There's no accounting for . . .

taste and To each his own.

Two sayings close in meaning, used almost interchangeably. They are what we say when we want to compare our taste--always flawless--and our endless good sense with someone else's who, in our mind, falls far short of our high standard in some area, or maybe all areas, of life.

We may not always mean them as a put-down, but they carry the weight of one anyway. I am sorry about that as I use them today when describing what is in a neighbor's yard. They imply that what I saw I would never do. And it is true.

It's just this.

My neighbor has put a fake well in his front yard with a large pot of fake fall flowers in the well opening and fake autumn leaves glued or stapled all around the roof of the well.

I found it a bit curious, because it really is autumn. Real leaves and flowers of the season abound. See, this is the part where I say "there is no accounting for taste," because I always prefer the real to the fake, especially in flowers. It's true, the real ones will be gone one day, and the fake foliage will remain. So maybe that's the why of it. You never have to care for the unreal, and they will live, well no, they will persist long after the real are gone--that is until some bird begins pecking away at them for nest-building material. Wait, Carol, you're taking this too far.

As to the fake well, I can only guess he won the thing somewhere or bought it at a yard sale. Again, to each his own.

The Lipstick Walk and Such

Just home from a walk in this 30+ degree weather, like 34. Makes a person move along. And that's not a bad thing. It's hard for me to go out when it's below 40, but I did it. Actually, the day is a beauty, just cold.

I walked over to Walgreen's in search of a lipstick brush. They had one, only one. Doesn't anyone use those any more? So I bought it, even though it cost me $7.35, because that's what I went looking for. Stupid to come home without it. But I'll gather it up and take it with me as I go here or there to buy tomatoes and tomato sauce. If I see a cheaper one, I'll drive this one back to Walgreen's.

Yes, I really hated paying that for a measly little brush. That's $7.35. Probably cost less than two dollars to make the thing, package it, and get it to the store.

Apparently, I'm willing to pay for gasoline. Go figure.

Oh. Good thing I got home when I did. It's snowing. I said, snowing.

Fall

October is nearing its close, and my front yard trees still have all their leaves. They are only now beginning to turn. Across the street, Contas have a bare ash. The Bakers' honey locusts next door are dropping their autumn offerings in my back yard. All over town trees are glorious in their Fall colors and are well into laying down their red and orange and yellow leaves. But not my front yard trees.

Every year my trees are slow giving up their green. Is it something about my yard? Is it me? Oh well, one of these mornings, but it may be into November, I'll get up to find they have finally let go and remembered to do their Fall thing. Then my lawn will be covered in yellow.

All of this is not a complaint.

But it reminds me that a few years ago Senske killed three lovely Rose Hill Ash and three aspen trees, that’s six trees, in my front yard. The dormant oil machine malfunctioned—that’s what they told me, anyway, but not until I called them—and covered the trees, lawn, sidewalk, and driveway with a lot of thick, heavy oil. Soon after, the trees died.

This is a complaint.

We planted those trees when we built the house. I drew a pattern for them, and that’s where we put them. They were my front yard pride.

I did get the Senske people to come and clean up my sidewalk and driveway, after I convinced them I had not sprayed oil on my own property in an effort to make it look horrible.

Why wouldn't the technician have left me a note or something? Seems only right. But he didn't.

It took a tiny bit more convincing, but, eventually, Tom, of Senske, agreed the company should replace my trees, too. The Senske guys came and replaced three of the trees, the ash, although Tom never could find Rose Hill Ash—that’s what he told me, anyway—so I have some other kind of ash tree out there.

They didn’t put new aspen trees in. Tom thought it not a good idea to have aspens here because “this is the wrong altitude for them.” Never mind that the trees had done very well for twelve years or that the aspen near the front porch was huge and flourishing. All of which translates to: I lost six trees but recovered only three.

And I let them off the hook about it. Why is that? Hmmm. Maybe I’ll have to write another post to address that subject.

