Discount Breading

To clarify up front, this posting is not about the cheapest possible bread or cracker crumbs to introduce into or onto your food. Although that is one possible interpretation of the title, today, I am singing mostly the praises of “day old” (or longer) bread stores.

We have purchased all of these items at pretty good discounts in the past:

Doughnuts: we enjoyed the donuts at the Hostess store more than the Mrs. Baird’s store, but when Hostess closed, we some how found we could eat the Mrs. Baird’s offerings…occasionally.
Bread: Many varieties and many sizes. When you have kids packing sandwiches, you always have to have some in stock. Although you give up a few days on how long the bread can dwell on your counter when it is bought “day old”, 5 lunch-packers does not make this a huge concern. The cinnamon swirl bread is especially good for french toast.
Bagels: Many flavors and a few new ones. They have had french toast and apple bagels. The pumpkins ones are also kind of fun in the fall. The bad thing is during the summer the bagels may only last a few days (or 2 days) before the “mold” moves in. The bread/bagels ride around in a truck for a few hours before being brought to the discount store. The summer heat makes the preservatives retire more quickly than cooler temperatures would.
Buns: Lots of saving here, and in some cases the price is 1/2 to 1/4 what it is at the store. (Although the Aldi’s up the road is pretty cheap.) Most of the time it is still significantly below store brand prices. So, if you need a bun for every hamburger, hot dog, or brat that goes into your body, it might as well be a cheap one!
Tortillas: Yeah, they have these, too. A couple different flavors and a couple different sizes. Saving is good!
Pizza crust: They sell Boboli pizza crust. A couple different sizes and thicknesses. If you look carefully, they have had football shaped crust during the appropriate season. (Baseball & basketball fans can make a regular crust resemble their sport at any time. Apparently football players just need a little inspiration to make their pizzas more popular for tailgating.)

It may not take much effort to work a register or to sort bread. Maybe it is the lack of stress in the employees of the discount bread store that makes them so open to conversation. The two employees I see the most are very likely to ask about my kids or even our exchange students. They will recommend new products, and/or ask (as an example), “If you make french toast, you might want to consider the cinnamon swirl bread. You won’t believe how great it will taste.” I truly appreciate their willingness to help me stretch my “breading” dollar as much as possible! I assume they do this for every customer who walks in the door, but maybe asking questions about their lives makes them care about me a little more. (Allow me to assign some value to my existence–please?)

The one gal has a few tattoos and a few kids. Her father works in a union job, and he has had a heart attack. I don’t know her politics, but a few factors make the first guess “Democrat”. I am not sure if she is married or not. (The title of “customer” does impose some limits on what questions are asked. Of course, I would listen to anything that was volunteered.) She has a very positive attitude. She smiles easily, and she greeted me with a quick smile when I walked in the door today. One day I greeted her and barely got a blank stare–the other employee let me know her grandfather had died. The next time I saw her, she was her old self. She felt horrible she was in such a daze that one day–such a good heart!

The other gal is probably closer to my age. She is the one who recommended the french toast w/ cinnamon swirl. She gives me a quick smile and thinks nothing of calling me “hon” when I am shopping. She has a daughter who has gone a couple of short term missions trips with her church to work with girls involved with sex trafficking. Her daughter now lives in New York where she works with those involved w/ sex trafficking. I believe she said her daughter has had great success using art therapy to reach these sometimes forgotten members of society. Unfortunately, she no longer works there. She was a great person to visit with. Likely, the salary she received failed to reach the level of headaches the job generated.

Despite a sometimes uneventful day, I like to have some weekly errands to anchor me into life. A slowing internet business and kids who seem to be unable to do anything buy grow make these predictable encounters something I happily put on my schedule. Their are too many employees at Walmart to have much hope of building a relationship with an employee. I sometimes fail to think of those small businesses out there who provide more than a receipt and a bag of supplies. (groceries, hardware, etc) They provide a smile and a acquaintance-ship. (Discussions on more than weather, but less than politics) Did small town, pre-internet businesses all used to be this way?

