time we went to Ellis Park for a picnic, and discovered on the table – still gently steaming – not hot dogs, guys, – but a juicy fork-ready pot roast that Julia Child would have swooned over. The best I ever tasted.

Just because Mabel could produce such goodies with pressure cooking never convinced me to try to learn how she did it. I hope I’ll always be remembered for my unerring good judgment on that subject. If I’m the lone survivor of one of my dinner parties, I don’t want to be serving the meal just to the fire department or the bomb squad.

This photo I found (from lovethispic.com) illustrates what I anticipate could happen if the power of such a weapon were to be licensed for my quivering use.

If you’re a regular reader of these blobs (thank you!), you may have observed that I have never presented you with any of my own secret and treasured recipes for cooking, such as my famous Recipe for Boiled Water. I can only imagine how disappointed you must be.

To compensate, here are a couple recipes from other sources that you may want to peruse – entirely for educational purposes, of course. After all, as my son Matthew explained to me one time, “Many men read Playboy Magazine only for the articles”.

1. If, like the Stepford Wives, “you’ll simply DIE if you don’t get that recipe”, you can find one here for how to cook meth: https://science.howstuffworks.com/meth3.htm

Of course, I haven’t tried it myself: I only read it for the article.

2. Thanks to my good judgment in avoiding the use of pressure cooking, I haven’t tried the following either, but here’s Wikipedia’s “recipe” for how to create a pressure cooker bomb – on purpose:

A pressure cooker bomb is an improvised explosive device (IED) created by inserting explosive material into a pressure cooker and attaching a blasting cap into the cover of the cooker.

Pressure cooker bombs are relatively easy to construct. Most of the materials required can be easily obtained. The bomb can be triggered using a simple electronic device such as a digital watch, garage door opener, cell phone, pager, kitchen timer, or alarm clock. The power of the explosion depends on the size of the pressure cooker and the amount and type of explosives used.

Similar to a pipe bomb, the containment provided by the pressure cooker means that the energy from the explosion is confined until the pressure cooker itself explodes. This in turn creates a relatively large explosion using low explosives and generating potentially lethal fragmentation.

All of the foregoing is to introduce a rather theatrical learning experience which will be taking place here at Kartar Ridge Ranch. For Mother’s Day, my granddaughter Gretchen . . . .

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.presented her mom, Susy . . . .

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with the gift of – you guessed it . . . .

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. . . an INSTANT POT

Oh-Oh! It’s sitting in the kitchen, right now, waiting for someone to detonate it.

I think I’ll go hide in my room.

Hello, guest blogger grandson Bryce filling in today for Octo-woman+10 so she can put her feet up on a Saturday night.

Living next door to Grandma, Grandpa and Matt growing up, I regularly spent many late nights at their house. For example, if I was done hanging out with friends at midnight I would go next door to spend time with Grandma and Matt before returning home at 2AM (Grandpa went to sleep early). With those experiences and now after living with them, I can share some of Grandma’s late night ways that others may not be aware of.

Here are some moments with Grandma to demonstrate her youthful spirit:

One time about 1AM in the morning I got a message:
Grandma: Bryce, are you up? Do you want to watch the Sopranos?

Another time at 2AM debating if we (Grandma, Matt and I) should continue to watch one more episode to finish a season of The Wire:

Bryce: Ok, I think that’s it for me. I’m tired.

Grandma: No, I think we should watch one more.

Bryce: I’m ready to go to bed.

Grandma: No, Matt, what do you want to do?

Matt: I could watch another episode.

Grandma: 2 out of 3, democracy wins. We have to watch one more, Bryce.

Bryce: Ha, ok.

*I like that Grandma is the one pressuring me to stay up late to watch HBO.

About 1AM at night after the UFC PPV MMA fights on a Saturday, the winner of the best Fight of the Night was actually on the pre-lims before the PPV. Matt was still watching TV in the living room and Grandma was in the next room working on the “blob” that was going to post in a few hours on Sunday morning. I assumed Grandma was MMA’d out after watching a full PPV fight card already.

Bryce: Hey Matt, do you want to watch the fight that won best Fight of the Night from the pre-lims that we didn’t see?

Matt: Yeah, let’s watch it.

I sat down to play it, but a few moments later Grandma entered the living room from around the corner as she had heard us talking.

Grandma: Can you wait to watch it until tomorrow, then I could watch it too? I have to work on the blob, but I want to see it.

*Grandma is also so into the fights, that she wants to watch even the extras that weren’t on the PPV.

Another time we were looking for a movie to watch as a group with Josie and Caleb.

Grandma: Have you seen Fight Club, Requiem for a Dream or Dear Zachary? Those are really great movies we could watch.

*I think those movies are great too, but I think she is the only 5-footish, 90-year-old Catholic Great-Grandma recommending those very adult-themed movies.

One time a few years ago, a 30-year-old photographer friend of mine visited from California, and we talked next door with Grandma for about 2 hours. After leaving her house at maybe 1AM, my friend said something like:

Friend: Wow, your Grandma is in her 80s? She is talking about AI, the future of business, technology, space and more. I hope I’m that sharp and with-it when I’m in my 80s… Well.. Actually, I wish I was as sharp and as with-it as she is now.

Many nights if I got up to get something from the kitchen, Grama is up playing piano with her headphones on, far deep into the night past even my hours.

Growing up, she told me that she had lived an extra lifetime, because while other people were sleeping, she was up living doing things.

She’s a smart, musical, HBO TV-MA content watching, good-conversation-having, extra-life-living, inspiring Grandma, that I’m sure passed on her night-owl ways to me growing up next door. I hope to be as sharp, with-it, edgy-content-watching, tireless, fun and creative in my older years as she is now.

