Dude, Where's My Cherry Pitter?

“I know what you’re doing.  You’re going to can fruit,” chirped the clerk at the hardware store.

“Reluctantly,” I replied.

“My lady friend has a sister who cans fruit,” he said, a wide grin splitting his face.  “We get jam for Christmas.  In the summertime, she cans dill pickles.  Delicious.  It’s a lot of hard work.”

What would he know?  Out of all the clerks available in the hardware store, I get stuck with Chatty Cathy.  I dug into my front pocket for my wallet and pictured this man spooning hot fruit goop into sterilized Ball jars.

What did I know about cherries?  I like eating them, but since I’m only familiar with the life span of Bartlett pears, I don’t know when cherry season begins or ends.  It’s never long enough for me, so I get the Bing cherries and eat as many as I can until no one sells them anymore.  Strawberries are easier to find.

“I don’t know how she does it,” he said.

I handed over a $20 bill and saw the light come to his eyes.  He was having one of those Oprah “Aha” moments and was going to tell me something brilliant.

“Oh, she doesn’t work.  She stays home with her kids.”

Wrong this to say around me, Sucka.  I have this crazy left eye which comes in handy when I hear something I don’t care to hear.  He paused when he saw my left eye go into action.  It goes from a light, almost tranquil type of earthy brown to pitch black.

When my left eye goes black, my husband doesn’t come home unless he has a dozen roses for me.  But only if my anger is aimed at him.  Otherwise, I welcome any roses at our home for any reason.

 

One of the reasons why I don’t have kids is because the attitude hasn’t changed in decades.  People think you don’t work when you are home with the kids and running a household.  If you are also working, then it’s called “juggling”.   

What a raw deal.  As the firstborn child, I am grateful to my parents and anyone who has dumped their kids on me.  My experience with children taught me that I didn’t want any of my own.  

 

The clerk looked at me uncomfortably and started backing up from the counter until he felt safe from the stare of my crazy eye.  “Uh.  She has two kids.  I still don’t know how she does it.”

Good enough, I thought.  Just don’t say that again in my presence, Bub.  Or I may stick your head in my cherry pitter and lean all of my weight on it. 

This year, my husband could not stop buying fruit.  Each time he left the house, he came back with a bag of strawberries or cherries.  Last week, I made him take a bag of cherries to work.  They disappeared long before noon, but now, everyone at the workplace thinks he’s a great guy who is kind and generous.

“So, Dude, when are you going to bring more cherries in?”

 I’m sure everyone at his workplace wants to ask him this whenever he shows up.  These days, people love to hear the words discount, but not as much as free.

My former mother-in-law canned fruit all the time, and my mother could do it in her sleep.  Back then, looking at canning jars lined up on a shelf all year round with the colors of different fruits and vegetables provided all kinds of entertainment.  I had to agree with my former mother-in-law.  All that color made those otherwise plain canning jars look attractive.  When you got bored looking at the jars, you could always eat what was in them.  I spent many afternoons with jars of cling peaches suspended in heavy syrup.  I ate jars of dill pickles in the summertime until all of them were gone.

Sometimes, I have this fear of killing people with botulism from my homemade canning.  After you eat my canning products, simply count the hours after that.  Say, if you make it past about 15 hours without calling an ambulance or having someone rush you to the emergency room, you’ll live.

 

Usually, once I hear that metallic “ping!” I can relax and enjoy my canned creations.  I know the satisfaction of canning your own food, but once you get started, you can’t leave everything to do something else.  And I do enjoy my distractions.

I wanted to buy a cherry pitter which would pit one cherry at a time and give me ergonomic relief at the same time.  The only thing I saw while shopping was a cherry pitter which is supposed to pit four cherries at a time.  While searching for the cherry pitter, I could not resist buying a strawberry slicer.  All this time I’ve grown up and lived in California, I never owned these two kitchen items.  Is it because my family thought these were for sissies?  Aren’t you supposed to get pleasure when you pit and slice fruit by hand? 

 

Anyway, I’m going to try using these kitchen gadgets.   If I don’t have the time or the motivation to can, all the fruit will be going into freezer bags until I do.  That’s my way out of the good ole days and good intentions.  With Ziplock bags, you can rule your kitchen and fake it.  Freezers are good for hiding things, and no one but me will ever see that fruit again.

