respublica

Mask fines

The Edwardsville Illinois city council adopted a measure Tuesday night mandating face coverings while engaging in almost any activity outside a residence. Such activities include shopping or working at retail businesses; picking up food curbside or from a drive-thru restaurant; visiting a doctor's office; traveling on public transportation; and interacting with customers, clients, patients or colleagues at businesses or places of worship that are open to the public.

And there will be fines, first offense is $25, a second is $50, a third is $100; and the fourth or more are $250. Higher penalties, ranging from $50 to $500, are stipulated for businesses, stores, offices, property owners, managers or operators.

But what I most approve of is: Anyone not wearing a mask over mouth and nose in public spaces in Edwardsville may now be fined. 

It drives me crazy to be around people in public places or working in businesses who have their noses uncovered which also makes the mouth part of the mask with a wide open gap. I see this and come into contact with, more people than I can count. So I'm happy to see Edwardsville taking note of the importance of getting the nose covered, not just the mouth.

What a morning

Yesterday Dale went out and bought a new secondary monitor after his original one died. He needs two for the work he's doing and especially for all the zoom/adobe connect online virtual meetings he is a part of. Well, he could not get the new monitor to connect to the computer. Nothing like a tech problem in the early morning when he has a virtual meeting at 10. I went down to his basement office and tried my best to see if I could connect them, but no.

So I called my sister (a tech expert) and between the two of us doing Facetime on our phones, we were able to finally (45 minutes) get them set up. At first we got the two monitors communicating but the windows page was on the new monitor not the computer. It took some doing to finally get them where they were supposed to be thanks to some British tech guy on the internet.

Dale was so relieved and happy he cleaned out a closet full of his coats and hats which he knew I was frustrated with. It was pay back. 

But then....he came to find me to tell me his keyboard had stopped working, the main space bar was stuck in the down position and wouldn't pop up. What next? He thankfully decided to run out and get a new one.

Tech stuff is a miracle actually, but when it breaks down, it makes life a pain. Maybe later today one of the TV's will go out. Things go in 3s right?

Monday morning traffic report

Every St. Louis morning news program has been reporting a tractor trailer on fire at 270 and Olive. What strikes me, as always, is just how too darn big these trucks are now. The interstates in Illinois to and from St. Louis are clogged with these big guys. They are in front of you, behind you, next to you and it is beyond belief how huge they are allowed to be. Some government agency is constantly regulating one thing or other, but never these enormous trucks. Here is the semi on fire this morning.

How tiny the men on the left look.

Monday morning ladder drops

2 ladders have fallen on local highways this morning, must be Monday.

Tally:

Mattresses 56

Ladders 76

Another dictionary chooses its word of the year

Last week the Oxford Dictionary published its annual "Word of the Year" and it actually turned out to be 16 words. This week the Miriam Webstser dictionary group came out with their choice of the Word for 2020.

It is Pandemic.

Which makes sense.

How many more dictionary companies are there waiting to take a turn at this?

What food do you just pretend to like

There are a lot of foods and food trends that tons of people like. Or say they do. Many of us pretend to like things just to be polite or not want to be out of the mainstream of popular food. So here comes the result of a poll on secretly hated foods. Seems many of us try to be polite when being offered any of these, but are not at all thrilled.

1. A rare juicy steak----Now I'm with this one and haven't hesitated to say so. This way of fixing steak (bloody rare) is all the rage with "chefs" and meat gourmets. I can't eat bloody meat.
2. Shushi--I guess I'm not a gourmet because I agree with not liking this either. I guess rare meat/fish is part of my DNA
3. Brussel sprouts
4. Lobster--I'm in this list too
5. Caviar--Can't eat it
6. Seaweed---What?! Who eats seaweed?
7. Swordfish
8. Irish Salmon
9. Uni, the reproductive organs of this sea urchin
10. Sea cucumbers-nuff said

There are more, many of which I have never heard of and never had them placed before me to eat.