Still, every year I receive several invitations from Senske to let them care for my lawn and trees. I don’t let them.

I Think It's Finished

The River

Carol Schiess

A voice calls across the river,

but the water disconnects,

carries the words away.

The early morning sun spreads

light through shore trees but

cannot discover the ducks,

their passage swift on the water’s surface.

I mark the river’s speed, its darkness,

water lines from other years,

wonder what it has passed by,

what might lie at its bottom.

At the river’s edge, chicory grew

thick in August, waving its blue flowers

as I passed, but it’s late September now.

A few weeks more,

the blue will be gone from my walks,

like some people from my life,

like their faces, their stories of long love

or unexpected death.

I look at the water to find one staying spot,

but the river cannot hold;

its appointment is to move, to run,

tell a new story moment by moment.

I turn towards home, a familiar path,

but I may stop for rest at the log bench,

climb a neighbor’s worm fence,

or take another way.

Eating Out, Part 4 and final, probably, unless you want to add something

Look, I didn't make this stuff up.

No, it didn't all happen last week. It happened over time but not over 42 years' time.

And, no, I don't scrutinize my food when it's placed in front of me. I assume all is well, but maybe I should not make that assumption. I repeat, these things are real; they happen. I could write much more, but I'll share only a couple of stories here. If this stuff bothers you, perhaps you should stop reading right here.

First, the people I have written about are my family members and a friend or two. I suggest we're not the only folks on the planet finding foreign materials, living, dead, or hairy, in food we've paid money for. And we don't always complain. Sometimes, especially if the hair we find in our food is blonde, we pull it out and figure it could be one of ours. Cory did that just last week.

But some hairs a person just shouldn't have to deal with when eating. Take Jeff's recent experience with a salad and a "hair" at Wendy's. Eating happily enough, he paused to look at the bite he was about to take because it just did not seem right. What he found was something that had likely been swept up from the floor--sizeable lint ball with longish hair attached. Now how could that get into his salad in a place that is careful about the food it serves? I ask you.

Even a small insect we have been known to overlook or pick out of the food, if we can catch it. But some things must be spoken of, and so we do occasionally speak of them to those who are in the business to serve food to us, their paying customers. But it doesn't always bring satisfaction or even an apology. See phyllis's comment about the salad at Olive Garden. The server was defensive and maybe even lying.

And here is another brief report. Lola went with friends to The Ram, a popular Boise eatery, where they waited for a seat, waited for a server, waited for service, and waited a long time for food. When the food finally came it was cold. Lola and friends spoke to the manager, telling him they had waited a long time, telling him their food was cold. His response? An apology? No. Sympathy at least? No. Instead, a rather snooty, "Well, did you ask to have it warmed up?"

Figure the logic there.

I heard from one of my students a few years ago--she worked at an expensive and trendy Boise night spot--what some servers and cooks there do when their food is complained about. And it gives a person pause. But when I worked for a time in a small cafe, we never took revenge in any way. Of course, we got few complaints. The food was wonderful and we were careful. That was our business, after all. And I do not suggest that the places I have named would do anything gross or harmful to someone's food on purpose, like spitting in your soup, or worse. No, I do not suggest it.

But I name names here because, hey, why not? If these eating establishments serve earwigs, fish fins, bits of glass, or hair--and I could go on--then they should be known for doing so.

Here's to meals at home for a while.

Eating Out, Part 3

Betty's Coke had a cockroach sort of floating in it, tucked in among the ice cubes.

"How big?" I asked, not that it matters. I mean, is a huge cockroach worse than a big one? They're all too big to make you happy about finding one in your drink.

"About medium size," she answered, "and it was dead." Not sure that matters either.

She had taken the lid off. "It was a mall food court," she said. "And it was Texas, so you kind of have to do that." She and Michelle dumped their lunch in the trash and escaped without eating.

