The end is near

 

Cookie has, for some time now, thought about closing up shop on this blog.  I mean DHTiSH has had a good run, but after 15 years, it's time for a different venue. 

Not that this has been an easy decision. I tried to post about it yesterday and pulled it down.   But the simple truth is if we aren't growing, we're dying.  So we'll just have to make that new effort. 

To that end, I started the new blog, Withering Heights (aka, Withering Heights Ohio, because someone else discovered creative wordplay before I did.) and that's what I have decided upon, especially since the kitchen remodel is inching toward its start. 

DHTiSH has been a blast, but I also want the content offline given the upcoming regime change.   Why? Self-preservation.  

The plan is to see what Withering Heights becomes.  

So I have set up Withering Heights with a couple posts and we'll see. 

For all of you who have followed me, for all of you who have contributed, and for all of you lurk, thank you.  

This has been a blast. 

We will endure

 Cookie is not going to get into the election results. Nope. Not going to do it. 

Suffice it to say that I have blocked a whole bunch of people on Facebook. 

But we will endure.  Its going to be rough going, but never lose sight of your true north.

The Big Day of Errands fall 2024 Edition.

 

The last couple of days have been a busy couple of days.  Why?

From time to time, the husband and I pick a day during the week which becomes our Big Day of Errands.  Why, because there are things that have to be done, Monday through Friday, sufficiently important that we both need to be there.  This is not to be confused with the weekend errands, which we do on the weekends, or the errands I run throughout the week. 

No, the Big Day of Errands are things that are big, or out of the way, or really important. 

This year, it was the dropping a family piece that is very historical at the restorers, voting, flu and COVID shots, meeting with the lumber yard, and getting our hair cut.  At the house, I had planned to finish the laundry that had been building up over three water emergencies in a week. 

Well, the laundry had to wait.  An hour after the COVID shot Cookie developed headaches, a low-grade fever, and an arm so sore that would prevent him from pitching an ad campaign on Madison Avenue, so I was out like a light. As sudden as it came on it lifted at 9:30 last night. 

So laundry got done today, four double-hung sash windows with rotten or broken chords are no opening (no small task), and the laundry was put away.  Oh, also fresh sheets for the bed. 

And oh, yes, I am feeling pleased as punch at the volume of stuff we kicked to the curb. 

When I mention this day chock full of stuff, in general yields snarky comments like "Well it must be nice," and "when are you coming over to my house and taking care of that?"

And my standard answer is: It is nice. And I'm not. 

"Happy" Yom Kippur?

Yesterday, the hot mess that is Cleveland Heights City Hall issued a broadcast message to the community: Happy Yom Kippur. 

This is a problem. 

Yom Kippur is not, process wise, a happy holiday.  

Oh, no. 

And for a city that has had a very large Jewish population for the past 100 years, its a fuck up.

For those of you who are not Jewish, a little Jewish lite. Between the Jewish New Year - which is a happy holiday -  and Yom Kippur, Jews the world over apologize to those they may have wronged.  It could have been something that was overlooked, or slight, or something big or horrific. 

The idea is that on Yom Kippur, G-d looks over the previous year of one's life, and sees if they were good, not so good, or just stale on earth.  If they are good, then G-d scribes their name into the book of life for the coming year. And if you were not so good? Then G-d'll get you for it. 

So Yom Kippur is not a happy holiday.  Making it through the next year, and getting through Yom Kippur is a happy thing.  But during actual Yom Kippur is about atoning and Tsuris (pain, heart each ache, regret) and hunger - the understanding of real yearning.  Lots and lots of Tsuris as you beat yourself up for not being a better human.

And it's about fasting. No food, water or drink. No Diet Pepsi. Nada.  If you are a male over 13, you are supposed to fast. If you are female, it's 12 and over for those who fast.

When the sun goes down and ends Yom Kippur, then it's food - lots of food, laughs, TV, and a few games of pinochle. 

This year, Yom Kippur is a double whammy. It's on the Sabbath!

So, right now is not a happy time. 

Which is makes the City of Cleveland Heights, a community that has had a large Jewish population since the 1920s, look bad when they wish a Happy Yom Kippur.  And as bad as it sounds, its worse how it looks to the outside world. 

And what do the goyum do on Yom Kippur? Well in Cleveland, they used drive up and down South Taylor Road without impediment, because the observant are off the roads. Now its Green Road through Beachwood. 

Tomorrow, it'll be over.  The Kosher butchers will open, and the deli's and Unger's will open their doors. 

Just so you know, the American version of Yom Kippur goes something like this as told by Woody Allen:

Cookie in mourning

I just received word that one of the most important women in my life has died.  Anna, at 86, didn't just have a great run in life, she had a fabulous run.  She was Auntie Mame. 

We used to talk for hours and visit over good food.   She knew me as a child, a teen, and as an adult.  

She was one of the first people I came out to.

We knew mutual people - and one family in particular - that we watched helplessly turn into a true sideshow. 

She knew my mother and my father. 

I knew her ex-husband and her children. 

We enjoyed the same things, from antiquing to bowling to just good gossip.

All I had to say to Anna to crack her up was "Pat's Couch", and she would take that baton and run with it about the "Pink Palace" that Pat (my step monster) had created in my father's house.  Pat had positively the worst taste in home furnishings. And whenever I could sneak her into my father's house Anna had a dead-on critique over every piece. "When does she find this crap." she would say.  It wasn't a question.  My stepmother's taste was all in her mouth. 

I once said, "I have no idea why (my father) married her."  

And without missing a beat, Anna came back with "I'll tell you why: Pat swallows. Or so I hear."

Now, there is no one left who remembers what I remember about events and people who passed by my life from 4th grade on.  No one left to call when I need a memory checked, refresh, or a good laugh.  No one. 

Oh, I have other friends and cousins, but Anna was the one that I could slip away with and we could have an honest conversation about the circus of life swirling about us, and step back into the spectacle with a wink and a nod. 

When my father died, she was by my side every moment for a week.  She literally kept me from falling completely apart. She also kept food in front of me, reminding me that I had to keep my strength up.  "You need to cry this one out Cookie.  And that takes energy. So you need to eat."

At the first shiva in that condo at Acacia Park that my father never wanted, but Pat had to have, she kept me safe and guarded from Shark's family.  

Our family decided to leave the Shiva in Pat's condo and take the party onto our turf.  As we were leaving Anna told me to keep an eye out, and she ducked into the bedroom that Pat and my father shared.   

She returned after a few seconds and said "Look, if Pat is going to live here, you are not combining back here, right? So I had to stick my head in there and see something. And I'm disappointed in her. I was sure that Pat would have had mirrors installed on the ceiling.  Maybe for her next victim." 

I cracked my first smile in days. She knew me well.  No, I take that back. She knew me that well.

When Pat died, and I called Anna with the news, she said "I just had a thought.  Mein Gott in himmel, where did they find a casket that was lined with hot pink velvet like her couch."

Farewell, my dearest friend. How I loved every moment with you. How I loved you as a person, a friend, and as my social co-conspirator.   

This is one hole in my life that will never get filled in.

 

The girls are back in town, because traditions mean something, people.

 

As the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano around the first day of spring, look who's back in town: The Pumpkin Spice Women (squeal!)  

And like every fall, we pay tribute to these women and their dedication to being the best they can be!

So let's give it up for Bets, Bebs, Bitsy, Betsy, Bella, Leesh, Lizette, Libby, Elizza, and of course Elsabeth. 

Not a Dorcas, Hepzebah, Mehitable, or even a Doreen in the group.  Nope, not allowed.  

"There was one of those girls - a "Hepzebah" at UCONN - she went by Zebah.  But none of us was falling for that," said Elsabeth.  

