The lazy Susan in the lower corner cabinet in the kitchen of our apartment fell apart. I went online to see how to repair it. Nowhere could I find that type of mechanism. So there was no hope of finding replacement parts. I did a search for 24″ piecut lazy Susan and found the correct style to replace it with. I needed the type with attached doors. I could order it from Home Depot and have them ship it to our local store. I found the same model at a CabinetParts.com for $8 less, but with an additional, substantial, shipping charge. However, I need to repair the drawers, as well. I had previously looked at Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Ace Hardware. Nothing they had in store would work very well with the plastic drawers in our kitchen. I found single track, under mount, ball-bearing slides for 30% of the price they were available at Home Depot online. This made the order qualify for a $5 off coupon and reduced shipping, which makes it a much better deal than at Home Depot.
I talked with our landlord, Steve, about doing this. I said I would provide the labor, if he would reimburse for the parts. He said he was considering replacing the lower cabinets. I told him I felt they had more years in them, and I would like to keep all that plastic out of the landfill a bit longer. The cabinets are plastic. He gave me the go ahead.
I was surprised to see that the instructions were in Swedish.
The lazy Susan arrived Saturday morning. I had already removed the one, so I got right to installing the new one. The instructions were in fine print and not very thorough. As a result, I ended up attaching and reattaching the doors three times. I had to take out the top plate and reposition it, using a square with a level on it, to insure that the stile was truly vertical. I had to trim the door panels on a table saw. So I finally finished it on Sunday morning.
I still need to caulk the center corner of the door panels, then paint. As the old saying goes, “Putty, caulk and paint make a carpenter what he ain’t!”
It was just about a week before we got slammed with the coronavirus pandemic that Bethann finally got all of her remnants and bits of fabric neatly sorted on the two 7 foot tall bookshelves we had purchased at Goodwill for $7 each. I had spent hours cutting up boxes from the state store into ~9″x11″ pieces, so that fabric could be wrapped on it, pinned and filed on a shelf by color. Bethann has sold a number of pinwheel swirl dresses, patchwork dresses, various quilted things, etc., as well as making many gifts for our grandchildren and others.
COVID-19 hits. At first, Goodwill stays open. Bethann works there part time sorting donations. On Monday, March 16, they meet with the employees and say that they plan to continue to stay open. That evening, she got an email saying that Goodwill is closing everything at midnight, due to COVID-19. On Wednesday, the owner of the cottage industry where she works sewing six hours a week tells her that she is ill and it would be better if she did not come in. By the end of the week, the governor shut all non-essential business down.
40 Face masks for Souderton Mennonite Home /Cranford’s Minion mask / Bethann’s butterfly mask
We have all this fabric! We have loads of elastic! We have sewing machines! We don’t want to be in the same room all of the time! We would like to be productive! Do we make lemonade? Of course not! That would be silly. She makes beautiful face masks. Last week, we delivered about 75 to Grand View Hospital (some adult size, some children size). Today, Souderton Mennonite Home picked up 40 and a family picked up four. She is busy making more.
And yes, she made masks for household members, as well. We wear them whenever we leave the house. Someone told me that a cloth face mask will not help. This is NOT true! A double layer, cotton face mask is 60% to 80% effective to stop the spread of virus. An N95 face mask is %90 effective. It is true that it does not so much protect the one wearing it, as it protects those around them. The best way to stop the spread of this thing is to assume everyone has it. This means we all should be staying home. And when we really need to go out for something, we should wear a mask.