Politically Incorrect Voting

Although some may think early voting is unpatriotic, I find it a great way to thumb my nose at all of the ads that will continue to air for almost another 2 weeks. It is my way of taking back some of my TV time from those who think they can buy my vote–my mind has been made up for quite a few weeks now!

To vote, I wore a t-shirt featuring “Noah’s Ark”. Our church has used this as its “Summer Spectacular” theme a few years ago. So, the church and ark were both pretty prominent on the shirt. As I walked up to get myself identified, I presented my ID. (I am in Texas so an ID is required) The following conversation followed:

“I like your t-shirt.”, said the 60ish male with a few tattoos on his arms. His arms were not covered, just a couple.

“Thanks. I wasn’t sure if it would be allowed in the voting area.”, I replied.

“You still live in America, don’t you?”, he countered.

“Sometimes I am not sure.”, I reflected.

“I divorced my wife a few years ago.”, he attempted to change the subject.

“Well, at least that’s not politically incorrect.”, I said with a smile.

After getting my 4-digit code to punch into the machine, I voted on the two issues and then chose the “straight ticket” option. I was done voting prior to the 2 people who started ahead of me. As I walked out, I gave a thumbs up to one of the people representing the school issue.

As it turned out, my attire was far more politically correct than my mouth. I was worried about my shirt while forgetting to attach a “muzzle” to my mouth. I am not saying the voting booth is the place to give some clues to your political colors, but there are many places where we need to stop being fearful. If everyone buys into being “PC”, then the course is laid out for our country. If our conscience is allowed to be trumped by a culture, then we might as well enter a sealed chamber prior to voting (or any other activity citizens of our country are supposed to engage in) and have our conscience sucked out of us. If we are afraid to use our personal moral barometers to direct our daily decisions, we should say our daily prayers as we face Washington DC.

Threes a Charm

During the course of our marriage, my wife an I have owned a few cars. We have had two trucks, a few cars for her to drive to work, and 4 total mini-vans. Based on the present mileage and the daily driving I am likely to do, tomorrow is a virtual lock to be the day we “flip it”.

Based on the history with our mini-vans, this achievement is the source of some concern.

Our first minivan died on the way to school. (We bought it used from a guy I worked with.) The boys were in preschool. The van died before we got to school. We called the tow truck. I believe friends picked the boys up and finished taking them to school while I went with the driver to the dealership. I don’t remember what we paid, but they did use the “old school” method of buying a car. He took every one of my offers and had to “show” his boss. The van we bought that day served us well…that is until it hit 100,000.
I was driving my oldest daughter home from soccer practice. The van was fighting me the whole way home. Once I hit the driveway I coasted to the end of it. The van had less than 101,000 miles. Due to our fostering and the fear of being without a minivan, we were already a two minivan family at this point. We absorbed the loss of our “beater” minivan, and we shifted all minivan driving to our solo van. As time allowed, we did get a second van so we could have the comfort of a backup.
Both of these van moved to Texas with us a few years ago. As the older van was stretching to the 100,000 mile marker, our oldest son was preparing to drive. Although it was not a cool car, it was his “get me to school” car. Unfortunately, it did not serve in this role long. Just after the 100,000 mark, our son had a collision that totaled it. Everyone was fine. We were left with our one van. It is this van that will be graduating tomorrow to what has been very dangerous territory for our vehicles.

It did have a collision in the spring, but it recovered and has been treated well since. It had two flat tires in one day last December, and it still got us back to Ohio only a few hours late. It has allowed us to fill everyone of its 8 seats a number of times with friends and travel supplies as the 6 of us traverse states to the north and east of us. We are hopeful it will do many more great things before it expires. If already has a couple of trips on its schedule for Christmas and Spring Break.

This is our third try at getting a car to zoom past 100,000 without a hiccup. We think we have done all of the right things. It has a new battery; it has all of the appropriate maintenance. (The cabin filters may be a little dirty, and their may be a couple shopping cart or door dings on its aging exterior. We don’t wax it regularly, but it has been through the car wash twice in the past month.) We “hope” it goes for another 100,000 miles. (Frankly, I would settle for another 50,000 miles.) We don’t visualize some witch doctor creating a voodoo “doll” of our van using carpet fibers from the floor mats or paint chipped off from a deliberate keying. We just know when his time is up, it is up. After he has gone his last mile, we want a place where he can go to watch the young cars drive around. (Not sure if this is the ideal retirement for a worn out car. I was trying to think what might approximate grandchildren.)

