Alfred Dunner: heart moment

Posted by random olio

It is amazing how you can be walking through a store, look up, and have a flashback of multiple experiences before your eyes. Almost when you accidentally click the button on an email that allows you to open all attachments at once. It is fast movement where window after window opens before you. A miasma of different experiences that cascade across the screen.

Mine happened with Alfred Dunner.

Who is that you might wonder? If you have ever gone shopping with your grandma you might have heard of the brand. From what I can remember it was one of the better “granny” clothing brands. My extensive (yes I can say that because they were often) shopping trips with my grandma spanned L.S. Ayres (now owned by Macy’s), JCPenney’s, and occasionally Sears. The main department stores in my small town, with the additional at-home shopping of Appleseeds, and a few other catalogs she would purchase from (such a big deal to her) but most of the time sent things back.

Granny Smith had great taste in clothes (well at least for a someone in her 80’s/90’s). If she found something, purchased it, and wore it that was a huge win. It meant a successful shopping trip. She was picky (maybe I get my pickiness from her). She knew what brands were crap, and what looked good on her. She did not ever want to look frumpy. Even if she was going to the grocery, she would make sure she looked nice, and church meant dressing even nicer. I have to agree on the frumpiness, although I am as frumpy as I want at home!

I am not a fan of shopping and would rather a stork showed up at my door with clothes that were perfect for me in the right fabrics, colors, and sizes. Yet, growing up in a small town meant there was not that much to do. So many Sundays after church my grandma and I would go to the mall, get a nice meal (her terms) and walk around the mall. It was a way to spend time and connect with her. It was something she felt comfortable doing, and it sure beat watching golf (her Sunday afternoon activity). Additionally, it also just might have meant a new item for me (not always but sometimes). What was not to like about that?

Alfred Dunner, I have never met you, but you gave me a heart moment to remember Granny Smith.

Eating Down the Fridge

Posted by random olio

You cannot put that book down, you lose precious sleep at night because you want to read one more page. A different book moves you emotionally to think differently about your life and make some needed changes. Yet another book prompts you to make small moves toward a more sustainable lifestyle.

“The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks” by Kathleen Flinn had an impact on me and the food I consume. Chris and I have found ourselves in a food rut. We make the same few meals each week, and continue to alternate them. Yes, most of the time it is what I crave and want, but what if I do not know what I crave and want because I have not given myself the option to try something new? Over the weekend we went to a Portland restaurant that we have wanted to go to for ages. It took us about two months to find a reservation that would both fit our schedules and be a normal hour to eat dinner (before 10:30 pm). We had an assortment of items all new and different, but one really inspired me: spacatelli, sausage, broccoli, provolone. It was very simple, and yet so delicious. I look up at Chris and say the book I just finished has inspired me and we need to radically change how we think about food. We can make this dish at home.

That does not mean that we do not eat well on a regular basis. I think we have a very balanced diet, what I wanted to radically change was our routine. With the changing season from summer to fall and soon to winter there are so many different options to try. New soups and stews, and warmer dishes we would not want in the summer. So many options to explore, inspire, and change our ways. Flinn’s book is inspired by a woman she met in the grocery store:

“No wonder we’ve forgotten that the most essential thing we do is to feed ourselves and the people we care about. When I saw the stuff the woman had in her basket, it struck me as antinourishment.” Page 22-23

As a country, we eat from cans, the freezer, and over-processed boxes of chemicals. It is what we know, and yet many of the processed foods are a very long list of chemicals that provide no nourishment at all. Flinn sets out to teach a group of women who do not know how to cook how to make food from scratch and replace the quick and easy processed counterparts. She shows them how to make Alfredo sauce from scratch in the same amount of time as you would the boxed version, and she proves that cooking from scratch is not only affordable but the tastier option. She also talks about how much we waste.

We buy food in bulk at stores such as Costco and Sam’s. It seems like a better value, but what we often do not realize is how much waste we create. Why buy one good head of lettuce when you can get three for less? They do not taste great, but oh well. You then do not feel bad when you throw away the other two heads. Which leads to what has been called: “Eating Down the Fridge.” The tactic? You do not buy groceries for a week and instead get creative and eat down all the food currently in your fridge. We would starve in our house because we often only have fresh fruits and vegetables in the fridge and eat them down each week, but we could still join the cause and make sure we are eating the salsa, and other condiments that often are forgotten and grow into other entities within the fridge.

Do an Internet search for: Eating Down the Fridge, read Flinn’s book, and use the changing season to jump-start your food inspiration!

Make your world alive

Posted by random olio

I have those days where I think, why do I still write this blog? Does random olio connect, inspire, or impact any of my readers? Maybe, or maybe not. It is sometimes hard to know, and often I feel I am in this vacuum, diligent to a pact I made for myself to write everyday. Whether or not my writing is stellar or not, when I started this blog almost 3 years ago, I never thought I would go this far or write this long. I will be driving, in a store, or in a meeting at work and an idea will pop into my head and when I finally have a moment to put my fingers on the keyboard the words just flow out, 90% of the time effortlessly.

