Sunday, August 28, 2016

An early fall

Well guys, we made it to the last Sunday of August. August is always a difficult month for me because it's not September. Once the July holidays are over, all I can think about is fall. Some years are worse than others, and this year was worse.

But it's practically fall right now. The meteorological season starts on Thursday (September 1), and astronomical fall starts in a few weeks. But yesterday I went on my first trail run since my twisted ankle--and look at what I saw:



(I also ran into a swarm of dragonflies, which is really more Augusty than autumny.
)

And if those aren't enough to convince you, look at what we made yesterday:


One of my favorite days is the day we make grape juice from the grapes growing in our backyard. I start putting out Halloween things in mid-September, and we usually have our Halloween stuff up when we make grape juice. Sometimes we make it close to my birthday at the end of the month. I thought last year was early when we made it in early September. But I think this is the first year we ever made it in August. Sipping on steaming grape juice straight from the juicer just brings happy memories of autumn.

So. Grape juice = autumn. Ergo, it is autumn. Boom.

(But I'm still going to enjoy popsicles for a few more days.)

I thought I'd try something new with our green grapes, so I made this grape tart.
It gets a 9/10 for cuteness. But it only gets a 4/10 for taste and texture, because it was basically eating cooked grapes, and these grapes aren't the best anyway. At least the crust was good.

At this time of year, the only baked goods I can have are items made from fruit from our own yard. We have apricots, plums, and grapes, and my sister has a cherry tree. So this summer, I have made the following items with our free fruit: cherry crisp, cherry-chocolate sorbet that didn't set up, cherry strudel, cherry salsa, apricot crisp, apricot meringue pie, roasted apricot and onion salsa, apricot jam (actually my mom made that), apricot omelet, apricot pudding, plum-rosemary upside-down cake, roasted plum and pudding tart, plum crisp, plum cobbler, grape tart, and grape juice (my mom "made" that one too). I might be missing some. That cookbook I got for my birthday last year, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman, has proved very helpful. I don't know whether I'll squeeze anything else out of the remaining produce, other than some more juice.

This week I fell "victim" to the power of advertising. I saw a commercial and I just had to have the t-shirt the guy was wearing, so I ordered it. But the commercial wasn't even about t-shirts. It was about water conservation. Which is even more important, as my groundwater class three years ago taught me.

And so, with the power of advertising, I am going to praise the movie Kubo and the Two Strings, which I saw this week. I think it was only the second movie I saw in a theater this year. It's made by Laika--I saw Boxtrolls and half of Coraline; never saw Paranorman. But I'm going to venture that this one was their best. So. Good. And it's also the cleanest. It is somewhat scary, but there are no bad words or gross things in it. Beautiful.

I started by talking about leaves and ended up talking about movies. Oh well.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Gerontology

At my work, there are a lot of senior missionaries. Most of them are just what you'd expect them to be. Some of them seem like professionals even though they are just volunteers. And some of them are, well, quirky. I'm not saying anything about whether they are good or bad, smart or not, or anything. I know they are all wonderful people and probably quite intelligent.But they have their oddities.

There is one in the cubicle across from mine. I don't really talk with him, because he doesn't seem to be into conversation, and the few times I've talked with him, I've had a hard time understanding him. He kind of has a Jimmy Stewart manner of speaking, kind of mumbling and stammering.

When I started there, I thought, "It's cool that he still volunteers when he's so old." He appears to be in his 90s. I heard another missionary say, "He looks like he's 114." But then I heard this old missionary tell someone he was only in his early to mid 70s. I was shocked! He's a decade younger than my grandparents but looks a decade older. He has typical old features--wrinkles, baldness, gray hair, hearing aids--but they seem too advanced for someone his age. In addition to those, he has scoliosis, so he is hunched over badly, and he has that foggy look in his eyes you'd expect from blind people, but he's not blind. He's also, well, very flatulent. Every time he gets up or walks down the hall. I'm embarrassed for him.

