My part of Washington is really, really wet right now and supposed to get wetter. We're in the bulls eye area for inheriting the big storm Alaska jus91 t finished with. I don't mind the wind and rain, being a native Oregonian. Lots of rain is what makes the Pacific Northwest so beautiful. In Oregon, though, there's a coast range of mountains between where I come from and the coast, so the coast gets the brunt of the storms. Here, I'm in the southern Puget Sound area where there aren't the mountains to shield us, I guess.
Due to a glitch, I didn't have internet yesterday and I didn't have cable either. They're both from the same source so when I lose one, I lose the second within a little while. During the wind and rain storm yesterday, I was reading a book called American Sea Writing, which is a compilation of writings from the 1600's to the year 2,000. It seemed pretty apropo to the driving wind and rain. I could kind of imagine being at sea. One of the writings was an excerpt from a woman who would sometimes go out to sea, kids and all, with her husband on his travels.
This woman was Mary Rowland. She and her husband had two little girls, so the children were with them on their travels. She writes of it being 91 degrees below decks, with very high humidity from the steam coming off the stuff stowed in the hold, so it was difficult to sleep. She describes being "tormented with vermin" meaning roaches by the thousands. They were everywhere, including in their trunks of clothing. And roaches didn't respond to "scalding" so I guess she tried to kill them with boiling water. Then she mentions that the millions of flies had finally subsided, but maggots had hatched out. She wrote that maggots will bite a live person. And then she also complains of mosquito infestation, and since they're out at sea, the mosquitos just eat them alive since there are only 20 available humans on board. She says the maggots crawl out of the raisins and figs they're carrying in their food stuff and that she tries very hard to get the beds cleared of the maggots and cockroaches before going to bed at night but that it doesn't help any because the cockroaches and maggots then crawl on the ceiling and drop back down into their beds.
Reading this story in the book, I wondered how anyone could take their little children and just live at sea like that with them, husband or no husband. But they'd been married 24 years and the books says she often went with her husband, so I guess she didn't mind. She also speaks of cutting out and sewing clothing while at sea. She mentions that she met other women in the ports who had been at sea with their own husbands and how they tried to socialize together while the husbands were off-loading and taking on new cargo but that it wasn't easy to do.
We think our mail is slow and unreliable in our modern times. In the years when ships were the chief means of getting around, the ship had to take any letters they wanted to mail, wrap them around a rock or brick and tie it and then when they could get close enough to another ship in port that was going the direction they wanted the letter to go in, they'd climb into the rigging and throw the mail at the deck of the other ship. If they missed, the mail ended up in the sea where it sank to the bottom. Maybe our mail service isn't so bad after all.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
That Homesickness with No Reason
Lately I've been watching YouTube videos made by people who consider themselves to be "urban explorers". Some are so obnoxiously loud and try so hard to be witty that I just can't watch them but when I find videos by Tiki Trex and Dan Bell and others who just do their videos in a very homey, conversational tone, I love watching those. However, when I see some of the abandoned buildings, many absolutely beautiful in their day but now just sitting and rotting away, my heart aches. It's like a feeling of homesickness. Many of the buildings are from days gone by but some have been abandoned more recently, I can't help wondering why someone left these breathtaking homes and institutions to just crumble. Why doesn't somebody at least salvage the stained glass windows and immense fireplace surrounds and other gorgeous elements of the day? Why can we afford to just waste all that? When I was watching some of those last night, it occurred to me that maybe the pain I feel so acutely for some of them is a result of my having lived a past life there.
Once in awhile, a home will have police tape in it. That's pretty chilling, wondering what happened there that the police taped it off at one time. Normally those are the newer, more modern dwellings where not only is police tape there, but so is every single thing the people owned, including their food, clothing, children's beds and toys.
Sometimes it's easy to read the story in the stuff that's left. Like a home where there are disability aids. In one of them was a shower chair used by the disabled or elderly. Part of the home showed that normal life went on there for many years, but then going further back toward the bedroom area things that indicated an elderly or ill person lived there at the last. This home had a pair of crutches leaned up in a closet, the padded arm rests all taped up with silver duct tape. This was a person who had little money but lingered a long time and at one point would have used those crutches. Obviously the former resident had gradually deteriorated until even with help, they either couldn't live untended anymore or maybe they'd died.