Christian's time machine

On Wednesday our oldest grandson, Christian, went with Dale to pull the tiny town buildings out of our storage unit and set them on the driveway. Christian is 14 and as it happened, exactly ten years ago to the day, November 25, 2010, he and his family were visiting us from their then home in Washington DC. He was 4 and helping paint the first house that would sit next to the church in Tiny Town. I had pictures from that day and took some Wednesday as a comparison.

Christian was wearing the Hawk shirt and just painting away. Later that night he sat with Dale quite happily after a job well done.

Now, ten years later he is almost taller than Dale and carried out of the truck the exact same house he painted.

Time truly marches on. As it happened I found a short video from that day with Christian and his brother talking away with Dale.

 

Tiny Town coming our way today

I'm pretty excited. Dale and our oldest grandson are on the way to our Collinsville storage unit to pull out the buildings that make up our Christmas Tiny Town. For at least ten years the town has been placed in the side yard of our seminary house. We added lighted trees around them and it was such fun. Kids came by to play with the farm toys we put into the barn, adults just walked through for the novelty of it.

I have no idea how this is going to work in a much smaller space that is our front yard now, but we are going to give it try. Our neighbors have no idea about this as yet and I hope they won't be horrified. What makes me happy is seeing some of our other neighbors already having put up outside decorations. This is new for our street and I believe it is because there are newer families with kids. The neighbor across the street had a professional service come out and hang light across the roof line. Next to that is a family who placed big inflatable Santa and snowman along with lights.

Christmas on Tillotson will be different this year and I'm happy.

The best word of 2020

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the Best Word of 2020 is: 16 (or more) words!

I bet if you were like me you'd have thought the word would be Covid or Coronavirus. But the Oxford people did not feel 2020 was easy to put into words and not just one word could possibly describe this year. So they made a list of 16 words to mark this year in order to reflect it.

Number 1 is Bushfire since the year began with the worst fires in Australian history.

2. Impeachment

3. Acquittal

4. Coronavirus

5. Covid-19

6. Lockdown

7. Social Distancing  (two words)

8. Reopening

9. Black Lives Matter (three words)

10. Cancel Culture  (2 again)

11. BIPOC  (I had no idea what this was, it is: Black, indigenous, and other people of color.

12. Mail-in

13. Belarusian  Again, I have no clue. It seems the re-election of the Belarusian President caused an uprising

14. Moonshot  (mass covid testing program)

15. Superspreader

16. Net Zero  (not a soda, but something about China and carbon neutral)

 

Thanksgiving via Dr. Fauci

I was reading Dr. Fauci's warnings about Thanksgiving safety due to the Coronavirus outbreak. He said he would not go anywhere on Thanksgiving this year out of health concerns. "He warned that if too many people choose not to abide by the basic health guidelines and advisories set by health officials such as social distancing and wearing face masks, a bad situation could be made far worse."

Then this: "The chances are that you will see a surge superimposed on a surge," Fauci predicted. "Things lag by a couple of weeks, so what we're seeing now is what happened two-plus weeks ago. What we're doing now is going to be reflected two, three weeks from now."

My highlighted text is the important part and is exactly what I've mentioned earlier. The outbreak we are seeing now....what happened two or three weeks ago?  The election! People in long lines to vote early, more people voting in person, that is what went on all over the country two or three weeks ago.  It nags at me that no where have I seen any major news reporting on this connection when they are quick to point to any other big events and covid out breaks.

Why is this?

A Covid retrospectrive

With all the news reporting nothing but a new onset of the Coronavirus, I got to thinking back on the beginning of all this from a personal level. It was March 8th, a Sunday, and after we had come home from church Dale was hurrying to pack for his annual trip to Arizona for 5 days of Spring Training games. He and a number of other baseball fan pastors from around the country had been meeting up for this for several years.

