I Want to Break Free

Like prisoners, caught in a cell, free to go but for the lack of a key.Trapped inside my canner are eight pints of albacore. The key? A rubber gasket.

The old floppy gasket was leaking at the end of last season and I finally found one at Shafers sometime this past spring and, upon comparing it to the old one, found it to be correct and tossed the old one. The first tuna of the season, purchased from the Captain of the F/V Sunlight, was sweet, half of which disappeared at Sunday dinner leaving the remainder to be savored at a later date. The jars of albacore were placed in the canner, the gasket tucked into the lid. The lid would NOT close. No matter how I tried, no way, no how. I warmed it. I oiled it….methods the generally work no matter WHAT you’re working on but the lid would not go on the canner. Finally, Mark got involved and HE pushed. He pulled. Finally, face red and veins popping, he managed to twist the lid of the canner closed. "We may not get it back open but…there it is." Funny guy!

Last night, I played the Tuna Canner symphony, the infernal rattling of the canner, with a 10# weight for 110 minutes which is an interminably long time to endure the clatter of metal-on-metal. This morning, the canner was cooled down and I attempted to open it to extract the jars. Not budging. I called Mark; he too was unable to move it. We worked together with me holding the lid and him twisting the bottom. Then I held the pot and he twisted the lid. His arms hurt. My LEGS hurt. I am not butch enough for this kind of business. He brought in clamps to try to gently, but forcefully turn the lid. We put the pot back on the stove just to warm it gently. and tried again. Crap!

No help at ALL from Mirro who agreed that this was likely a faulty gasket, too thick for the application. Tricia in Customer (non-)Service suggested I toss this one and buy a new one. No suggestion on how to accomplish this SINCE IT WAS STUCK IN THE FREAKING POT! No compensation due me since “the vendors [in Brazil] are responsible, Ma’am, not Mirro.” Grrr.

The canner is still sitting on my counter. Eight pints of tuna are encapsulated inside, presumably intact. Any thoughts?

UPDATE: Another half hour of struggling with clamps and pieces of kindling for wedges, the tuna is free! THAT seriously took the fun out of canning.

I Can Dig It, You Can Dig It

Unlike the lady of the home (above), my decision did not take much pondering. For the first time, I decided to take gardening blog, Gardening Gone Wild, up on their monthly photo contest. This month's theme, "On The Road Again" asks us for photos of gardens we found on our travels "on unfamiliar ground with an open mind and open eyes". While I'm sure photos will be submitted with fabulous formal gardens in exotic locales, my mind went immediately to the simply, rather crude kitchen gardens I saw at the Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts.As we wandered the Plantation, amidst the role-players in period dress, deep in character of the time, we took a look inside the way the settlers lived. Without benefit of Martha Stewart or Sunset Magazine, their gardens were not fancy nor decorated, but functional. No fancy construction. No fancy tools. The dirt clods among the corn plants were worked with simple hand-tools. The raised beds of greens were built from scraps and pieces of wood leftover from building the fences that kept the goats from the garden as were the trellises and supports holding up the beans. So simple, yet so uncluttered and pretty.

Don't Make Me Laugh...

In the olden days, there were party lines. For you younguns, that was when two households shared a phone line - that's right, not just two family members but two homes. Separate families. SHARING!. I suspect that there was a price break though it may have just been too expensive to have a private line. We shared with the neighbor who was rather intolerant our house with chatty teens with our chatty ways. She would occasionally come to the door and demand we vacate the line. Occasionally we would.

We have now progressed to cellular devices. Or have we? When the text came in, I didn't recognize the number:

INCOMING TEXT: Wus up beezy?
ME: not sure you want to know. Wrong # I presume.
IT: Wat?
ME: Who are you? This is Debbie.
IT: Oh Im sorry wrng numbr. But wat r u doin tho?
ME: you're funny...I'm working.
IT: Im not tryna b funny. But, how old r u debbie?
ME: old...really old.
IT: Married?
ME: very
IT: Alrite. Im sorry 4 takin u away from your work. It was nice chatin wit u. And by the way, my name is Don.
ME: bye Don.

I figured this inane text "conversation" was over...then again with the "beepbeepbeep"

DON: U kno later maybe wen u get a break if u feel like chatting a little more y dnt u give me a buzz? If u feel like it. No pressure.

