Emjay

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It's a gorgeous day today; the perfect sort of day for a dog on a potato bread roll:

The weatherman said it was "perfect firework weather".  Well, I hate perfect firework weather.   It would be okay if the only fireworks here were on the National Mall, or organised displays; but they're not.  Hundreds of people in my neighbourhood seem to have hoards of illegal fireworks waiting to set them off under the cover of darkness tonight. 

Last year was our first year in this house and we had been warned by older neighbours.  It drizzled all day and we were relieved, once the sun set,  that our house and wooden decks were dampened down.  

Tonight I will be sitting on the deck holding the hose,  imbibing some good red stuff, nervously watching for errant embers and children on fire!  

My local firehouse is likely to be busy tonight - just hopefully not in my row of houses! 

Have a happy & safe Independence Day.

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Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on the furthest end of the platform waiting for my train when a girl approached all smiley face. Hi, she says, sits down and commences to strip out of her work clothes into gym clothes!!   We were a long way from any other commuters but I wonder if she realised there was a CCTV camera right there!

I woke up this morning with a stiff right side - from neck to hip.   How can you get so injured just quietly lying in bed all night?   

Yesterday I had my first ever bone scan.  The technician touched my left foot without telling me she was about to and I  kicked her.  It is amazing how something so dead (technically "numb") is so sensitive!   If you are going to touch my foot you have to start at the couple of toes with feeling and work up!

My black toenail, injured the first week of December,  finally fell off.  Well, it didn't actually just fall off -  it got caught on the bathmat and mostly ripped off.  Ouch!

At my recent girl's party comments along the lines of "you should use these again" prompted me to put the plastic (disposable) plates in the dishwasher (though alcohol consumption may well have contributed too).   I did turn off the "additional heat'   and used the lowest/quickest setting.  Near the end there was that funky smell of melting plastic and I was feeling pretty panicky as I opened the door.  I was lucky as they were still intact but I would not recommend doing this  - I would hate to be responsible for someone clogging up their pipes with gunky green plastic.   We have used these plates since but they will not get to hold food a 3rd time.  They were Solo grips and really were great! 

I finally got to pick my first radishes today!  After eating all those damn leaves at last I get to eat the "fruits" - these first ones were sweet and tender: 

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My weekend was tempered by the sad news that my next door neighbour had passed away.  I had posted about her awhile back when she was "missing".   About a month ago Mr M across the street told us a "car had come and took her to hospital"   but no-one had any other details.

A couple of weeks ago the owner of a fast food place knocked on our door. Apparently our neighbour supported her shop four or five  times a week and had not been in.  She left me a phone number to call if I learnt anything.  People were concerned but attempts to find out anything from the family failed.

On Saturday a total stranger stopped us as we walked down our front path. She said she used to "play the numbers" with our neighbour and had heard she had died.  That prompted me to check the death notices online and I discovered that she had passed away at the end of May.

The sad task of telling the neighbours and phoning the shop-owner fell to me.   The neighbours were saddened but were also overwhelmingly annoyed with the family for not letting anyone here know what had happened.  Some of these people have shared the same street with her for the 15 years that she lived here.

I felt really sad.  She was a little eccentric but in a wonderful way. She told fascinating stories of growing up in the south.  She had a crush on the manservant. No matter how many times the manservant told her to just stick any misdirected mail in our box she would ring the bell and have a little chat with him.   She thought he was a little soft in the head because he would be outside in winter in bare feet and shorts! (I agreed with her).

I will miss her knocking on our door asking us to ring her mobile number because she had lost her phone somewhere in her house.  I will miss having a little giggle in my head at some of the things she wore.  I never found out the name of the jeweler she paid to make lovely items.  I never heard her play her old piano or the organ in her church.   

She was only 62 years old  - I thought there was much more time to do all that.     

She once knocked on our door to tell me that her "heart was aching"  because my peonies were lying on the path.  I took scissors and cut them for her to put in a vase.  She brought them back to show me how they looked in her vase - she was so pleased. 

I did not get to give her any peonies this year  - they were flowering around the time she was dying.  I wish I had known which hospital.  I would've taken a bunch to her.    

Farewell Sararietta  -   I will miss you.  

 

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Yesterday was the 17th annual Caribbean Parade and Festival.  Last year was the first year we went - because the parade passes by within walking distance of where we now live.

So, yesterday I slathered on the sunscreen and off we went.

There didn't seem to be as many flamboyant costumes as last year (the economy??) but the stilt walkers were there again and, as before, there was a lot of flesh on display amongst the proud and beautiful people.

 
This year there were metal barriers the length of the parade route (about 5 miles) because last year someone got run over by one of the trucks.  It is a bit hard to see how this could happen given that the trucks are driving about a mile an hour, there is plenty of time to see them coming - and they are mighty big trucks.....   The barriers made it difficult to get close to those parading and they mostly walked/danced down the centre so I looked with envy at anyone with any sort of telephoto lens......     DC's Mayor Adrian Fenty walked along throwing out beads - a la Mardi Gras...      His Hummer followed in case he got tired..... Then the fun began....   (you can see a larger version of any photo by clicking on it).

...These were the only heels I saw in this parade (it was a sensible shoes day):  

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I had my annual mammogram this week.  That one day of the year when the breasts don't really feel like coming out to play. Each one first separately flattened and clamped horizontally whilst images are taken and then squashed in a vertical vise for more pictures. Arms are positioned at weird angles,  relax that shoulder, take a breath, hold still, don't move.

She finished the horizontal compressions against the "plates" and one of the vertical ones.  She was lining me up for the last image when suddenly the horrible, and dreaded, shrill sound of a fire alarm filled the room.  