He was in a hurry, running somewhat late as usual. I took him to the airport and on the way back to the seminary I stopped at Walmart for, I hate to say it, toilet paper. We were about out and I had no idea this would soon become subject number one among all Americans. When I got back to the car after checking out I saw a text from Dale on my phone from a number I did not recognize which said Dale forgot his phone and could I quickly bring it out to the airport. I called that number which belonged to an airport employee, got Dale and told him I had no idea how I could get that phone to him before he boarded.

He was frustrated and I felt panicked thinking of him being gone all week with no communication. When he got to Phoenix he called from another pastor's phone and we talked about what to do. Maybe get a disposable phone there at the Phoenix airport. That did not work out and he had to get going to the retreat center where they were staying. Meanwhile I kept thinking about this and decided to see if UPS could overnight his phone to the retreat center. And, yes they could! So I hurriedly boxed it up really well and zipped over the the UPS store. I called the other pastor's phone to have him tell Dale his phone should be coming next day.

And it did! It even got there before they all left for the first spring training game.

But, in the end, when his trip ended and he got back to St. Louis on the 12th, we realized how fortunate he was to be home because the next day all the virus shutdowns, flight cancellations were beginning or about to begin. One more day out there he may well have not gotten home for some time.

From toilet paper to shutdowns I'll never forget that week and things did not get better and still no end in sight.

A tribute documentary to The Hill neighborhood

Tonight at 7 Channel 9 in St. Louis will televise a documentary on The Hill. Most of us have been on The Hill at one time or other to eat at one of the many good restaurants. This film spends less time on the eating part and more on how this area developed, its history, and how it is seeing a  renaissance today.

We've been over there many times through the years and it always appears to be a strong, stable place. Homes are not big mansions, but are meticulously cared for, and I always believed I could happily live thee.  I'm looking forward to watching this tonight if I can keep Dale off the remote for a football game or some such.

Now this is an ornament worth getting

This ornament has all the things we said or thought or worried about this year due to the Covid virus. If it ever ends, we may not feel much like walking down its memory lane, but in better times this might be quite the keepsake. click to enlarge And if you're interested here is the link to get one.

I'm pretty sure I've said or thought all of these

It doesn't take much to amuse me these days

I guess it's the time we are in, but certain news stories catch my eye for no other reason than it makes me feel as though everyone else is in the same boat. So this one spoke to me. How to tell if you are a good person or a bad person.  How's that for a come on which certainly makes us want to know the answer?  And the answer is:

What you do with your grocery cart when you're finished with it. If you put it in the designated cart corral in the parking lot, you're good, if you don't, you are a bad person. Now this is one of those behaviors I pay attention to when I'm at the store. In our area cart corrals have two lanes, one for the big carts another for the small carts and too many people put their cart in the wrong one. There are signs! Small Carts Large Carts!

This may seem a small thing, but think of the employees who's job it is to get all those carts back in the store. Having to separate the small from the big in order to push a large row of carts has to be annoying. Some carts have to be moved out and placed in the driving lane in order to get the mis-sized cart out of there. All the while new customers have to wait in their car until the employee gets the whole group out of the way. I see this all the time, a big cart in the small area and vice versa. How hard is it to do it right? Also add those who don't even bother to put the cart in the corral, but leave it sitting next to where their car was.

Anyhow, this is probably not totally characteristic of good and bad, but it struck me interesting.

Produce in the news

2 stories.

Researchers at the University of California did a study which determined that mango fruit can dramatically reduce physical markers associated with aging if eaten in sufficient quantities. And the physical markers are wrinkles.

The study methods revealed that women who eat half a cup of Ataulfo mangoes four times a week reduce their wrinkles by 23% in as little as two months. The sample even enjoyed a 20% reduction to wrinkles four months after analysis concluded. Eating more than that value showed adverse effects which resulted in more wrinkles.  So, if some are good, more isn't better.

I'm not sure what an Ataulfo Mango is, but I plan to look for some.