      

The Subject Will Always Be Roses

Get it right this time.

Who says you have to accept retirement graciously?  I never did.  If you don’t get it right first time out, don’t worry.  When it comes to retirement, you have years to work on it until you finally get it right. 

 

For years, I’ve asked myself what I should do in retirement because I wasn’t prepared.  I was one of those people who still felt I had a lot to offer and could still make a difference.  My ego was still at a job I could no longer physically do, and as I tried to look for work, maybe it showed when I went on interviews.  My face and my body language told the interviewers that I would be unhappy as a desk jockey.  They knew that, but I refused to believe it.

Baldo's rose nursery has over 1,000 starts.   

   

Recently, a visit to Baldo’s garden told me that Baldo would not have any problems retiring.  In fact, he was doing everything right.  After years on the job, he is planning to retire in August or September.  And the two-acre retirement property he and his wife had chosen will be waiting.  To get in gear, he has already been working on the garden.

I met Baldo years ago, when I retired in 2002 and moved back to Sacramento.  After living in a place which only saw rain 11 months of the year, I was interested in the types of roses which would thrive in Sacramento.  I found Baldo’s website and emailed him.  Even back then, he had a lot of enthusiasm for roses and was a wealth of information.  I didn’t have a pad and pen ready at the time, but I remember him giving me the names of sun-loving, Sacramento-friendly roses.  I couldn’t keep up with him, and  I wasn’t surprised as over the years, I’d see him at rose events.

So, with the knowledge of Baldo’s retirement plans, I’ve realized they aren’t different from most of the people I’ve met who are good with retirement.  If you find things you are passionate about, they will most likely keep your interest during retirement. 

The problem with me is that I like to chase anything which looks interesting.  And if things don’t work out, I walk.  Yes, for my parents, I was a pretty expensive kid.

So when you see magazine articles and books trying to get you to retire early, ignore the siren songs.  And when it comes to needing a million dollars by the time you retire, that’s is a myth, too.  I am living, breathing and walking proof that you don’t need a million dollars to retire.  Sure, it would be nice to have a huge wad of cash set aside for retirement, but it’s not a requirement these days.  People are working longer than planned, but now that I’m into retirement and finally enjoying it, I’m not one of them.

I don’t want to work.  I don’t want to answer to a boss or an alarm clock.  I don’t want to wear a monthly RT pass around my neck.   Most of all, I don’t want to start my day stuffing my legs into pantyhose and my poor, aching feet into high heels.  Don’t wanna, don’t wanna, don’t wanna.

If money is what I need, there are choices.  I can tap savings.  I can feel deprived and scrimp, sacrifice and deprive myself of things.   Usually, if I wanted something enough, I somehow got the cash, anyway.  I can proudly say I can get it without having to rob a bank.  But as a precaution, I’ve always had regular plates instead of personal ones for a quick getaway.  

I now have this interest for home garden tours because each one is different.  Exploring Baldo’s garden was pure pleasure.  Not only can you get ideas for your own garden, Baldo is Baldo.

“Don’t believe anything you read,” he advises us as we picked our way through the horse manure he had scattered among his roses that morning.

In the valley heat, he suggests, “Let the plants tell you when they need water.”

He invites us to eat the 40-some varieties of organic blueberries which are heavy with fruit.

“In September, the watermelon will be ready, and we’ll have a party.”

 

He is still generous with gardening tips and is very approachable.  If you are a gardener, you know a garden is an on-going project which is never finished.  What makes Baldo’s garden special are the other gardens found within one acre with another acre just waiting for expansion.  There is a vegetable garden, the beginnings of a vineyard, a fruit orchard, and cactus.  Baldo does a lot of cooking with cactus and has recipes to share.

But since Baldo happened to get retirement right the first time, knowing this makes a stroll through the garden even better.   But don’t linger too long because he may put you to work.   

 

        

Camera Envy

The pristine garden was located high on a hill in Newcastle and couldn’t be seen from Highway 193.  I parked my truck in the pasture below and tripped over every dirt clod and cow patty on the way over to my garden destination. 

