The yellow brick road

Today marks the anniversary of the birth of Frank L. Baum (May 15, 1856 - May 6, 1919) author of The wizard of Oz and a whole series of delightful tales centering on the mythical land of Oz.  I have often wondered why he chose the home of Dorothy Gale one of his most notorious characters as a small rural setting in the state of Kansas.  If one has ever visited the Sunflower State, it would soon be obvious by the 'slight' breezes.  Even Dorothy's surname proclaims the propensity for forceful gusts of wind.  It is not a well-known fact that even though Chicago is nicknamed 'the Windy City', central Kansas is actually a windier locale.  The tornadic weather from time to time naturally leant to the whole story of Dorothy's farmhouse drawn up through a swirling storm and plopped unceremoniously down where it did not belong.  These were facts I could readily accept even as a child while watching the classic film or reading Mr. Baum's books.  Little did I ever think I would one day reside in Kansas and in fact had never visited the state before my family moved here some years ago.  When one thinks of Kansas one autoimatically thinks of Dorothy and her ruby slippers.  Being short of stature I was struck by the number of fellow members  of the vertically challenged masses.  I have thought Mr. Baum must surely have visited Kansas at one time to have such insight into the number of smaller people and my mind readily accepted a reasoning for the beloved characters known as Munkins.  Well, all this is well and good, but Mr. Baum really missed the mark with the 'yellow brick road'.   I realize he passed on nearly a century ago, but seriously, had he ever travelled the roads in Kansas he would be well aware that it is the cities and larger towns that have paved roads; rural areas are lucky to have gravel and the gravel is actually huge chunks of sharp rock that ruin many a tire on our modern vehicles such at the automobile.  Sometimes they put down a couple layers called 'chip and seal'.  This like the rocky gravel is cared for by graders called 'maintainers' which push the debris to the sides and then back into the center of the roads which, by the way, have no shoulders.  All too soon any stretch of road is pocked with huge ruts and gaping holes to resemble a war zone.  Finally enough citizens complain and the right politicians tour an area and after years of patchwork and hemming and hawing something might be done about the roads.  I am very gratreful and proud to say the time has come for our small hamlet sized town.  It isn't a yellow brick road; nevertheless, we finally have a paved road leading to one of the entrances of our town. To the members of our community, having a road paved with asphalt is tantamount to having a road paved with gold.   It might be too much to ask, I suppose, to have the other roads done as well.  Or would it?  Don't make me call the flying monkeys!

Right on, Hilary!

I will rarely talk politics.  They tend to annoy me.  Without further adieu, I will also freely state the topic of politics I have reserved for a future blog post.  With this said, I must say, political views aside, I will applaud anyone who can get the job done.  I have gained a whole new respect for Hilary Clinton over the past couple of years.  There is a degree of hindsight that makes one pause to consider the manner in which she might have served as our President.  Be that as it may, the timing apparently was not right and I have already stated the purpose of this post is not to discuss political views.  A couple weeks ago after viewing a morning news broadcast, friends on FB got into a discussion of Hilary's appearance and how she had 'cetainly let herself go'.  There were of course crude jokes which are both offensive and disrespectful.  My response was to the effect that the perfomance of her duties as Secretary of State would seemingly age anyone and sometimes events happen that are not conducive to perfect hair styles.  Watching tonight's broadcast of ABC's Evening News, I see ours has not been the only discussion on the topic.  Mrs. Clinton was in the news today making a statement not about politics but, rather, about life.  To paraphrase her statement, she said she is happy to be at a point in her life when what she does is more important than how people see her. If she chooses to put her hair up or pull it back she will do so for ease and comfort. The same goes for make-up and wearing her glasses instead of contacts.  She said she would allow others to worry about such things for themselves if they felt they needed to.  The point is:  we may 'view' someone for the actions they take which have an impact on life around us or we can in a more shallow manner 'see' someone soley by their appearance.  Well said, Hilary!  I commend you!

