Sometime It Takes a Crisis

Sometimes it takes a crisis to get us moving. Since returning from Tucson in late March we have intended to begin de-acquisitioning our 40-year accumulation of stuff, but it took a wet basement to get us started. Thanks to a five-inch rain, we have made a big dent in our quest to get things out of the house.

Each morning last week we spent just two hours working in the basement, sorting out recyclables, trash, and thrift shop donations. Dennis spent far more time distributing the stuff than we spent sorting. He made two trips to the thrift shop, and two to the Lawrence recycling center.

I rode along on his second trip, and looked in wonder at the various categories. Right away I saw a huge block of smashed aluminum cans. It weighs 1,000 pounds and is worth $8,500 at today's price. Aluminum is the most valuable of all recyclable materials.*

Inside the recycling shed I saw surprisingly few plastics. Maybe they had just been hauled away. I wanted to ask how the plastics can be efficiently sorted according to their numbers, but no one was around to ask.

The mixed-paper smasher’s warning sign shows just how hazardous employment in the recycling center can be.

Outside the shed were things too big for the bins.

In the distance was a growing mountain of really big things, including what appeared to be appliances, wooden furniture, and masses of tree roots. I didn’t get close enough for a careful inventory.

America’s trash is a crisis in the making. Going to the recycling center is scary, but if you want a really big scare, visit the local landfill. Maybe we will pay a visit there soon. Maybe everyone should.

*Americans throw away nearly $1 billion worth of aluminum cans every year. - See more at: http://www.aluminum.org/industries/production/recycling - sthash.j8LkPnqv.dpuf

Copyright 2016 by Shirley Domer

Bake Your Bacon

The word “bacon” doesn’t have anything to do with baking, but baking is by far the best way to prepare the traditional breakfast meat. I made some this morning.

After turning on the oven to 400º, I laid the bacon strips on a grill pan saved from a long-defunct toaster oven.

I put the pan in the oven right away, not waiting for the temperature to reach 375º. I didn’t time the baking, but it took somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes. (Thick-sliced bacon would have taken longer.) The result was perfectly cooked crispy meat.

The meat hardly shrank and its fat collected in the pan beneath the grill. Baked bacon doesn’t need turning, so the cook is free to make scrambled eggs, set the table, or read the paper. The grill is easy to clean, too, after a brief soak in hot, soapy water.

Baked bacon is definitely the way to go.

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer

Supper to Dinner and Back Again

As the daughter of a farmer I grew up calling the noon meal “dinner” and the evening meal “supper.” Dad got up early to feed the hogs and milk the cow. He came back to the house for breakfast before heading back out to hitch up Babe and Belle, our big, gentle workhorses and plow fields, cut hay, or harvest corn by hand as the team slowly followed him down the row, pulling the wagon that slowly filled with golden ears.

By noontime Dad needed a serious infusion of calories. He returned to the house to fuel up on a substantial meal such as pan-fried steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits, gravy, and, in the summer, sliced tomatoes from his garden. That prepared him for a full afternoon of work that ended only when he had again milked the cow.

It was only right that we ate our dinner in the middle of the day, for “dinner” is defined as “the main meal of the day.”

Only when I was grown up and employed at Hallmark as a greeting card writer did I start calling my midday meal in the employees’ cafeteria “lunch” and my evening meal “dinner,” as all people with desk jobs tend to do.

Then, decades later, when both Dennis and I had retired, I returned to calling our evening meal “supper,” defined as “an evening meal, typically a light or informal one.” That fits our evening repasts to a T.

Supper consists of three items, occasionally only two. Last evening’s supper consisted of bean soup,

cornbread baked in the iron skillet, (that little brown spot is a morsel of bacon)

and salad fresh from the garden.

We still call our morning meal “breakfast,’ which has grown more substantial since we don’t have to rush off to jobs, and we still call our midday meal “lunch,” even when it’s only a smoothie or some guacamole and chips. 

“Dinner” has dropped completely from my vocabulary. Now that we are old and our metabolism has slowed, all of our meals are too spare and simple to merit the name. Frankly, I'm relieved. Not having to make a dinner takes the pressure off the cook It's all in the semantics. Supper is a snap but dinner is a chore.

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer

Happy Families

Family can be harmonious or contentious, but more often are a mix of these extremes. The happiest families not only accept individual differences, they celebrate and reward them. If one sibling is a halfback and the other a chess player, that’s great! We have the brains and the brawn. If one can’t carry a tune, but another is asked to sing solos at church, that’s fine. The one who can’t carry a tune writes sonnets or can identify every plant in the woods. It all balances out. The key to harmony is to appreciate and embrace each family member’s unique traits.

Similarly, each family member has something to benefit the family.  One person can fix things that break or quit working. Another is your go-to for financial advice. Others bake delicious bread, keep the pantry stocked, mow the lawn, make us laugh, carry out the recycling and trash, and much more. Again, the key to harmony is to acknowledge and show appreciation for each person’s contributions.

The happiest families often shower one another with affection. We hug, we kiss, we pat, we tousle, we high five, we hold hands, we snuggle. We like each other and we sacrifice for each other. We all love each other, although the ones who give the most love are the best loved.

The contentious family operates differently.  Family members keep careful score of perceived slights, engage in constant competition for attention and approval, tease and taunt other family members, free load on the others’ labors and gifts, argue bitterly, carp endlessly, or try to turn family members against each other. Some families engage in a shifting mosaic of shunning first one person, then another. Some families play one-ups-man, comparing income, education, job achievements, and marital success. Favorite sons or daughters are treated better than others, their achievement lauded and others pointedly compared unfavorably to them.

We can either boost each other up or knock each other down. We can choose to be happy families or unhappy families. It’s pretty clear to me that the happiest, most confident, sweetest children come from harmonious, affectionate families, and from homes where each member is treated with respect. Hey, it’s worth putting up with one other just to have great kids around.

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer