tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62245671388793110252024-03-13T15:46:26.442-07:00Miss Betsy's Tee-Tiny Tennessee KitchenA blog about returning to New England after decades in the South.betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.comBlogger776125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-9754374453334136512022-12-21T04:15:00.000-08:002022-12-21T04:15:14.360-08:00Gardening on Granite- A Blog on Wordpress<p> It has been 3 1/2 years since I left Nashville and returned to New Hampshire, the state of my youth. My blog now is "Gardening on Granite", and though it is mostly about gardening ,I plan to expand into posting during the cold months. There is much history here to talk about .Many places to visit. And of course we cook.</p><p>I have a lengthy post from 2021 about the Heritage Gardens in Sandwich, Massachusetts. This botanical garden has trial gardens for all forms of hardy hydrangeas, and there are many photos.</p><p>In the past year I have also become the gardener at a National Historic Site in Goffstown, New Hampshire. This is the old J. M. Parker General Store which now houses the Goffstown Historical Society. There are many posts and photos of the garden.</p><p>I invite anyone who might be interested to visit my new blog!</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgR6DZz8-9gAKmwP80vqaVwfxXJEhwPhDIpovOaFIw91c8O8v6P2qdRf6MuMgR-UrwauwRxrjrR9CjJP4PAqFyTZoXrv2bXW5OWacR16CIBPXNIrG081M4oaFmNPa8lISGsc3uGw1vAW9I9JgzckQ96qtSi0HZFNfXTqcly1XHIRkeppXnnIO-7-oyeQ/s4000/IMG_6850.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgR6DZz8-9gAKmwP80vqaVwfxXJEhwPhDIpovOaFIw91c8O8v6P2qdRf6MuMgR-UrwauwRxrjrR9CjJP4PAqFyTZoXrv2bXW5OWacR16CIBPXNIrG081M4oaFmNPa8lISGsc3uGw1vAW9I9JgzckQ96qtSi0HZFNfXTqcly1XHIRkeppXnnIO-7-oyeQ/s320/IMG_6850.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWvryySOIlYY1SxymYD1zo4upxzC0S4JbAS06uk0CpBQgX74oLSFNxoOi5JBGwuS6sGkvyfOMi8aYXJZQcN5eB5XtG6GqT3OvS3l_Lw5f4q8LYM6eFz590P6YpL7yV84ul1GI4FQuMDBLzQmU-ESfA7lshGwiGeK9vfHNFN0rUDkcG79I6tTfCvnXoUQ/s4000/IMG_8918.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWvryySOIlYY1SxymYD1zo4upxzC0S4JbAS06uk0CpBQgX74oLSFNxoOi5JBGwuS6sGkvyfOMi8aYXJZQcN5eB5XtG6GqT3OvS3l_Lw5f4q8LYM6eFz590P6YpL7yV84ul1GI4FQuMDBLzQmU-ESfA7lshGwiGeK9vfHNFN0rUDkcG79I6tTfCvnXoUQ/s320/IMG_8918.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-78884092515772704352019-11-24T16:17:00.003-08:002019-11-24T16:17:38.196-08:00To the reader who contacted me about Jimmy Gallager's Band-<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: arial; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 10pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">You should contact the department of Tennessee state parks and talk to them. They put up the kiosk at the entrance to the Harpeth River park off McCrory Lane in Pegram that mentions the band. I did some looking around on the Internet when I wrote this. I think Gallagher had some Vanderbilt connection as well, and had a hand in writing the Vanderbilt Commodores fight song. if memory serves. I hope this helps!</span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-1029150897416846902019-09-16T05:15:00.000-07:002019-09-22T15:49:13.998-07:00A Word to ReadersThis blog, though still on this site, now comes from the Merrimack Valley of New Hampshire. In the future I may start a new blog, but for now it stays on site here.<br />
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Update as of September 22. My new blog is <a href="https://gardeningongranite.com/">https://gardeningongranite.com</a><br />
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betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-48526830203161792272019-08-28T19:30:00.000-07:002019-08-28T19:30:43.783-07:00Natural Wood Sculptures-Great Hill, Nottingcook Forest, Bow, New HampshireAs a plant hunter and all around Seeker, I look down when I walk, and when I poked around on Great Hill for the first time I saw several fanciful creations of time and wind and weather!<br />
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A Dinosaur foot!<br />
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A Sundial.<br />
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A Starfish-<br />
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Perhaps some forms are elemental and recurring. Even eons after extinction. In the desire of human kind to tell time. In the tidal flats of the sea-<br />
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<br />betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-33750118522445868812018-08-06T10:52:00.000-07:002018-08-06T11:17:33.435-07:00Everyone Loves Fried Chicken!The dog and I walked at Edwin Warner Park early yesterday morning. People had had a picnic at one of the covered sheds the day before.<br />
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Someone small left their shoes-<br />
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And in the trash bins, fried chicken still sent its aroma out over the park, and new picnickers appeared, some just there for the food, and others for a game of beach ball.<br />
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And some for private conversation-<br />
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This is the closest I have ever come to Black Vultures. They were not shy. And they have pearly white legs!<br />
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<br />betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-76683142585734583052018-07-23T07:20:00.000-07:002018-07-23T07:20:42.886-07:00Bug HuntTo the American cockroach, Amazon Prime is the Quantas, the Acela ,that widens their world. Secreted in cardboard, they are invited into the best of homes, and they disembark with joy, and learn to hide at the first human screams.<br />
