Woman in the Middle

Studies show that just the anticipation of a vacation is good for you. I swear I read that somewhere. Well, I am happy to report there is some anticipation in the air! Yes, we are going on an actual family vacation, involving airplanes and everything. We didn’t know if that would happen, with Youngest Daughter having a real job and just two weeks of vacation a year, but it worked out. Yay!

“The Uncles,” as we like to call them, live in Hawaii. This trip is all about visiting them because we adore them and we haven’t seen them in two in a half years. We decided it was time to yank open the savings account and get ourselves over for a visit. We would have done it if they lived in Nebraska, or Minnesota, or Idaho. But they don’t. They live in Hawaii. So please don’t shed any tears for our sacrifice!  LOL!

I have been looking up fun little things we can do while we are there. Because I am who I am, many have to do with food. That is just how I roll.  And how I get rolls…..Hey, I also plan on doing some walking where we are there! The uncles suggested we go to the top of Diamond Head, where the view is amazing. Only an easy “Grandma and Grandpa” walk to get there, I am told. Oh, and 99 steps at the very end. I can do it!!! And, if I actually do, I will share the photos with you.

Anticipation…..

These photos are from a previous Hawaii trip. I am sure we have better ones but can’t seem to find them….

Youngest Daughter and I wanted to eat at Souplantation a week ago yesterday. Hubby wanted to join us. There isn’t one particularly close to our house. We had two options for Friday night dinner. We could wait for Hubby to get home and fight our way through rush hour traffic to get to the nearest Souplantation, at least a half hour away if traffic wasn’t an issue. Or we could go down and meet Hubby at his work and go to the one that is just a few minutes away. (Have I ever mentioned that we live in a restaurant desert? Even chain restaurants avoid the greater area around where we live like the plague. It is a very frustrating issue with the folks around here.)

Going to Hubby’s, we also have two options. We can drive down, and end up with two cars 45 minutes from home, or we could ride the local commuter train, the Metrolink, and get picked up by Hubby at the station near where he works. If we take the train we can enjoy each other’s company in one car for the rest of the day. As we usually do, we chose the Metrolink.

Commuter rail is still a bit of a novelty here in So Cal. I am sure the people who use it every day don’t find it novel at all. But they are a small percentage of the population. For the rest of us occasional users, it is still a bit of a lark to hop on the train for Los Angeles, Orange County, or the beach.

Of course, we decided to make plans to do this on one of the hottest days of the year. Fun times! Hubby tried to warn us off, as the air conditioning in his car wasn’t working at full chill.  I waved him off. We would be fine. Well, we were fine, but we sure were sweaty! I discovered that when it is over 110, if I move even a little bit, like on a slow stroll through an air conditioned mall, it is impossible to stop the perspiration. Thank goodness, by the time we headed home the sun was going down and the AC in his car had a fighting chance. Whew, what a warm day!

That being said, Youngest Daughter and I still enjoyed Souplantation, and so did Hubby. We had fun at the mall as well. We weren’t going to let the heat stop our fun! Even if that fun was kind of damp…..

By the way, every year, i see more and more people using the Metrolink who are not commuters. There were a number of people, including a whole extended family, who got on the train with us, going all the way to Union Station in Los Angeles. So Cal is figuring out this mass transit thing, I swear!

I can tell we are deep in the midst of summer. The cool weather of winter seems both a long time ago and something that is very far in the future.

The weather man says it will be as hot as 106 today. Lately, whatever range the weatherman provides, we are always at the top, it seems. I didn’t even leave the house yesterday until 5:15 pm. It seemed the prudent thing to do. Today I have plans, which include trying to find upholstery material for that chair I want redone. I am determined to forge ahead in spite of the weather.

There is also the possibility of rain in our near by mountains, which will bring us nothing but humidity. Oh boy!