Last night one of the Dan Bell videos was filmed in a house where a psychic/Tarot reader lived. It was really a pretty little house. I'd have loved to live and work there. But the upstairs was all about children. It looked like a baby and a little girl of maybe 4 or 5 had lived in those rooms, but it hadn't been touched. It was spotlessly clean although being children's rooms, toys and some clothing were all strewn around. That's normal. The walls and carpets seemed all nice and clean, as though these were children who were well cared for and loved.
Another video was of a "dead mall" that was all empty but the power was still on and I could hear "elevator music" playing. Eerie. It made me wonder why such a big mall had been just left to rot and be vandalized.
In the Poconos Dan did a series of videos of the resorts that had been there up till the 90's. Swingers resorts and honeymoon resorts, to name a couple of types. He's done a series of videos called "dead motels" that he's filmed.
For anyone who wants to spend a few hours just watching videos like this, I highly recommend Dan Bell's videos.
One of the resorts had been the place where a fugitive had hid out for weeks. His last name was Frein, I think. I forgot to Google the incident today. Instead housework was screaming at me so loudly that I cleaned my apartment instead. Don't you just hate when your home is so rude and demanding? I do but it produced results so I guess I can see the point.
Once in awhile, a home will have police tape in it. That's pretty chilling, wondering what happened there that the police taped it off at one time. Normally those are the newer, more modern dwellings where not only is police tape there, but so is every single thing the people owned, including their food, clothing, children's beds and toys.
Sometimes it's easy to read the story in the stuff that's left. Like a home where there are disability aids. In one of them was a shower chair used by the disabled or elderly. Part of the home showed that normal life went on there for many years, but then going further back toward the bedroom area things that indicated an elderly or ill person lived there at the last. This home had a pair of crutches leaned up in a closet, the padded arm rests all taped up with silver duct tape. This was a person who had little money but lingered a long time and at one point would have used those crutches. Obviously the former resident had gradually deteriorated until even with help, they either couldn't live untended anymore or maybe they'd died.
Last night one of the Dan Bell videos was filmed in a house where a psychic/Tarot reader lived. It was really a pretty little house. I'd have loved to live and work there. But the upstairs was all about children. It looked like a baby and a little girl of maybe 4 or 5 had lived in those rooms, but it hadn't been touched. It was spotlessly clean although being children's rooms, toys and some clothing were all strewn around. That's normal. The walls and carpets seemed all nice and clean, as though these were children who were well cared for and loved.
Another video was of a "dead mall" that was all empty but the power was still on and I could hear "elevator music" playing. Eerie. It made me wonder why such a big mall had been just left to rot and be vandalized.
In the Poconos Dan did a series of videos of the resorts that had been there up till the 90's. Swingers resorts and honeymoon resorts, to name a couple of types. He's done a series of videos called "dead motels" that he's filmed.
For anyone who wants to spend a few hours just watching videos like this, I highly recommend Dan Bell's videos.
One of the resorts had been the place where a fugitive had hid out for weeks. His last name was Frein, I think. I forgot to Google the incident today. Instead housework was screaming at me so loudly that I cleaned my apartment instead. Don't you just hate when your home is so rude and demanding? I do but it produced results so I guess I can see the point.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Ugh! The Stuff People will Eat!
I just happened to tune in to a program called Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern today. This episode is showing how head cheese and liverwurst are made. I just made a mental note never to eat either of those again. When I was a little girl I loved both and I thought I still do----till I watched what goes into them. My grandfather on my mother's side was first generation German and Granny made both of these for him when I was a little girl. And even when I was a not-so-little girl. These two foods will never pass my lips ever again. I've already sworn off hot dogs and hamburger unless I'm in a position where I'm at someone else's house who has nothing else offered. In that case, I suddenly become very full, having "just eaten" right before coming to their house. (Yeah---right!)
I understand that in past eras, people had to frugally make use of every part of an animal. My grandpa used to say "We eat every part on a pig except the squeal." When I was three or four, I came upon a pig's head in a big tub on the living room floor. I asked why it was there. It was so disgusting. My grandpa said, "We're making head cheese". If that was going to mean I had to put any part of that head in my mouth, I was NOT going to ever do that.