"I remember her," adds Lizette.  "Drove a Saturn, majored in ancient Greek. Wore Crocs.  Yeah, I wasn't gettin' involved with that."

It's true. Just as the leaves sense their time is about done for the season, its time for tight jeans, big neutral tones sweaters, big hats, knee-high suede boots, and our friends above. 

I can sense their power getting stronger.  You can sense it too.  

And what do they talk about? Skincare.  The men in their lives. The women in their lives. The latest cleanse. Norway. Land Rovers. Muffins.  How do I know?  Because: a dream I had foretold of it.  

The first cool day of September and BAM, they are back.  Shopping at Eton Place, Legacy Village, and of course, that special little shop they found in the Fair Islands.  Or was it in the Hebrides? 

Anyway, if you see them coming, cut them a wide berth. Their powers will grow stronger until the weekend after Thanksgiving when the cocktail velvets come out and the LET IT SNOW gift wrap gets unfurled.  

Withering Heights: Oh what a tangled web it weaves

 

While it is not Halloween or the season for Pumpkin Spice - which comes earlier every damn year - it is spider web season here in Withering Heights. 

When we first moved in, they were all over the outside and inside of this house and its lot.  Then they went away and came back in the spring. Then they went away and cam back in last two weeks. 

We're not talking bout a cobweb here and there.  We are talking jumbo webs.  These are the type of spider webs that you see in illustrated children's books. 

Webs that take over doorways, outdoor stairs, and the like. 

The explanations we have heard are:

a) once they get in and around your house and lay eggs, it takes a while to get them gone, but be persistent, and

b) You bought a house on a deeply wooded lot - what did you expect?

And the spiders? Big juicy orbit spinners.  Nothing poisonous, just big and juicy. 

Neither Cookie or The Husband hate spiders unless they are poisonous.  But we would rather not kill them, as they do important work. On a couple of occasions when we have had to remove the webs, we relocated the spiders to a less confrontational place. 

Still, Cookie for one would rather not walk through one of these webs and then launch into a childish panic over getting it off him. 

Currently, however, there is a big old spider on the front porch and the postman won't deliver if he has to swat at them on his way to the mailbox. 

In other news, Cookie is feeling overwhelmed by the house.  We are stuck in a purgatory of hoping to get the remodeling done soon, and not being able to move forward because the builder hasn't gotten our final project updated. 

 

How the French prepared us for ultimate evil

It was not French. It was The Fuckening.

 

Cookie usually loves the closing ceremonies for an Olympic event. But this year, the whole thing was a total downer. 

And it was French.  Very French indeed.   

When the French closed the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, it was a scene best watched while stoned out of one's gourd.  People on stilts, large shapes, and acrobats all set to atonal music. The only thing missing was Red Ballon guiding us mutely through the whole event.  

And Albertville's show was magnificent because it was FRENCH.

But last night? Pfft. Maybe it was designed to what the zeitgeist was when it looked like Marine LePen was going to take over the whole shebang.  

The worst part was watching it waiting, and hoping for something better.  And hoping that piano wouldn't drop from the sky.

And who told Ralph Lauren that he needed to clad Team USA in ski jackets.  They looked so out of fashion for Paris. They stuck out like a sore thumb.  No wonder Pariaisan's look at American tourists with disdain.

But the morning after me - Cookie - is that perhaps the entire French Dystopia thang that left everyone feeling depressed was actually a preparation for the ultimate evil to come: Tom Cruise.

That was the moment that the event went from being weird and depressing and turned into The Fuckening. 

Look, let's not mince words.  Not since the Reagan Era's Department of the Interior's head James Watt sang Wayne Newton's praises has a choice been so ridiculously bad. But Cruise adds a layer of "creep" to the whole affair. 

Why would the L.A. Committee think that using a cult member, and spousal abuser like Cruise in its effort to promote the 2028 Olympics?  I mean, it's like holding up aging and dated Red Hot Chili Peppers as a national example of entertainment culture.  Oh, wait, they did that too. 

Like I said, The Fuckening before our very eyes.

Frankly, I would have just assumed to watch the faceless French Mimes do an interpretive dance to Faust. 

Well, one thing is for sure, Cruise is aging, and it isn't aging well.  And the long shag cut looks as ridiculous as Pepper's Anthony Kadis wearing a "stoker" from International Male while he lipsyncs lyrics from Can't Stop, even though we wish they would. 

So now, we should all hope and pray that last not is not a portend for the 2028 Olympic Games.  Los Angeles, do better.  Don't Fuckening this up.

Who the hell are these people?

 

Today Cookie had to get some images for the moving company claim we are filing. That's normal enough, yes?

I took the pictures with my iPhone and then had to use Photoshop on my PC to turn the images into *.jpgs for the claim.  

Well, when I went to Apple to bring the image up on my PC, there were someone else's images.  Mine were there, but this was like a subfolder of about 16 images from the 1940s to 1970s.  Vacation photos, a house photo, some sort of celebration. 

And my first thought was, who are these people? And then upon closer inspection, I thought, who are these dreary people?

Now Cookie collects other people's old photos that he finds, but none of these photos.  I have better taste.

I mean, these people had horrible taste in clothing, eyewear, and from the looks of it, Myrtle Beach.  Cookie does not do Myrtle Beach. Their house was Tudor styled, kinda of cute.  Maybe it was grandmother's house. Who knows. 

Anyway I did not copy their images because I am sure that they have no idea I could see them.  

I don't share my ID or passwords with anyone.  So this is really puzzling. 

So I call Apple support, and I tell them what is going on.  And they can see the error on my screen.  And the guy says, "That's, odd."

And that's why I placed the call. 

Now they're trying to figure out what the Hell is going on with my What the Hell is going on issue.

Well, the claim is filed.  Now we wait to see what Apple finds, and if the claim gets accepted. 

The Wind Done Blowed, or a Taco Warning

The wind, the wind, dear God the wind!

Welp, when you live in Ohio, tornados are a possibility.   

They usually travel from the west and southwest to the east and northeast.  Unlike the slower hurricane and its downgraded kin, the tropical storm gives you models and paths on weather stations so you can prepare and if need be evacuate to someplace dry.  

Tornados and their equally scary kin, the straight-line wind derecho, are fickle.  Here one minute - which can seem like hours - and gone the next.  Both leave a path of destruction.  But a tornado on the ground is deadly, and it can flatten one town, or pick off houses in a subdivision.  

Cookie remembers the big July 4, 1969 storm, and the Xenia Tornado that erased half of the city of Xenia and left us in fear for the the family we had living in its path.

On Tuesday, we were supposed to get storms, and many either disappeared from the radar or shifted course.

In the mid-afternoon however, we started getting a lot of thunder that lasted for about a half hour, and the milky gray sky looked dark to the west-northwest.  Radar showed a large line of thunderstorms heading south over Lake Erie*.  Cookie shut his computer down, went downstairs, made a cup of coffee, and flipped on the TV.

Within minutes we were in a tornado warning, then the heavy rain started, and then the wind done blowed, hard, and it was a prolonged blowing at that.  

Now, let me explain something.  A Tornado Watch means that the weather can make a tornado.  A Tornado Watch means it's happening right now, take cover.   A lot of people don't take a Tornado Warning seriously because of the haphazard way they form, so the state of Pennsylvania came up with this taco explanation because everyone gets it:

So Cookie called the husband down from his office and told him to bring Kevin with him - we were going to the basement, NOW.  By the time he got downstairs, the rain was moving sideways.  And we stayed down there, each of us holding a small dog - until Betsy Kling - the weather Goddess of Cleveland's WKYC showed that the front moved to our east. 