Another reason I know it is summer is that the ant invasion has finally arrived. We tend to get ants inside the house when it gets really dry. They come looking for moisture. Hubby discovered it early this morning. For reasons a little unclear to me he didn’t do anything about it. I got to discover it when I happened to get up an hour earlier than I would have liked. At that point I enlisted Hubby into the battle and we appear to have the enemy on the run. Scattered troops are still wandering the battlefield, but they appear disoriented.  I think that is enough war metaphors!

I have been lucky up to now because Facebook has been full of ant stories for the past month. I knew it was a matter of time. Just a couple of days ago Hubby mentioned that we should probably do some preemptive spraying. Oh well! The defensive spraying turned into offensive spraying.

For some reason, so far anyway, the ant invasions in this house always come from the exact same spot, from under the baseboard right by where the dog eats her dinner and the animal water bowl is located. I have no idea if it because of those two items or if that is where the ants happen to have their own personal entrance to my house.

I think I am ready for summer to be over!

If you feel like a drive, at least part of which takes you away from freeways and out across the countryside, make a visit to Hemet and the Hemet Museum, run by the Hemet Historical Society. The museum is located in the freight area of the city’s historic Santa Fe Depot. The museum is small, but it is chock full (in a good way) of all kinds of things related to the history of Hemet, with a special emphasis on the railroad.

I particularly enjoyed seeing the case full of dinnerware used on the Santa Fe trains back in the day. The service with California poppies was especially pretty.

There were displays related to the area’s first inhabitants, including grinding stones and baskets.

Feeling like someone may be calling you aboard the train?

Imagine getting on the train in this beautiful dress….

An old barber’s chair, among other things.

In the other part of the historic train depot (the passenger side, I presume) is a coffee and sandwich shop. My friend and I stopped in for lunch. I was pleased to see that the limited sandwich selection was nonetheless interesting and included combinations I had never see before. For $ 5.95 I had the “London” which consisted of ham, Muenster cheese, onion jam, lettuce and tomato on wheat bread. The onion jam, which was sweet with a hint of vinegar, really put the sandwich over the top for me and I really enjoyed it. and  For an additional $2.00 you can add a drink and bag of chips to your meal. They also have paninis and bagelwiches on the menu, vegetarian selections, and a child’s menu for those 12 and under. Next time I think I might try one of their nine types of wafflewiches. These are served on waffles and included everything from breakfast types, lunch types and even some that would be delicious for dessert. Espresso waffle anyone?  I know a couple of daughters who would try that with me!

The museum and Destination Coffee Bar and Bistro are located at 100 West Florida Ave, Hemet CA 92543

Current hours of operation at 11-3, Tuesday through Sunday. CLOSED THE MONTH OF AUGUST!

hemetmuseum.com

I got a new camera. My old one died about a year ago and I have been using the old OLD one ever since. Local stores didn’t carry what we wanted and so we were forced to go online. That is an imperfect way of doing things. The camera we bought ended up being a bit larger and heavier than we were going for. However, I do like the photos it takes. Here are a few I took to get the hang of the new device. The cats and dog posed for me. Wasn’t that nice of them?

Black Cat bond. Lumos rarely sleeps with Blackie on the window seat, but Nox often does.

Lumos shows off his impressively long toes.

Such a cutie! Anyone who dares sit in the desk chair comes away with a furry seat!

My sweetie pie. Nox is the one who likes to hang out in my lap the most. But he also loves the window seat and falling asleep where he can just look up and see the outside world.

This is what the computer room often looks like  when I am in it. What you can’t see is, moments before i took this photo, Blackie was in there too. Me and my four fur babies. They all like to be where Mama is. Also, note that Honey the dog decided to take over the pile of sheets int he corner that Blackie likes so much. Don’t worry. That was just for that day. Blackie is back to being the king of the sheet pile.  Do you see that little black circle just to the left of the sheet pile? That is a hair band, the kind the girls use to put up their hair in pony tales. If one is left on the counter in the bathroom, Lumos is sure to find it and bat it onto the floor.Then he plays with it, batting it around everywhere. Those things are all over the house, LOL!

