What I hate about Barbara and Jim’s Garden, Part 2

It’s been awhile since I wrote the posts detailing what I like about Barbara and Jim’s Garden, and “what I hate, part 1”, but I still have my list and pictures, so I want to complete the trilogy.   I don’t think I’ll match Jim’s “Top 20 things I hate about Barbara’s Garden”, but I do have a few more to add.

I’ll group the first category into “clothing related issues”

People who garden go through a lot of clothes, particularly when its 160 degrees in the shade. Multiple changes a day aren't uncommon.

Regarding those multiple changes of clothing....it isn't a good idea to garden in your everyday clothes. You need special "gardening clothes" that generally come from the 49-cent last-chance rack at Goodwill. So that means the clothes that come off when its time to change into the gardening outfit frequently end up in interesting places.

Likewise, old disgusting clothes or shoes, never die, they just get recycled for gardening. The smellier the better. These gardening shoes wouldn't make this list if they actually stayed in the garden. But when I see them making an appearance in public, like church or in a restaurant, it makes me long for the old days where I would have simply tossed them in the trash then claimed ignorance of their whereabouts. Just call me Marcia Anthony.

The next category I will call “things I don’t have because of the garden.  Now granted, I  also have many other things that cost more money than the garden…..kids in college, nice cars, wonderful trips and vacations, pets, good food to eat, etc, etc.    But for whatever reason the garden gets blamed probably because while we’ve had all those other expenses for years, the garden is a relatively new one and it gets lumped into the “household items and other misc. stuff” category:

Do you like my big, huge, blingy-diamond?? Oh wait.....that's right, I don't HAVE a diamond ring! You see, when we got engaged, then married over 27 years ago, we were so young and poor we got a tiny, cheap set at the Pekin mall. Needless to say, it didn't last as long as our marriage, and 4 years ago it broke beyond repair. I got a new wedding band, but we decided to wait on the diamond until our 25th, which was 2 years away. Of course by then we were moving and changing jobs, and kids were graduating college and starting college, and we had to buy a new house, and the house had a big garden and needless to say, I never have gotten a replacement. Or maybe he's just waiting to make sure this relationship is the "real thing" first.

This picture represents just one of the inside house projects that are sacrificed on behalf of the Outside. I'd like to have a tile backsplash here, but instead I have happy trees, and burning bushes and shaded beds with important Latin-sounding names outside the window.

Even though we buy lots of wine, visit wineries, and belong to a wine club, we still have just this little wine rack bought from wine-racks-r-us about 10 years ago. I did get a little wine refrigerator this year, but we could obviously still use more storage. I had something nice all picked out this Spring, but then we remembered it was time to mulch and there went that idea.

One of the many gardening expenses. Heck, who needs bedroom curtains when you can have piles and piles of mulch. I do like this color much better than last year's though (and that's not a joke)

My water bill...no explanation needed.

The last category I’ll just call “miscellaneous things”

Allergies. I've never had them in the past, and now I find myself craving Claritin and Benadryl and Ibuprofen almost daily. I'm sure the garden isn't entirely to blame, but I'm guessing the same trees and bushes and flowers that draw the birds and bees and butterflies and hummingbirds to the yard don't help the sinus headaches.

I don't actually have anything against the gardening books, I just think its funny how they are all ginormous and weigh about a ton. No "pocket-sized book of plant names" here. Surely there must be an app for the "A to Z Guide to Every Plant in the Entire Universe" collection.

This is one of the gates into our backyard. I like our gates. What I don't like is that with all the in & out and rolling wheelbarrows around and hauling mulch and tools, and trimming and replanting plants to sunnier or shadier spots, the gates tend to be left open occasionally. And open gates with a blind dog and a "neighborly dog" aren't a particularly good combination.

One of the best parts of having a garden is showing off the pictures. But those pictures have to stored . And the resulting file of 4000 flower pictures makes it hard to find an actual picture of your children or your vacation or your Christmas morning, or the things that used to be in our photo files.

What I hate about Barbara and Jim’s garden, part 1

Last post I mentioned that I wanted to do my own take-off on Jim’s recent “What I hate” series from his blog.   First I said some nice things, but now that I’ve done that, its on to my list of complaints.   Before I begin though, let me bring up one thing I hate even more:  WordPress.  Specifically trying to get my pictures formatted and placed correctly.   After messing with the last post for way longer than I had either time or patience to do, I ended up just lining them up in the center.   And since I have no intention of going through that type of frustration again,  I will probably do the same thing with this one.