Among my household chores were taking out the garbage and burning the trash. The garbage was table scraps, egg shells, coffee grounds, etc. Usually, it was wrapped in newspaper. Back then, everyone got at least one daily paper delivered to their doorstep. For several years, we got both the morning and evening papers, both the Minneapolis Star and the Tribune, as well as our village’s weekly , the Golden Valley Sun. People used to use yesterday’s newspapers for all sorts of things; many of the things we use paper towels for now. The rest would get stacked in a dry spot and tied with twine into bundles to be recycled at the elementary school’s paper sale. The ‘trash’ was all of the stuff that we threw away that would burn. Now some people had a different standard for that than we did, and would only burn paper, wood and cardboard. We liked to keep more out of the dump and have more fun. We burned our plastic, too. I know now that that probably wasn’t the best choice for the environment, or for my potential health. When one is nine or ten, one is not necessarily taking the long look. Plastic was fun to burn, because I could hang a molten piece on the end of a stick and watch the flaming plastic drip and hiss as it fell to the ground.
I enjoyed watching the fire. I would stay by it until it was safely done burning. My mom, B.J., wasn’t quite so attentive. There was a swamp behind our yard, then a steep hill with four rows of mature American Elm trees on it. The trees divided the hill into three sled paths in the winter. B.J. managed, on three different occasions, to let the trash fire get out of control and set the swamp on fire. Once, the fire was so bad, and the grass was so dry, that it burned all the way up the hill and part of the Moffat’s fence caught fire. When these fires occurred, all of the neighbors would get out their hoses and connect them to ours and Shermans’ in order to reach the swamp to contain the fire. One time, someone called the Golden Valley Fire Dept. They showed up in three cars, no tank truck, no hoses, no gear. They proceeded to tell us to hook our hoses together to put out the fire. We all told them to please go away! We had already done that. If they couldn’t offer any real help, just get out of the way!
We used a wire basket trash burner. The only image I could find of one for this post was from a vintage salvage company in the Midwest that finds antiques for movie sets. Ours had wider spaces between the wires. The top ‘flaps’ would not function after the first couple of weeks of use, being weakened by flame and corrosion.
When I think about it now, it was quite remarkable how frequently B.J. burned the swamp compared to how rarely she burned the trash. She did note how lush and vibrant all of the wildflowers and reeds came back after a fire.
When I was eight years old, our family went to Fort Snelling during their restoration preparations for their big sesquicentennial in 1969. We were only six years early. They were already selling memorabilia to help pay for it. While we were there, we witnessed a polo game. It was the only time in my life I have done so. My mom grew up with horses, so this was mandatory. Lawyers had not gained as much of a foothold by then, so fans just sat on the grass, with no barriers between themselves and the field. Polo matches were rare, so there were no stands. When a ball got so nicked up that it was deemed too poor to continue in play, they would simply knock it to the sidelines.
“Polo Ball on Grape Chair”
A ball came hurtling out of the field. I went racing toward it. So
did another boy. Now I was pigeon-toed and never that athletic, but I
threw myself on that painted cork ball! I nabbed it fair and square! I
took it home and found that it had a special charm. I placed it in
a drawer of my maple desk with the Masonite drawer bottoms. When
I opened that drawer, the ball would roll around and the divots in the
ball would make the most interesting sounds and resonate in that drawer.
For 12 years, I kept that drawer empty except for that ball, just so I
could roll it around to make that special sound.
My mom never understood this special delight. Countless times I would come home from school and see a huge trash bag outside the back door with things from my room in it. Before entering the house, I would retrieve my polo ball and a few other choice possessions, then take out the rest to the trash. I would then enter the back door. I would holler, “Mom! Did you clean my room?” She would answer, “Yes.” I would say, “Did you throw anything out?” She would say, “No.” I would say, “OK.” And I would return the polo ball to its drawer. My mom had cryptic methods of education. Looking back, this was probably her way of training me for politics and negotiations. I am now 64. My mom has been dead since 1993. I still have the polo ball. Sadly, I don’t have the maple desk with the Masonite bottomed drawers.
Last week marked the 116th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Suess (Theodor Giesel). I took this as inspiration to paint four more fish for our bathroom in our little rented apartment. I had already pasted the four fish that I painted last year on the walls above around the tub in the new place.
