respublica

Today is the Right to Life march

Each year I hope to watch the Right To Life march in Washington DC. It's fairly hard to find a news channel which covers it except for CSPAN. I find this rather disappointing since so many other marches, protests, demonstrations are covered by all the major news and cable channels. We know a lot of people who are out in DC for this march today and it would be neat to see them.

I realize much of the disinterest by news people is that they mostly think along the same lines as people who are not right to life advocates. However, this is a huge march, many thousands will be there weather or not. This year may be somewhat different, however, because President Trump will speak to them at noon eastern time. That alone will get some coverage, albeit probably not flattering. The disparaging remarks and comments have already begun on the end of news stories about his appearance.

Which brings me to one more thing. Too many people feel they have the right to be really awful, writing the most insulting things in comments online. They also feel they can call or email their representatives with the same attitude. It crosses party lines and I ask you, would you like to be the 22 year old staffer or intern who has to answer these horrible emails and phone calls?

We can do better.

We turn out

One thing I've noticed about St. Louis. People turn out in huge numbers for new things, special events, and festivals. When the news turned to the initial opening of the Aquarium, I told Dale (who wants to go) that we needed to wait until the newness wears off because it will be packed. And I was right. The lines to get in were several hours.

When the Blues held a parade after their championship this spring, hundreds of thousands lined the streets.

St. Louis turns out for things big time. Last week there was a story relating that the owner of Strange Donuts took ownership of the closed World's Fair Donuts near the Botanical Garden. The first day he re-opened that historic donut shop, he sold out in 3 hours. People lined up early.

This is St. Louis, people here turn out. This happens so often we all must have stories on battling crowds.

I remember the re-opening of Union Station back in the 80's. Filled with shops and a food court, we were walking through shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others. Go to the Balloon Glow, the Greek Fest, the Italian Fest and you'll be neck and neck with so many others. This happens even with smaller local events, take the 100th anniversary of the Kruta Bakery in Collinsville a few months ago for example. So many people came streets had to be closed.

This is the best part of the St. Louis area. Make it happen and people come.

Cup sizes sure have changed

I was going through our dishes to see what we use, what we haven't seen in years etc, when I took a closer look at the coffee cups which came with our wedding china. Man, are they tiny compared to current coffee cups. Certainly even one fluid cup of anything would overflow the top of the cup. There was a time in the not too distant past when we didn't need as much liquid all day long.

Here are some coffee cups behind the china cups. And we still have bigger ones than these.

Almost an all-nighter

With the Impeachment trial going on in the senate this week, we are paying slight attention to the actual speeches and more attention to the time. Our daughter works for the senate and as a senior staffer, she has to stay until the hearings adjourn for the day. Actually, yesterday, the first day of hearings, they did not adjourn til long after midnight.

I was texting with her late into the night as she waited in her senate office. I found it hard to sleep and kept looking at the clock. There came a point when I became more than a little anxious while thinking of her having to walk to the train and then ride the train home in the middle of the night. Or very early morning to be specific. Even in DC, the streets can be empty and dark at that time of day.

I told her I worry and she wrote back "I hear you. I'll be fine. It's nice to have a mom that worries. That still feels nice."

If you're a parent, would you not worry long distance no matter the age of your kids? In the end, I trust she got home fine, I haven't heard. Now today it all begins again.

Ladders lead

Just an FYI

Mattresses 2

Ladders 3

As if we need one more downtown issue

St. Louis has had a huge uptick in car break-ins and car thefts this past year. It's to the point where many people have to give a lot of thought to going downtown. Now there is one more thing to be aware of. The city will be hosting the National Hockey League All-Star game on January 25 with more activities going on aside from the game. It's a sell out of course, lots of hockey fans excited for this game.

Now KMOV in St. Louis is warning everyone to be careful about buying tickets and merchandise because there will be scammers for everything. Think that cool t-shirt is great? It may not be official NHL clothing. To be authentic, apparel will have correct fonts, colors and spelling and attached tags will usually have hologram stickers. Don't buy tickets on the street, they stand a good chance of being fake.

Life as we know it these day, con artists everywhere.

On the other hand, this All-Star game is expected to add 20 million in revenue to St. Louis.

Broccoli-where isn't it?

I got to thinking about broccoli yesterday as I scrolled through food websites looking for something different for dinner. I noticed how many meal ideas include broccoli. Broccoli soup, broccoli stir-fry, broccoli pasta, broccoli salad, broccoli raw, cooked, frozen and boiled.

Where does all this broccoli come from? Who's growing it all. Every grocery store has shelf space with this vegetable. We have a terrible time growing broccoli around here and we try every year. So what part of the country has enough broccoli growing to supply this huge demand? California? Or is Mexico covered in broccoli farms?

Speaking of the cold as I did in the post below...