 

If the crowds wanted to see this garden, they had to walk.  It was starting to get hot, and as an incentive, the garden would provide a sanctuary with sounds running water, a view and shade.  But by walking, we had to work to get there.  Touring the garden with so many people reminded me of being at Cal Expo on a day of high fair attendance. 

   

Too many people in one place irritate me because I never fail to get stepped on.  This usually happens when people are moving like cattle and saying things like, “Why, this place looks like the Butchart Gardens.”

No, Silly.  I have been to the Butchart Gardens, and believe you me.  This garden looks nothing like it.

My crowd control skills were coming back to me, and I wanted to whip this crowd into shape and make them move.  If I could find a stick in this paradise, I could prod the slow movers closest to me. 

“Moooove it!” I wanted to scream.  “Move!” 

   

This garden received some good press and promised to be spectacular.   I had my camera ready and was looking forward to taking all kinds of shots.  This is what I like about having a camera.  Wherever you go, you automatically have something to do.  People don’t bother you when you are playing photographer.

The tour started with a trail of crushed granite winding through an attractive selection of shrubs and trees plus a collection of handmade birdhouses.  Good.  I would take pictures of the birdhouses in case my husband was interested.  If he isn’t playing perfectionist, he likes making birdhouses.  I think he started one years ago with scrap lumber, but I don’t remember where he put the finished project.  That is, if he ever finished it.

So after taking photographs of about half a dozen bird houses, I was ready to photograph some scenery.   

 There was plenty of lovely landscaping, but my camera read, “Memory is full.”

 

Why was this happening to me?  I tried to delete some photographs to make room, but nothing changed.  No more photographs for me because my camera was not cooperating.  I stopped a few times and tried to fix it, but knowing I didn’t have a camera for the event made me angry.  I was probably pouting.  It is not becoming for a 53-year-old woman to pout.

So I went through the motions of looking at the immaculate garden and admiring it.  Who was I trying to kid?  Without the use of my camera, I was like a crying baby without its pacifier.  On the way back to my truck, a man with a camera asked me, “Was it nice?”

“I ran out of film,” I snapped.  “Don’t run out of film.”  I was in no mood to chit chat.  Cameras these days have memory sticks.  Which reveals that I was old enough to remember when cameras used film.  Anyway, it was a dumb question for him to ask.  He had a nice camera around his neck, and it looked like he wasn’t going to have a camera malfunctioning on him anytime soon.

The next day, my husband and I went to COSTCO and toyed with their camera display.  The COSTCO staff, if you can find them, seems to know what we’re up to.  And they leave the cuckoo camera couple alone. 

We suffer from camera envy, and it usually happens after traveling outside of Sacramento.  This recent trip to Alaska showed me how limited my camera really is.  When bears on the shore look like pieces of fuzzy brown lint and eagles’ heads remind you of golf balls with bright yellow beaks, it’s time to think about getting a better camera.  I also saw cameras on all the people who were with us on the cruise.  This included the 900 members of 2010 Team Amway Thailand.  If those folks weren’t posing for cameras, they were certainly wearing them or clicking away at everything in they saw.  They weren’t too choosy about their subjects.

Looking at cameras was more important to us than sampling the free COSTCO food on display.  I always wanted a Nikon camera with wide angle and telephoto lenses.  My husband wants the Canon Rebel for almost half the price.

Testing the cameras, which are chained to the display, we take turns looking at faraway places in the store.

“Look at that sign!  Look!  Look past the produce!”

“Over there!  See if you can see that sign over the meat department!”

“Can you believe it?  That’s so far away, but I can see it with these lenses!”

“Wow.”

“Wow.”

We can see plenty of objects with these cameras.  Then we sigh, put the cameras back, and continue with our shopping.  Neither camera comes with the lenses we want.  Not including tax, the Nikon is “discounted” at close to $2,000.  The Canon is about $800.  Which is why we test the cameras on each visit to COSTCO and know we won’t be leaving with them.  I think of it as going to the bakery to drool over the glazed twists, then leaving without buying at least a dozen.

My husband and I are truly sick chickens when it comes to cameras.  Our trips to the COSTCO camera department show how much we deserve each other.