I decided to paint four more fish in the rest of the bathroom. These are all discus fish, from the Amazon River basin. They are painted approximately life-sized. They travel in schools of variegated colours. I paint the canvas the colour of the wall before I paint the fish, because the fins and tails are partly transparent. I use clay based wall paper paste, so I can remove the canvas at any time. It remains water-soluble indefinitely.
A couple of weeks ago, John came to the door of our apartment. He said he lived here for four years and just wanted to see what we had done with the place. He saw some of my paintings. He asked me if I took orders. I said that I could. I rarely received any. He proceeded to take his Deadhead badge off his jacket pocket. I told him he could probably buy a nice print for cheaper than I could do a painting. He wanted a painting. We arrived at an agreeable size and price. He asked me to paint a couple of roses with it, on a 14″ square canvas.
I had a hard time getting to it. My heart was not in it. Don’t tell the Grateful Dead I copied their trademark. Of course, I will gladly pay their artist the customary 7% royalty on profits for sale of copies of their work. I wonder if they collect on all of the tattoos and car stickers. Anyway, I finally got to it yesterday and finished it today.
I have never painted using primary red, white, and blue, before. I think I understand why they are used for so many national flags: France, Britain, Russia, Norway, US, Australia, Norway, the Confederacy, etc. Red and blue are from opposite ends of the spectrum. They clash with each other. When they are set next to each other, the line where they meet can look like it is moving, because the frequencies of the light reflecting are so different. Intersperse some white for contrast and the red and blue look even brighter than they would otherwise. It is an exciting combination.
So, I didn’t charge as much as I should have for how long it took. I probably shouldn’t have done it at all. I’m not particularly proud of it. I think John will be happy with it. All in all, it has been a good experience.
Yes, that’s French for “Crustless Salmon Egg Pie”. I figure if we’re going to use French for the egg pie bit, well, in for a penny, in for a pound. We had received several cans of salmon from the food bank. We usually turned these into salmon croquettes. They are not particularly ketogenic, however. Bethann did make some keto modified ones for me the last time she made croquettes, by substituting riced cauliflower for bread crumbs in the recipe. They were tasty enough, but they didn’t hold together so well. That’s what she was going to do last evening, but she was too tired to cook, when she came home from sewing club at church. So, the salmon was my puzzle to solve.
I entered “crustless salmon quiche” into DuckDuckGo in my browser. The second hit was this simple recipe from down under called Crustless Salmon Quiche (imagine that!) that I enjoyed reading, including all of the questions and replies. Then I winged it. We didn’t have most of those ingredients on hand and Bethann can’t stand dill. It turned out great! Here’s my ‘recipe’:
Ingredients:
9 Medium Eggs
4 – 7 ounce cans Wild Alaska Pink Salmon
8 ounces 4% milkfat Cottage Cheese
1 cup Whole Milk
~1/4 cup chopped Scallions
~1 teaspoon Tarragon Flakes
4 twists Black Pepper from mill on medium
a couple good shakes of ‘Lite Salt’
Directions:
Lay a sheet of parchment paper in the bottom of a greased 9″x13″ baking dish. I sprayed it with olive oil. (We obtained a plastic, pump bottle of olive oil spray a couple of years ago. I keep refilling it. It’s much cheaper and better for the environment than the aerosol cooking sprays.) Lightly spray the top of the parchment paper, as well. Preheat the oven to 350º. Whisk the Eggs and Milk together in a bowl. Add the Tarragon, Salt, Pepper, Cottage Cheese, and Scallions and stir together. Pour this into the baking dish. Squeeze the excess liquid out of the cans of Salmon (into your cats’ bowl, preferably). Break it up and distribute it evenly throughout the dish. Put it into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes. Make sure it’s done. Cut. Serve and eat.
It makes about 8 meal sized portions. It could be cut into smaller portions to be part of a buffet or snack tray. Unused portions may be safely frozen for use later.