Later in the day, after my nap when I'd forgotten the pig's head, I came out to the kitchen and my uncle (who lived with us) stuffed something in my mouth. I thought it was really good and asked for more. He wouldn't tell me what it was till I'd eaten more than a little kid should. THEN he told me it was "head cheese" and when I asked what was in it, he told me.
My family was very poor, but when a child is small, they don't know what "poor" is. It wasn't unusual to sometimes have only a buttered piece of bread with unseasoned pinto bean soup poured on it.
I thought that was a wonderful meal when I was 4 years old. That's why things like a nasty pig's head ended up in the living room. It was given to us by a farmer who kept the rest of the pig, I remember coming to the living room from a nap and finding a calf on a big quilt on the living room floor, cleaned and ready to cut up. Another time it was a bucket of eels. Ewww! And a big fish of some kind another time. Neighbors often gave us their "offal", (which I still think is awful).. One of my favorite foods was pigeon. My uncles still lived at home and somewhere they'd found a flock of pigeons they killed and brought home. I ate two whole pigeons by myself. Granny told me that before I was born, during the Depression, they were given a goat to eat.
As I sit here thinking back to those times, I just don't understand how we survived without food poisoning. The closest we came to refrigeration was an old oak "ice box" my grandparents got somewhere. We never used it because where we lived, there wasn't anywhere to get ice and even if there had been, we couldn't have bought any. There wasn't money for it. For anyone young enough not to know what an "ice box" is, it was an oak cabinet with a shelf in it. On the bottom was a place where a big block of ice would be put and there was a hole in that shelf where the melted water came out and enough space under the cabinet to sit a basin under the hole to catch the melted water. The food was put up on the shelf above the block of ice. The way my grandmother kept anything kind of cool was to set it inside an apple crate nailed up in a kitchen window. The window was on the side of the house that didn't get the sun and it was actually outside the window, where there was air circulation and at night, if it was cold weather, the food would stay cool during the night. And then because there wasn't any sun on it, the cold of the night coolness would last part way through the day. She mostly usually kept an open can of milk in the window box to use in her tea. It might have held butter sometimes, too.
When I was watching something about the 1800's on Youtube the other day, I saw a cream separator like we had when I was little. It was operated by using a hand crank. We got our milk and cream from the neighbors who had a dairy, so the cream separator was just sitting in our storage shed unused. Some mice had made a nest in it. I probably only remembered that because of the mice. Granny just skimmed off the cream from our milk with a big spoon once it had risen. Nothing in the world is better than cream on one's oatmeal. Unless it's sour cream butter. If you make butter with fresh cream, it's called "sweet cream" butter, but there's another kind of butter that can be made with cream that's soured. Granny was throwing some sour cream away once, which upset me till she explained that sour cream is good, but sometimes a bad bacteria would get into the cream and "spoil" the cream so it wasn't good for making sour cream butter.
I'm sure some of these memories were covered in the other blog I tried to start. I've been looking at this blank page all day without any good ideas to write about, though, so I was determined to write something even if it was redundant. I'll try to do better tomorrow.
I understand that in past eras, people had to frugally make use of every part of an animal. My grandpa used to say "We eat every part on a pig except the squeal." When I was three or four, I came upon a pig's head in a big tub on the living room floor. I asked why it was there. It was so disgusting. My grandpa said, "We're making head cheese". If that was going to mean I had to put any part of that head in my mouth, I was NOT going to ever do that.
Later in the day, after my nap when I'd forgotten the pig's head, I came out to the kitchen and my uncle (who lived with us) stuffed something in my mouth. I thought it was really good and asked for more. He wouldn't tell me what it was till I'd eaten more than a little kid should. THEN he told me it was "head cheese" and when I asked what was in it, he told me.
My family was very poor, but when a child is small, they don't know what "poor" is. It wasn't unusual to sometimes have only a buttered piece of bread with unseasoned pinto bean soup poured on it.