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In come the exterminators, the traps, the boxes of Borax.<br />
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Yet they persist.<br />
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Even in places that should be pristine, they skitter the halls at night. A few years back, when I worked at a rehab place down town, I would cross the skybridge over Charlotte at night to get dinner at the esteemed cafeteria at the Baptist hospital. One night as I was waiting for the elevator to dining, while I was contemplating a giant crack in the hospital's marble floor, I saw the King of Cockroaches out in the open. He was at least 3 inches long, and he was fast, but I was younger then, and I gave him a fatal stomp. Perhaps his descendants fear that I will come back one night, with vengeance. But I do not go downtown anymore. Now any one who lived in the last half of the last century, if they worked in hospitals, must have heard the jokes about the huge roaches at Cook County (Or was it Bellevue? With urban legends, who knows?) These cockroaches were faster then the tube systems, and more reliable, and the hospital drafted them to carry specimens to the lab, at speed!<br />
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Now, I will even buy hairpins from Amazon, and the postman and UPS are always at the door. The possibilities for cockroaches in my apartment are enticing. I am a reluctant dishwasher, the dog does not always finish off his kibble, and there is debris everywhere .<br />
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How safe they must feel! I stalk them with neither slipper, nor rolled up newspaper.But when I see one ,I know that I will find his carcass on the floor in the morning, and his death costs me no more than several thousands of dollars a year in litter and Tasty Treasures canned cat food, and hair balls vomited on my imported cotton tablecloth from Provence.<br />
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For I have a small indoor pride of half-breed Siamese cats, and they are as terrifying to me as they are to the roaches, since their two pursuits are the nightly Bug Hunt and the smashing of antique olive dishes.<br />
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To the roaches they are as fatal and relentless as the lions of Tsavo. The pride hunts at night, and when I go into the kitchen ,I will see them crouched and waiting, for they have sensed something under the stove, and they will not be deterred.<br />
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I find the cracked brown cockroach in the morning, Doubtless the Siamese would prefer field mice, but the mice do not dare come through these walls. To the cats the mice would be as desirable as an antelope, but they must settle for baby jackals instead.<br />
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The nightly Bug Hunt is not only for cockroaches. The weatherstripping on my foyer door is not perfect, and the cats will wait on the cool tile, watching for June Bugs that bumble in under the door, seeking light.<br />
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And their pursuit of bugs is even more adventurous when they start going aerial, and chasing flies.<br />
These cats always get their bug.<br />
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The moral of this is that cats are the best bug exterminators known. Get one or two. The cockroaches will be destroyed.<br />
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As will your sofa, your books, and your apartment-betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-72047547385185450092017-01-04T15:10:00.001-08:002017-01-04T15:10:54.111-08:00Penny BooksA penny is close to free,which is why I buy books on Amazon, where older cookbooks and out of fashion fiction can be had cheaply.<br />
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But since the bookseller must make a profit,even the most slender sized paperback costs $3.99 to ship,which brings a penny book up to four bucks even. I do not know what book rate shipping costs,but I do know it cannot be much, and one is not paying for speedy delivery. Penny books, and even not a penny books from third party sellers, ship on turtle time, and after a while one can feel like the young Ronnie Howard character in "The Music Man" awaiting the Wells Fargo wagon-<br />
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I could pay 11.99 and get my book shipped "free" on Amazon Prime, but a book is not an emergency ration. I should be able to wait. If I am inpatient I can track the order, and be comforted that three days ago the book landed in Little Rock, though no one knows where it is now.<br />
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Amazon Prime delivers in two days. Except when they don't, In November I ordered a cookbook about cast iron skillet baking. Two days later, according to my mailman, the book was in the mailbox.<br />
But it wasn't. Not that day, not that week,not that month. I kept calling the post office, that most passive aggressive of government entities, and gave up after they told me to file a report. I suspected that my mailman had tossed the book into a ditch rather than deliver it to a deadbeat who was constantly receiving certified threat letters from the IRS.<br />
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One month to the day the cookbook had been stuffed into a phantom mailbox, the book showed up at my door. I guess that exonerates my mailman,who I really think should be grateful that he spends his days having something to deliver,since we all now know that Amazon is the only thing keeping the USPS in business.<br />
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Back to the difference between penny and free-<br />
