Sunlight Dish Detergent and Consciously Incompetent

One of my roommates in university used Sunlight dish detergent to shampoo her hair and also as soap for shaving her legs.  She was quite insistent that it left her hair shinier and healthier than regular hair shampoos.  That roommate did have wonderful hair, so for awhile I used it too.  I didn't notice the positive results that she seemed to get; I'm thinking she was blessed with great hair and it wouldn't have mattered much what she used on it.
 I thought of this when I was reading a magazine lately and came across the suggestion to use hair conditioner as soap for shaving.  The writer claimed it leaves the skin smoother and in better condition than any of the specially formulated shaving creams do.  It would also involve saving money as hair conditioners can be picked up quite cheaply as well as it would mean having one less product hanging about in the bathroom.  I am going to give that a try too though I don't seem to have a need for this as much as I used to.  One of the positives of growing older...hair grows slower in some areas of the body, but, on a negative, suddenly sprouts in other spots. Not complaining, just telling is all.
In that same magazine, Real Simple, March 2014 issue, I read a wonderful article by Ann Leary about being consciously incompetent.  This resonated with me because I realized there are few things in my life I would label myself consciously competent at.  I think I am stuck at the incompetent thinking stage with a lot of things I try to do.  You know the old saw about jack of all trades and master of none.  But that does not stop me from trying.  I do seem to want to keep learning and like the author, add to my skill set, even though I am very aware of my own limitations.  Time is no longer an excuse for stopping something when I know I'm still incompetent though I've given it a pretty good try.  Now that I'm retired I can't use that.   

Vintage Robin Hood and Carnation Cook Books

What a find these were!  They belonged to hubby's mother and were left in one of the boxes in the basement.  Well used but still intact, they are the kind of family cookbooks where you can tell what  the favourite recipes were by the smears and smudges on certain pages.  I just love that.  How appropriate for the era that the Carnation one has filet crochet featured as the background.  Both were published in 1947 and according to her inscriptions, my mother-in-law got one in 1948 and the other in 1949.  The Carnation Cook Book by Mary Blake features sections called "Child Feeding" and "Invalid Feeding" in addition to the usual food divisions.  I have used numerous recipes from this little book including the fudge, custard, jelly roll and certain sauces; in fact, I don't see anything particularly old-fashioned about it and all the ingredients are, as one would expect, readily available and basic.  You won't be needing a kitchen pantry stocked with quinoa or asiago cheese and the fanciest the sugar gets is calling for brown.
 The Robin Hood Prize Winning Recipes cook book with recipes selected by Rita Martin is a real winner, too.  All the bread, pie, cake, torte, pudding and cookie recipes are basic, home-made fare and are a great resource for any baker.  Rita writes in her introduction that if your friend borrows this book you must make her cross her heart and hope to die that she'll return it.  How sweet is that!  Certainly speaks to a different, more naive era.
Both of these books are available from Amazon.com.  The Robin Hood spiral bound edition, which is what I have, is now a collectible and worth about $90 (though I'm sure for that kind of money it would have to be in much better condition than mine); a paperback edition sells for about ten dollars.  The Carnation book is also available for about ten dollars and as a collectible it is worth $20.  Both books, though compiled many decades ago, are great additions to any home cook book library, I think.   

It's All About Me or You

One of my colleagues rushed up to me in the hallway and said, oh I know how it looks now but give it a week and I will look more like myself.  I think I looked kind of blank because she continued to tell me she had just gotten a hair cut during lunch break and it felt shorter than usual to her.  I frankly had not noticed anything different about her hair.  But I rushed to assure her it and she looked fine.
Another time I was eating in a mall food court; I was living alone for a few months away from family working out a term of study leave.  I'd just gotten my weekly treat...how well I remember this...New York fries and a large diet coke.  I turned with my tray, someone zipped in front of me, the tray shook and my food landed on the floor.  I immediately bent to pick it up and take it to the garbage bin, all the while cheeks burning with embarrassment. I then furtively glanced around thinking at that point that all eyes in the food court would be on me.  Not so, in fact, I could see only one fellow that seemed  to be watching me and he gave me a little smile as if to say hey that's too bad.  Everyone else were minding their own business talking and eating. With being assured that I was not a laughing stock, I proceeded to line up and get my food all over again, sit and eat it, while feeling the redness slowly ebb from my face.  I guess nothing was going to get between me and my fries.
I've just read that both these stories make for good examples of what psychologists call the "spotlight effect".  This begins with the fact that we are the center of our own little universes and we assume everyone else is also as wrapped up in us and our actions as we are.  We therefore greatly exaggerate in our minds how much people are watching and noticing what we are doing. In fact, for the most part, the opposite is true. 
This phenomena has been confirmed in many research studies and I guess it makes sense.  No one is thinking about me as much as I am myself. 