This day in St. Louis area history is often cold and snowy. Check these out

Last year:

2016

2011

I have more from other years but you get my point.

Don't leave your car running

A St. Louis news item from KMOX's traffic reporter, Rodger Brand this bitter cold morning. "Three cars have reportedly been stolen within the last 20 minutes, all of them with the keys left in them running. To stolen in Brentwood, and one in Maryland Heights."

My guess is people went out to get their cars warmed up, went back in the house or coffee shop and someone came along and stole the cars. St. Louis seems to be rife with car thieves these days. My only thought was why are car thieves up and out so early when it's so cold. Nothing stops them, it seems. Do these guys track weather and go to places they figure will have unlocked cars warming up? How do they get to those places?

If you plan to turn your car on to warm it up, then use a second set of keys so you can lock that car. If you don't have extra keys, don't do it and go out and have some keys made.

How many have you read?

The New York Public Library turns 125 this year and to celebrate, the library dug into its records and calculated a list of the 10 books that have been checked out the most in its history. The most checked out book turned out to be The Snowy Day by Ezra Zach Yeats originally published in 1962. It was checked out 485,583 times. It was about a young boy's encounter with snow for the first time and although a childrens' book, adults have loved it just as much.

This intrigued me because I'd never heard of this book with it's "beautiful artwork". So, I went to Amazon and sure enough, they still sell it. I ordered the 5.99 book and it comes today.

The rest of the list of most checked out books is found at this link.

Impeachment rules

While watching the senate ceremonies which began the impeachment trial I learned two things.

At the start of each trial day, Senate sergeant-at-arms will declare, “Here ye! Here ye! Here ye! All persons are commanded to keep silent, on pain of imprisonment.”

That struck me as humorous and certainly a command dating back many years. I'd guess this won't be something anyone is anxious to enforce.

Then there was this new bit of information.  When members of the senate are in impeachment mode, the senate technically does not exist. When they adjourn for the day they become the senate again until 12 the next day when impeachment hearings resume. We learned this rule after Dale wondered if the senate chaplain was at yesterday's first ceremonial day. We did not see him. But since the senate is not the senate while in impeachment, the senate chaplain is not a chaplain to a non-existent body that time.

 

Amazing maps

I came across this map on a site named, "Amazing Maps". This link was from Twitter. I found this one interesting. It shows how many hours of daylight various places in the world will get on average each year. Click image to enlarge if it seems to small to read.

 

React!

Somewhere today I read a sentence which went something like this: "Don't react emotionally to everything that is said or written".

So true in this particular day and age. Just look at the comments online to every story posted by media and you'll find your blood pressure and metabolism rising. You just want to jump in and say something. It's so maddening. This can be politics, crime stories, education stories, traffic stories and on and on. There comes a time when we have to step back and realize reacting so quickly is not healthy.

It's too easy to get drawn in to the point where we find ourselves mentally taking issue with everything, even down to how to dry our clothes. Good thing we mostly resist actually adding our voices to the online stories.

Today I came across a post by the Clayton police department warning of a sudden increase in coyotes coming into the city neighborhoods. Right away emotional reactions came across in the comments with some stating their love for coyotes and their place in our environment while others worried about their pets.

We need to look at cable news reports, local news reports, sports reports, with a more low key eye. Not everything is worth pacing around the house irritated by something we just read.

Donuts Donuts

Most St. Louis news outlets have reported on the new owners of the Worlds Fair Donut shop located on Vandeventer near the Missouri Botanical Garden. This venerable old white building has been something of a landmark in St. Louis, always named as a favorite among donut lovers. It is located at 1904 Vandeventer, hence the name. 1904 World's Fair.

The new owners own Strange Donuts and have added this to their donut kingdom, but will continue with the same recipes the old owners used, not their own Strange Donut recipes.

I'll admit to having gone there for donuts in the past. I have to admit having tried just about every donut place in St. Louis since we moved to the seminary 15 years ago. I did this periodically in order to find a donut that was as good as Kruta's in Collinsville, but I never did. There is something about Kruta's that is so much better than the other donuts. You can taste the difference, or, maybe I should say, Kruta's doesn't have that weird aftertaste so many donuts have.

Ok, I'm obsessed and rigid about what I eat, I know that.

The Meyer Minute

After getting Dale a new printer for his birthday and found it set up really easy, I got to thinking about all the past tech things we've used over the years. We were fairly early adapters to computers and the internet. We got a Windows computer back in the early 90's when he was at The Lutheran Hour. That was an amazing piece of equipment, at least to me. Before that computers used a DOS system with a black empty screen and a c prompt. I had no idea how that worked, but Windows opened up a new world to me. It also came with AOL, a place for email and games and message boards, ease of immediate communication.