Now, that does not mean I do not struggle with whether to actually publish a post, or even if it is worthy of the Publish button, but when I started I did it for the discipline, the community, and now I continue to do it because it keeps me sharp, aware, and always listening. When I came across this quote from Chris Guillebeau, I thought “so well said.”

“That’s the promise: you will live more curiously if you write. You will become a scientist, if not of the natural world than of whatever world you care about. More of that world will pop alive. You will see more when you look at it.

Writing needn’t be a formal enterprise to have this effect. You don’t have to write well. You don’t even have to “write,” exactly—you can just talk onto the page.”

Guillebeau is an author and avid traveler with three books out, one of which I have read “The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World” and another which I am waiting for my turn at the library: “The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life.”

Often I feel that I “just talk onto the page” — it depends on my life that day, where my head is at, and my inspiration. Regardless, it has kept me curious, hungry to read voracious amounts (books + articles), to explore other blogs, and other writing styles of all the things important to me. My world is definitely alive and full, and I see so much more. This does not mean that everyone has to write a blog, but I think writing in general often breaks out what is within, we learn more about ourselves, and often resolve things in our heart.

A Different Kind of Care

Posted by random olio

Yesterday a friend/co-worker shared with me a sweet story about a 24-year old college student, Marissa Plank, who lives in a retirement community. In exchange for free rent she gives monthly performances to the residents. She is a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and if you read this article about her you will find that she states she benefits more from it than she feels she gives. What poise and self-knowledge she already has in her life.

It reminds me so much of my grandma and how often I would hear her mutter: “Maybe I will be next.” I know it is a morbid comment, but at 93 most of her family and friends were gone, only a son and grandkids left. She got bored. A bit of a loaner, she was not one to join in with other individuals her own age. She lived alone for almost 50 years and did not want to change the way she lived. I can only imagine how she spent her days. Of course she saw others, different individuals would come and check in on her, but the interaction, play, and conversation (let alone music!) that someone her age would have experienced in a retirement community could have been perfect. Except that she was a bit of a loaner.

Which leads me to think back to almost 14 years ago when a good family friend started an adult day care center in Indianapolis, IN. The concept of an adult day care center was new to me, but over time I have continued to learn more and more about it. I am in awe of what Joy’s House does, and hope that communities all over the country follow suit and take care of their adults (as they are not always elderly). Joy’s House is a place that families can bring their adult family members for care during the day whether it be due to age, a certain diagnosis, or because they need a break in caring for them. Especially when they live with them at home. What a way to share a varied environment of activities in similar ways to a child day care center. I only wish I would have ever been able to encourage my Granny Smith to join. I would have lost that battle.

My hope: more Marissa Plank’s have opportunities to bless and bring life to older adults, whether that be with programs that offer the right individuals room and board in exchange for interaction with or through more adult day care centers like Joy’s House.

Toilet Paper, Toilets, and Flushing

Posted by random olio

Over the past few days, after Chris has done his business in the bathroom he says: “Ah, how I missed nice toilet paper.” Oh how I know what he means. In China no matter where you were: a hotel, business, restaurant the toilet paper was tissue paper-thin. Actually thinner than tissue paper. Which baffles me because then you just need to use more of it. Most of the time it was one-ply instead of two-ply. So is two-ply toilet paper more of an American thing?

We saw a commercial this weekend for Scott toilet paper. Their Natural Tube-Free toilet paper. What a concept. The ad says that every year the US throws away enough toilet paper tubes to fill the Empire State building — twice. You then see an Empire State building made of toilet paper rolls. A good ploy for those that are environmentally savvy enough to care about the tube leftover. I am not saying I do not care, but I have to say this house is more picky about the paper on the roll!

So back to bathrooms in China. They varied. Chris warned me before my trip to always have kleenex with me and hand sanitizer. He was right. On one of the first days we were there, we were on a street that was stationary + pen store after another. My idea of bliss. The problem? No bathrooms, and well when I got to go, I got go. We found an old bookstore (one that had been around awhile, although the book titles were current.) I figured out that the bathroom was up this strange staircase and up I went. I get into the stall and found the toilet was in the floor and start to do my business as quickly as possible, only to look around and realize there was no toilet paper. Crap, I was screwed. There was only one thing I could do. Finish, go downstairs and ask Chris for the kleenex and hand sanitizer. (It also had no sink.)

Let me just say that when there was toilet paper it was thin, but my bathroom experiences were vastly different. My bookstore experience was probably the most primitive. Most other bathrooms where more mainstream. My hotel lobby bathroom was well in another era.

When I first saw this contraption in the bathroom stall I at first thought it was more bidet-like, and realized these were just the flushing options for the toilet. Pulsating, front cleansing, rear cleansing, drying (click the photo to see it larger). Quite the experience. This was for lobby guests only, they did not give hotel guests the option to test out the features in our room. Although I did have a telephone. Not sure these days who would use a telephone in the bathroom, I mean we have iPhones for that.

The last interesting bathroom adventure while in China was in a restaurant bathroom. Each stall had a “water flow sound sensor.” I was especially intrigued by this due to the nature of our conversations at work about bathroom etiquette. When you pushed the button, it made the loudest flushing sounds and would do it again if you pressed the button again. It took me a bit to figure out that the sounds were meant to cover whatever noises you were going to make while using the commode. What is not to like?