Here we go already

I am reminded of the rather caustic saying "The horn works. Try the lights!"  We live in the Great Plains region of the country.  Last year it was just plain hot!  I'm not really complaining.  It was hot everywhere and it was, after all, summer.  One should expect some amount of warmer weather.  It seems we are never satisfied.  We compalin about heat in the summer, cold in the winter, rain if it rains, and no moisture if it doesn't.  We need to learn to be content with the state we are in.  Nevertheless, we seemed to have an inordinate amount of heat last year as records were broken and drought conditions made it worse.  Still, we managed to save a lot on the utility bills by cutting back on the amount of water we put on the garden ... it was a colossal flop but nobody had a decent garden last year.  We also kept the electic bills lower by setting the air conditioner at about 80 degrees and running fans during the day.  We ran a ceiling fan at night and could open the bedroom windows.  Everything was closed up again in the morning.  As this process seemed to work, Hubby and I agreed to do this same program this year.  We have already had temperatures in the mid 90's and brought the fans up from the basement and even and run them a couple of times.  It looks like our early spring may be marching quickly towards summer.  Last week the air conditioner was uncovered.  I was preparing dinner last night when the air kicked on.  Being frugal, we decided it was too late in the day to run the air so the unit was set at 82 degrees and flipped from 'cool' to 'off'.  The realization was made that we might have to give in and run the air today.  Sure enough, it was slightly before noon and just shy of 90 degrees outside.  Hubby had just arrived home and said we had better close up the house.  We ran around (no, not literally) and closed windows and doors.  When I said it sounded like the air was already on, he looked at the unit outside the kitchen window and assured me it wasn't running yet.  When I kept hearing something running, I placed a bare foot over one of the floor vents to discover not cool air but heat.  "Um, Honey, the furnace works.  Try the air!"

A recipe for the future?

I'm hostessing a special meeting of a ladies' group tomorrow evening.  What makes the event so special is that we will be at the home of the eldest member of the group ... she'll turn 100 years old this summer.  We met at her home a year ago and she wanted us to make sure we included her on the calendar this year.  Ladies are always watching their weight, but if we are honest we really like to eat too.  This being the case, I knew I would have to come up with a special dessert to fit the occasion and began leafing through my collection of church cookbooks.  Don't laugh!  They have the best recipes because they are all time honored and taste tested.  Having lived in various states, I possess a nice assortment.  I talked the choices over with my hubby as to ease and availability of ingredients.  I narrowed the choice down to two; one from a cookbook; and the other, a family recipe and of course I hadn't made either one of these desserts in years.  My hubby came to the rescue and made the decision I should make the family recipe.  Sounded good to me too.  I've been feeling a bit homesick lately and this is my grandmother's recipe for Pretzel Torte.  Try as I might, I could not find my copy of the recipe.  Now, I used to make this dessert a lot so I had a vague recollection but I'm trying to impress the ladies and figured I better have the real thing.  I got on Facebook and messaged my mom, one of my sisters, my aunt and four cousins.  One of them was bound to have Grandma's recipe.  Within hours as they heard my plight I received the recipe from a cousin via her phone to my e-mail.  Another cousin couldn't find her copy either and wanted me to share when I got the recipe.  My mom e-mailed me her copy that night.  Don't you just love this modern technology?  Meanwhile Hubby got on the internet and was trying to find the recipe too.  There are a lot of versions for this dessert!  My aunt had a copy but hadn't tried the recipe and  all the cousins wanted to try this too.  So I wrote up what I received and was able to message everyone.  Isn't it wonderful that we are able to contact one another in this manner and share over the internet something so connective as an old family recipe?  I've decided this would make a great family re-union.  We can pick a date which works for each of our families and each family can make Grandma's Pretzel Torte and there we have it ... a family re-union without leaving the comfort of one's own home.  Chatting and texting are already in force among so many.  Skyping would be the icing on the cake.  Voila! The family re-union of the future is born!  Somehow I don't really think this is what Grandma had in mind.