I was hooked. The problem came as years went by that technology zoomed faster than we could keep up and we tended to lose things. The new made the old obsolete. One example of this came to me this morning as I put Dale's Meyer Minute up onto his email list server, his blog and Facebook. He's been writing his Minute since sometime in the mid to late 90's. At some point in time I started putting them on floppy discs, the old hard cased 3 by 5 discs. Every computer had a slot for them.

But, as technology goes, the floppy discs and a way to use them, went away. Dale may have those years of minutes somewhere on a paper copy, but we aren't sure. I decided in 2011 it was time to put each day's Minute on a blog and so created a blog for him just for that. At least websites haven't gone away yet. We know we can find his for the past 9 years for now.

Here is the link to his blog which is entirely made up of his daily Meyer Minutes. Look at the archives section and you'll find them month by month by year. I'm so glad we did this.  For now.

As an added tech note, while going through a closet yesterday I came across a whole bunch of dvd movies. Problem is we no longer have a dvd player and our computers, while having a dvd/dc drive, are now more advanced and these no longer play. They're good movies, it's too bad we can't watch them anymore.

Signing in everywhere

I don't know about anyone else, but I am just weary of having to have myriad user names and passwords. It's to the point where just about anything we want to read or see online requires a user name and password. We have so many it's dizzying. This morning Dale needed to get a new app for his phone and ipad and itunes would not accept the password he's had forever. So I had to go to the Apple website and change it then write it down in 3 places so he has it in the future.

We both have lists of all user names and passwords for every thing and they take up 2 pages of single spaces lines. Granted some of these are very obsolete, pertaining to things we no longer use or own, but I dare not delete for fear some website will want them.

Connor goes to a big farm

This past weekend our grandson Connor went along with Dale and some of our students and a couple members of Holy Cross to Mission Central which is in Iowa and Nebraska. They stayed with church members at night and Connor was on quite the farm. That family has huge farm equipment which is mind-boggling to a kid.

Unreal

Iced over

Last night it started raining which changed to sleet which turned to ice and then some snow to top it all off. Not a lot, maybe an inch or two on our cars, but the freeze made it all stick to the car and windows like gorilla glue. I could not even budge my car doors to open and know enough not to force this action for fear of tearing the rubber molding. Car people call this rubber edging a gasket.

I couldn't even scrape it off the windows much less open the doors to run the engine. So what to do? Dale is gone so I couldn't ask him. It's Sunday and no one is around here. Google is my friend and should be yours. I googled how to open an iced up car door and got the best advice ever.

The first answer was to use a plastic scraper or a rubber spatula along the edges of the door and try to dig off some of the ice. That worked pretty good but not enough. The second answer had all kinds of liquids that might melt the ice, including a de-icer like Heat, rubbing alcohol (no no no), windshield wiper fluid, and plain tap water. Also mentioned was using a hair dryer, but you have to get an extension cord and a plug in spot and worse, the heat from the dryer could cause the cold window to crack.

I used the rubber spatula and then got a pitcher of cool tap water and poured it all along the edge of the door, top and side. This was amazing, the door opened immediately. Another life lesson learned. You don't need hot water (never!) or even warm water. The normal cool tap water is still warmer than the ice.

The rest of the truck is still ice/sleet/snow covered but if I have to I could drive it.

Atomic Cake

I've wanted to make this cake for some time, growing up in Chicago, this cake was part of every bakery, especially around Christmas. It is named Atomic Cake, probably dating back to the time when everything was named the atom bomb or atom something or other.

Getting one of these from a bakery was a real treat. I've found recipes online and I do hope to make this fairly soon. Great food I miss so much is from Chicago. Italian Beef, great Italian bread, pizza (not that deep dish monstrosity, but the real Chicago thin crust pizza cut in squares.

It was one of those seasonal days

Yesterday was on the weird side. Dale left with some seminary students, faculty and one of our grandsons for Iowa for a few days at Mission Central. The weather did not sound great going that way, but they plugged on and did make it. But not before being slowed down because of this:

Nasty weather. But today they said it was clear so that's good.

While they were driving I felt it was past time to take down our Christmas tree and all the other Christmas items sitting around the house. Without Dale here I wasn't sure I could haul our big tree outside by myself so after giving thought to just taking off the lights and ornaments and then waiting until Monday when he is here to get the tree out, I got the brilliant idea to cut off the bottom branches. That would make it easier to get it outside. And so it was. I not going to say it was physically easy, but it worked.

It went from this:

To This:

This was a big tree with wide bottom branches. After getting all the lower branches clipped off there were needles everywhere and piles of limbs to toss out, but still much easier than wrestling with the entire tree.

Today I'll get the rest of the things into the Christmas closet which involves trooping up and down the stairs. As much as I loved Christmas things around, it's also great to have them put away. Things are much less cluttered feeling, like I can breath again.