There were a few small limbs down in our neighborhood, but the power was on, and so were cable and internet. 

However, on the west side of Cleveland, things were a bit messier with large limbs and trees down on houses, cars, etc.  A few large buildings (rec centers) lost roofing.  In Willoughby Hills, to our east about 8 miles or so, the fire department sustained damage.  All in all, it was mostly straight-line winds (84mph at Bratenhal along Lake Erie) and two confirmed smallish tornados. No deaths were reported, which is always good. 

The electric grid is not so great.  

We never lost power, but the next-door neighbor did.  To our south, blogger Blobby reports power was/is out at his house.  All in all, at its peak, The Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI) - such a wonderful name for a utility - parent company, First Energy (an organization that is so corrupt that it almost brought down state government in a massive kickback financial scandal) announce that over 400,000 were without power after the storm.  Yesterday, that was downgraded to 300,000, but today people are getting updates that it could be next week before they are restored. 

So we are safe, the dogs are good, and nothing came through these massive original picture windows that we have.

On a final note, Weather Goddess Betsy Kling did issue a warning against playing in the pooling storm water.  "Kids do not play in that stormwater...it is Mother Nature's toilet overflowing."  She ain't kidding.  Like the Taco analogy, that is something you remember.

But now I want Tacos. And we are thankful we don't live in states were tornado sean brings massive destruction.

*For those of you not in North America, the Great Lakes - Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario follow the naming convention of Lake then Name. Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, Ontario is the smallest, and Lake Superior, the largest, isn't really a lake is an inland sea.

Beaver Tail - or - "I want to get my hands on that hair."

The Greek Church in Cleveland Heights had its festival weekend before last, so we went to see Aunt Voula, but only got a beer and some souvaki. At the height of the festivities, we bumped into friends who invited us to their area of the festival tables and ate.  Then, several of us saw "it".

It was an elderly white woman, in Jackie O sunglasses, her grey hair frizzing in the humidity of the last summer afternoon.  But it wasn't the hair on her head that caught our attention, and made my husband's eyes as large as saucers, it was the flat beaver tail of matted hair that went down her back.

Others in our group saw the beaver tail as well. It had to be nine or ten inches wide and flat as the great plains. 

One member of the group is in the beauty industry and does hair and makeup consulting.  She works with women who want a change, but can't decide what that change should look like.   Allison brought the wine glass (that they brought from home, along with the wine) and held the glass there as she stared at the beaver tail. 

I leaned in and said what are you thinking. 

Cooly, and not breaking her gaze, she said "You know damn well what I am thinking.  I want to get my hands on her hair and cut that damned thing off."

Another friend, Lori, joined in.  "Is that just one giant pancaked dread?"

"It's a very long beaver tail," said I, Cookie.

"How does one do that," asked Lori, "and why?" 

How long did it take, asked someone at the table who we didn't know. 

At that moment the woman stood up and the whole length of the beaver tail was revealed - it was below her ass.

I asked, "Was she sitting on it?" 

"Has she ever shat on it?" asked the woman I didn't know.  Lori started to giggle. I was appalled, because I was thinking the same nighmarish thing.

Allison, who still hadn't sipped the wine in front of her "I think it probably started out as a fat braid, a braid that got wet over and over, and instead of undoing the braid, over time, it 'felted' the hair."  She finally drank a sip, almost as if saying what she was mulling over in her brain released the hold on the wine. "Or it could be a fashion choice or a sign of her faith. But that is what commitment looks like."

Ok, that was the why and the what. So we moved on to speculation of the how.

Allison then addressed the question of hair growth.  "If you are healthy, human hair grows at the rate of about a half inch a month. Twelve months in a year, six inches overall.  I am assuming it's about four feet long, that's eight years.  The thing is..." Allison took another sip of wine, "but I think that felted hair would be even longer if it were possible to unsnarl it. So I would venture to say twelve, maybe twenty years.  Longer if someone trimmed it at some point."

The ick factor had kicked in by that time for Cookie.  Before I was agog, but now it was just gross. 

The conversation went in another direction, but Lori's eyes, and yes, my own, kept darting back to the beaver tail.  

Allison caught on and reminded us that it was her choice, but "I want to get my hands on that hair, but its not happening. I could cut it off and she would feel pounds cooler.  But that isn't happening." 

We outlasted the woman's party at their table, and she got up and left. 

Still, Allison remarked "It looks like something you would see in the Moss Eisley tavern.  But I will always regret not being able to get my hands on that hair..."

The News from Withering Heights: The Skunkening

 

SKUNK?

We have had a lot and I mean a LOT of stuff going on at Withering Heights of late, and thus my absence. 

Between the unending loads of laundry, which are washed with care and must be carefully folded - Cookie is not a clothes horse, but we buy high-quality basics - my care has provided them with a long shelf life.  I just hate buying clothes and then having to replace them shortly thereafter. And then daily chores of hunting and gathering, there has just been a lot going on. 

The Great Covid Scare of 2024.  We had family come in from the West Coast, and that called for a family gathering.  While great fun was had, and family gossip was shared ("Wait, he told his daughter what?"), also passed around was COVID.  So the husband and I laid low, masked, kept our distance from people, tested, and somehow only four people from that gathering didn't get sick, and I am relieved to report that we were half of that foursome that didn't get it.  People were so effing sick.  Thank god that recovered and thank God no one ended up in the hospital or at death's door.

Work Stress.  There has been a lot of work stress in this house.  Suffice it to say that we are eagerly looking forward to retirement. 

Local Travel.  Cookie has tried to give the husband a continued look around NE Ohio, and he seems to love every moment. Let me amend that to read at least I think that he is.  No comments like "Just now where do you want to drag me to," haven't been heard aloud and it is in good spirits. 

Reconnecting.  I have been reconnecting with old friends that we have missed since leaving Ohio. One such serendipitously happened last week in Columbus. This friend is someone I have known since OSU and it seems all strange that one minute were young and talking about career paths, and now we are talking about what we hope to do in retirement. 

Doctors, dentists, oral surgeons, and therapists, oh my!  Cookie now finds that I have a calendar that is nothing but medical appointments.  There is still post-surgical blood work to make sure the cancer has not spread.  Then there is the therapist that urologist said I needed to deal with ongoing post-surgical issues.  The therapist is handsome and makes my heart flutter-flutter, but he is there for my mind not as a sex surrogate. Besides, I look at my husband and I love him more today than I did when we first got together way back when.

On the dental front, we are trying to repair damage that happened way back in the summer of 1970 when a bicycle accident nearly knocked my front teeth. Well, 54 years later, one fractured and snapped out, so what was left had to be removed, and now we hope the other one holds until I can pay for a second implant. It has been painful and expensive. 

The Skunkening.  Our neighborhood is very wooded.  And one thing that never happened to us before happened the other night.  The dogs have been stirring at about 3am for the past month.  But what they have been smelling is the scent of a Skunk, or multiple skunks.  How were we to know.  They're old, we thought they, like other men in their golden years needed to pee in the middle of the night. Well, yesterday morning we discovered what a dog who has been sprayed by skunk smells like.  And it was Kevin who got it.   The odor is a cross between burnt coffee, rubber, and burning tires.  And it gets worse with each inhale.  We started giving him baths with Dawn dishwasher detergent at 4am.  

By six AM we needed something more. The American Kennel Club had a recipe for a concoction comprised of a quart of hydrogen peroxide, a half cup of baking soda, and a tablespoon full of Dawn to break down the skunk odor oils.  The Wal-Mart on Warrensville Center Road is a scary place at 6AM, because it isn't well stocked, and it's not well organized.  It certainly isn't "clean". And the people like me who shop there out of necessary deserve better.  Anyway, the homebrew worked reasonably well, but Kevin needs a day of beauty.  Poor little stinker.