So here in no particular order, are the first few things I hate about the garden:

•  This vine over the garage.   I have hated it from the day we moved in, and asked several times if we can’t just take it down or at least cut it way, way back.   Apparently it is some “Southern Specialty” and it does bloom, look pretty, and smell smell good for approximately 1.7 hours each year.  The rest of the time it just grows.  According to our realtor these vines are very popular, and we’re supposed to like it (I’ve never taken well to being told what I’m supposed to like).  A few neighbors have one.   Those who don’t are welcome to have mine.  It always looks like its about ready to attack, and I can’t walk underneath it without envisioning a snake slithering through the vine, hanging down from its tail and coiling around me.   Plus I’ve just never gotten why they only go 1/2 way across.  Its asymmetrical.  Trimming it helps for no more than a week, and every time Jim gets on the ladder with tools to after it, I envision my life caring for a brain injured husband.  Jim has never taken my dislike of this Garden-of-Eden monstrosity seriously until recently when he came in from putting a bag in our trash can, which sits directly underneath the vine and a lizard fell on his head.   Who knows what else lives in there.
  

  Overgrown rainforest vine. Full of spiders, snakes, lizards and jaguars.

  

  View out the window of my neighbor's vine-free garage. I'm so jealous.

• The cherry tomato plants around our mailbox.  When we moved into the house, Barbara had cherry tomato plants rather than flowers around the mailbox.  It seemed like a cool, different idea, so we continued the tradition.  Last year we planted the little orange kind, this year we have the little red kind.   The problem is that none of us eat many cherry tomatoes.  At least not at the level produced by these plants.  It is the only vegetable plant we have that’s doing well, and its doing much too well.   I learned last year, as I brought bag after bag of cherry tomatoes into work, as I ran out to throw them in the mailman’s truck, and as I went around the neighborhood trying to give them away, that cherry tomatoes are not nearly as popular as their full-grown cousins.  We put them in every recipe and I find myself forcing myself to snack on them even though I don’t really like them very much. One or two, fine—-200 not so fine.  They are difficult to cook with.    Next year, flowers.

Overly prolific cherry tomato plants

A typical daily harvest with a ratio of 400 cherry tomatoes for every 1 regular or roma.

• Our dead vegetables.   Yes, the SC heat has a lot to do with this, but its so discouraging to plant all those cool veggies and see them just wilting away, not producing a single vegetable. And this was a problem last year too. They get lots of water, but I have yet to produce a single zuchinni or squash in this state?  Who can’t grow zuchinni’s?! Usually they take over and grow to mammoth proportions.    But mine 80% dead with no blooms of any sort. I was so looking forward to cucumbers, pickles, squash, melons…..even the basic green onions and radishes died this years, and the herbs look awful. And to add insult to injury, other than tomatoes (big ones!),  the things that are growing are the things I don’t really like – mainly the peppers.

Just pitiful

Look at these wonderful specimens! Did we grow these in our garden? NO, we did not...these were given to me by someone who has so many they can't keep up. I offered to give her some cherry tomatoes and she said, "Um, no thanks...just take these."

 

To be continued..

Barbara and Jim’s Garden

My husband Jim has a great blog, Visionary Gleam.  When he started this endeavor, he described it as a blog about school leadership and his relatively new hobby of gardening.  Since then, the school component has taken a backseat to the gardening posts.  And that’s OK,  because topics and interests evolve over time – for instance, this one was supposed to be about learning and/or doing something new everyday, and lately I’ve only loosely stuck to that theme.

Jim talks a lot about “Barbara’s garden”, Barbara being the master gardener who owned our house before we bought it two years ago.  You will notice that it is never “Barbara and Walter’s garden”, even though Walter lived here too.  That’s because Walter, presumably, had little to do with the actual daily gardening tasks, although he did create many of the structures and planters, and even the tomato  stands in his woodworking shop.    And in that way, I also think of most everything that lies outside our walls as “Jim’s”.   Like Walter, I have very little to do with the landscaping and gardening—be it planning or day-to-day maintenance, but I have added some touches here & there.