My mom, B.J., as I mentioned before, taught me that if I could read, I could do anything. This was most literally demonstrated to me in my experience with sewing clothes. In About 1972, when I was in high school, I was working for my mom as a bicycle mechanic, salesman, and pretty much managing BJ’s Bike Shop in Brooklyn Park, MN, adjacent to BJ’s Viking Sewing Center, where she sold Viking Husqvarna and New Home sewing machines and Eureka vacuum cleaners.
One evening, she could not staff her shop, so I had to look after both stores. There was a door between them, so I could hear the door chimes on either side. A couple came in to look at a Viking sewing machine. They wanted to see how it did buttonholes. I told them that I had never used the machine and had never made a buttonhole in my life, but I would attempt it by following the step-by-step instructions in the manual that came with the machine. I sat down in front of the machine, turned it on, positioned the fabric, lowered the presser foot, opened the manual to the proper page, went through steps 1 through 5 and made a perfect buttonhole. I was astonished! They were not impressed. They were upset. They thought I was conning them and that there was no way it could be that easy. They felt I had to be an expert, when, in fact, I was a rank beginner.
After that I played around with little projects like making little book bags out old jeans legs and such. My first real sewing project was several years later. It was a pair of rusty maroon jeans. I tend to sew like my mom cooked. Sure, she always read the recipe; then improvised. On that first pair of jeans, I eliminated the outside, side seams. This meant I had to use the pattern to figure out curved darts from the waist band to my hips, where the side pockets insert. It meant I had to configure a whole different layout for cutting the fabric. I also stitched my initials in a sort of double line wave on the back pockets, instead of the boring zigzag the pattern called for. I mean if one is going to go to the trouble of making one’s own clothing, why would one want it to look like it came off of a store rack?
My second project was a pair of faux suede, dark green jeans. This time, I made them fitted to the knees, then straight down. I put a different style “CC” on the rear pockets. One day at Finland Mennonite Church, the man behind me asked me if I would make him a pair, only he wanted his initials on the pockets. His name was Chet Cassel. I said I had to maintain my artistic integrity and I could only sign them with my own initials.
The family on our front step on 4th St., East Greenville, July 1983. I’m wearing the outfit I made.
In 1978, I sewed myself a long, flowing, navy kaftan out of shiny, swimsuit fabric. I was working full time and going to seminary full time. A mentally handicapped neighbor came to our door and I answered it wearing it. She said, “Oh, I didn’t know you were a priest.” I told her I was in seminary. Then it dawned on me, that she was referring to the kaftan. In 1982 I made myself a set of Indian style drawstring pants and shirt in green and light green stripes. My friend’s NY Italian father asked her “Who’s the giant cucumber?” when we visited Manhattan. I walked with Bethann and our friends through Central Park, China Town and Little Italy, dressed in them.
In 2014, our friend, Kork Moyer, read about shite shirts and shite shirt nights in pubs in England. He is a rock musician. He said he really wanted one. I felt the same way. So, that August, while visiting our friends, Marie and Pete Mattson, in Lewes, Delaware, we went to Mare’s Bears Quilt Shop to pick up some fabric for twirl dresses. I spotted some beautiful avocado fabric. I love avocados! I use them a lot in my cooking. Then I found a gorgeous bundle of Robert Kaufman fabric fat squares. I persuaded Bethann to let me use my vacation mad money to buy these to make myself a shite shirt. I added to these bits of eggplants, corn, tomatoes, and peppers fabrics for the pockets and cuffs for a total of 15 different fabrics. I used 9 different buttons from Bethann’s stash. I have gotten comments everywhere I have worn this. I have shown it off at a few different fabric and sewing machine shops and received oohs and ahs. They seem to be amazed that a man was able to do such a thing. This was my first project on the serger machine. I also did various fancy topstitches over all of the seams in metallic gold thread to add a little more pizazz. I finished it the evening of September 17, 2014.