WARNING! NEVER, and I mean NEVER make this up and put it up on a container so you have it on hand should you need this.  Everyone, from web sites to my high school chemistry teacher, AND including our vet says it creates an unstable and dangerous compound that can explode. Wash what you don't use down the drain immediately. You have been warned, and admonished, and Cookie assumes no responsibility if you don't follow that instruction.  People, just make it fresh, period.

So that, and even more stuff, is what Cookie has been up to.

Withering Heights: Cooling down.

 

The news from here at Withering Heights is that the heat dome has broken.  Today the high is in the 70s, and the night temps are forecast to be in the 60s for today, hotter on Tuesday, and then back to a more normal roll. 

And we did not glow, we did not glisten, we were sweating like gravy was being poured on us.  Nasty.

But the ancient house on the hill that Withering Heights is, is, well, still very warm. Stone and brick - and an asphalt roof - do not relinquish their heat easily. Its getting there. 

What saved our skin were two window AC units, lots of fans and keeping anything hot turned off.   The other thing that saved my skin was a wet washcloth on my head, the back of my deck, and quick one-minute showers to get the sweat off and let the water evaporate and leave me feeling cool. 

This morning, the crew showed up and the work is commencing.  Read I am ecstatic. Well, partially - these wall-mounted units are not lovely to look at, but I will be delighted with what comes out of them this summer, this fall, and next spring. 

And today one of two our mini-split system is going in.  Thank Christ. 

This system is not cheap. 

Unlike traditional cooling units, where you have a thermostat for the whole house controlling the evaporator and fan, a mini-split system places a one-foot by three-foot box mounted high on a wall that is tied to a central condenser.  You can control the temperature in each room.  You can operate one, two, or all four units as you need.  And it is supposed to be whisper quiet. 

Someone said "Well just turn off the window AC units and close a room's door. Sounds like it would work, but it won't.  What one is doing by doing that is creating another exterior wall inside the house that will transmit heat, or cold (depending on the season) into the cooled or heated areas. So you are not saving anything.  This setup also means we don't need to have vent chases and stacks built in the house. 

So, you are thinking about chickens, did you say?

 

Cookie knows chickens. I have learned, and know 

And Cookie is here to tell you that there is a difference between chicken in real life and the Mrs. Wiggs of Cabbage Patch fantasies about getting back to nature and raising chickens in between weeding your fields of lavender. 

Now before you get a Hen and name here Betty, Joan, Wanda, or even Henny Penny, know what you are getting into. 

My mother came from a long, long, impossibly long line of farmers.  Our family farmed from the first time they stepped off the boat in 1699 all the way up to about 1990.  And there were chickens.  And Chicken lice, and eggs, and injured chickens from them fighting in their fenced yard, etc. and so on. 

They call them "fowl" for a reason. 

They will peck at you, they will fly in your face, they will crap on you. 

The worst part is making sure they are healthy.  One of the things that you'll have to do to Betty, Joan, or Wanda is make sure their pelvic areas are wide enough to pass an egg.

Huh, you say. 

In common parlance, you need to measure what I used to call "the egg hole" - technically, I think it is called "the vent"- but I prefer the egg hole name.

Unlike aging movie stars who get saggy, baggy, crepelike skin, and the get a bit of the "dry vag", as Wanda, Betty, and Joan age, their egg holes begin to narrow.  Yes, drag queens want it tucked and tight, but your hen needs a wide berth for the egg to pass through. 

If the problem goes on too long, it's bad for the eggs, and it's really bad for the hen, and it's called a blowout, in the vernacular.  I don't want to get into it, because it's gross. (If you want the nitty gritty, click on the link, but be forewarned, it's graphic.) And you have to get in there and clean it out, you may have to poke it back in, or in extreme cases, send Betty, Joan, or Wanda to the hen house in the sky.

To prevent this, or get in front of it, you need to periodically check the hen by measuring the Egg Hole.  

And how do we measure? With our fingers darling.  The variety of hens you have (not all chicken varieties are created equal) all have their optimal widths. 

Is this really your idea of nirvana?

No, we are not going to goose the hen, but we are going to turn the hen upside down (Henny Penny is not going to enjoy this, by the way, but Joan will) and rest the appropriate number of fingers across the hole equal to its width. If the spread is good, put Henny Penny down and go about your day after washing up.  But if it is narrowing, consult your Chickens For Dummies book for what to do next, after you wash up. 

And I can tell you that while you say, "But Cookie, the fresh eggs," I'll reply that you are not Martha Fucking Stewart, but go ahead.  It isn't like you haven't been warned."

There now, do you still have a yen for chickens?  

Thought so.  

If you want something else that is impossible to work on, take up Slavic languages, take up house moving, or even Hardanger Embroidery. With the embroidery, you'll turn out masterpieces, and get to curse up a blue streak like you would with the chickens, but its so much better, and cleaner. 

Pondering time

Because it's so damn hot, and turning anything on but a window AC unit or a fan on generates more heat than relief, Cookie has been pondering time. 

As a genealogist and historian, time is always present.  Usually, I am pretty good about bringing up factual explanations.  History for me is conversational, and connecting stories and people together. To do that I have to know where I am on a timeline, and my clients and audience also have to know where their own timeline is and what it looks like. 

This may sound pretty easy, but it isn't, because historical timelines look different in the minds-eye from person to person.  And this has to do with interest in history, or genealogy, and then your mind chooses how it views time. 

So let's do a little experiment. And there is no right or wrong answer.  A long timeline can take any shape, any direction, although they are taught in public schools as horizontal lines, how you see extended period of time is up to you.

Now, I am not getting into multiverses.  We are talking strictly from the human year 1500 to 2000.

What I would like you to do after reading this sentence, is close your eyes, relax, and imagine how a timeline from 1500AD to 2000AD looks to you. 

If you are reading this sentence, then you should have been doing some thinking about how a timeline looks to you.  

Was your timeline:

• One contiguous line? 
• Was it overall a horizontal line, or a vertical line?
• Was it non-linear?  Did it have stops and starts?
• Did it loop, climb, or dive with passing periods in time, or events?
• Were there years that were more pronounced because of events?
• Or did you not see any line, just dates?

For me, Time is a line that can both be singular, at times perpendicular, shifts and changes direction between major century marks, decades, and in some cases a year or two.  In mind, there are certain years that are above, below, or to the side of the previous year, and the future year. The ups and downs aren't caused by events so much - as in good years or bad - but by the direction of historical events. 

So for Cookie, an example is the 19th Century, which is horizontal from 1800 to 1865.  At the end of 1865, 1866 takes a vertical rise to 1870 and then becomes horizontal through 1890.  The line turns from 1890 down to 1900.  During 1900 it turns into a horizontal line to 1913, then changes again, etc. and so on. 

I asked a peer how she saw a timeline and she said she saw two, one in North American history and another in Italian history that merges in the year she was born.

Another friend sees it as nonlinear, except when it isn't.  When I asked her to elaborate, she said she needed to refocus and revisit that. 

So there is no clear answer. 

It's hawt. Gawd awful hot. AC is on the way.

 

Ohio is under part of the "HEAT DOME" that is floating over this great land of ours. It's also over Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York and soon, the rest of New England. 

As you know, our home, Withering Heights, doesn't have AC. Yet. That installation starts next week. So for this event, we are slowly being baked inside that 1910-era home we bought.   Its not unpleasant, but it is toasty.  My schedule is: 

Today, I am OK. 