Catie's memory garden. The birdhouse was made by Walter. I picked out the bench, the statue, and ordered the engraved stone.

I occasionally go along to the gardening store and like a kid who’s been dragged to the mall I might get to pick out something I like, usually based on a sound and educated gardening premise such as, “I like purple” or “that smells good,”  but mostly I wander around with glassy eyes wondering if we’ll get ice cream afterward if I’m  patient.    I enjoy the beauty, but the incredible amount of work that goes into gardening is just not my cup of tea and I don’t find myself reading up on plants or even remembering their names, much less what zone they prefer.    I am not joking when I say that if, God forbid, anything were to ever happen to Jim where he could not maintain the gardens, I would have to get rid of them in one way or another. Even Barbara knew that for many folks the enjoyment of looking at the gardens was quite different than the responsibility of owning it, and  when the house was for sale she offered to fill in some of the beds with sod if the new owners preferred.

Recently Jim did a series of posts about the Top-20 things he hates about Barbara’s garden.  They were all pretty amusing and true.  But it also got me thinking about the things  I  hate about “Barbara and Jim’s Garden”.   Its a different list and that’s where this post was originally going.   But then I realized it would be rude if I jumped into my garden complaints without first giving credit for the things I do like. So I will start with the nice things.

This is a view of one corner of the deck taken from the yard.I like to sit here with a book and a glass of wine and watch the birds and butterflies and hummingbirds and dogs and squirrels.

Butterflies and Hummingbirds

My own personal florist

This is really good garlic that I grew myself. Next time I'm planting more.

Tomato Pie. I'd never heard of this delightful Southern dish before moving here, but love making it with tomatoes fresh from our garden. Its basically tomatoes and herbs in a pie crust slathered with a cheesy-mayonnaise concoction.

Green Grass! When we lived in Virginia, we moved into new construction. The grass never grew the way it was supposed to. So we re-seeded it. It died. We seeded again, and it spent most of the summer brown. We put in sod and big patches of it died. We had a perpetually brown yard. In Indiana and Ohio our grass was covered in snow 10 months of the year. So having soft green grass that you can walk through barefoot most of the year is a treat.

Romans 8:38 – Happy birthday, Catie

“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38

Recently our Sunday School class studied the book of Romans.   As we read this verse in class, I was transported back to the first time I really listened to what it was saying.   Probably not the first time I’d read the verse or even heard it taught, but the first time it meant something significant to me personally.  It was in 2005 when I heard my 17 y/o daughter speaking from the pulpit. She had been invited to give the Youth sermon in church that day and stood in front of our United Methodist congregation, a few hundred in the audience, with confidence and ease.

If you’ve read Kim’s blog, you already know she has a way with words, both written and spoken.   After sharing the text with my friends, it has been requested several times, usually as a “I know someone who’s had a tragedy in their family; can I share Kim’s sermon with them?” type of exchange.    Because of this, I still have it saved in a folder in my email, ready to forward on as needed.

And so in honor of Catie’s July 7th birthday, here once again is Kim’s sermon and some pictures to remind us that faith and love prevail.

Sermon- Youth Sunday
11/13/05

Good Morning. My name is Kim Lewis, and I am a member of Warwick Memorial’s incredible youth group. I am
only 17, but I have been lucky enough to speak to you, the congregation, this morning about something
incredibly real in my life. God gave me an unexpected story of love and understanding in a terrible and tragic situation. This is that story.

The summer of 2004, I traveled with my swim team to a beautiful location in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to train and compete in an international meet. What an opportunity. It was truly paradise. The first few days of the trip were spent preparing for the meet mentally and physically. And did I ever prepare. I was ready.

A few days into the trip, I received a frantic message from my parents, who were also away on vacation that week. In fact, we were all gone: me, my little sisters Jenny and Anna, and my parents. All but one. The lost sheep so to speak. That person was Catie, Caitlyn Elizabeth Lewis, my older sister. Catie and I did not attend the same school, we did not hang out with the same people, we did not see eye to eye. When we became teenagers, we were practically strangers living under one roof. Catie struggled, always. For as long as I can remember, I was helpless, because her struggles were deeper than anything anyone could fix. And that’s who the message was about. Catie had committed suicide that night. An overdose, a cry for help, the end of the line.