So, we will suffer from camera envy until we have the cold hard cash to buy the cameras of our choice.  Until then, it’s camera envy, putting the money aside and pretending to like the cameras we already have.

Bicycles in Skagway

This wasn’t California in June.

It was a sunny day in Skagway, Alaska, and the locals said a sunny day doesn’t come easy here.  In fact, sunny days in Alaska are not common at all.  And to make us tourists feel good, they tell us it is the second day of the year they’ve witnessed sunshine.  As my husband and I did our own self-walking tour of the historic Gold Rush, all I could see were bicycles.  After we snapped street scenes and historic landmarks, I found myself taking photographs of nothing but bicycles.

Why was I doing this?

I have a bicycle at home.  It was inherited from my husband’s grandfather, and it’s in very good condition.  Actually, the bicycle is in great condition.  Its original black paint is still intact.  And with this bicycle, you use the pedals as the brakes.

Now, I’ve seen some expensive bicycles with all the bells and whistles, but a bicycle is a bicycle.  As a child, I kept in decent shape whenever I rode my bicycle through the pear orchard during my summer vacations.

After the pear harvest, the orchard always had rotten pears.  As a creative way to kill myself without really trying, I lined up rotten pears in rows.  Then I got on my bicycle and picked up speed.  As my back tire touched the first row of rotten pears, I slammed on the brakes and skidded as far as the rotten pears could take me.  If I did this stunt correctly, I’d be facing in the opposite direction by the time I was finished.

This happened for several years.  I take credit for this stunt long before Evel Knievel jumped the Snake River Canyon in 1974. 

“You tourists?” asked a young man dressed as a waiter.

“Uh, yeeaaah.”  Let me tell you.  I call myself a tourist, but I don’t like admitting it to a local.

“This is nothing,” he said as he waved his hand towards Downtown Skagway.  “You should take a bicycle ride out of here.  It only takes half an hour by bicycle to see the real Alaska.  In the next town.”

My husband and I waved a thank you as he took off his work apron and continued down the street.

“You’ve gotta be kidding,” said my husband, when he was sure the man could not hear us.

This is why we took cruises.  Could it be because we were lazy slobs?  We only unpacked and packed once, and all the excursions we chose outside the cruise ship were advertised, “EASY”.  We didn’t hike or paddle canoes.  Instead, we waddled into the nearest restaurant.

I take after my father.  I love to travel, but the experience didn’t mean I had to exert extra energy. 

“Why go camping,” he asked, “when you could camping in a hotel?” 

    

So what was the real reason why I took so many photographs of the bicycles in Skagway?

As a lifelong Californian, I had a hard time getting used to the people in Skagway having so much trust.  If you look closely, what are most of these bicycles missing?

Locks.  One or two locks chaining each bicycle to a stationary object would have made me feel right at home.

          

That Garden in the Foothills

“This ought to give you something for your stinkin’ blog,” Betty Jo commented as we enjoyed a stroll through our friend’s scenic foothill garden.

I tell myself Betty Jo (her real name) lives in a slightly remote town twenty minutes from a civilization with a Raley’s supermarket and has no choice except to use dial-up as an Internet connection.  In my eyes, dial-up is the same as living in a cave or a remote island.  I could picture her spending her time knitting, dyeing wool, spinning or weaving instead of waiting on text and photographs to appear, so I suppose viewing my blog does not come close to making Betty Jo’s Top Ten.  From personal experience, I know living in a small town forces you to find ways to entertain yourself.

I tactfully blew off Betty Jo’s comment by watching an overweight pollywog come to the murky surface of the pond.  As it disappeared, I thought about my own backyard.  My neglected backyard in suburbia came as the result of my husband and me putting most of our efforts into our front yard. 

But isn’t that what everyone does?  People can see your front yard 24/7, but unless they plan on breaking in and stealing whatever valuables you have, people are normally invited into your backyard.  The focus is on the front yard, and by the time you get to working on the backyard, there is usually no time, energy or motivation to get it in order.  At our home, our front yard is split into a “his and hers” deal.  My husband likes the look of a green lawn, but I don’t want to bother with wasting water or the trouble of mowing and fertilizing to get that certain healthy shade of green.  My side of the front yard is a slash below the definition of carefree.  I have roses, vegetables grown pots and a carpet of bark. 