Tomorrow, I'll get through it. 

Wednesday, I will begin to complain. By Wednesday afternoon, I will complain loudly.  Wednesday I will claim that it is as hotter than inside the Devil's underwear. 

Thursday, I'll be bargaining with whoever will listen. 

Friday, both of us will be resigned to this fate, but will steel ourselves by knowing that Saturday and Sunday look to be in the 80s.

This is not to say we don't have two window AC units.  Because we do.  One on the third floor and one for our bedroom.  We have to do the third floor because the husband works from home up there. 

While Cookie is not one to wish away time, next Monday cannot get here soon enough. 

And oh, what do my ears hear?  A thunderstorm is coming that will not cool us down.  Does it get any better? Seriously, because I'd like to know if it does.

Had enough

 

Alas, it is true. 

Cookie has had enough.  

As we are surrounded by trees of every shape, size, and cultivar, Cookie's eyes are sandy, my throat sore from post nasal, and the chronic hacking cough of copious amounts of gunk drip, drip, dripping down my throat - and let's not forget the sneezing - its allergy season. 

Not a pretty picture. 

And it makes you feel cruddy. 

It got so bad I made an appointment with the doctor. 

Ugh. 

And the wonderful doctor is like a half hour away. 

But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Exacerbating ALL of it is that we won't have AC until June.  But, we'll have it. 

But, miracles of miracles, I am doing better than I have in ages. My eyes aren't swollen, I can walk across a room, and when I am home, with the windows down, I am fairly symptom-free.  I can cut the grass if I wear a mask. 

So tomorrow I will get poked and prodded. 

Yes, its been a while, but...

 

...but I am still here. 

We continue to pour money into "Withering Heights".  Recently, it was gutters and trees.  New gutters that work, and new trees that will soak up the water from the strings that run under the lot. 

We have planted birch trees and will add in dappled willow bushes.  They will soak up gallons more without destroying the house's sewage or water supply lines. 

Still, the lot is wonderfully wooded, and it is like a private forest around here. 

Rocky is showing signs of old age and I am really worried about him.  He's fifteen and has slowed down so fast.  He has kidney issues, so peeing in the house can happen.  So we invested in a Bissell Litle Green Steam Cleaning machine and it has become my new favorite thing in the world.  I can grab it, right when it happens and get all of the pee out of the rug fibers.  Then fill up it with just enough cleaner and clean the area.  So worth the money.  But back to Rocky, he's having major dental work done in June so I am hoping he comes through that.  Can't think about what happens if things don't work out, you know?

Now we are getting the house appraised so we can move onto phase two, the air conditioning, the kitchen and the sleeping porch windows.  The previous owner, a Neanderthal who fancied himself a carpenter really effed up the sleeping porch.  But the biggest eff up is what he did to the fifty-year-old replacement windows, which now have to be replaced. 

But I gotta tell you, all of this weighs heavy on Cookie's mind.  I feel so tired, so overwhelmed. I am hoping that soon, thing will turn a corner. 

The Tombstone Twitch

Over the end of last week, Cookie and The Husband developed a terrible case of Tombstone Twitch.  

 And it could only be treated within a couple days of the Ohio Genealogical Society's Annual Convention and Meeting. 

Now y'all know that I am a genealogist, but we have these together where we all pile into a conventional environment and receive education on the topic at hand.  There are vendors, and those vendors sell us goods and services if we so choose to buy.  We meet up with friends, we eat a great deal, and then we drink, and it can get pretty raucous. 

How raucous? 

Not like the Morticians can get.  Do you want fun? Crash a mortician's convention.  Seriously.  They know how to party.  And there are a lot of very good younger morticians. 

Anyhow, back to genealogists.  A lot of us are friends.  And our friends bring their friends.  So we enjoyed a lot of good food and a lot of good laughs.  And yes, there was the quaffing of a good many beers and cocktails. 

I used to go more often, but it's hard to get back to these when you live 450 miles away. 

This year it was at the Kalhari Resort in Sandusky.  And it was crawling with children on spring break.  Fortunately, they are not allowed in this monstrous convention facility. 

These events are wonderful if you are into these kinds of things, and I am.  On a state level, they seem to be a bit more basic.  On a national level - like Rootstec, they can be overwhelming.  Still, we have a good time. 

An extra bonus is that when in Sandusky - home of Cedar Point - there are a plethora of places to eat.  So on Friday for lunch, we snuck out and went up the road for Lee's Fried Chicken, and it was so flipping good. 

Highlights for Cookie included a new and different way to look at Family Search and get the search to do what I want and a better to delve into estate files and loose paperwork to get identifying information on women's dower rights in the 19th century. 

Now to go out in the field and get to work.

Being there for what happens, and...

 

Mitsubishi Eclipse. Are any of these left around?

I guess we won't see one of those this week, either.

...not damning the universe for what does or will not happened is Cookie's motto going into the eclipse.  

We are in the path of totality in Clevland, and in the heights, although the westside will get a 15 seconds longer in totality than we will.  Still, count your blessings my mother used to say.  

And for this event, I am.

Still, the weather forecast is not good, and not bad.  

We will have clouds, the question will be will they be high thin clouds (good) or the low thick ones that envelope the city most of the time in winter and early spring.

Either way, I will be out on our "Back Forty". 

If I get to witness the eclipse, great. Grand even!  

If not, and the weather blocks us the guards block Caitlyn Clark last night*, well then, I will bask in its daylight to dim-light to dark to dim-light to daylight. 

What other option do we have?  Cookie and the Husband have no desire to get wrapped up in the madness of driving somewhere, standing somewhere, and then trying to get back to the homestead.  

When state safety agencies have to post alerts to drivers NOT to drive while wearing eclipse glasses (Oh, yes!) it is not a time to take chances. 

Besides, we have a full week ahead of using something I have wanted to do for some time.  And the husband is doing it to.  (Get your minds out of the gutters.) And we will meet up with old friends all coming here. 

Cookie

*Sports reference - that doesn't happen all the time!

Loose threads.

 

So work continues on Chateau Cookie.  The boiler was two weeks ago, this week its gutters.   Cookie is hoping that the mini-split AC system goes in next.  The kitchen estimate is nearing completion as the window people are her on Friday to get the specs for the six windows we have to replace.   But hey, its only money. 

__

Cookie and the husband will at home for the eclipse, as we are in the totality zone, but we don't expect to see it.  Long range forecasts are saying most Americans will be under cloud cover.   But at least we get to watch it go from gray, to dark to gray.  Whoo hooo!

__

A Former Neighbor of ours from Baltimore, who grew up around the corner from my grandmother in Shaker is in town, and since Cookie is tired of VAD (which is always cold in the market space) we met at the Stone Oven and we had a hoot.  A woman overheard that we had both live/lived in Baltimore and she joined in having spent time there as well. Former Neighbor and her husband are considering coming back here for retirement.

__

Cookie is relieved that MSNBC dropped Rona McDaniel like a hot brick.   Cookie is amused that Rona was as wanted as a redheaded step child at a bastard reunion by the MAGA people.  Now they have taken up Rona's cause.  Fickle Fuckers. 

__

Far be it from Cookie to wish ill on anyone, but when it comes to Lauren Bobert, who are we kidding.  That's not a question.  Apparently BoeBoe ended up in the hospital to have her medical condition, May-Thurner Syndrome, corrected by the implantation of a stent to keep blood clots at bay.  I wish her well, but she is still going to be one fucked up bitch with a stent in her leg. 

___

NOW, for some news of an impending change.  I am considering ending DHTISH, and beginning anew on a new blog from scratch.  Part of the problem is that now that I am back here, I think a change is in order as well.  None to worry, y'all will get an invite to the new digs if I do it. 