I've eaten out in Texas. And maybe because of Betty, I checked my food at the Austin Chili's and discovered that the salad I ordered--dressing on the side--was sitting in about 1/2 cup of water. . . . I guess it was water. I hope it was water.

Complaining got me an apology from the manager and a gift certificate for another go at it. I wasn't satisfied, although I'm not sure what more I wanted.

But it isn't just Texas, and I know it's not just Chili's. But this was Chili's. In Boise.

There was this big group of flies that had congregated in a certain corner of that restaurant, where several pots of plants sat in the windows. Inside the windows, you know. My sister Janeen was visiting, a rare thing, and I took her to lunch. Our seat was with the fly congregation. I mean a lot of flies. The restaurant was crowded, so we just stayed there, but it was clear we were intruders, and the flies did not like us.

We spoke to the server and then the manager about it. He explained they aren't allowed to have fly swatters or sticky fly strips in the restaurant and are not allowed to kill the flies--Public Health regulations. Apparently, they are allowed let the flies land on customers' appetizers and entrées.

We didn't know if Public Health regulations allowed patrons to use menus, napkins, knives, or open hands to swat flies, or, in our case, swat at them, but that is what we did until we finally spied an empty table, grabbed our plates, and moved. It's a cinch the flies weren't about to move.

Yes, yes, I know. We should have walked out.

Eating Out, Part 1

There was this earwig, dead, on Lola's Hawaiian pizza at the Nampa Pizza Hut. She didn't eat it. We didn't pay for it. And we didn't go back, ever. Someone in the family, and it is rumored that it was Alyce, went back into the kitchen area and told those people they should not put dead earwigs in their pizza. Alyce was very young at the time, but that does not mean she didn't do it. Somebody had to.

Then there was this large, very strange-looking flying insect that I watched from across a restaurant dining room. And you know how it is sometimes. You just know that thing is going to fly into your food. You try to deny it. I mean, what are the chances? You're not alone in the place. But you can't really eat. All you can do is watch and wait and hope it won't happen, but when it does, you're just kind of resigned to it.

So this big bug lands in my salad--and stays there. I sent the salad back. Yes, even the server could see the bug, and the people at the next table saw it, too. They seemed quite amused by the whole thing. I was not, and I like to think I walked out on the rest of the meal, but I don't remember. This was also in Nampa, JB's.

When Richard found a bloody vein in his taco meat at Los Hermanos in Provo, he may have gagged. The blob of bread in his salsa at a Boise IHOP just made him mad. That kind of stuff always happens to him.

Patrick wanted a personal pizza at Perkins'. He got it, complete with a fish fin attached to the underside of the crust, which was explainable, I suppose, since their special that night was trout. He could not eat. Neither could his brother, Shane, because the long dark hair wrapped around his French toast--same place, same night--was not explainable.

Talk About Doing A Hard Thing

Today=Historical.

Here's why.
I finally threw away the white sweater, the one Paul brought to me from Korea 23 years ago. The one I have worn around the house nearly every day of every winter for those 23 years, because it kept me warm. (Duh.) The one some of my children grew sick of seeing many years ago and would occasionally mention that it didn't look so good. Others, I think, stopped noticing it. You know, like, it was like my skin.

The one I painted in, laundered with a piece of gum in the pocket--hence, gum on it. The one I often apologized for when folks came to the door and saw me in it, and I think some had a hard time understanding how it could be my favorite sweater. The one that over the last few years has developed holes, small at first, but they got bigger, and last night I realized that I was cold in the sweater because so much of it was no longer there.

The one I have thrown away five other times and then resurrected. Like last year.

But today there is no resurrecting. It's in a bag with other garbage, tied securely, at the bottom of the garbage can in the garage. I couldn't get it if I wanted to. I don't think.

I called Paul and told him, like a confession, I guess. He seemed only slightly moved. I thought to call Lola, but it was too early in the day for Nevada people. So she may never know.

I called Alyce and told her. She said, "What are you going to do now, Mom?" Which is, of course, the very question I'm asking myself.