Since we're just an open area with cubicles, we hear everything everyone else is saying. And he has a few set expressions he says over and over:

  • "You dumb thing! Arr!" He mumbles this one the most, channeling his inner pirate when he gets frustrated with his computer, which is very often. I'm not sure what he gets so frustrated with. Maybe his computer is as slow as my work computer.
  • "That's wonderful." Wonderful is apparently his favorite adjective.
  • "My goodness! You're here!" Usually followed by "that's wonderful." He usually says this when someone stops by his desk, but once he said it to me when we met at the stairwell. I found it an odd response.
  • "You came to see me!" He says this when he doesn't say "My goodness you're here." 
  • "That's nice of you." He says this as often as most people say thank you.
  • "Good morning." He says this when he answers his work phone (which has a very loud ringer), even if it's 5 p.m. I think he's usually talking to his wife, but I don't know if that's always the case. I was shocked the one time I heard him say "Good afternoon," because I didn't think it was part of his vocabulary.
His wife also volunteers there some days, and assuming she's close in age to him, they both must be drinking from the Fountain of Aging, because she is very wrinkly and a little hunched over. But she doesn't have gray hair, because she dyes it orange. One day she was wearing a SpongeBob Christmas t-shirt with a sweater and skirt--and it wasn't even Christmas!

Now, this week, there was a presentation at work about social media use in Africa. His wife came to his desk and said, "They're having a presentation on black people." I found that an exceedingly strange thing to say. I mean, there were some African kids on the announcements, but you think they would just have a presentation on black people? And then she said, "Do you want to go to the Negro thing?" If "Negro" is even what she said.

A minute later, he said to his wife, "You should have two necks." An unusual thing to say, but I figured he was going to say something about necklaces. I wasn't prepared for his follow-up:
"All the better for necking."
Either he forgot that we can hear everything, or he doesn't care.

Old people have been on my mind this week. Especially when they are awkward on the internet.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

August awkwardness

I'm in for some changes this week. A year ago, I quit working for my boss at the Church History Department and began working on a different project. A year later, my time on that project has come to an end.

In June, I had a fortuitous adventure. I went up to Mueller Park for a run, and my old boss just happened to be at the trailhead at the same time I was. I talked with him for the first few switchbacks before I ran off. The following week, he called me and offered me to work for him again, and I accepted--so this week I begin working on his projects again. While I've loved my projects of the past year, especially the opportunity to work with more people, I'm excited to get back to his projects. He credits that happenstance meeting on the trail as a catalyst that made him consider me again, and the timing was right--although I do wonder if he would have thought of me even if we hadn't met that day.

In frivolous fruit news, the first grapes of the season are getting ripe, and our plums are the best I can remember. And to think I didn't used to like August, the month of monsoonal thunderstorms, fresh fruit, and popsicles and shave ice!

Since 2009, I have been a big supporter of local singer-songwriter Cherie Call. I thought I had all of her songs (not counting hymn covers), but recently I learned about three I don't have, so as a super fan, I still have two more I need to get. Unfortunately, they're only available on girly, churchy compilation CDs that I don't particularly care to have. But I guess I have to get them, because the only other way is iTunes, and I've heard horror stories about iTunes.

Anyway, she recently teamed up with another local singer/songwriter, Lyndy Butler, to produce a "children's" album. It's not up to par with her previous work. But yesterday she had an album release concert at This Is the Place State Park, so to be a supportive fan, I took my family to see it (my mom is also a fan, thanks to me). The park was technically closed, but we walked around and saw a one-antlered deer.
Anyway, the concert was, well, awkward. It was very low attendance. I've seen Cherie Call, I don't know, about a dozen times, and this was the worst attendance I'd ever seen (except for that one time at a radio station on a weekday morning), even though there were two of them performing. I had the feeling that we were some of the only, if not the only, people there who didn't know the performers personally. So the low attendance was awkward, and depressing. But the show didn't actually get started for twenty minutes, because they were off feeding Jimmy John's and cookies to their families. And then they decided to start the night with another singer. I'm not going to humiliate him by calling him by name (also, I don't remember it), but he was not very good. His first song was all falsetto--and not a deliberate Adam Levine, Jason Derulo, or even Frankie Valli falsetto, but a genuine "I wrote a song that's too high for me" voice. It was painful. He also sang some educational songs (he's a teacher) that were the kinds of songs you'd teach a class to help them remember, not perform in a concert. But his stage presence was just awkward. Imagine if I were on stage at a concert. That's how awkward it was. I kept hoping for his turn to be over, but he sang five or six songs.