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One can find free books in the discard bins at Mackay books, but who wants 20 year old math textbooks?<br />
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Estate and yard sales do not dare charge more than two or three dollars a book,so great is their horror at the prospect of the unsold-<br />
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And junk shops! One would think books one stop away from the landfill would be reasonable. Yet the other day, at The Little Thrift Shop here in Bellevue, a shop that is a towering pile of unknowable junk, they would not budge on a slightly mildewed copy of Ackroyd's 5 pound biography of Charles Dickens. " It cost me a dollar a pound,though they threw in the mold for free-betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-86171181322222627282017-01-02T04:51:00.001-08:002017-01-02T04:51:24.651-08:00ReturningMiss Betsy's blog will return this week after a lengthy hiatus. Good news for Russian and Ukrainian spammers and Spam bots who are my most devoted visitors!<div>
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New years greetings from "Diva", a long-haired Lilac point Siamese throwback, whose mother is a feral porch cat.</div>
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Greetings as well from this chic poster girl in her Mardi Gras finery. I found her at The Little Thrift Shop here in Bellevue. One can find anything at that shop. Dried baby alligator heads.Used skateboards.Cowboy mannequins. A five buck copy of Peter Ackroyd's Dickens biography.</div>
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Happy New Year from Nashville,Tennessee! </div>
betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-85843499391677548982016-10-08T22:04:00.000-07:002016-10-08T22:04:02.837-07:00I weep for my countryOnce we honored dignity,restraint,honor and nobility. What has happened to us? How have we fallen so low? Read the Gettysburg Address. The words of Eisenhower,Kennedy, Martin Luther;King.Pray for this country. Pray that we not be governed by buffoons .God help us all. I have live almost 70 years, and never have felt such despair.betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-70621006334918268702016-01-24T19:38:00.000-08:002016-01-24T19:38:09.737-08:00Enough of this Crap! Where is "The X-Files"?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />By the time the program did come on this little tom cat named Tenacious had retired for the night.<br />
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betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-21847924673779124232015-06-11T17:25:00.001-07:002015-06-11T17:25:59.130-07:00Leading the Precarian Life-Bellevue,TennesseeI bought Guy Standing's "The Precariat-The New Dangerous Class" last week,for I am a Precarian myself,living an iffy life on the financial edge in the stodgy and declining suburb of Bellevue,thirteen miles from Nashville's downtown.<br />
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My neighbors are precarians as well.<br />
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The 83 year old who goes out to work as a courier at three in the morning. The Canadian woman once a ballerina,now a waitress,hoping for a break as a songwriter. She told me a few weeks ago,in a brief parking lot encounter (right after she informed me that Mr Gerald,another neighbor, had been taken back home by his family because of dementia) that she was frightened all the time.<br />
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Who is not?<br />
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My job at the Little Big House evaporated in January when Tennessee decided to close that pleasant little prison to save money. Now I work at a high end local nursing home as needed,or PRN as we call it in Nurseville. Wednesday Social Security declined to send me my monthly money because I made 1300 hundred dollars more than I should have in 2014. $18,000 dollars,I earned. Three thousand more than I am allowed. This means another trip to the Quick Cash with their 300% interest rate so I do not get tossed from my apartment.<br />
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In the 90's when I and many others made a decent living,my suburb of Bellevue had a mall with a Mondi store,a Williams-Sonoma,,a Dillards.<br />
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But the mall withered and died,and has been vacant for almost 20 years. In the past two years the Circuit City closed,and a non-denominational church took its place. The ToysRUs gave up last winter,and is being replaced by a Goodwill Superstore with a job training center.<br />
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Some people in Bellevue are mortified the we have attracted a Goodwill and not a Nordstrom or a Whole Foods. But what do they expect when Bellevue cannot find enough customers to keep a Sonic open?<br />
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The Precariat are us.<br />
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Some industry has moved in,however. The Old Age industry. Bellevue is littered with Senior housing,assisted living,Memory Care facililities,regular nursing homes, with NHC opening another big one out near the Loveless Cafe sometime in 2016.<br />
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If you do not believe this suburb skews old, show up at Kroger on Senior discount Wednesday- the day Social Security sends out the money. And the people you see,the codgers like me, are the lucky ones, for we are still free to roam,unlike the Caged at the homes I listed,who wear Wanderguards on their ankles to foil escape, and who get their meds crushed and slathered with applesauce three times a day.<br />