Cookie

A tale of the people you meet...

 

... and you never know if someone will try and break your mood and steal your Chi, or bring a small smile to your face and revive your outlook

Eariler this week, Cookie had been in contact here in Cleveland that knew the same people my family knew.  He wanted to meet for coffee, so I said OK.  I told the husband where I was and that I would call him after I left because I needed to stop by the market and pick up some stuff.  So  I got in the car, schlepped to Fairmount Circle, plunked myself down, and waited.  And waited. And waited.

The weather outside was delightful, sunny, and warm.  It felt so good.  After waiting and waiting, I was about ready to leave. 

Finally, Mr. TTOQ showed up.  For the next hour and a half, I could not get a word in edgewise.  The people we both knew from the old days had been friends of my parents.  In my memory, lovely people.  But in his book, they were all assholes, bitches, or creeps.  Each of them had ruined some part of his life. His career. His Money, His Children. His ex-wife. His love of the arts.  His business partner. His next door neighbor.*  On and on.  

I sat. And I listened - I did not tune him out - to how this person and that person disappointed him, personally, professionally, and socially.

Finally, when he caught his breath and asked me about my life, I decided I needed to leave.  I knew way too much about his unhappiness, and I didn't think he needed any part of me.   He and he alone did this to himself. But some people need to blame others when they are really unhappy with themselves. 

From there I ran up to Heinen's, a grocery store on Green Road.  I did my shopping and went to return my cart, and in doing so I noticed that many people were simply too distracted to put their carts back correctly, so I cleared up a mess of five carts when a woman behind me said "They ought to hire you."  I smiled and we commiserated over those who think the carts magically put themselves away and we got to talking. 

She and I were both East Sider natives, both born at Mt. Siani, both grew up in the Heights, and surprisingly, we both lived in Baltimore.  She had been there 22 years and left in 2015, so we overlapped. But we lived in Baja Towson, and she was up in Pikesville.  We had a lovely talk with many smiles. 

For my money, I would have loved to had a cup of coffee with her and not just fifteen minutes.  But what a fifteen minutes. We knew the same families, the Woolworths, the Rogoff's, the Oetingers, etc. and more.  I mentioned Emery Kritzler's jewelry store which was once located across the street, and she had picked out her engagement ring from him. "Wasn't he a gem of a guy?" she remarked.  And he was. 

I hope our chat brought as big a smile to her face as it did to mine. 

So the day with an hour and a half of bad, was lifted up and out by 15 minutes of good.  But both encounters were worth it. You learn a lot about people and how they see life, see others. 

Again, another day, and another day I am grateful to be back home. 

*This guy lives on an acre lot and he was bitching about his neighbors and the noise, the lawn, the parties, his politics, his religion, and one and on. 

New Old Home Angst: It's not you Helga...

 

Yes, Cookie is mad at the dirt. 

For the past couple of days, Cookie has spent a couple hours a day on his knees, not that way, but in the kitchen of this house, deep cleaning the floor. 

As you know, when we moved in here, the previous owners left a hellish mess of dirt and filth, in more ways than one.  

We cleaned what we could, and sterilized everything else.  And while Cookie is no neatnick, some things had to be prioritized, and others set aside.  The bathroom had to be cleaned, the kitchen cupboards, etc and so on.  

The kitchen floor was something else, altogether.  While we had swept, mopped, and swept, and mopped some more, the floor brightened but it wasn't "Mother" clean.    

After the sewer repair, and with the plumbers coming in and out, Cookie finally decided to go all Mommie Dearest clean on the floor. 

Now the kitchen floor is getting removed with the forthcoming remodel. But until then, we have to live with what we have. 

Right now the floor is the same Congolium that was laid down in 1974, so it's about 30 years beyond its life expectancy. So the gloss finish has worn off and now its faux Italian villa tiles just attract dirt.   The problem is that the pattern has these small press lines meant to give it that worn, "Olde World" look when it's all simply worn.  So damp mopping isn't going to cut it. 

Armed with a spray bottle of neutral soap, a small Rubbermaid battery-powered scrub brush, and a floor brush, Cookie has spent hours going faux tile by faux tile scrubbing out the dirt, and then mopping that filthy, dirty water and cleaning up with paper towels. All of this effort has been around the baseboards, under the appliances, and under the cupboard's toe kicks. 

I will not show you what has come up, but I will tell you that the decades-old Mop and Shine had turned black with age, the black goo of built-up old mop water left to dry on its own, and old food and hair, is gone.  I have filled two contractor bags full of paper towels with black, brown, gray and plain old wet paper towels.  And that's only around the baseboards, two "tiles" out from the wall. 

Tomorrow, the GE Floor scrubber, circa 1965 comes out, and the main part of the floor gets it, and gets dried.  THEN a floor sealer gets applied. Its purpose is to keep the daily dirt of life from redepositing back onto the tiles, again. 

The new floor has been chosen. 

We are going back to the cork floors we loved in Columbus.  Lovely to look at and a dream to keep clean, they'll provide insulation, a cushion of softness, and a whole lot less wear and tear on Cookie's knees. 

Then I will attack that bathroom caulk. 

And we all know how Cookie loves to handle caulk.

New Old Home Angst: Don't Look in There Edition

 

So, Cookie and the husband have crossed over the shock, surprise, and expense of the sewer repair, and onto better things. Or are we?

What would Mona Plash say?

The other day, husband was working in the basement when it ventured into the glorified crawl space that is the room under the original kitchen of this house. Moving about, he looked high and low, and then backed into one of these CFL bulbs that everyone hates. 

Well, crash-tinkle the bulb broke and shards of glass went everywhere.   I was able to get the vac with the HEPA filter and vacuum him up, he took off his clothes and I washed them (twice) and sent him up to the bathroom to shower.

Yesterday, the husband went back into the room to clean it up.  And while he was down there he also cleaned out the nasty, filthy garbage left behind by the previous owners who refused to come back to the house after they moved to clean up the mess they left. 

There was a nasty memory foam pillow, bits of broken this, that, and everything, a child's crib mattress, and assorted detritus or life left behind by the nastiest people in the world.  Even Babs Johnson wouldn't want these folks around. 

Then he came across a very nice black zippered bag.  And he opened it. 

Oh, what, WHAT, could this be?

Alas, there were no piles of real cash or even counterfeited cash. Nor was there anything illegal, immoral, or otherwise prohibited by law.  No, it was something else altogether different than anything we ever imagined. 

Now before I go on, Husband is a stand-up guy.  Quiet, and respectful, and this sent him into a state of shock.

"Honey," he called up the stairs, "would you mind coming down here for a minute."

So Cookie went down the stairs, into the Hobbit hut of a room, and there I saw it. 

Now before I tell you what I saw, I will say that even Cookie was a bit taken aback.   Even the husband said "I thought it was a breast pump." No, not that kind of milking.

I have owned four homes, and I never, ever had a previous owner leave something like this before.  

And if I had such a case - and it was very nice - I would pack this first and want to know where it was at all times. 

These were, eh hem, personal items. 

"Was it a dildo," our neighbor asked?

No, not a dildo.  

It was a dildo bonanza. Every color shape and size. 

And yes, I pulled each one out. One at a time. 

And there was more. Much, much more.
Not pictured the rest of the toys in the case.

It was like someone cleared at your local Adult Mart. They were pink and purple - both sparkled - and a couple were silver. There was a very large fleshlight with an anus opening. And it had an extra sleeve, and no, I did not look inside.  There were cheap handcuffs and beginner restraints. And bottles of lube. There was a prostate massager, or two.  There were cock rings, of the silicone variety.  No steel, no real leather.  Oh, yes - a silicone cap to place over the head of one-eyed willy with a cup to receive a big vibrator head. There were purse vibrators as well.  And nipple suction cups, too.  

