My Computer Has a Mind of its Own - and Other Stuff

My computer definitely has a mind of its own. Since I started putting various blogs and web-sites into my favorites folder, they were added in a sort of random order. Some of them were alphabetized - and some were added at the bottom. I never knew why it happened that way, but I was cool with it. Today, I was gone for a while, and on my return, I saw that my previously helter-skelter favorites list had decided to alphabetize itself, without asking my permission. Now I am somewhat disoriented; my usual reading order has been discombobulated! I suppose I will get used to reading the blogs in the order they are now listed, but it will take a while, and I may have to skip around a bit in the beginning. Funny how little it takes to mess up my world, isn't it?

Another thing that confuses me is in writing these posts, I try to leave spaces between the paragraphs, and I check them in the preview pane but as soon as I click "publish", the spaces vanish. What can I do to assure spaces between the lines?

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A message left in my comments recently referred to my screen name, and the writer thought I was Japanese. I did Google that name not long ago and I was surprised to find that it is a very common name in Japan. The way I decided on the screen name was a method I had read about somewhere, and it involves using the first three letters of your last name and then the first two letters of your first name. The "ken" in Kenju comes from my maiden name, and obviously, the "ju" is for Judy. I suppose that some people's names would not translate well to that method, but mine seemed easy, and it sort of rolls off the tongue for me. Believers in reincarnation would probably say that my connection to that name - even though it is "made up" - is karmic, and they might suppose that I had lived at least one previous life in that country. They could be right, as I do have an affinity for most things Asian, though I have never been able to link it to a particular culture or country. If I had been consciously thinking of a name to link me to a karmic past, I would be Hatshepsut or Merit-ankh or something similar. Somehow, Kenju seems a better fit at this point.

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Speaking of Japan, has anyone seen any Japanese beetles this summer? Ordinarily, by now the rose bushes are full of them. This is the first year in recent memory that they haven't made lace of the leaves and blossoms by the first week in June. I detest the little buggers. My usual method of getting rid of them is to drown them in a plastic bucket of soapy water, but I have been bold enough to crush them in my bare fingers. The best way is to hold the bucket under the bush and shake it. The beetles fall off into the water, though some are smart enough to fly away. I get them the next time!

Is There Anything that Smells as Good as......

Is there anything else in the world that smells as good as a tomato plant? A friend gave me two plants this morning and I was nearly drunk with pleasure at the aroma. I have not grown any vegetables since we moved to this home; there are so many tall trees around that the only sunshine that reaches the ground comes between 11 am and 2 pm, and that is not really enough sunshine for growing most veggies, I think. I transplanted them into two terracotta pots and now they sit proudly on my back deck. I may have to move them around all day, chasing the sun, but if they produce any tomatoes it will have been worth it!

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My first vegetable garden was fairly large for a beginner: 40 x 40. Some of you will be laughing at that, but I thought it was a big plot. We carved it out of virgin woodlands, and removing the stumps and roots was very hard work. Then came the rocks; every rain uncovered a new layer of rocks, which had to be carted away. Luckily, there were no rocks too big to lift. Finally we planted; Big Boy tomatoes, summer squash, cukes, zucchini, eggplant, half-runner beans, leaf lettuce, spring onions and potatoes. I cannot begin to stress how much produce we harvested that first year. We couldn't give it away fast enough, and my family could only eat so much! I tried my hand at canning green beans, but gave up after that first summer. It's a good thing I wasn't born into farm life, I would never have made it. I counted tomatoes that year; we had 447 tomatoes from 14 plants. The next year, we planted about half as much as the first year, and we had a gracious plenty to eat and still had some to share with friends and neighbors.

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My favorite tomatoes grew in Ohio, at the family home of a friend. They took me with them for a family reunion, and I learned that they grew tomatoes for ketchup production. I don't remember what varieties they were. One morning we went into the fields armed with a salt shaker and a knife. There were irrigation faucets in the fields, so we chose a tomato, washed it off, sliced it open, salted it - and bit down into the red, juicy lushness that is a freshly picked tomato. By the time we finished, we had eaten enough to last through two meals and our mouths were sore from the acid and the salt. They were truly the best tomatoes I have ever eaten.