Dood, are you serious? Does this work for people? I told him I'm old. I told him I'm married. I USE PUNCTUATION in text message for craps sake. I tried to Google search the phone number but no luck. Did he really expect me to jump on this opportunity with someone who can't spell worth shit? C'mon! Are people really lonely enough to get picked up by a wrong number? Please tell me "no".

I Been in the Right Place but it Musta Been the Wrong Time

I could easily have been on a ship. The clang of the bell buoy rolling in the fat swell. The echoing of two fog horns, talking to each other from the spits at either side of the Channel. The surf hardly visible in the thick fog and only noticeable when it rumbled against the hull. In reality, it was just a walk on the north spit jetty and the water was thundering against the rocks underfoot. Slowly, the fog began melting away but not until after my walk.I took the day off work and was pleased to see a zero-tide was due at a reasonable hour. I headed out to the Breakers and climbed down into the rocks that make up the jetty, checking out the lifeforms normally hidden under water. Squatting down to see under the bigger rocks, I could see the beautiful purple and orange sea stars gripping the rock along side the anemones, drooping down like gooey wet stalactites. I could hear the chattering of the barnacles, searching the salt air for food that wouldn't be theirs until the water, once again covered them and brought them dinner. See the tiny little crab scurrying around the barnacles? Little devil was no bigger than my thumbnail and obviously too shy to allow a good focus. The low tide and fat swell brought out a number of surfers, many of whom entered the water from the jetty to save their arms from the paddle out to the break. As always with the surf, you have to be in the right place at the right time or the ride just isn't yours. Luckily, a few were in the right place at exactly the right time.

Hot Town, Summer in the City

While parts of the country have been dealing with triple-digit temps and cranking up the air conditioning, we who have chosen to live where 70 is a heat wave are asked to conserve. So we dutifully live in the dark while others luxuriate in their pools or in front of the air-conditioning. I've lived in the heat and have returned to my senses, thank you very much.

I grew up in a middle class neighborhood, built mostly in the early 60's. Nothing fancy but we did have curbs. No sidewalks; those were for the rich people on the next, newer street. We also did not have swimming pools. That, too, was for the fancy people above us. We had sprinklers and we had a Water Wiggle. For those of you not fortunate enough to have owned one of these entertaining devices, the attached commercial might refresh your memory. Looking at that commercial through the litigious eyes of a person who would, say, spill hot coffee in their lap then sue the restaurant that sold them the coffee, I see dollar signs. Through the eyes of a child, it was a blast. Oh sure, there were times it would THUNK you on the head or, better yet, wrap around your ankle then continue to ensnarl you like a boa constrictor until you could free yourself. Of course, as the hose got shorter and shorter, that put that vicious little smiling head ever so close to your face. You'd reach out and grab the hose trying to prevent it from smacking your face. Now THAT is a good time cooling off.

Wake Up Little Suzy

I have found social networking sites to be helpful in so many situations but unnerving when death comes calling. I learned of my nephew's death when his sister posted in shock on her myspace. It was eerie to read his earlier posts knowing he had written them and his friends had responded not knowing they would not see each other again. Then to read the 'wall' posts as those same friends became aware of his passing and grieved publicly on the platform of myspace.

This week, I learned of the passing of a family friend, Sue (Eisele) May. Though we weren't best buds, we were classmates, friends, neighbors - it wasn't until she was in the hospital birthing her first baby that I learned from the OB nurse that her name wasn't even Sue, and I learned that only because they didn't have anyone there named Sue. Turned out her name was Carol. Her dad told me that he used to sing "Wake Up Little Suzy" to her when she was a baby and the name stuck. She was the niece of Mark's best friend. We were neighbors when we both rented from her parents in Santa Cruz. She moved (along with a whole caravan of us from Santa Cruz including her parents) to Nevada and wound up as our school secretary. Again, I remember asking one day when I was at school where Sue had run off to and they said, "Sue? You mean Carol?" Guess it never really worked for her because we met up again on FACEBOOK and, once again, she was Sue.

I knew she had a cancer diagnosis and would periodically fall silent on the chatter of FB then I'd spot a posting where "Sue May has become a fan of ....." and I knew she must been feeling a little better.