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<br />betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-48656849870094750182015-04-14T10:29:00.000-07:002015-04-14T10:29:07.749-07:00Sentimental Favorites Seen in the Garden Yesterday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was a little girl in New England more than half a century ago, I had two bedrooms with giant lilacs outside the windows. The bushes were as big as small trees.<br />
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Not so here in Tennessee,where the French hybrids and Persian lilacs grow better than the common lilacs of the North country.<br />
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The tree peony and the lilac do not bloom for long,but what a joy they are when they do-<br />
betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-63974148383040053262015-03-29T09:28:00.000-07:002015-03-29T09:29:51.579-07:00No Good Deed Goes Unpunished<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A while back I posted about the Siamese hybrid kittens I rescued, and at about that same time I contacted a local Pet Rescue about giving them three of the kittens. I thought it strange that this shelter provided no telephone number and had no physical existence,though a local pet store employee told me that the shelter's animals were kept in foster homes.<br />
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I sent a contact person photos of the cats, and received an email from her exclaiming how beautiful the cats were, and what I had to do to prepare them for "intake".<br />
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I would be responsible for neutering the cats,paying for multiple tests and shots,paying for physical exams,de-worming,grooming,an anal exam,flea treatment,and nail clipping. In other words a possible 600 or 700(or more) dollars per cat so I could GIVE them to an organization that would then collect a couple hundred dollars as an "Adoption Fee".<br />
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Does this seem strange?<br />
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If volunteers are caring for these animals,if there is no physical shelter to maintain,no phone to pay for and if they do not provide veterinary care, where do their tax free received donations and adoption fees go? <br />
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I find this strange-betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-9093935185329885742015-02-27T07:36:00.000-08:002015-02-27T07:36:52.574-08:00Automotive TyrannyWhen Americans turn 50, they receive an AARP invitation.. When they face their 65th birthday, their mailboxes are full of Medicare insurance supplement offers. And when their car odometer hits 100,000, they learn the new language of automotive disintegration.<br />
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Don't know what an actuator is? You will. It follows the alternator to perdition, and once hundreds have been tossed at both these parts, the starter will start screaming as well. I know this because I am now a beggar without a car. My neighbor is taking me to work tonight because I cannot depend on greedy Nashville cabbies to get me there. They do not come out to the provinces on weekend nights.<br />
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A starter, one would think, would be no big trouble. $100 for the starter,$100 for the labor.<br />
Even I can afford that.<br />
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But not in Toyota Tundra land. In my truck the starter is under the engine, which must be lifted out of the truck for five hours and 500 bucks worth of labor. With tax and a tow I am looking at 700 dollars to pay a penalty for stupid design. Who was the idiot who planned this? Was common sense under anesthesia? On vacation?<br />
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Cars rule our lives for the worse, and anyone who thinks their worries are over when the car is paid off learns that the car is never paid off. I have paid out at least 4000 grand in repairs in the last two years.<br />
And that is not figuring in the interest in loans and the late rent penalties that clank along behind the vehicle like tin cans tied to the bumper-<br />
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<br />betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-34181391001002270882015-02-26T06:32:00.002-08:002015-02-26T06:32:45.804-08:00Why Toilet Paper is Provided Only By Request In My House-<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-89671178080879583482015-02-26T05:44:00.000-08:002015-02-26T05:44:07.549-08:00Italian Sausage and Kidney Bean StewWhen I dug through my pantry this week, I found not one can of cannellini beans. I had used the last of the beans to make a bread and bean soup, and now had only some black beans and red beans left.<br />
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Perhaps chili, I thought,but discovered I had no ground beef either. What I did have was a pound of Italian sausage and seven ounces of roasted Piquillo peppers that I had frozen. With the addition of a few cloves of garlic and 1/2 sauteed yellow onion I created a tasty and unexpected stew.<br />
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1 pound of Italian sausage-hot or mild,according to your taste.<br />
1/2 medium yellow onion,diced and sauteed till soft and golden.<br />
2 cloves garlic,chopped.<br />
2 15 ounce cans red kidney beans<br />
Salt to taste(used when cooking onions).<br />
4 or 5 red roasted peppers,chopped.<br />
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After sauteing the onion till soft,crumble the sausage and brown it a bit, stirring it in with the onions. Add chopped garlic and the kidney beans. Add the chopped peppers. Cook the stew for about 1/2 hour, though an hour helps the flavors penetrate the beans better. Cook over medium heat. <br />