Completing this POST-100,000….

As I ran a set of errands yesterday morning, I forget entirely about the changes transpiring on my dashboard. As I hopped in the van to pick up my daughters, I looked down and was completely shocked to realize the van and I were 9 miles past the “flip”. As my morning miles were quickly relived, I thought, “Oh, that happened!” It is my hope the unobserved passing of the 100,000 mile mark will be followed by MANY more unobserved miles as we work toward the last mile of our van’s service to our family.

Asian Destruction Crew

AKA: My introduction to Window blind repair

It started with our exchange students not understanding the complexities of working a US generic window blind. I will admit to a part of this being conjecture, but here is how it goes…. For some reason, the blind would not go level for them. They may or may not have known how to operate the blind and how to “unlock” the blind so it could be lowered. Whatever did occur on our blinds (they are wood blinds, so “generic” is probably not a completely accurate description), three plastic clip on the bottom of the blinds has been removed. Underneath the clip, was a knot that ran the whole length of the blind–it allowed the blind to move up and down the window. It is our guess the locking function (the hand motion where you take the height adjustment string to the left or right at a high angle and lock the blind height in place) was not working to their expectations. They were trying to solve the problem without getting us involved. (All of this information was news to me UNTIL I started trying to fix the blind today. Prior to me really looking at the blind, I thought the blind “chose” to take some time off RATHER than being giving an unexpected vacation due to receiving some inappropriate therapy.)

As I went into the room today to begin my task, I grabbed a very similar blind from the other room. Although the strings were not in the identical position, I felt its presence would give me a visual aid if I ever got stumped. As I followed the strings and tried to figure out where they were and where they needed to be, I started to see I was not dealing with an accident. When the window blinds first received their “therapy”, I am sure the goal was just to make the blind function better. As I saw parts removed and knots undone, it began to look more like sabotage than saving. (If I would have been entrusting my life to this window blind just after the knots were removed, I would not be writing this now.) Their therapeutic adjustment may only have been minor ones, but they did eventually go very bad.

And, after over 2 hours, help from my spouse (some parts are hard to do by yourself while balancing) and a couple redos because I did not realize how the “locking” mechanism for the blinds worked, I had blinds that functioned again. (Note the “cheat” they implemented to keep the blinds from dragging on the window seal. It didn’t work perfectly, but it did keep me from having to drop everything and try and figure the problem out.)

Fixing the blind was easy when compared to what we tried to do so we don’t have to do this repair again. (I am glad I am a self proclaimed window blind repairman. I am very content to NEVER use my skills again.) Before our exchange students went up to their room after school, we asked them to not try to fix their blinds by themselves again. (We got push back–“I do not think we broke them.” [please see above]) After they had a little time to settle in their rooms, my wife went up to their rooms and asked them to show her they knew how to operate the blinds. (It took a few tries, but they did.) Now, it is our hope our window blinds will work just as well as they did after we moved in.

If you don’t know how to use something, trying to fix it yourself might be just fine. But, when knots are untied and parts are removed, you have probably moved into an area where you are at risk of breaking something. Regardless of age or perceived smarts or urgency, it is probably better to ask “how does it work?” than “can you please fix it?”.

Road Humps or Speed Bumps

Beware of the Road Humps…

Now, that I am becoming accustomed to my new walking route, (our city just put some great walking paths in our neighborhood that tie us into other paths and other neighborhoods) I am getting past the new things…the variety of houses, the barking dogs, the whole new set of bike riders and other pseudo-athletes, and, of course, the road signs.