       

Let me add, in these so-called highly desperate times, we tend to spend cash on other things.  These bare bones basics include groceries and utility bills.  Gone are the days of shopping sprees, mindlessly buying up luxury items and anything that screams, “extra”. 

But I consider myself lucky.  I remember a time when gas was 77 cents per gallon, and that included a person who whistled as he washed your windshield, checked the air in your tires, and asked you to pop the hood so he check the oil.  I liked receiving the freebies that came with all the promotions for buying gas, but I did miss the promotion giving away dolls dressed to represent every foreign country.  Not that I played with dolls.

For the price of gas, I can still afford to fill my tank these days and visit places. 

My father was a farmer, and although I inherited his green thumb, I will always admire anyone who can work magic with flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees.  For a person who grew up on a farm, I was taught not to waste land.  Depending on the soil, you could grow crops or raise animals, and it was usually both.

My parents exposed me to international travel when I was 10.  I inherited what I call, my father’s “traveling shoes”.  If I ever scrape up the money, I will spend it on travel and never regret buying a plane or cruise ship ticket.  I will not complain how much it costs for gas and lodging when taking road trips.  From an early age, I vowed to always have a good time in unfamiliar destinations.

The memories acquired from traveling can’t be taken away from you.  At the same time, what makes a journey so special is coming home.  But if you experienced this type of peace and tranquility in the gardens surrounding your home, would you ever want to leave in the first place?

So this is why I enjoy home gardens.  Not mine, but the ones belonging to and lovingly tended by other people.  The practical part of me likes vegetable gardens and fruit trees because harvesting and eating your own crops is just plain rewarding.  I like the look of freshly cut flowers in my home, but I tend to leave them in the vases long after their suggested expiration date because dead flowers don’t bother me.   If you do it right, your garden becomes a feast for anyone’s eyes.  Who knows?  Your efforts may motivate someone like me to do something with my ¼ acre of weeds.

 Uh , it was a good try while it lasted. 

California has been in a perpetual state of drought for years.  If you don’t have a big, lush lawn because you are trying to save water, I applaud you.  Inform me that you experiment with your landscaping and brag that you don’t have the same oleanders and the common familiar “filler” plants seen on the freeways and outside the banks, big box stores and strip mall parking lots.  Tell me you’ve got a pond supporting a natural habitat with a balance of koi, minnows and overweight pollywogs. 

 

If you have a garden similar to that description, and you always complain it will always be a work in progress, you’ve got my attention.

I'll be right over.

Marge and Trixie

After boarding the tour bus, Marge and Trixie took their seats directly in front of me.  For two, harmless tourists from Oklahoma, they scared me.

Whenever I see older women in couples or in groups, I figure if I would be grouped with women in about 20 years.  This would still be my worst nightmare.  For years, statistics have told our society that women normally outlive men.  All of my life, I was never “one of the girls”.  Looking back, I had very few female friendships.  If I did run in a pack, it was on weekends, and you could count on me being sober.  My job was driving everyone home after Girls Night Out. 

I figured Marge and Trixie were at least mid-60.  Physically, they were different.  Marge was tall, and Trixie was petite, and both ladies had extra pounds in the usual middle age places.  But if you looked at them, they were similar in a lot of ways.   Their appearance and mannerisms told me that they had known each other for a very long time.  If you ask me, couples or friends who have been together much too long always look alike.

Marge grabbed her smart phone from her purse, and both ladies began talking to one of their husbands back home. 

 

“How are the dogs?” inquired Marge.  “Did they get their medication this morning?”

Trixie took the phone and spoke excitedly.  “You should be here.  I was a hit at Karaoke last night.  We’re having so much fun.”

“You should have seen her,” added Marge as she took the phone from Trixie.  “They asked her to sing, again.  Twice, she got up there.  Yes, she was that good.”  Not to be outdone by her friend, Marge bragged that she had met most of the 2010 Amway management team from Thailand.  She added that there were 900 of them, and she proudly mentioned she had conversations with most of them. 

“You should be here,” said Marge, needing to mirror her friend’s enthusiasm.  “We are just having too much fun.”