I thought that was a wonderful meal when I was 4 years old. That's why things like a nasty pig's head ended up in the living room. It was given to us by a farmer who kept the rest of the pig, I remember coming to the living room from a nap and finding a calf on a big quilt on the living room floor, cleaned and ready to cut up. Another time it was a bucket of eels. Ewww! And a big fish of some kind another time. Neighbors often gave us their "offal", (which I still think is awful).. One of my favorite foods was pigeon. My uncles still lived at home and somewhere they'd found a flock of pigeons they killed and brought home. I ate two whole pigeons by myself. Granny told me that before I was born, during the Depression, they were given a goat to eat.
As I sit here thinking back to those times, I just don't understand how we survived without food poisoning. The closest we came to refrigeration was an old oak "ice box" my grandparents got somewhere. We never used it because where we lived, there wasn't anywhere to get ice and even if there had been, we couldn't have bought any. There wasn't money for it. For anyone young enough not to know what an "ice box" is, it was an oak cabinet with a shelf in it. On the bottom was a place where a big block of ice would be put and there was a hole in that shelf where the melted water came out and enough space under the cabinet to sit a basin under the hole to catch the melted water. The food was put up on the shelf above the block of ice. The way my grandmother kept anything kind of cool was to set it inside an apple crate nailed up in a kitchen window. The window was on the side of the house that didn't get the sun and it was actually outside the window, where there was air circulation and at night, if it was cold weather, the food would stay cool during the night. And then because there wasn't any sun on it, the cold of the night coolness would last part way through the day. She mostly usually kept an open can of milk in the window box to use in her tea. It might have held butter sometimes, too.
When I was watching something about the 1800's on Youtube the other day, I saw a cream separator like we had when I was little. It was operated by using a hand crank. We got our milk and cream from the neighbors who had a dairy, so the cream separator was just sitting in our storage shed unused. Some mice had made a nest in it. I probably only remembered that because of the mice. Granny just skimmed off the cream from our milk with a big spoon once it had risen. Nothing in the world is better than cream on one's oatmeal. Unless it's sour cream butter. If you make butter with fresh cream, it's called "sweet cream" butter, but there's another kind of butter that can be made with cream that's soured. Granny was throwing some sour cream away once, which upset me till she explained that sour cream is good, but sometimes a bad bacteria would get into the cream and "spoil" the cream so it wasn't good for making sour cream butter.
I'm sure some of these memories were covered in the other blog I tried to start. I've been looking at this blank page all day without any good ideas to write about, though, so I was determined to write something even if it was redundant. I'll try to do better tomorrow.
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Why the Title Frog Music?
When I wrote my poem called "Frog Music" in 1983, I got a lot of chuckles and laughs from it. At the time, though, as I sat listening to the frogs "singing" their mating songs one spring night, it just seemed appropriate. When I sat before this blank blog page for hours without being able to come up with a name for this blog, all at once the title came back to me and I just knew that was it. It's not a title that's going to bring Tarot and Lenormand users or beadworkers or any other specific topic because I haven't added any specific words that would draw those people in, but I think this silly little title is pretty appropriate for the use I'll be making of the blog.
I've started blogs and websites before but I'm not very computer savvy so I've let them fall by the way, giving up before I was at all successful either because it was a paid site and I couldn't afford to keep it up when I was raising grandkids or just giving up because I couldn't do a good job of making the blog look nice and follow a logical course. Right now, I've moved to another state and for the first time in my life, I'm living totally alone. Now I can devote the time and effort to making an actual, functioning blog where I can post my thoughts, post items I make, and in general create something that might be of interest to those who come across it.
My goal is to write at least something every day. It won't always be on the same topic, probably, but at least it will be something I've contributed to the blog world, for whatever it's worth.
I've started blogs and websites before but I'm not very computer savvy so I've let them fall by the way, giving up before I was at all successful either because it was a paid site and I couldn't afford to keep it up when I was raising grandkids or just giving up because I couldn't do a good job of making the blog look nice and follow a logical course. Right now, I've moved to another state and for the first time in my life, I'm living totally alone. Now I can devote the time and effort to making an actual, functioning blog where I can post my thoughts, post items I make, and in general create something that might be of interest to those who come across it.
My goal is to write at least something every day. It won't always be on the same topic, probably, but at least it will be something I've contributed to the blog world, for whatever it's worth.
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