One of the road signs is an electronic sign that provides the speed of the approaching vehicles. I am not a vehicle or able to walk at a pace to be registered by this device, so it has minimal impact on me.
“No Motorized Vehicles”: It seems this sign is not fully heeded…yet. As the paths are being completed and as vehicles claim access (or they find it a really neat short cut to the park for a place to hide and take an extended lunch) I have had to dodge a few vehicles and yield to them. I could do some “planking”, but I am not sure they would realize I was just laying in the road. Since many of the drivers may not be English speakers, they might take it as their responsibility to fulfill my wishes.
The one that gives me the most pause is “Road Humps”. The irony is this name is it sounds like it is a naturally occurring phenomenon. “We can’t help it. The road just has humps. We fix them and they just go back that way. Depending on temperature, time of day, or weather conditions, the humps may vary. It is more like a rash really. The humps are not worthy of being called “speed bumps”, but it they were, we would change the signage to reflect that fact.”

For me, I see “speed” in the title, and I assume what the sign is warning me against will soon impact my speed in some way. The “humps” in the other name makes we wonder if the road has somehow developed some “camel-envy”. It is trying to mimic a bactrian or dromedary?

I am grateful to be getting more familiar with my walking path. Now, as I walk, my mind can wander and not worry about the next right or left turn. Not always does my mind have a thought that spawns many a random thought. But, when it does, I relish the journey and try not to limit its direction. If growing old allows more freedom in what you can think about , I will look forward to what the next decade of my life will look like!

Sick Exchangeling

It was bound to happen, but we didn’t know when. As the fall flu season dropped upon us, the flu had to choose its first victim. For whatever reason, he (it could be a she as well. I don’t know if sicknesses have a gender, but I am sure most of the female population would enthusiastically refer to germs as “he”) chose to make his first home in the only Korean host available on our street.

We were quite sorry to see her get sick! It totally kicked her tail! She slept lots and ate little. What she did she was…well, you know. As my wife and I discussed her illness, she was likely a good home to the germs for a few reasons:

No resistance to the US bugs: If we went to Korea, we might also have the same problem. Our bugs have some slight funkiness that allows them to more easily attack the bodies w/ little resistance. He chose well–he totally took her out!
Lack of sleep: Two months ago, she was on a schedule 14 hours ahead of us. After having been here two months, she should have it figured out by now. But, due to the demands of homework (yes, she does attend a private Christian school, but they are making accommodations to help her get past the language problems.) She seems to insist on going to bed after 11:30. Since the first two months of school have also been cross country season and accompanied by a 5:00 wake up call, it is hard to sustain yourself very long w/ that little sleep when your brain and body are being pushed every day.
Eats everything: This theory seems to have fallen apart. She really likes to eat, and maybe she just ate too much. I have teased her during a few meals. She will eat a couple of good servings of one of the side dishes. She will then have 4 or 5 “micro-servings” of the same side item. And, after the meal when the leftovers are being put away, she may eat a little more. Sometimes, while the leftover meal is still cooling, she will grab a few nuts or some other snack (usually healthy) to fill in whatever gaps may have arisen as her stomach’s contents settle..
Having window open: Our other Asian exchange student thought the problem was their window being kept open to far. With the cooler nights we have been having, it was her concern the extra coolness may have somehow “possessed” our Korean student. She was able to refer back to a couple instances in her past where “to much coolness” was able to make a person sick enough to throw up. I could believe one “bathroom visit”, but she had numerous visits…
Food poisoning or something like that: Since we had a birthday meal the night before for our other Asian student, she ate a wide variety of items with different spice levels. She also may have eaten something that was not prepared correctly. (Her meal was shrimp lo mien.) The length of her sickness and the fact no one else got sick also makes this theory doubtful…

Once we got past the excessive sleeping and the doting on by the Asian room mate, we needed to try to get her better. Eastern and western approaches do vary. They were also the source of some conflict:

Our healthy Asian student wanted to stay home with our Korean student as the rest of us went to church Sunday morning. My wife quickly trumped her and let her know, “I am the mom. This is my job.” I do not think this compromised the quality of care she received, but it did draw the lines early which form of treatment was going to win the “treatment” battle.
Eastern medicine: I did not witness all of the treatments, but eastern medicine was a small part of her treatment. Our healthy exchange student did the following for her(I did not witness but was told) : she rubbed some oils into her body (not sure how or where), she may have also done some “acupuncture-ish” type things to her using her fingers (?), and she made her congee to eat. (She doesn’t call it congee normally, but does it for our benefit. Congee is a rice gruel we experienced while in China in 2013. It is made by boiling rice in an excessive amount of water. The results are similar to oatmeal. It has minimum flavor. It is also very low risk for agitating a recovering stomach.)
My wife wanted to give our Korean student some Tylenol to lower her fever. Although our Korean student did call her mother, I cannot help but think our healthy exchange student was an influence. She told us NO Tylenol. Since no eastern medicine was sent along with our exchange students w/ any type of manual of how to treat any and all of their various ailments in an acceptable non-western way, we emailed her mother so we could be granted permission to administer the Tylenol. Although she did grant us permission, it still seemed like an excessive burden. Unless we are given specific instructions to the contrary, we should be able to treat the exchange students like our own–in sickness and in health.

She is back at school today. After missing a day of school, she should have an extra day to do homework. If she did not spend 3-4 hours a night doing homework already, this might be helpful. However, the school continues to be grateful for the contributions of the exchangelings. They exposes the school’s students to different cultures and different ways of thinking. And, how many times have you heard an American refer to having the flu as “dancing in your belly?” (Hearing the descriptions of a non-native English speaker continues to amaze me. She uses words in ways I would not have otherwise assembled. ) Having exchange students continues to be a good thing. We are in for the journey not for the little adjustments along the way!

Lucky Guess

As I was getting my daily allotment of the black mango tea calibrated to the proper level of sweetness, I noticed a older lady filling up her gallon jug of “regular” sweet tea. Not having anything else to do as the tea tap poured out the sweetened nectar those in the south consider part of life, I engaged her in conversation.

“Buying it by the gallon. That’s the way to do it! When you buy it that way it certainly saves you money!”, I stated.

“The tea isn’t for me. It is for my husband. He gets cranky if he doesn’t get his tea.”, she commented.

“It would be a shame if your marriage of 50 years ended because the tea jug wasn’t full!”, I prodded.

“It will be 50 years later this month.”, she replied with a slight look of surprise.

“Really, ma’am, I have no special abilities to know how long you have been married–it was just a lucky guess.”, I defended.

“No problem, young man. I got all of my grey hair honestly. It hardly seems like it has been 25 years.”, she reflected.

“I have been married almost 25 years–they sure go fast. Congrats on staying married that long.”

I enjoyed the conversation with the kind lady. As we went to check out, she was right behind me in the line. I offered to buy her drink and her jug, but she quickly showed me the coupon that was going to get her everything for free.

As I checked out, I commented to the cashier, “Good to see the caterpillar is coming back.” (He had shaved his mustache, and he is sporting a new would-be butterfly on his upper lip.) He acknowledged my comment with a grunt or a smile.

As a work from home dad, I don’t get the routine a person gets who regularly goes to a workplace. I enjoy the conversations I am granted during the course of my day. (Phone conversations are not nearly as rich as those in person.) It is not my goal to be memorable, but it is my goal to leave a smile in my wake. Although I believe I left others during the day, this little errand gave me a couple of smiles as well.

Salty Frog Sympathy

As the pool pump made a couple of those sounds that could not escape my well trained ears, I had to take a peek into the pool skimmer. The skimmer was full of leaves, so it appears the telltale noises could not escape the surprise-adverse ears I have been wearing for a few years.

When I returned the skimmer basket from the leaf burial ground, a little frog was sitting along side the pool. I could only guess he had fallen into the pool and been sucked into the skimmer overnight. (Now that the pool is winterized, this is not likely to happen again this year. A couple of wind storms have given the pool skimmer and the vacuum more than they could clean up in a couple of days. Now, that the temperatures are dropping, the pool blanket has come out to keep the pool warm as far into fall as possible AND the leaf netting has come out to provide a more manageable way to remove all of the leaves once they start dropping from the well placed tree right beside the pool…) I yelled at my daughters to show them my little friend. He did not seem to be doing so well. It was my believe he took a big drink of a liquid (salt water). As the liquid worked its way through his system, his outlook was not good.