I remember every moment of that week and the following days. How I prayed all night for a miracle when she was in the hospital. The way I chose not to fly home early from my trip. That’s right, I waited in Florida. I competed. I swam, but the water felt different. It cooled the pain for a second, but the pain was even sharper as soon as I climbed out and
faced reality. I remember how I was scared, confused, disoriented. And all my fears were validated, everything people hope never happens to them, was happening. To me. And I can still feel it.

***** Hold up Beach Ball *****
This is a beach ball. Seemingly a summer toy. Well, imagine trying to submerge this beach ball underwater.
It would take force, concentration. Sure, it can be done. But with even the slightest distraction, the ball will fly up and smack you in the face. Or worse, smack someone else in the face.

My sister’s death is my beach ball. I try to keep it submerged, but occasionally it flies up and everyone sees. “Oh, so she was keeping a secret down there.”  Well, everyone has a beach ball, not just me.

As Christians, we oftentimes have many beach balls. We try to hold under so many different things, for
whatever reason. Maybe it’s just too hard to look at. Maybe we don’t want to admit it’s there. Maybe we
don’t want the rest of the church to know about it. So we paste on smiles. We come to church and we smile, a lot, and we use words like, “awesome.” “Everything is awesome.” “God’s doing truly awesome things in my life right now.” “My family? Oh, they’re awesome as well.”
Perhaps all our positive talk is simply a cover for all the things we’re hiding under the surface. Our beach balls, so to speak.
God hasn’t always sent me fuzzy bunnies and rainbows. Sometimes God is hard, and usually God is hardest when
life is hardest. So what does this mean about God’s love, and what does it mean to me? Who can I go to?

I have found the answer is simple. Almost too simple. When God hands me a challenge, I go to God. Jesus knew
suffering. Isaiah 53 describes Messiah as being, “despised and rejected—a man of sorrows acquainted with bitterest grief.”
Jesus had grief like me. Deep, cutting grief. The kind I felt when they closed Catie’s casket for the last time. The kind of pain I feel when I read my sister’s name inscribed on that stone, forever a reminder of just who she was: part of me.
And I am no longer afraid of that grief. I try not to push it under, because I have discovered an extremely important fact as a Christian with a beach ball. The further under I push it, the more painful it is when it pops back up. And, when I’m concentrating on suppressing grief that is perfectly natural in the first place, I am unable to concentrate on God.

But the beach ball always seems to come back, a human imperfection of course. My beach ball emerged again this past summer, as I was invited to attend the same swim meet as the previous summer, in the same beautiful location in Florida. One year had passed. My sister would have been twenty years old. As I boarded the plane just 4 months ago, I could barely face what I knew was coming: my beach ball was about to spring up like it never had before.

In Florida, I literally retraced my steps from the previous year. My heart flew. I relived every emotion that I spent so long trying to forget. As I entered the pool area with one more year under my belt, the sky opened up and it began to rain. But it was still sunny. One little rain cloud, floating right above the pool area. I looked up at the sun and wondered how
that shower was for anyone else on the face of the planet. The rain washed away everything I was covering up, and I simply sat down and cried.

And I still cry. It’s still hard. As humans, we may think that we have gotten rid of our beach ball. But almost subconsciously, we pick it up, put some tape on it, and blow it up again. I have come to expect the pain, almost embrace it. I’ll read the verse from Romans again because I just believe it so powerfully conveys  God’s love in times like these:
“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the
love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I love this verse, because it speaks to adversity. It recognizes the highs and the lows, while reminding us God’s love is continually overflowing, no matter what. I struggle, and I truly believe we all struggle with something. I hope that we, as Christians, can begin to embrace and appreciate struggle. If we can do that, we are deflating whatever is holding us back from God.

******* DEFLATE (pop?)  BEACH BALL ******

I have come to appreciate so many things and people from Catie’s death. To all the people that were there
at the very beginning, those tragic first few days, thank you. To all the people I met along the way, counselors and leaders, thank you. To my friends, who make me appreciate every gift so much more, thank you. And most importantly, Thank you to my family, because you have always been there, and you will always be there.

My prayer is that my story will inspire each of you to take God’s promise of love and deflate your beach
ball. Offer it to God in joy and in sorrow.  He’s  always ready and waiting.

 

Yawn!