This week we learned from her Uncle that she lost her battle with cancer. Yet there she is on Facebook ... smiling in a photo with her husband, looking so good and deceptively healthy. I see photos of her. Comments she made. But on her "wall", the comments come in from friends who are finding out she is gone. Facebook, as Facebook is wont to do, beckons me from the right margin to "say hello to Sue". Hey Facebook...I'd love to BUT I CAN'T! Scrolling down her page, her comments remain to remind us of her so I suppose it's all good. It's like she's still out there. We talk to her as though she has computer access wherever she is and reads how much she is missed.

Hopefully she's feeling better, laughing with her dad, Don Eisele, and brother Eric, both of who went before her in the last couple years. Maybe there will be a heavenly social network that will allow her to "friend me" and be in touch again someday.

They're the First to Come and The Last To Leave

Bleary-eyed at dawn we, the first team of volunteers for Kinetics, were out and about the Arcata Plaza at 5:30 setting up barricades, collecting cones and preparing the town square for the insurgence of the fabulous machines that make up the Kinetic Grand Championship. I have attended most sections of the three-day race over the years but my husband's shop schedule leaves me to my own devises, wandering the Plaza alone on Kinetic Saturday mornings. This year, I threw out the possibility of using my time wisely and volunteering. I thought I'd pitch in for a few hours and ended up doing far more....there were sites beyond the Plaza that had to be prepared. Although the sculptures are what most people see, the volunteers....the Site Coordinators and Ground Pounders make it happen.

Honestly, it was an honor to wear the official uniform of the Kinetic Accomplice - the glory extends widely to the Ground Pounders for they are the 'doozers". We pitched in where we're needed...we answered questions of Glorious Spectators like "where should we go to see the machines after this?" and "Where can we watch tomorrow?" My favorite was an elderly lady who asked if something was going on...."why, yes, yes there IS a race going on". "A bicycle race?"....Not exactly but CLOSE, ma'am." I wonder where she thought she was.

The Ground Pounders are the roadies....we did the set up and tear-down. The "first to come and the last to leave"..... It is the Ground Pounders that ask, with a smile, that Spectators pull "feet off the street" in preparation for the LeMans start of the race, and are sometimes met with scowls....yet we soldiered on, collecting our bribes from sculptures for a job well done. I cherish my bracelet from the registration Goddess Jen-0 as well as my boobie button from the Classical Nudes and others that accumulated on my shirt over the morning.

The fun of this event is like an inside joke that not everyone 'gets'. The costumes of the teams AND the volunteers raise the eyebrows of the uninvolved. So many people, mostly long-time residents I suspect, roll their eyes at the thought of the race, a clear violation of Rules 1 and 10. ** Facebook and Twitter comments mentioned "those people" more than once.....some people just don't get it but I'm glad I do. I'm grateful for Monica, Rutabaga Queen 2004 and Queen President 3 for this year, for getting us further involved in the race. Gloria has been 'entourage' since Monica ran for Queen so has been a Ground Pounder by default since she was pre-teen.

Sitting on the rocks watching the water entry on Day Two, I sat with two couples visiting from Sea Ranch who were having SO much fun. They got "it" .... Francis asking "honey, did you get a picture of that?" every few minutes as the sculptures peddled past, giggling like a teen at the numbness we were developing in our butts from sitting awkwardly on the cold rocks. It's fun to see that joy and enthusiasm. It's fun to HAVE that joy and enthusiasm..to see adults not ashamed to be silly. As was Hobart's intent, the race is intended for adults to have so much fun that kids want to grow up to be adults.

I hope that, when you attend special events anywhere, always be aware that someone, probably a BUNCH of someones, worked real hard so you could enjoy yourself. I just hope they have as much fun doing it as the Ground Pounders do.

** RULE #1: It is mandatory that all Sculpture Pilots, Pit Crew, Officials, Spectators, Law Enforcers, Communicators, Volunteers, Merchants, and even innocent bystanders put great effort into having great fun for it is such Craziness as this that keeps us all Sane! If you insist on being a grumpy racer and not having fun, you may declare "diplomatic immunity" (since you are surely from another planet) and not be cited by overly excited officials for that infraction, but we reserve the right to adjudicate any such declaration.(NOTE: Rule #1 repeats as Rule #10...it's THAT important).