And that was just the first three-quarters of it. There wasn't enough room to unload the whole case. 

And let's not forget the anal chakra wand.

And Cookie could not stop laughing. 

I mean if it were "their" toys it wouldn't have been in their boudoir? 

But these were hidden. These were tucked away under the castaways of life.  As if one didn't want the other to find them. 

I asked my realtor what was the oddest thing anyone left behind in her personal experience. "A cat.  Which is now our cat.  Why? What did you find?"

When I told her, there was a gasp. "No! Really?"

Yup. 

It looks like the case was originally for a CPAP machine.  There were instructions. Someone just found a better use for the bag.

So now we have to figure out what to do with these.  The husband wanted to toss them, but I said, let's wait. Gawd knows we don't want them, but let's not be too hasty. 

One friend said to ship it to them.  Just box it up and ship it.   No, that's the type of thing that can end up in front of a magistrate for harassment.  

One friend said to toss them. "You do not want to be the real reason why their marriage fails."  A point well taken. Why would I want to break up a marriage? That's their job, not mine.

Another friend suggested, "Call that excuse for a seller's agent and tell her you found this bag with some personal items, and well, do they want it back?"  Now that was delicious. 

But Cookie is taking another tact. I am not going to call them. Because I know that the one who hid the bag, and is missing that bag, is on edge wondering "Where did that bag go?"  He is wondering if we have found the bag, who else knows about the bag, and will his wife find out.  He knows that we know about what he likes, and what he is experimenting with.   And that is driving him bonkers. 

Sometimes the best course of action is to do nothing, and just let them twist in the wind.  Self-doubt for the stunts they pulled on us is the best repayment yet.

Nothing Special Edition: An unexpected snow.

 

We met friends for dinner last night.  

When I got up, yesterday morning, the sky was clear, and it was bright out, a rarity for NE Ohio this time of year.  As we neared noon, the creeping clouds came in from Lake Erie, nothing abnormal.  

But by 4:30, there was a layer of fine snow on the porch roof. 

The husband and I settled for some time with the dogs and the sofa, and by the time we went out at a quarter of six, the car really needed to be cleared off - with about two inches of fine powder snow. 

Now, the east side of Cleveland usually does a great job at clearing the roads, but last night, something was off.  The roads were white, the snow wasn't melting, and it was coming down kind of hard, but still fine, like frozen dust.

So we got to Geraci's on Warrensville Center and enjoyed the company and the catching up, the food came, and a good time was had by one and all. 

Two hours later we left for the parking lot and the streets still hadn't been cleared.  Moreover, now the first layers of snow had become slick, and with powdery snow on top, the lane markings were obscured. 

So we carefully got in the car and started home, and I have to say that 99% of the drivers were great, not hurrying, not driving recklessly, and we only encountered two cars being driven like the roads were clear.  One of them made a left too fast and spun out.  I think he/she/them/they might have learned a lesson, or maybe not, but they weren't going where we were headed. 

We did get home safe and sound, and the dogs had a good romp in the snow.  They were like puppies, wanting us to toss the powder into the air so they could run through it. 

All in all, a pretty perfect evening. 

Still, I find it odd that the roads hadn't been prepped, which was unusual. 

But it was a nice night, without anything happening but a good meal. 

The Nonstop Pie-Hole

 

Even Joan Cusack wouldn't know what to do. 

As a Valentine's date, the Husband took Cookie out for a meal. 

We were seated, the table next to us was empty, and the table to my right was a man, about sixty-something who smiled when we were seated. 

About five minutes later, while we gazed at the menu, his dinner companion arrived. She was well dressed, almost stylish, but once she was seated, her mouth kicked into gear. 

Now, Cookie and the Husband were at a modern, nice dining location. The hum of the people talking was semi-loud because people operating restaurants think that a vibrant atmosphere means that the noise level should be loud enough that when using your inside voice you need to lean forward so the person seat on the other side of the duece top can nearly hear you.

The husband and I were seated next to these two for one hour and twenty minutes, and of that time, her mouth was in gear for an hour and fifteen.  A very LOUD hour and fifteen.

She only stopped talking long enough to throw some food into her piehole or take a quick sip of her Moscow Mule. 

And her constant kvetching wasn't anything worth listening in on.  There was nothing juicy, no complaints about food, politics, not even sex or gossip. 

Nope. Her mouth ran nonstop complaining about employees and coworkers, and their inability to follow or communicate their processing of workplace processes. 

Honest to Gawd people.  It was as if she picked up an abandoned unfunny script for the final episode of Seinfeld.  

And, she was loud.

AND dear reader, I kid you not, this came out of her mouth: 

"I asked her to explain her process for processing the required process to reach the outcome assigned to her, and she couldn't! Can you believe that?"

I leaned into the husband and said "Not explain her process? That takes some nerve."

At one point, her dinner companion took one of the few moments in which is was sipping her drink or chewing her meal and started to say "Well, being Swiss..." and she plugged that leak in the conversational dyke faster than the little Dutch boy in the child's story. 

"Then you know what I know about the importance of established processes..." and with that, she was off to the races again. 

We finished our meals, listening to nagging neh, nehneh, neh, wash rinse and repeat. 

When we waited for the check the piehole was in fine form, with process this, and process that, process, process, blah, blah, blah, process!

When we left, the husband had a rager of a headache.  "How did she even breathe?"

"I would have recommended a career as an auctioneer."

And I swear that while watching Find Your Roots, I started mumbling to the TV demanding that Skip Gates show us his researcher's processes when the husband said "You know those processes better than Dr. Gates."

To clear our minds, the Husband put on an episode of All Creatures Great and Small, which settled us down.  

Instead, our conversation turned to a favorite topic of mine, Helen's massive hair, which deserves its own paycheck and representation. 

No matter how bad something is, Helen's hair can always divert my attention. 

Last night in my dreams I remade the Sandra Bullock film "Speed", only this time, the heroine was told by some malevolent being that if she stopped talking about processes for more than thirty seconds, then bad things would befall her.  

How did the dream end?

I have no idea, I left the theater with Helen's hair before the resolution and then woke up.  

 

Damn hippies

 

We the hole is being filled in.  Thank Jesus Christ almighty. 

And we passed our inspection.  Praise Allah

The plumber hands me the permit and says "You ought to post this in a window."

A little late, slim, ain't it?

Tomorrow we go and buy gypsum for the gash, to try and make the clay they are turning up more porous. 

We did have a "neighbor" come by walking her dog.

Woman: "What's going on here?"

Me: "Draining our savings, it'll flow freely to the water treatment plant."

Woman: "Did you let your neighbors know?"

Me: "Oh, yes."

Woman: "I had no idea."

Me: "Where do you live?"

Woman: "Three blocks that way.  Did you tell the city?"

Me: "The plumber pulled the permit with the city and we passed inspection this morning."

Woman: "If you did this without a permit, I'll need to call and report you."

Me: "Call away, Gladys."

Woman: "My name is Tonya."

Me: "Kravitz did you say?"

Woman: "No, TONYA!"

Me: "Stop by anytime Gladys."

Our neighbor Randi heard this and came over.  

"Tonya has lived over there her whole life. She'll call the city and report you, but she won't remember the address or she thinks you are probably the people who lived here in the 50s."

Shaking her head, Randi said "She's harmless, but a pain in the ass sometimes. Lotta peyote, that one."

Wouldn't doubt it. Damn hippies. 

But what do I care?  I am poorer, and our house's poop pipe is squeaky clean. 