She looked at me and asked very calmly:  'Do you want to finish or leave?  We are only on the 2nd floor so it's not far to go out the window." 

I barely hesitated before saying "Let's finish, I don't want to come back". 

A couple of minutes after that last image the alarms fell silent.

Only afterwards did I laugh at how the sight of me,  jumping out that window,  topless and with a lead "apron" protecting my vital organs,  might have led to years of therapy for many people!!

 

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Well, we survived the eating of the radish leaves.  AS the manservant was eating the first few I wondered, aloud, if they really were edible!   "Surely you checked",  he asked.   Well, of course I did!   

This is my pot of overcrowded radishes: 

I took the little gnome's seat so I could sit in comfort as I plucked and culled:  I felt like lord(ess) of the manor as I surveyed my "crops"  - peppers, chilies, herbs, strawberries, spring onions (still looking sickly...),  tomatoes As I started pulling out every second plant I noticed that I had some competition for the tender leaves: At last they were thinned so that the remaining seedlings are about an inch apart:  I took the pulled plants inside and presented them to the manservant:  I cleaned them up and tossed over some goat's cheese and freshly ground pepper: Ready to serve - out on the deck with one of the Chilean Carmenere wines: Ready to eat -  dished up with mini quiches and cherry tomatoes:  They tasted great and as neither of us suffered any intestinal "issues" , I think it proves that radish leaves are perfectly safe to eat.   Now I wait expectantly for radishes to form on the bottom of those remaining plants. 

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Today started with rain  - we have had so much rain recently that the water tank has been in constant overflow.    The front lawn is about a foot high and I was looking forward to the manservant mowing it when he got back from Chile today. 
 
But, when I looked out the window I did not see a manservant arriving by taxi;  I saw raindrops and envisioned another few inches of growth in that grass. 

When the manservant returns from playing astro-dweeb he generally brings something back for me.  If the trip is to Australia,  he arrives back looking like a Red Cross parcel carrier - full of goodies from home.   When he first started going to Chile he would bring perfume back from the Duty Free store.  But he was supplying more than I was using so he came up with a better idea.  Something I am sure to use:  Wine!

He goes to a Chilean supermarket and buys 6 bottles of Chilean wine. Six bottles will last me about 18 days.   There is nothing nicer than coming home and sitting out on the deck having a glass to clear my head of the day! 

 

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Most of us have a weird peculiarity or something in the closet that we are sheepish about admitting.  Some of these involve collections which are sort of irrational -  the feeling that something "bad"  will happen if we don't have a supply of an item or if we don't carry out a particular ritual.

I have never understood the compulsion some people have to run out and buy toilet paper if a storm is forecast. But then, I never let my supplies get so low that they could not cover even bathroom "emergencies" for a couple of days - and let's be real,  the weather in DC is never bad enough to keep you inside for more than a day or two.   

So, therefore, it is even harder to explain my obsessive need to have a huge supply of paper towels!   

This is a broom closet but I can not put any brooms in here because it is full of paper towels.  I can squash  3 packets of 8 rolls into this closet.  Each pack contains 29.8 sq metres (320.8 sq ft) of paper towel.   Each pack would cover more than a third of our house's roof area!  In my broom closet is enough paper to paper my entire roof with some overhang!

Now, I wouldn't normally draw this to anyone's attention because even I realise this is a bit excessive.  But week after week I add paper towels to my Peapod grocery order and I hide them away in the closet (and under the sink...).   Recently the manservant was helping and was beyond astonished to be adding another pack to my bulging collection.  What sort of Armageddon could possibly require this many paper towels? 

 

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I learnt that mentioning offhandedly to an eye doctor that the little light looks brighter in one eye than the other will lead to hours of tests and tasks at a neuro-opthalmologist.    The specialist asked "why are you here?"  -  I responded: "Because I said that looks a bit brighter in this eye to the other guy".    "No -  it must be more than that",  he says and reads the notes....   Mmmm - no, that's exactly all it was!  Nothing wrong.

I learnt that Radish seeds are incredibly easy to germinate.  I assumed a fair percentage would fail ...   not so:  Now I don't know whether to transplant some or just separate and destroy!   And, how do you tell when a radish is ripe enough to pull up?

But - when it came to the spring onions?   They are sort of straggly & pathetic looking: I bought a hen & chicks plant last trip to the nursery because it said "drought resistant".  Although I have seen the plants in many gardens I had never seen flowers on them until mine produced a batch last week.   The Latin name for the plant is Sempervivum tectorum which translates roughly into evergreen on roofs.   Apparently they used to be planted on thatched roofs in Europe as protection against lightning induced fires.  Wow!  A versatile practical plant - drought and fire resistant and pretty:  
Last year I planted a day lilly and promptly neglected it after it finished flowering.  This year it is attempting to make me notice it by being prolific with the flowers: A few weeks ago we went to friends for a bbq which included some Maryland crabs.  4 yo boy says "uncle manservant are you sure you know how to open crabs 'cause it doesn't look like it" !!   I'm not much on having to fight for my food so I was happy to eat from the fish selection. 
 
Last night I held a little gathering of ladies -  a gaggle of girls??  - to celebrate a 50th birthday of one of my friends.  There were 10 of us - only 2 under 50 - a total baby of 30 and a 47 yo.  The friendship of a circle of females can be a very strong and supportive bond.  We 50-plusers each told how we had felt on the day we reached the milestone and shared some of our bucket list items.   We ate well and drank better.   The highlight was the chocolate cake and bubbly!   
Mixed company is ok but nothing beats a bunch of women for some enlightening conversations!  After a few drinks girls get down to nitty gritties that I'm sure would make you guys nervous!