Sorry I haven’t written any posts, but I think I am running out of new things.  I’ve done plenty of things, but they have been old favorite things (visiting Virginia, tasting wines, seeing friends, being lazy). The books I’ve read have been summer fluff, the TV shows I’ve watched have been summer fluff, the food I’ve eaten has been summer fluff….are we seeing a pattern here?   One day I  learned something and actually said out loud, “I could write about this on my blog!”  Jim witnessed it.  Unfortunately by the end of the day, neither of us could remember what it was I was going to write about.

Strange Google Searches

One of the most entertaining aspects of blogging on WordPress involves looking at the “Site Stats” to see  how many people have looked at the blog, where they live, and how they got here. The handful of regular “One New Thing” readers are people I know personally.   They consist primarily of family and friends, generally people who are either polite and click a link that appears on my Facebook page, or people who are extremely bored.   Some friends have blogs of their own and occasionally link to mine, which leads to a “friend of a friend” encounter.

However, it is always interesting to see the Google searches that lead here.  Most of them are pretty benign and often lead to a picture I’ve hijacked off the Internets.  When The King’s Speech was in theaters, I got dozens of hits from people searching for Colin Firth as King George VI.   And the simple search for Stars continues to show up as a Googled favorite, as are various Coke Bottle searches.

Hint to those Googling "Anti Demotivational Posters": Anti Demotivational Posters would just be Motivational

But then there are the searches that aren’t so mundane.  I continue to be amused at the number of people who end up clicking through to this post about the evils of Girl Scout cookies by searching phrases like demented girl scouts, Meth Cookies (are they looking for a recipe from Toll House?),  or Drugged on Girl Scout Cookies . I should have attached a picture of myself with a Thin Mints hangover.

Some people have questions for the great oracle of Google such as “how do I know if a Law firm is ripping me off on a class action lawsuit” (they are),   others are written in a different language (звезды), and a couple appear to have been searched for by a member of Congress (guy doing a girl with beer can resting on her back).  I have no idea which post of mine that last one links to, and am not willing to Google it to find out. Maybe my blog is more interesting than I thought!

Occasionally my Google searchers add to my own knowledge base.  Someone searched for “It was the most monstrous barbarity of the barbarous march” which linked to my post on Sherman’s March to the Sea, and I learned this was a quote from Whitelaw Reid in 1868.   I have yet to learn who Whitelaw Reid is, but I’ll get there eventually.

Lots of folks are looking for fashion advice.   While several searchers are scurrying to find out what the f*&k  resort casual is, one person wants to know if its OK to wear a leather jacket to such an event (only if its a biker resort and you have the matching pants).  There are also more than a few fanny pack fans out there, but one particular Googler made me curious enough to try this search myself.  As a result, I now have item #1 on next year’s Christmas list….the o-fishal Rockabilly Skull and Crossbones Fanny Pack:

I if I didn't have this blog, I wouldn't know about this awesome fashion accessory.

Inviting a visitor to the US: Part 2

After our trip to visit Kim in Ecuador,  I wrote about how difficult it is to invite her new friends to visit us here in the US.  Over the past few weeks I’ve become even more  familiar with that process.    Kim’s  friend from her host family is a 20 year old college student at the university where she is placed through  the Fulbright Commission.   He is working toward his goal of becoming an English teacher in Ecuador.   He’s a good student and  lives a fairly typical, active college student type of life.  Like many young people, especially a future English teacher,  her friend would like to visit the USA.

Kim would like to be able to show him around her country, her home, and introduce him to her friends and activities.  She would like to invite him to a family wedding, to the beach, to meet her friends, shop at Target and go to Starbucks.  He could visit the school where Jim works,  play some basketball, and visit universities to see how they operate here.  He could visit Jenny in Charleston and observe how American college students frequently all live with each other rather than with their parents and grandparents, and probably wonder why anyone could possibly think that’s a good idea.  

So Kim’s friend is taking the big step of  (cue trumpets and flashing lights) *applying for a tourist visa*.   And after doing more research on what might help this process along, we are gathering documents to sponsor him.    Apparently having a sponsor is a positive, but nowhere close to a guarantee that his visa will be approved.  The bulk of the responsibility still lies with him to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to the US Consulate that no matter how tempted he is once he gets here to start picking tomatoes in searing heat for an unlivable wage, he will be a good visitor, see the sites , buy the t-shirt, then return home to his family and school.