Damn Hippies, indeed.

Sewer stuff

 

Well here is my update: What will be will be.

The sewer repair seems like Mr. Tesander and Mr. Apollonio and digging the trench for Mr. Blandings. 

"Well, we've run into a problem.  You see that blue marking for your waterline?"

Yes.

"Well, the water line doesn't come in there. No.  It comes in here about five feet south of the marking, then travels across your front yard at an angle to the other side of the house.  So we'll have to cut it and hook you up a temporary connection."

What about the gas line?

"Well, it should come in over here, but there is a ledge, or an erratic over there, so it comes up on this other side of the tree."

The up shot is, the price has doubled not because of the sewer line, but the ulitites that aren't where they are supposed to be.

Then the city got involved. 

"You need to display your permits."

But we don't have them.

"Of course, you don't, because they were issued to the plumber and he should have let you know."

Well, he didn't.

"Ignorance of the process is no excuse..."

Would you like to speak with our attorneys? 

"Well, I can let you off this one time, but the next time you have this line replaced, you better have that permit displayed."

UGH.

So we have water from 4pm to 8am.  Then we are on our own. 

Our neighbors have been wonderful in letting us use their bathrooms, and their dogs have been wonderful in giving us all types of love. 

Honestly, if it weren't for the neighbors, both of us would be in a rubber room.

Hot Chicken Sandwich

Vonda, Can I get a third Hot Chicken Sandwich?

The Plain Dealer, Cleveland's main newspaper, ran a story last week that made Cookie's jaw drop.   

Literally. 

I said to myself, "Cookie, this cannot be true." and "What witchery is this?"

It claimed that the Hot Chicken Sandwich - something I grew up with when I visited Marion, and later moved there -  is a very well-known entity in Greater Cleveland.  So well known, it is part of the Cleveland Canon of Foods. 

Why I nearly took to the couch and called out for the husband to "bring me my digitalis."

Dear Reader, having regained my composure, in the first 14 years of my life in Shaker Heights I never encountered a hot chicken sandwich in anywhere in Cleveland. 

Ever. 

My Cleveland family never encountered it.  And my mother would never have made something that would betray her farm girl childhood.  (But if the Marion Fish and Game Club had an ox roast, she'd ask for one.)

So the idea that the sandwich is part of the same food heritage that gave us chopped liver, corned beef, Aurora Spaghetti House spaghetti sauce, Bertman's brown stadium mustard, perogies, the Polish Boy Sausage, Kilbossa, Chicken Paprikash, and a Heck's Rocky River Burger, is like saying that the sun comes up over Fairview Park and sets over Pepper Pike.  Madness I tell you, its just madness.

But you will say, "Cookie, that was in the last century." 

And that would be right. 

You will point out that "surely a chicken breast on a bun is the creation of the 1980s that exists today, usually in fast restaurants." 

Yes, a chicken breast sandwich is a universal thing these days.  A cliche among sandwiches. 

But that isn't what I am talking about. 

I am talking about a HOT CHICKEN SANDWICH, not a chicken breast sandwich.  

The Hot Chicken Sandwich's beauty exists in its simplicity.  

So what is this food unicorn that evokes memories of neighborliness, community, and good eating? 

A Hot Chicken sandwich is shredded white meat chicken, that simmers with a can of cream of chicken soup, salt, pepper, and maybe a crushed cracker filler in a crockpot (Or Nesco Roaster if you are feeding twenty or more) for a few hours and, served on a hot steamed bun and served with a couple Vlassic dill pickle chips.

The Hot Chicken Sandwich.
Look good? I told you it is.

First of all, the only place where you can get a Hot Chicken Sandwich is:

1. At a covered dish fundraiser for the fire department
2. At the county fair from the tent run by the Rotarians, the Lions, Altrusa, or a fundraising tent for a fire department.
3. The Jer-Zee drive-in, or Stewart's Rootbeer Stand, or some other such that is local.
4. A tailgate party at someone's house in the fall - or - 
5. From your mother's kitchen if she says she has a "yen for one."

How do you make it? 

Well, its rather simple:

1. Either bake or parboil your chicken, but don't overcook it, because the chicken is going for a mellow swim in the crock pot.  If you hate baking and it's a million degrees out and you don't want to heat up the kitchen, you can buy shredded, unseasoned cooked chicken at the market.*  
2. Turn on that crock pot for low.  
3. Shred the chicken.  Don't dice it, don't slice it, you want that chicken shredded.  You can use fork, an egg beater, meat claws, or whatever floats your boat.
4. You take shredded chicken - how much is a mystery, and no one knows for sure.  If you are going to make some you might as well make enough for the neighbors, too - and place it in the crockpot. 
5. A can or several cans of a condensed cream of chicken soup.**  (How much?  No one knows for sure how many people you are feeding. It is based on whether or not you are feeding your family, family and friends, family and neighbors, a church group, or several hundred people at the fair, tractor pull, or family reunions.  Generally it's one can for every four to six people, more or less.)  
6. Some salt, some pepper.  How much, enough to season it but not so much that it tastes salty, or too peppery.  When you overseason people think you are trying to cover something up. 
7. Stir it around and cover for a couple hours.  Add just a wee bit-o-water now and then. 
8. After about four hours, serve it on a steamed fresh bun with some dill pickle chips. 

That's it, people. You have mid-Ohio nirvana. 

Now, there are a couple "oh, no you don't" things to keep in mind.

A) Do not add any hot sauce to the batch.  Not everyone thinks Frank's Hot Sauce, Tobasco, or some other overly spicy sauce is ever needed, wanted or desired.

B) If you want hot sauce, as my mother would say "do it alone in the corner of shame." And ask yourself "What in the hell is wrong with me that I need to ruin perfectly good food with that crap."

C) Stop adding crap like ground cauliflower, fresh herbs, and Gawd only knows what else.  You are not above good basic food.

D) Don't overthink this.  Seriously.

e) Just open that pie hole of yours and eat.

Variations:

a) Some people will crush a few Ritz crackers, or saltines, into the mix at the beginning of cooking.  If you do, add a bit of water.  This can extend the recipe if you really are feeding a big group. 

b) Purists will use chicken base instead of soup.  I you do this, add 1/2 cup of water and 1/4 cup of whole milk.  You need the fat from the milk.

c) Some people will use cream of mushroom soup, but Cookie is not a fan.

As for side dishes?  Ballreich's chips are good, so are tater tots, and so is California medley.   Asparagus? I wouldn't, but that's me. 

For dessert? Well if you really want to knock it out of the park, a mock apple pie.  And before you say anything, it is out of this world delicious, and people will want to cook you a chateaubriand and throw you a parade. 

NOW, people tell me that the Hot Chicken Sandwich is a West Side thing and that I get it.  Cleveland is merely a city floating in the middle of a sea of communities. I am an eastside person and only hang on the west side if I have reason.  They feel the same way about the east side. 

So this year, if there is a Fire Department fundraiser in Avon, or a church festival in Parma, I will go and see if someone is serving up Hot Chicken Sandwiches.

But until I find it commonly served, it will remain to be seen if it is a local example of good eating.

_________

*Only you will know if you shred it and put the love into getting it right, or some stranger named Beverly or LaVerne who could be a man, could be a woman - has put their love into prepping the bird.  You'll know too, but you are not telling anyone, because well, it's all part of that aura of yours. We all know it and people will and do talk.  I know I do. 

**Use Campbell's Cream of Chicken because it shows you love the people you are feeding.  Store-brand, or off-brand cream of chicken soup tells everyone what a cheapskate you are because everyone knows it's not as good as Campbell's and people will, and do, talk.