My daughters, however, were not going to give up easily. They tried to give him a big drink of tap water. They tried to scrounge up a bug or two so he could have an easy snack. They really loved on him beyond his ability to appreciate it. His movements were present, but very slow when I found him. And, as he spent time with my daughters, it appeared his reflexes continued to slow—so slow in fact, he expired before they had time to implement all of their revival plans. (The final part of their plan was to take him to school to let their favorite science teacher prove she was capable of saving the life of an amphibian….she had already saved a reptile (turtle) and a few fish this school year.)

Despite his brief time as a Gruenbaum, I was so glad to see how his life was not dismissed by my girls. They dove in despite the high probability of failure. They likely accepted the worst case scenario from the moment they met “froggie”. Despite the downside, they chose to be optimistic and move forward with a plan. I enjoyed watching their ultimate fruitless efforts and commitment to extending his life.

I couldn’t help but think of the difficulty they had accepting the death of their hamster a couple of years ago. (They also lost a guinea pig that was very small and very lonely; he just seemed like he didn’t want to live w/o a roommate.) They cried and asked “why?” so many times. As painful as it was for me to see them so upset, they emerged from this pain with a greater understanding of how life can be so fleeting. And, it was likely some of those lessons that were helpful to them as they threw their hearts into trying to solve the frog’s dilemma. As I admired their efforts, I couldn’t help but ask, “Where did my little girls go?” As a frog begins as a tadpole and grow into adulthood, I see my girls swimming/hopping along life’s path gradually becoming the young ladies they were born to become.

Armadillos In The Bed

No, we didn’t get our flower beds aerated. No my wife and daughters didn’t put on their heels and tramp through the flower beds. We suspect, based on previous observations of early morning armadillo activity, we had some visitors who were looking for a meal. Whatever it may be about our beds, they either presently have some grubs or some grandpa armadillo struck grub gold in the past in our beds.

We don’t have anything valuable enough in the beds to worry about it. Wednesday morning, I noticed a couple holes around the yucca. And, this morning, their were more holes and they had spread out over a wider area. If I go out tomorrow and find they have plugged something into the outside outlet and set up equipment to harvest the grubs, I may take a greater interest in their plans. Otherwise, it is just a story to tell and something to distract us from all of the darn squirrels!!

Homesick Exchangelings

We have had two great months with our exchange students. We were warned that their emotions may have a cyclical nature. These cycles combined with being away from home combined with a birthday away from their family seems to have them moving into a slightly less social zone.

They still cook for us on a voluntary basis. They still will play some games if homework is not too heavy. And, they are still very courteous and polite. Both my wife and I are/have sensing their need for a little more space. Their normal habit after diner is to go up to their homework room (previously known as the man cave, but due to college, the men are no longer interested in frequenting their previously claimed domicile). My wife has diligently worked to have the school make “accommodations” to keep them from having to do double homework by translating from English prior to doing the actual homework. One of our students has had a wide variety of issues with her credit card and getting money off of it. (This has included forgotten PINs, working at some locations and not at others [it does have one of those new chips], and the most recent problem has been a possible case of fraud on her card) We have tried to be flexible with their needs, but we are just feeling they are clinging a little too tightly to each other and the relationship with their “roomie” rather than the family relationships.

In a past life, we did foster care. Kids in those circumstance were in a very confused state. They were “homesick” for their parent(s), but they realized they were clean and fed with us. They liked the opportunities we had for them, but I believe they also resented those same things because their relative/family/parent was not able to provide them those things. Unfortunately, foster kids often did not have the means to deal with their anger in very constructive ways. This provides challenges far more difficult than dealing with our homesick exchange students.

Homesickness (I think) comes when the “honeymoon” and the newness wears off. As the host family, we can recharge a little when the exchange students “cling” to each other and maintain their solitude. (As much as we enjoy them, they still have changed the family dynamics.) Regardless, we will continue on this journey together. We both (our family and the exchange students) have lots to offer each other. We have trips planned, birthdays to celebrate, and meals to share together. And, as our 10 month adventure continues together, we become more and more convinced that although “near” family can be good, family-family is best!

Walking Down Life's Road With Andy