We showed my shirt to Bethann’s boss, Kathy, and her husband, Steve. They hired us to make him a short sleeved one. I did the major part of picking out the fabric. I pieced the fabrics together, topstitched the seams. The featured photo above the headline is the fabric at that point. Next I laid out the pattern and cut it out. Bethann assembled and finished it. It was finished on September 17, 2019, exactly five years after I finished mine! I modeled it for photos before Bethann delivered it today. Kathy and Steve were delighted! Steve is a pharmacist. I hope he wears it to work.
Fred’s presence was always a little more than one could contain. One never knew quite what to expect, except that he would be high energy, assertive, and want to be involved.
Fred Benjamin lived on the streets for over twenty years. He landed there after his dad died and the pre-paid rent on the loft he had shared with him ran out. That was the story as I heard it from Fred. I learned at his funeral, it wasn’t as simple as that. Fred had a brief marriage and there was a son left behind along the way. Fred was proud of his son, when he finally mentioned him. He is a career military man, stationed overseas. I met him at Fred’s funeral. Man, was he pissed! He let his dad have it in the most honest eulogy of the day, speaking from a broken heart, like only true love can.
Fred volunteered with The King’s Jubilee regularly. He liked to take charge, a little bit too much at times. He had a different perspective than your average, suburban volunteer. After 20 years living in a box, a social worker approached him to help him move off the street. Part of the process was a psych eval. Fred asked her, “What? Do you think I’m crazy?” She replied, “You have been living in a box for 20 years. Do you think that’s normal?” Fred conceded, “OK. Point made.”
He was able to move off the street into an apartment. Fred had a temper and could be ornery, but he was loyal and with his charm and smile, one could not stay angry at him for very long, even if he got out of hand. He kept fights away from volunteers more than once or twice. One time, he pulled a knife in response to someone who attacked a woman. We rebuked him for going too far. He said he had to take care of things the way he knew how to. He stayed away for a few weeks , until things simmered down, then came back calmed down and resumed serving.
Fred and I led three tours of how the homeless live in center city Philadelphia, in 2010. This painting is based on a vidcap of Fred explaining how he lived in his box under the bridge by the police station. It takes a special set of skills and knowledge to live homeless. These people are not just “bums”. They are survivors!
After four years in his first apartment, they moved him to a different apartment. He had adopted a cat. His blood sugar had gotten very erratic and he had some episodes where it went dangerously high. The Wednesday before Fred died, I spoke with him on the phone to get together with him to go over nutrition and supplements to more naturally, better control his blood sugar. We were to get together the following Monday. His mother could not reach him on Saturday morning. She went to his apartment and had police and fire break in, when Fred did not respond. They determined time of death to be 7:08 am, July 18, 2015.
There was a meal after Fred’s funeral. Fred’s mom did not invite any of his homeless friends to attend. I asked her why not. She said she didn’t want her lady friends to be worrying about their purses. I said, “Do you realize Fred lived in a box for 20 years?”
Friday, I spent most of the day making capsules at our kitchen table. I have two capsule machines: size 0 [~500mg] and size 00 [~600mg]. With either of these I can make 24 capsules at a time. It is a slow process, but not difficult. It has allowed us to reduce our use of pharmaceuticals and improve our health dramatically. Back in September 2013, I reported about talking to my doctors about ginger and turmeric. I make those capsules. Since I make them, I can add some black pepper into the turmeric capsules, which is an added bonus, not yet available off the rack at drug stores. Turmeric is much better activated when combined with black pepper. This way, I don’t have to remember to add black pepper to every meal when I am taking turmeric.
I have managed to stay off Lipitor due to turmeric. With the turmeric and ginger, I have not had to have a Synvisc or cortisone injection in either of my knees for three years now. They were at the point of talking about replacement. They seldom bother me anymore. The site where the infection had eaten into my spine is totally clean and restored, as if nothing had happened there, according to the last MRI. This is what powerful, natural anti-inflammatories can do for you.