Linda Spalding's The Purchase

What Was On My Night Table

 Another book I had placed a hold on at the library and had forgotten about by the time it was 'my turn' to get it... this is The Purchase by Linda Spalding and it appeared on the Governor General's Awards for Fiction, 2012 list.  Linda Spalding is a wonderful writer and this book is another testimony to her very capable writing abilities.
 It tells the story of the trials and tribulations of a young Quaker, Daniel, who takes his family deep into 18th century Virginia to begin homesteading.  He inadvertently trades his favourite horse for an 8 year old boy who is black (the "purchase").  Daniel is mortified this has come about as it is against his moral and religious teachings to be a part of the slavery movement.  He tends to blame the fact of this purchase for the numerous problems that befall him and his family as they go about trying to make a life for themselves in the wilderness.
I did not get a good sense of any of the characters in this book.  I have since read them described as 'faint' and I would agree with this.  Right to the end, I did not have a good fix on each of them.   In particular, I found Daniel to be a weak character and as often happens in these 'frontier' or 'pioneer' novels, the women are the real backbone of the family.  They seemed to have the necessary backbone to take care of things, were decisive and had the strength of their convictions, something Daniel was lacking.  They birthed and raised children, learned to farm, became skillful at all sorts of crafts and fed the family all against the brutality of certain neighbours and harshness of  life in the wilderness itself.
 For me Daniel was an interesting character at the start of the novel but then he faded; I was irritated by his longing for his horse while seemingly not to be as caring about his own sons.  The book handled slavery in a way we have read before, with scenes and instances of  incomprehensible brutality.
This book has received many accolades and has been described as 'powerful'.  I did not find it so; however, I thought it was a good read and enjoyed most of it right to the end.    

Dame's Rocket and Furry Children

Dame's Rocket

 It took some researching before I was able to find the name of this plant and I hope I have it correct.  It is tall, leaves alternating, flowers are flat with four petals, and form themselves into an umbrella shape at the top of the plant.  The flowers are that unnameable colour between purple/lilac and violet. I'm thinking this is a wild flower called Dame's Rocket.  Apparently it is quite a renegade because all you read about it is negative; usually its picture is accompanied by dire warnings from the botanists to never let this grow in your garden.  It is one of those invasive species who if given half a chance will take over.  We have several thin clumps of it around the house and so far, it just looks pretty.  I've been pleased to see the butterflies and bees seem to like it too.  Pass any farmer's field and you  notice the sides bordered by an abundance of Dame's Rocket; it makes a pretty purplish show. I wonder will it try to creep into the corn rows which are starting to get high now, btw.
  Lately it hasn't been too hot.  We get to open the windows. Opening all the windows to achieve a cross breeze is so important when you live with two big dogs.  The air can (and does) smell so doggy; I don't complain (too much) because our dogs mean so much to us.
  Did you hear the Pope warned people to not make children of their dogs and cats because in the process they might forget to actually have children?  I wonder what the figures on that are.

 Dogs and cats make such wonderful companions there's no denying.  I know we dearly love our furry fellows.  Just take a look at how much I love them.  And when the vet saw them last month she gave me a lecture on not 'loving' them so much.  In my defense, I don't give them a lot of treats and I think it should be factored in that they are getting older and not running quite as much as they used to.  After cutting back just a little, I notice Murphy is already starting to get her 'middle' back. 

Enough Smiling and Head-Nodding

The spreading wild columbine, in shaded areas a flimsy carpet of bronzy reds

 I've told you I had a career that spanned four decades.  It involved a number of staffs as well as  working with the public in general.  Like many jobs, mine came with its share of obligatory dinners, meetings, and social gatherings.  I'd never in my life acquired the necessary backbone to refuse any of these...someone might feel hurt.  Who?  Who are these people?  I wonder about it all now.  I know I had adopted the 'go along to get along' credo early in my life; in fact, it was and is part of my basic make-up.  Though I often heard women say they were loners, I know I really was one. I often felt socially inept, certainly never one of the crowd and to tell you the truth I didn't mind being on the outside watching. However, when having to mingle, if you could have seen me at those times you would have winced at how awkward I was probably looking.  At least that's how I was feeling.  No matter how amused I was, I always would rather have been home.
Yes, I feel like during those years of my life, I had enough smiling and head-nodding to last a lifetime.  The cumulative effect of those feelings was that when I retired I promised myself I would not put myself in any social situations again that I did not want.  I've heard of lots of women who feel like this...age gives their feelings a legitimacy, validates their unwillingness to put up with whatever it is that they feel they've had to go along with to get by.

 Of course to write this down makes it seem more dramatic somehow than it really all was, which is so often the case. 

The Opening Up of Summer

I've been standing  at the living room window for ten minutes catching up with the number of birds around the front lawn.  Yesterday I filled the cement bird bath and immediately any number of birds are drinking from it; no one appears to need a bath as yet though.  It seems not long ago I was lamenting the frozen, barren earth and now, like a giant earthly switch flipped, it has all changed.  The leaves have opened, the grass has sprung up as green as ever, and the birds, bees and butterflies are all winging their way through the air over the very spots that had been dead to the world a very short while ago.  How does it all do that?
Our neighbour, the farmer, is spending long hours on his plow these days; I catch glimpses of him roaming up and down the field to the right of us. Sometimes I can hear the whine of one machine or another.  He must at the end of the day look at the miles of perfectly straight lines and feel great satisfaction.  It makes me think about how the earth gets planted and then replanted over and over and still manages to grow more.  I'm in awe of that. 
I've had this Carlyle quote in my notebook for a few years; this year it finally seems very appropriate.

Long stormy spring-time

wet, contentious April,

winter chilling the lap of very May,

but at length the season of summer does come.

                                 Thomas Carlyle