In less good news, we are going to be seeing a lettuce shortage. California which supplies much of our lettuce had a couple of big heat periods which not only impacted the quantity, but caused some disease. This is at least one thing that won't bother me, I'm not much for lettuce, not much taste unless it's covered in dressing or some such.

 

One of Dale's favorite meals

Yesterday morning I asked Dale what he'd like for dinner. I do this more often than I'd like these days since we do all our meals at home due to the Covid. We dearly miss going out to eat, but neither of us is comfortable with this. So I've gone through an endless rotation of dinners, some blah, others great. Last night we had Dale's favorite so I am putting up the recipe here in case others are at a standstill when it comes to getting some variety.

I got this recipe, Sherried Meatball Casserole, from a friend of mine who lived in Maine. She made it when I made a visit out there years ago and I copied her recipe and have submitted it occasionally to a couple of church published cookbooks. It's a bit of work, but the flavors in this meal are outstanding.

Ingredients:

6 slices of bacon   1/2 cup minced or chopped onion,  2 cloves of garlic-chopped,  1/3 cup of plain bread crumbs,  1 egg,  teaspoon of salt, 1 and 1/2 pound ground beef,  6 or 8 mushrooms-sliced,   1 can mushroom soup,  1 cup dry sherry,  and wide egg noodles.

Here is the procedure:

Fry the bacon and set aside. Drain most of the fat from the bacon leaving some to cook the onion and garlic til tender. Set that aside.

Add bread crumbs, salt and egg to the ground beef, mix and then form into meatballs. Brown the meatballs and then put them along with the onion and garlic into a buttered 2 quart casserole dish. Mix the soup and sherry together and pour over the top of the meatballs. Sprinkle with crumbled bacon and bake at 375 for about 50 minutes. When done, stir in cooked noodles. I usually get out a big bowl to mix the last part and use it as the serving dish.

Honestly this is really really good. I've learned over the years of making this on occasion that it's easier for me to form the meatballs ahead of time and put them in the refrigerator til it's time to brown them. I also slice up the mushrooms and onion/garlic ahead of time as well.

You don't really need anything else with this dish, its tasty and filling. But a bowl of fruit or salad would be nice.

 

Best times to go to the grocery store

We're back at it folks, stay home requests (not orders so far), don't go out unless you just have to. All this means is grocery stores are the place to be once again. We have to eat after all. I do believe the past months have taught us when the least and most crowded times for grocery stores and probably Walmart are, but here is some advice.

Avoid Saturday afternoons from noon to 3, but try to go Monday at 8 or earlier. The problem with the Monday morning time is most stores have not restocked many shelves after the weekend crowds. If you're at a certain age, go during those set aside times for old people.

Want a really clean home?

This article explains how Scandinavia people keep their homes impeccably clean and neat and why we should emulate them.

They leave their shoes at the door and never wear them indoors. They belief is that shoes pick up a lot of muck, dirt and germs. In those countries no one wears shoes indoors.

They clean more!

They do not have wall to wall carpet which they believe is not hygienic and also dust catchers.  I tend to agree with this especially if we walk on carpeting in shoes which have been outside and they do hold dust.

They keep clutter to a minimum, not buying stuff all the time and finding ways to store stuff so there isn't distracting clutter. A less is more mindset.

And they love light which is understandable when you live in a place with 6 months of darkness. The less clutter means more light can brighten rooms.

 

Another tally update

Mattresses 56

Ladders 74

two ladders this week hit roads  Be watchful out there

A question about the new Covid outbreak

In past months when there has been an outbreak of the CoronaVirus in various areas, news reports have been quick to point to protests or rallies or indoor dining openings. But the current rise in this virus is pretty widespread across the country. And, this has happened within two weeks of in person voting on election day. And the last week of early voting with long lines.

I wonder if this could be a big source of the contagion, one I have not heard from any news outlet. They have been quick to point to the others in the past, but not election day and I wonder why.