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Come to think of it, I do have a little more of a garden than I've led you to believe. I have rosemary and in a small flower bed in the front yard, I have a parsley plant about 3 feet tall that is about to bloom. It looks sort of odd in that bed, as it is the tallest thing in it and it's not centered within the plot, but I don't have the heart to move it or prune it until after it blooms. I always forget it's there, so I have not used any of the parsley yet. How dumb it that? Will you remind me next week to use some parsley?

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I've Been Tagged!

The Weary Hag at http://thecerebraloutpost.blogspot.com has challenged me to answer the latest meme, which is to tell about five things you miss from childhood. Since I just wrote a rather long post about childhood memories, and I don't wish to be repetitive, I'll try to come up with something new.

The rules:

Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump everyone up one place; add your blog's name in the #5 spot. You need to link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross-pollination of your chosen blogs. Since I don't really know how to do that, I am just going to write their url's, and hope it works for you.

1. BTW http://coffeeworks.blogs.com/bytheway/
2. Soliloquy http://nbond.blogspot.com
3. Lyvvie's Limelight http://lyvvielimelight.blogspot.com
4. The Cerebral Outpost http://thecerebraloutpost.blogspot.com
5. JustaskJudy http://justaskjudy.blogspot.com


Next: select four new friends to add to the pollen count. (No one is obligated to participate).
I'd love to see what these people have to say about it:

1. Angie - http://bigredcouch.com/journal

2. Colleen - http://looseleafnotes.com/

3. Gene - http://oldhorsetailsnake.blogspot.com

4. Melinama - http://pratie.blogspot.com

Now, please write about five things you miss from childhood. Here are mine:

1. I think everyone misses his/her mother's cooking, and I am no exception. I have written previously of my mom's prowess (and my dad's too) in the kitchen. Her chicken gravy was the best anyone has ever made. Don't be trying to tell me your mom made the best - because I won't listen! Daddy made the best French fries and the best apple pie in the world, too. I know this is repetitive, but necessary, as it is one of the most missed.

2. I miss my grandmother and greatgrandmother. They were farm wives; and back in the day they started cooking on a coal-burning stove at 4:30 am to feed the farm hands as well as their families, and as soon as breakfast was over - they started on lunch. The thing I miss most about being with either of them is their overwhelmingly positive attitude about life, especially when neither of them had it easy, either physically or emotionally. I also admired my greatgrandmother's insistence that just because she lived on a farm, and had to work hard, she shouldn't take good care of her appearance too. She never left her bedroom in the morning until she had completed her "toilette" and donned a dress, stockings and jewelry. This was after the farm had become somewhat mechanized and she didn't have to get up so early to cook anymore. When she died, they had been married for 73 years. He died 3 months later and he couldn't wait to be with her again in Heaven.

3. I miss my dad taking mom and me to Dairy Queen almost every night in the summertime. Soon after dinner, he would round us up and we'd get in the car for the short trip to sweetsville. I remember being enamored of pineapple-nut sundaes back then, and I must have eaten a mountain of them, because it was all I ordered one summer. Then I moved to butterscotch sundaes, which were even better. When we came back home afterward, we'd listen to the radio; shows like "The Green Hornet", "The Shadow Knows", "The Great Gildersleeve", "Amos and Andy" and others I can't remember the names of right now. There were great music shows too, such as "Your Hit Parade". I miss those radio shows; they were good in a way that TV will never be, because they allowed you to use your imagination.

4. I miss my childhood innocence; I miss the times when I didn't know anything about war or hunger or child abuse or tsunamis or cancer.

5. I miss school, believe it or not. Oh, I complained about it, just like every kid did. But I enjoyed studying and reading and school plays and fund drives and assemblies and winning awards at the end of the school year. The only things I don't miss are gym class and math. I used to say that as soon as my children were all in school I would go back for a Master's Degree. But I never did and it is a moderately big regret for me.

That ends my current list of things I miss from my childhood. If you were tagged (or even if you were not and would like to be) please write what you miss the most and let me know when your post is up.