Like many young adults, my children came of age on Pokemon. The many things they each saved from their childhood included their sets of Pokemon cards. There were many Christmases when a pack or two of Pokemon cards in their stockings brought excited squeals. (Side note: a razor blade and a little clear tape made sure each girl got their fair share of the “good” cards and that Christmas morning didn’t include a grumpy kid! We all laugh about it now and the girls agree we did a good thing.)

But we have had many years of conversation  free of Pokemon, until very recently. Then, just a few short weeks ago, a thing called “Pokemon Go” hit the world with a bang.  What I know and understand about this game is as follows: You go about in the world, staring at your phone, while an alternate reality shows you where you can collect Pokeballs, which you can then throw at little Pokemon characters (when you find them) and capture them. You can then use the characters to “fight” at “gyms” and you can take over the gyms if you win. Of course, someone else can come along and win the gym after you, but, for that small moment in time, you have bragging rights. Get all that? Yeah, I don’t really either.

My daughters have smart phones, but apparently they are not smart enough to be able to play Pokemon Go on them. Oh well. The upgrades aren’t available until December. Shucks. Sorry, Mom and Dad’s outstanding phone upgrades are just that, Mom and Dad’s, and the kids can’t have them!

In spite of the lack of Pokemon Go players in our household, we still hear lots about it. Since both girls were gone this weekend, one to the nerd fest of extraordinary proportions called Comic-Con, and the other was off to a wedding in Camarillo,  we had plenty of opportunity to regroup as a family yesterday evening and find out all there was to know about Pokemon Go in San Diego and a wedding venue/country club in a lovely part of our state. There was plenty to find out!

The convention center in San Diego where Comic-Con is held is near the famous Gas Light District. The businesses there figured out real fast what kind of crowd they were getting. Eldest Daughter said the restaurants and bars had signs out front telling passersby what Pokemon could be found in their establishment. That truly made me laugh! Can’t blame the business – sounds like an amazing marketing opportunity right there!

As for the wedding, most folks tried to keep a lid on the game and concentrate on the happy couple. But they eventually found out from the wait staff that the country club where the wedding and reception were held was teeming with several of a rare kind of Pokemon. I am sure that caused quite a few “bathroom” trips during the evening! Again, it made me laugh.

Eldest Daughter attended Comic-Con with friends of hers from out of state. They came straight to San Diego from London, where they had attended some sort of big Star Wars convention. While there one of them manged to take over the “gym” which is located at Big Ben. I have no plans to play Pokemon Go, but even middle aged me thought that sounded very cool!

PS: I beg forgiveness from one and all for getting any details about Pokemon Go wrong. Please give me props for even trying!

I have mentioned previously that our full sized red Navel orange tree is in our front yard. It came with the house. I wouldn’t choose to plant fruit trees in the front yard, as close to the street as this one is. It encourages people to come into our yard to steal oranges. It is also quite large and blocks the view from the street to our front door. This is good when we get packages delivered, bad for discouraging burglars.

Two weeks Youngest Daughter wanted to go to the store. I needed to as well and I convinced her to drive. When we came home, she parked on the street as usual. We took the short cut to the front door across the front yard and I saw this:

Youngest said it had appeared just a few days before. Now, I know what it is. It is a bug trap. more specifically, a trap for flying bugs. I know why it is in my tree. Some governmental agency is monitoring my neighborhood for pests that are bad for citrus trees. Since my tree is in the front yard, it is easy for them to get to. I am sure they were pleased as punch when they saw that full sized orange tree, right there, ready to be monitored.

My only thing is, I wish they had left a note on my door. Just because I know what it is doesn’t mean everyone else who might get one will.

Well, I came home from running errands a few days ago just as a man in uniform was leaving my yard. I stopped him and asked if he was monitoring the new thing in my orange tree. He was. He is with the US Department of Agriculture and they are monitoring for medflies. Good to know!