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This should serve four. I ate it with corn bread muffins.<br />
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<br />betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-41260569196831896412015-02-21T03:24:00.000-08:002015-02-21T03:24:46.968-08:00The Destructo-Masters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here they are. Resting from their labors. Soon they will wake, and start their day, and the dogs,plants, and I will be afraid.<br />
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My Uncle Jimmy once said that when you have kids or animals you don't have anything else, and he was right, though I give adult dogs a pass on this. They may shed on the couch, and pee the rug while you are off working a 12 hour shift, but dogs have a sense of shame. They show remorse. They do not smash Limoges. They do not smash flower pots on the carpet and then use the dirt as kitty litter. <br />
Dogs do not go directly from the litter box to the bathroom sink or the kitchen counter. They do not toss cookbooks off the kitchen shelves.<br />
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The mother of these heathens is a community cat named Brushy. She had these kittens in October, and when I saw they were not ordinary ferals, and after a raccoon tore one of their siblings to bits, I took pity on them and brought them inside to pursue civilized life. I thought I might keep them, but have revised my thinking and am looking for dupes to take most of them off my hands.<br />
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The top tom in the neighborhood did not father these cats. He is a big nasty tuxedo cat with a Hitlerian mustache. I call him "Oreo". He is father to the porch cat kittens whose mothers have no standards. They will hook up with any body.<br />
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Oreo is beneath Brushy, who is upwardly mobile and found herself an uptown man-a Siamese.<br />
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These kittens are beautiful. They are decorative, which is a good thing because if you adopt them you will have to put away all your other decorations if you want to keep them out of the trash. You need not worry that these cats will get into your purse and chew up your credit cards, but you will have to lock up the paper towels and the toilet paper.betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-39223714733090261682015-02-19T14:55:00.000-08:002015-02-19T15:00:58.830-08:00Our Kind of GuysI was cooking tonight while the four o'clock news came on on our classical music station. I try to avoid the news, but I did not succeed tonight, and I heard one of our governments ever present idiots say that in order to fight radical extremists we had to find "more moderate rebels".<br />
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I believe this was an oxymoron spoken by a moron, for when have rebels ever been moderate?<br />
To paraphrase George Santayana, those who do not remember history are doomed to be Americans, and our history is rife with rebels we thought were controllable and would be our guys.Saddam Hussein was our guy until he wasn't, and look what our generous interference has wrought there. To fight the Russians in Afghanistan, we chose Osama Bin Ladin as one of our guys. We are always trying to depose leaders we do not like on every continent, and then are surprised by the snakes who slither out of the rocks to help us, then turn on us.<br />
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Iran,Panama. Vietnam. I do not suppose anyone remembers them. I suppose we will be looking for "moderate rebels" in Nigeria next. This is the danger of being a people who do not care about history, like the Americans interviewed on Martin Luther King Day who thought King had died peacefully in his sleep and had been the first African American on the moon.<br />
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<br />betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-18883309196756539422015-02-18T17:58:00.002-08:002015-02-18T17:58:51.780-08:00Snow DayThe Southerner is baffled by snow and ice. I looked out of my apartment this morning, and I saw a young man on his hands and knees taking a photo of our snow covered,ice encrusted parking lot.<br />
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Ah the young! They see an ice spectacle. We oldies see a chance we might break our hips.<br />
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The Southerner thinks that SUVs and four wheel drive do not have to conform to the laws of nature. In his sport vehicle he is invincible! He is safe at any speed. That is why photos on the local news of SUVs off in the ditch and littering the median strip are so predictable.<br />
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When I was a child in New Hampshire, snowstorms meant hearing the sounds of tire chains rattling away. I have never heard them here.When I lived in Connecticut, 6 inches of snow closed schools. In New Hampshire you only stayed home if the boiler blew up or the roof fell in.<br />
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In Nashville people do not take snow days, they take snow weeks. This is because nothing smaller than a state highway gets plowed. Neighborhood roads are only passable when the damn stuff melts.<br />
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And I dialed Amazon this morning to order snow grippers to attach to my shoes. They are certainly not for the fashionable Nashville belles who would rather freeze than wear a bulky coat, or any spike other than a stiletto on their shoes..<br />