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OK, now I’m off to bed, though I’m sure she will be up for a few more hours…

Bryce

The main event here this week was the arrival of baby Casey Curt. His mom Melissa and dad Neil presented the little champ to the world right after he arrived on Tuesday.

Weighing in at about 7 and a half pounds, Casey looks like he’s going to hold his own in the ring! Just stand back and watch! Healthy, hungry, and – hopefully – happy to be featured on the fight card.

Coaching him from the corner is his new brother and sparring partner Wesley, who already knows his way around the canvas, and all the good moves. For now, it looks like, possibly, most of the fighting will be against outside contenders!

As their great grandmother, I will be cheering them on from the sidelines — but my immediate and heartfelt admiration and concern will be focused on their trainers – their parents. Raising children in our nation today requires a kind of struggle and heroism that we didn’t have to face in the years my husband Gene and I were raising our seven kids.

During our parenting years, our vocabulary didn’t include terms like opioids, cyberbullying, school shootings, pandemics, remote learning, social distancing, everyday wildfires, climate change, road rage, gender confusion, wingnuts, whitelash, catfishing, ghosting, or formula shortages, and we couldn’t even pronounce – let alone spell – words like hydroxychloroquine or hegemony.

It’s easy to understand why the birth rate is declining! In our country, it’s gone down a whopping 19 percent since 2007. Today – unless they’re rich enough to provide for themselves and their kids – both parents have to work to support and care for the family they want to have. The economic struggle parents face is mind-bending. It can’t be easy. I’m in awe of people like Melissa and Neil who find the strength and determination to do it.

I earnestly wish our country could find a way to help with providing support for good childcare. It must be tempting to consider moving to a country that can provide better support. According to the website nyshipping.com, the top ten countries that are considered the best places to raise a family are Sweden, Denmark, Australia, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, and Singapore.

As an example, the site describes Sweden’s support for parents:

Sweden has a strong social policy and is ranked first in childcare and overall cost of children. It is considered the best country to raise children. Parents are entitled to 480 days of paid parental leave, 60 of which are reserved for the father. The government also provides a monthly allowance to parents per child and gives adults the right to reduce their working hours until their children turn eight. Health care and college education are free, and its people boast one of the longest life expectancies in the world.

Unless moving to a new ring, young American parents today are waging the good fight on their own! Their struggle will be Olympian but the rewards will be golden! Compiled on the site meetfabric.com, here’s a few they can expect:

• Seeing Everything With a Fresh Pair of Eyes.
• The Insane Feeling of Love.
• The Constant Joy of Surprise.
• Living Up to My Kids’ High Regard.
• The Sound of My Baby’s Laugh.
• My Appreciation for My Own Parents.
• The Fragility and Value of New Life.
• The Shared Joy of Learning Together.
• Producing the Coolest, Most Amazing Person(s) You Could Imagine

Modern parenting is full of hazards, traps, hurdles, and sacrifice, but the rewards are enormous. You’re probably already aware of this, but the next time you’re watching a pair of young American parents at the supermarket checkout counter, you’ll know one thing for sure. The battlefield and the fight ring aren’t the only sites where heroes are found.

As for you, Wesley and Casey – live long and prosper! We’re counting on you!

It was a dark and stormy night! We don’t know how he got in! We definitely weren’t prepared for a home invasion, but we should have been. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.

My son Matt, grandson Bryce, and I were watching the first episode of The Wire’s new sequel called “We Own the City”. Suddenly, without warning, it happened! Footsteps! And then, ye gods! an intruder appeared in the room!

He traveled with maniacal speed across the room, leaped up on the couch, ran along the back of it, and then revealed his evil intentions: he wanted the burrito that Bryce had left on a plate.

He was clearly an uninvited and unwelcome guest. And one we could easily ID in a line-up of suspects: about 2 inches long not counting his tail, with brownish-gray fur, a white belly, and a real hankering for Mexican food. His DNA will likely reveal his race to be that of either a deer mouse or a field mouse who definitely enjoys life on the farm, hot sauce and refried-beans. Ole!

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Yes, another little mouse tried to horn in on our household here at Kartar Ridge Ranch. They just never learn! Encroaching on the territory patrolled by my daughter – our in-house Mousecatcher Susy – is just asking for the kiss of death, the Big Sleep, the coup-de-grace, the eternal rest resulting from getting whacked with that good old mousetrap smack-a-roo. But not this time.

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This time, when Susy hauled out her deadly mouse-catching arsenal, two new items had been added to its bank of fearsome mousetraps. They were cages. It seems that for the crime of home invasion, Susy had decided to offer a stretch in the stir as opposed to capital punishment. At least for a first offense.

Employing her best culinary art skills, Susy carefully set the tables in both cages, and in eight mousetraps: a veritable feast of ham with a side of cheese. Bon appetit! It was surely irresistible! . . . . Except it wasn’t. The first night, nothing happened.

We couldn’t understand it. Maybe the mouse was a day person. Or dieting. Or possibly vegan. Susy finally figured it out, though. Perhaps he was waiting for a splash of guacamole sauce!

The next morning, there he was! Incarcerated in a cage! And very upset about it. Feverishly plotting a prison break, he hadn’t even finished his gourmet meal. Caramba!

Susy, the mighty hunter, picked up the cage containing her trophy, marched it out to a nearby field, and made the reprieve. She carefully opened the cage door. The mouse burst out, leaped up a foot in the air, and then took off frantically running for parts unknown. On the lam!

We can count on one thing for sure. Assuming he has reasonably good sense, that mouse will never again venture into somebody’s house. Unless he gets an invite. Or maybe if they’re serving enchiladas!