Our Own Bee Season......edited below

Some years ago, I noticed swarms of bees around the back corner of our house every morning when I opened the window blinds. We watched them for a few weeks, and upon closer inspection, we discovered that the bees were going under the siding on our house, where it overlapped the brick. They left every morning in a great exodus and they returned throughout the day in a steady stream, and then returned in a swarm about dusk. About the same time, I discovered a discoloration in the corner of the ceiling in my guest bedroom downstairs. At first, I thought it was a water leak, but it was darker and seemed sticky. It took a few weeks for the realization to set in; we were infested with bees.

The pest control people wanted to kill all the bees, but we couldn't let that happen, so we located a bee keeper, who would remove the bees and take them to a hive far away.

He came with his "bee vacuum", his gloves and hat veil, and his smoker. First, he had to expose the bees. It had been determined that they were located in the space between the upstairs master bedroom floor and the ceiling of the guest bedroom below. He moved the furniture, peeled back the carpet, removed 2 layers of subfloor and lo and behold, there was honey as far as the eye could see, and the hum of the bees was so loud you could hear it 15 feet away! The joists were 7-8" deep and the bees had built between the sections of joists about 5 feet square in all.

The smoker makes the bees sort of sleepy, and they won't attack. After he "smokes" them sufficiently, he uses his specially altered vacuum cleaner to suck up the bees into a vented box, which he uses to transport the bees to their new hives. He knows approximately how many bees he is able to get, because the box is supposed to hold 90,000 bees. Believe it or not, when he finished with our house, he had over 300,000 bees, in 3 boxes.

Then came honey removal. This honey was very dark - almost mahogany colored - and very bitter. The bee man said it was because of the types of pollen they gathered. He removed five, 5 gallon buckets of honey, and sad to say, none of it could be eaten. The honey was so heavy; it is a wonder that the ceiling downstairs didn't cave in with the weight of it.

He replaced the subfloor and the carpet, and he caulked the opening outside along the siding where the bees had first gained entry. We thought that would be the last of the bees. Boy, were we wrong.

Four or five years later, it became obvious that bees had once again found an opening into the subfloor. The bee man explained that once the honey had penetrated the surfaces, no matter how well it was removed and cleaned, a residue of honey would always remain for bees to smell. This time there were many fewer bees and much less honey to deal with, since we had noticed them early on in the process. We had to go through the removal process again, and though it was easier this time, it was still a hassle, not to mention the expense. The newest point of entry was located, and it was behind a downspout. That was an area that the bee man had not been able to get the caulking into the first time, due to the awkward position. But this time, he forced it in. So far, we have not been infested again - but from time to time - I see bees investigating the area. We sure do hope they don't find their way into the house again.

Note: my husband says I made an error. The bee boxes each hold 25,000 bees and we had 4 boxes, for a total of about 100k.

Bogged Down in Blog Land (with apologies to Hoss)

My clothes are wrinkled, and I need to dust.............so here I am..........blogging.

The garden needs weeding, I really should sweep......but here I sit...........blogging.

I need a shampoo, and my nails should be clipped...........and still I sit............blogging.

The pillows need fluffing, there are flowers to arrange......and yet I am..........still blogging.

I've dinner to cook, the cat litter's dirty.........but I cannot stop....blogging.

The pantry is bare and the cupboards are too...........we've nothing to snack on........How about you?.............. Are you blogging too?

Summer Memories

The wonderful writer at http://fragmentsfromfloyd.com asked for summer memories from when you were a child. I love recalling my favorite summer memories; evoking warm and wonderful feelings of times spent in nature, solitary and carefree.

As a youngster, summers were spent riding my bike, playing tag, hide-and-seek, and all the other games that kids play. Catching lightning bugs was a favorite pasttime; I loved going out at night after dinner and feeling the warm breezes on my skin, while running through the yards with a mason jar looking for bugs. Since there was no TV yet, we spent a lot of time in a porch swing, talking about the day, remembering the past, and discussing family issues. It was in that swing, at age 6 I learned that I was adopted , "chosen" as they called it. It was where I heard that my favorite uncle was going into the Navy and from that swing, we heard the neighbors fights, other mother's admonitions to wayward children and the sounds of piano practice.