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I do not care. I am still thinking about my hips. I received my medicare card a week or so, and that has concentrated my mind wonderfully.betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-66969370792589706352015-02-18T03:24:00.001-08:002015-02-18T03:28:12.065-08:00A New PostBeing tired, I inadvertently published a new poem on my other blog and I am not clever enough to move it. So here is the address<br />
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thenashvillegardener.blogspot.com betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-67857502069611811192014-12-06T17:06:00.000-08:002014-12-06T17:06:01.744-08:00A True StoryWhen I first started this blog I wrote a fanciful post about my dogs playing on my computer while I was at work, and while they had the run of the house.<br />
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It was fantasy, but the following is not.<br />
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The other morning I went to the kitchen, and I left my computer open to some opinion site.<br />
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I made my coffee, but was startled to hear loud,bouncy, tinny music coming from my work room. I assumed it was some ad that had come on.<br />
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But when I went to check, I found the Ragdoll kitten horde I now am stuck with wandering around on the desk my computer sits on.<br />
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Bored with catnip mice and squeaky toys, tired of shredding the couch, they had gone online and typed in Youtube.<br />
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And what had they chosen to watch?<br />
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"Everything is Awesome", an animated music video from "The Lego Movie". I would post it here, but I fear I might violate copyright law and end up in federal prison.<br />
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"The Lego Movie".<br />
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So much for feline discrimination and good taste. But then they are just kittens. betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-29614560788314573642014-11-13T08:46:00.000-08:002014-11-13T08:46:46.254-08:00The Beagle Sonnet- A poem in Fourteen Ridiculous Lines,Which give new meaning to the word "doggerel"!<br />
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A nose with four legs defines a beagle.<br />
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And though his lineage is regal,<br />
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(Elizabeth 1 kept a slew),<br />
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This might not be the dog for you.<br />
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For a beagle's hearing is selective.<br />
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He hears only what he wants to hear,<br />
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And drives his owner to curses and invective.<br />
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A beagle does only what he wants to do.<br />
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Caring nothing for what's convenient for you-<br />
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He wants only to sniff, and sleep, and snack.<br />
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Nirvana for him is a rabbit's track.<br />
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And pity the owner, trapped in a car,<br />
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Who drives by the verge where the rabbits are,<br />
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And has his ears blistered by yowl and roar.<br />
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betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-33656109624773285982014-11-06T08:06:00.001-08:002014-11-06T08:06:48.535-08:00Seen Today in Southwest NashvilleConfined in my auto wanderings by lack of money, I try to keep an eye on the unusual and the bizarre close to home.<br />
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Interesting things are everywhere , if one takes the time to look.<br />
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Message on a bumper sticker on a late model smallish white car I noticed in the Bellevue Kroger parking lot-<br />
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"BILLY JACK'S TATTOOS. NOT JUST FOR SAILORS AND WHORES ANYMORE!"betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-63989808550287178802014-11-05T15:21:00.002-08:002014-11-05T16:18:48.831-08:00One Of These Old Politicians is a Dead Ringer For A Guess What!I saw this picture, and while I have no interest in the man on the far left or the one on the right, I am struck by the one in the middle.<br />
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Now John McCain and whoever the other guy is may have evolved from ape like ancestors, but it is clear to me that Mitch O'Connell has descended from Box Turtles! What a striking resemblance!<br />
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<br />betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6224567138879311025.post-40463445182233059192014-10-27T09:47:00.000-07:002014-10-28T01:05:27.562-07:00The Last of Their Kind?<br />
When I saw this Monarch butterfly at the garden in Green Hills, I took these photos, for the way the Sixth Great Extinction is progressing, there may be no monarchs next year. I have seen only three this year, whereas ten years ago as I drove over the causeway from the mainland to St. George Island ,Florida, I saw thousands drifting out over the bridge and the sea.<br />
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<br />betsyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08777978398680764604noreply@blogger.com2