The rest of the concert was good, but I just felt bad for them for how low the attendance it was. It was certainly uncomfortable. But I felt better about being there since there were so few people, so I could show support. It was a great venue and a beautiful evening. Just not a great circumstance.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Fruit Games

It's August now. You know what that means? Time to tell you all about how I used to hate August but I don't anymore! I don't really like August's heat or lack of holidays, or that all my insecurities were taunting me this week--but I do love August's thunderstorms and laid back atmosphere. Sure beats January.

Once upon a time I was a missionary, and my favorite form of humor was scriptures taken out of context. This one sums up this time of year quite well:
Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.
In mid to late July, and lasting into August, we always have apricots. I think this year we have an unusually high number. They're not as sweet this year, but they're still good to put in other things. So far we have had apricot crisp, apricot omelets, apricot jam, apricot salsa, and apricot meringue pie.
(At this time of year, the only desserty things I can have are popsicles and their cousins, and things made with our own fruit.) Unfortunately, I have to park under the apricot tree, resulting in a very messy car.

In August, our plums turn ripe. Of all our free-growing plants, the plums are best for simply eating. I like grapes more for juice, but the plums are the best by themselves. This year's crop seems to be unusually good (unlike the apricots). I don't know whether I'll make anything with them simply because they're so wonderful plain.

Now, we are not good farmers, gardeners, or hipsters, so we aren't good at growing things. We have a little vegetable garden in the back that's not doing very well (thanks in part to those pesky deer). So I'm grateful that these trees just take care of themselves and we don't have to do anything, except maybe water the lawn.

The Olympics started this week. It seems ironic to me that the summer Olympics take place in a place where it's winter. It makes me feel bad for the southern hemisphere. I mean, why do the summer Olympics have to take place in July or August? Why can't they take place in January in South America, especially since they only happen every four years (two if you count Winter)?

I halfheartedly watch the Olympics, mostly because I feel it's my patriotic duty to do so. I don't watch sports any other time. Even the worst Olympian could beat me in any event, winter or summer.

It got me thinking about being American. In many ways I do feel a bit xenophobic. I mean, if China does well at something, I think, "Yeah, but they're communists." If Mexico does something well, I think, "Yeah, but they have a massive drug problem." Sometimes I'm a terrible human being. But I really do think the United States of America is the best country around.

But I don't feel like I can say I'm proud to be American. I can be proud of miles I run or books I author, but being American for me isn't an accomplishment. I never chose to be American, at least not that I can recall. The only people who chose to be Americans are immigrants.

And why should I be proud when Americans win Olympic events? I didn't do anything to make them win. No effort on my part. None. If I were an American's coach or friend, then I might feel proud, but not as an idle spectator. While the athletes were off training their guts out, I was eating cookies and wasting time on the internet. (I have found more satisfaction in life the less time I've spent on the internet.)

There's also the issue that we make it easy to be a good athlete. (Well, not easy, but more likely.) Sure, we have the best swimmer in the world. But we are the land of opportunity. I guess it would be much more impressive if someone from some poverty-stricken third-world country won. While I was getting my tires changed yesterday, I watched the beach volleyball game between the U.S. and Qatar. America was much better than Qatar. And those playing from Qatar weren't even native Qataris. One was from Brazil and one was from Africa (Google's letting me down on the country). If Qatar were actually good, it would be astounding. But America being better? Meh.

But I love America. Even if I did nothing about it.

*The title from my post is an allusion to Google's Doodle Fruit Games, which I thought was appropriate because this blog was about fruit and the Olympics.