I also made 600mg cinnamon capsules and 500mg green tea capsules, Friday. These serve similar purposes. They both help regulate / reduce blood sugar and are powerful antioxidants to prevent cancer and other degenerative diseases. These take some careful choosing and preparation, however.
There are basically two kinds of cinnamon. The most commonly available is Cassia Cinnamon. It is produced mainly in China, Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia. The Chinese bark is darker brown. It does not curl up tightly in the drying process, and, most of the time, isn’t smooth. It takes some effort to break up the pieces. It is what is sold for baking spice as it is much less expensive than Ceylon Cinnamon, also known as “True” Cinnamon. Cassia Cinnamon has a sharper or hotter flavor than Ceylon Cinnamon. That may taste great on your rice or snickerdoodles, but it is not what we want. You don’t want to ingest large quantities of Cassia Cinnamon, because it contains large amounts of coumarin which can damage the liver.
The bark of Ceylon Cinnamon comes tightly rolled and smooth, with an orangey color. It has a relatively sweet flavor. It was originally produced in Ceylon, modern Sri Lanka. Now it is also produced in Mexico and India, as well. It is more favored in South American cuisine than Cassia Cinnamon. It has more health benefits than the Cassia, without the coumarin danger. Another word about cinnamon; if you have Type AB blood, you are most likely allergic to it. Cinnamon has many health benefits. I t is an antioxidant. It lowers so-called bad cholesterol and reduces the uptake of glucose in the blood when ingested 1/2 hour before meals by those with Type 2 Diabetes, among other things.
One would think it would be a simple matter of going to a food store and buying a box or tin of loose, green tea. Read the fine print! On my last trip to Assi Market, it took me over 20 minutes in the tea aisle before I found a box of simple green tea, nothing added, vacuum packed. It was from China by way of an Irish importer! Green tea has a range of benefits. It lowers cholesterol and blood pressure. It can lower blood sugar and improve the metabolism to digest and burn fat. This is especially important for those on a low carb diet. There is evidence that it is good for the brain to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. It can help prevent stroke and congestive heart failure. No wonder there are so many Chinese!
From time to time, I also make coriander, to help the kidneys; and garlic, to fight a cold or infection. I’m allergic to at least six classes of antibiotics, so I have to do my own homework and do my best to stay healthy. Using herbs and minerals, I have managed to avoid knee surgery, and those expensive injections for years, and reduce the number of prescription medications I regularly use from six to two, while improving my cholesterol, and more importantly, my inflammatory numbers. I now have put my Type 2 Diabetes into remission using nutrition. When they discharged me from the hospital in 2011, I had diabetes from the kidney failure and steroids they had put me on to fight the Stevens Johnsons Syndrome. So I think the time and effort are worth it.
I have set up two men my age down on the street with capsule making machines. One went to a walk-in clinic with bad arthritis in his knees. He was handed a prescription for a medication that would cost almost $400/month. He came to me. He said, “What are these people thinking? I am coming to a free, walk-in, clinic. How do they suppose I am going to afford this much for their drugs?” He paid me $15 for a capsule machine and a starter supply of ginger and turmeric from our good, bulk supplier in Amish country. This set up cost The King’s Jubilee about $30. He wanted to pay. I gave him a low ball number. He will stick to it and do it, if it cost him something. Although, he is a serious person. I started supplying another man, who used to be homeless, who then volunteered with us, with ginger and turmeric and green tea capsules. This started after he disappeared for a couple of weeks. He reappeared and told me the reason for his absence was he ate a chocolate bar and it put him in the hospital. I got tired of making his capsules, so I gave him a machine and bulk spices. The next week he said, “That’s really hard work! You must really love me!” His daughter was able to stop her insulin after she started faithfully using the green tea and turmeric. He passed on the love!