Neither of them said when they were coming home.  Tonight, Marge planned on meeting the remaining 900 from 2010 Team Amway Thailand.

They wore platinum wedding sets punctuated with above average diamonds.  No half carats for these women.  Long before right hand rings came in vogue, they wore custom made rings on their right hands, and as a favorite animal, they chose an owl motif.  They wore the same style of Nike running shoes and pantsuits.  They bought for the trip, only in different colors. 

 

As they spoke, you had to notice that both women“talked” with their hands.  Professionally done and freshly painted, their tastefully short fingernails were painted in what they thought was a flattering, yet fashionable shade of deep, pastel pink.

Right before our stop, Marge took out her comb and whipped it through her hair.  She shook her head from side to side, as if motion would bring volume to her locks.  She was either pretending to be a high fashion model in a commercial or thought of herself as the attractive young girl she used to be.  With perfect streaks of color which could not possibly be found in nature, Marge’s hair color was definitely out of a box. 

Trixie brought out a wand of lip gloss covered with pink goop to match her fingernails.  Without looking at a mirror, she showed her expertise and painted her lips without missing them.  The wand was old, and was fully loaded with color from handle to swab.

How did I know so much about these women?

It’s something I learned in college.  My English instructor suggested whenever we are in public; we should always listen in to other peoples’ conversations.  Don’t consider this rude.  As long as you don’t get caught doing it, the skill, if done properly, is a way to get ideas for writing stories or building characters.  It can also entertain you.

For years, I’ve been doing this.  I’ve taught my ex and current husband this skill.  I’ve gotten so good at it that I don’t have to take notes.

“You know what I’ve been doing all this time we’ve been on this cruise?” asked Marge.

Trixie screwed the cap back on her lip gloss and dropped it into her cavern-sized tote bag.  “What?”

“I keep track of my sales receipts before bedtime.”

“I do the same,” confessed Trixie.  “If we didn’t sign up for this tour, we could have had more time to shop.”

For a moment, they leaned against each other and giggled.

“It would be cheaper if we were home.  Fishing.”   Marge snorted and rummaged through her purse.  She waved her coupon book in the air when she found it.  “Did you bring yours?  We have to shop at some of these places after the tour.  We’ll have time.”

“Yes,” said Trixie with the smile of a shopping enthusiast.  “Let’s do that.”

“Yes, I already know what I want to buy,” replied Marge as she flipped through the turned down corners to the pages in her frayed coupon book with excitement.  

"Let's."  

Picture Perfect in Alaska

I admit I’m a tourist, but I refuse to send postcards.

Inside Passage, Tracy Arm (Brrrrrr)

When you travel, postcards mess up the travel itinerary.  Think about it.  You take the time to shop for them, and if you don’t already have stamps on you, you’re going to spend more time looking for a post office.  Or, if you do have the proper stamps, you’re trying to find the post office, the nearest mailbox, or you're asking the nice man or woman at the hotel desk/store to mail the postcards for you.

 So what do postcards really say?

I’m here, and you’re not.  It’s that simple.  I’m having a wonderful time, you have to work, and I’m on vacation in some desirable paradise.  Ha, ha, ha.

At the Helm in Ketchikan, But Don't Tell Anyone

On a cruise, you’ll have pictures taken of you all the time.  As you leave the ship, you’ll get snagged to pose with cruise staff dressed as dolphins, bears or maybe one those Alaskan prospectors.  Cruise ship photographers will snap pictures of you in the ship’s restaurants and as you walk the deck.  Yes, those pesky photographers are everywhere. 

With Mama and Baby Bear

Bear Happy in Juneau

At Sea

You can tell how many times a person has been on a cruise by observing them as they avoid photographers.  Last week, I walked by a woman who had bought every photograph of her family during the cruise.  She sat in a lounge and was proudly arranging her photographs in a special, fat album to commemorate this particular cruise.  It would have been cheaper if she invested in salt shakers.

Me and the Gov

With My Buddy the Musk Ox in Skagway

Trying to Stay Warm, Prince Rupert, BC, Canada

So last week, I took my point-and-shoot camera and made my own "postcards" from Alaska.  Anywhere you go, you will always find cheap, but creative, photographic opportunities.