So my orange tree is now part of the front line of defense against the medfly. Glad the front yard tree can be of service.

I can’t believe it is Friday AGAIN!  In case you haven’t heard, it is hot as all get out again in my neck of the woods. Theya re predicting as high as 112F today. Oh boy!

I am happy to report I made some progress (sort of) in the reupholstery front. I stopped by a local business that said it did upholstery on its sign. And they do – for golf cart and airplane seats! Wow, talk about a specialty business! They gave me a card for another business that will actually do furniture. I plan on calling them today.

Both of my chicks are leaving us this weekend. Eldest Daughter is is already gone to ComicCon in San Diego. It is my understanding she wore her Captain American costume already to a party last night. Ah, to be young and nerdy! Youngest Daughter is going to the wedding of some college friends up near Santa Barbara. So that means I will spend my weekend worrying, of course. That is what mothers do!

Hope you have a great July weekend. Stay cool!

Nothing like a warm summer morning spent in a cemetery! I had to go get a photo of a headstone for a story I am doing. You know, even with the sun shining and the grass is a beautiful green, there is something about an old cemetery….But it was probably just the dismembered crow, sitting right by a headstone, that gave me that creepy feeling…..

See, the cemetery looked lovely, didn’t it? I spared you the crow, however….

My brakes were squeaking a while back, until Hubby put new “shoes” on my Camry. But, on the way home from the cemetery, I started hearing squeaking again. I was on a two lane, one way road with lots of stop signs. Was it me, or the truck next to me? It was me, no, maybe the truck, no, me….. When I finally got off that road and shook that truck I figured out it was the truck. My squeak didn’t come back. Whew!

It was so darn amusing. A couple of nights over the weekend it cooled off enough to open the windows once the sun set. Apparently Nox REALLY likes having the computer room window open. That is the window with the window seat, beloved by all our cats. For those two nights, when I opened that window, Nox heard it slide open and came RUNNING! He was slipping and sliding all over the wood floor, trying to get to that open window as quickly as possible!

The window seat, which is particularly loved by black cats. Nox is on the left, Blackie on the right.

My reason for getting Blue Apron meal kits delivered to my home was to make my life simpler. Maybe I should have read a few more reviews. But what I discovered was that the meals, while quite tasty, were fairly complex and time consuming to make. Since they were designed to feed four people, rarely were there left overs. So, instead of two lovely, easy, delicious meals to supplement the way I was already cooking, I got two delicious, lovely meals that left me without any desire to cook at all the rest of the week. That, in the end, is my review of Blue Apron, However, in case you actually enjoy the cooking process, and like the idea of someone else picking the recipes and measuring the ingredients, then I want to point out a few more things.

The only thing they expected me to have on hand for two recipes a week was olive oil and salt and pepper. They even included the butter, flour and red wine vinegar. That was very nice.

These were not low calorie meals. They ran about 700-750 calories per meal. Hubby and I really need to have dinners at home that are less calories.

The recipe cards were nice and colorful and easy to read. The only complaint I have about them is the constant admonition to salt and pepper, or salt and pepper to taste. I would have appreciated just a little more of an idea as to how much salt and pepper to use. However, if I was a bit more of a cook, I probably would know how much salt and pepper to use.

None of the vegetables were chopped. You had to do all the chopping, peeling, etc…yourself. This was part of the reason the recipes took so long to make.

The first week I made a recipe that took, it felt, forever. It was, however, delicious. I have heard the Blue Apron meals called “restaurant quality.” That meal was definitely that. As a matter of fact, the very next night I did go to a restaurant and had a meal that was similar. It was good, but I liked the one I made better!

In the end, good taste aside, Blue Apron was just too complicated for me. I am looking at trying another meal delivery kit company, one that was reviewed as being easier to make, with the veggies prechopped.  I will let you know how that goes when I get around to trying it.