At age eight, we moved, and summers were spent mostly in the woods around our new home, near a recreation site for the families of Union Carbide employees. We were the last house on the street, surrounded by woods and animals and wildflowers. I loved nothing better than going into those woods day after day, seeking new critters, bugs, flowers, seed pods, creeks and rocks to look under. My mom was so paranoid about most things, that I still cannot fathom why she was so agreeable to seeing me (at ages 8-11) go off into the woods every day. I was warned to run home if I smelled watermelon; it is supposed to be the predominate smell when there is a copperhead snake nearby. I saw many a copperhead while growing up, but none on my jaunts into the woods. The smells of deep woods; leaf mold, clear water creeks and wildflowers haunts me even now. I can still conjure it at will. I found many crayfish, fishing worms, crickets, tadpoles, frogs and the like - and they all made it home with me at one time or another. I also picked up a few ticks along the way, but they were removed with no ill effects when I got home. One year a group of teenagers decided to dam up the small creek nearby, to create a swimming hole. I helped them locate and carry rocks for the dam, and they barely tolerated my presence, except for the help I was so willing to give. Eventually they created a swimming hole of about 4 feet deep, enough to float in, if not really swim. It was cool, clear running water and good for the soul. I spent many an hour there, surrounded by tall trees and dappled shade. I was once in a seminar, in which the leader asked us to get still and "go back to your favorite quiet place". I knew immediately where I would go and with the snap of a finger - I was back in those woods, with only the trees and breeze for company.

In my area, we had a huge swimming pool complex that had been built into the side of an old rock quarry. Virtually everyone went there on weekends, as it was one of the few public pools around in those days. They had the big main pool, baby pools, a games area and a dance floor, and they always played the current popular songs for our "dancing pleasure". And dance we did; as the sun burned brightly and tanning or swimming became boring, we piled onto the dance floor like sardines in a can. It was heaven. If your current boyfriend was not in attendance that weekend, there were always scores of others waiting in the wings. And don't get me started about life guards; they of the bronzed bodies and rippling biceps. It was every 15 year old's dream, even if the guards were far too old for us.

During the week, my girlfriend and I would walk about a mile every day to the local dairy store to have a Coke and an order of fries. We told our mothers that the reason for this daily foray was our friendship, but we were not completely truthful. The route we walked was guaranteed to take us by the homes of some boys whose attention we coveted, and some days we were rewarded with a wave and a hello or maybe conversation, if we were very lucky. I don't know if they ever realized our motives, but we were so obvious I don't know how they couldn't have.

Summers in later years were not as idyllic, since I had to work and save money for college. Those were good experiences too, of course, but the best summers were spent in nature, sitting on a rock or turning it over to see what was underneath.

A Compliment Gone Bad

Michele Agnew http://www.micheleagnew.com posed an interesting question today, asking people to recount the backhanded compliments they had received. I told one or two of mine, and decided I should elaborate here.

Shortly after my husband and I married, I had to travel to DC to take a certification exam in Cytotechnology. Hubby had gone to school in DC, and many of his friends were still based there, so we made plans to meet some of them for lunch after my test. There was one couple whom I had not met. When we pulled up in front of the restaurant, and I got out of the car, their faces broke out in huge smiles, and so I thought to myself.....you are approved......they like what they see. (Back then I cared about such things; now I am a bit more laid back about approval!).

We had a very nice luncheon, full of talk about getting together again and perhaps vacationing together. I left for the rest room and of course, you know she went with me, since young women can never manage to go to the rest room alone. While freshening our make-up, she said to me, "We were so happy to see that you were not pregnant. Since you are from West Virginia, we thought you might be". After 'picking myself up off the floor', I regained enough of my voice to ask "Why would you think that?" She answered that the only girls she had ever known from WV had been unmarried and pregnant. At that point I knew she didn't merit any further conversation, but to be polite, I continued on as though she had a brain.

Over the years, we saw this couple at school reunions, but while I remained polite, I could never quite warm up to her again. When I heard that they were separating, my comment was....."What took him so long?".