This is where it gets even more complex.   Sponsoring a foreign visitor consists of quite a bit more than saying, “I’m a law-abiding, tax-paying, employed, US Citizen who would like to invite my friend from Ecuador to visit me for a couple of weeks during his semester break.   I’ll let him stay here and feed him and make sure someone licensed does all the driving.   I’ll pick him up when he arrives then make sure he is safely on his way home when its time to leave.”    Instead, this is what’s involved.

First, this being the  government, you have to obtain and fill out a form.   Specifically Form I-134, an “Affadavit of Support”, issued by the Department of Homeland Security.   Among other things, this form lets you know that you, the US Citizen,  may be sued and held personally responsible if your sponsoree applies for Welfare and/or Food Stamps.  It then goes on to ask for information about everything short of the results of your last colonoscopy, which of course you must have notarized. Bank account balances, stock accounts, home value, salaries, life insurance and personal property values are all covered.

There is then a list of documents to send along with the form.  This list of what they want is longer and  more intrusive than our mortgage application. First we are to write an official “letter of invitation”  to the sponsoree, and a separate letter to the US Consul telling them we’re inviting him to visit us. Since you’re already doing the form and all the documents I would think it would be obvious we’re inviting him, but this is the US government so common sense is not a strength.    The other documents they suggest include: an official letter from our employer certifying the position held and salary, the last few pay stubs, our past few years tax returns, including the accompanying W-2 forms, and our bank statements with an accompanying letter from the bank.   And a partridge in a pear tree.

We have most of this information together and have agreed to send it directly to Kim, who will assure its safe arrival at the US Embassy in Quito when her friend has his required in-person interview.  However, I am blacking out all social security and account numbers on the aforementioned documents.   I trust Kim and her friend, but not so much anyone else whose desk this may cross to keep that information secure.

We also took one more step as well to help with this process:  we called our friendly US Senator’s office.  The one who sent Kim a letter congratulating her on the Fulbright and saying, “If I may ever be of assistance, please do not hesitate to call on me.”  We decided this would be a good time to take him up on that offer.  It turns out that our request is not so uncommon, and their office has a staffer assigned to help with just this issue.   They indicated that they will write a “letter of interest” to their colleagues at the Embassy, and email a PDF copy to us so the friend can carry it in to his interview.   But they were also sure to emphasize that this is “Not a guarantee”, that they have no real influence over the outcome, and that the interviewers in Quito will still have the ultimate responsibility in deciding whether Kim’s friend can come visit us.

 

Fruits vs. Vegetables

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it on a fruit salad.

A few days ago we visited a favorite BBQ restaurant with family members who stopped by to visit on their way back to the Midwest.   Like most  restaurants that serve up Southern specialties, you would be hard-pressed to find anything even remotely healthy on the menu.  But what’s a little heart disease when the trade-off is the best BBQ, mac & cheese, and potato salad around.  Even  food that has potential to be good for you (ie, “greens”, a term I’d never even heard before moving south) has likely been doused with pig juice and butter.

Somehow, in the way round-about conversations seem to go,  a question was raised:  What’s the difference between a fruit and a vegetable?   If my friend Kim Foglia, the science teacher who inspired my blog, was around, I’m sure she’d know the answer.   However, the 7 of us, in spite of having  well over 100 combined years of education, could not figure it out.   We knew factoids such as a tomato is a fruit and corn is a grain, but none of us actually knew what, specifically,defines a fruit or a vegetable.

We came up with guesses involving seeds, and parts of the plant, and how they reproduce, but none of it seemed quite right.  Perhaps the best observation was from the youngest family member, our daughter Anna,  who stated, “If I like it, its probably a fruit and not a vegetable.”    Turns out that definition was probably as good as any.  Like most conversations and debates these days, we eventually decided to stop using our brains and instead put into action one of the many Smart phones dining with us that evening.

No question left unanswered with instant Google access

Droids, Iphones and their ilk have, in my opinion,  unfortunately replaced the debates, questions, ideas and discussions of “the old days” (2010 for our family)    but that’s another topic.     Out came the phone, and the magic Google oracle appeared.     “Oh great Google God,” we asked……”What IS the difference between a fruit and a vegetable, anyway?”

It turns out even Google was a little stymied by this question.   There were lots of instances where others had asked this question, and had gotten various responses and disagreements.    Even the valedictorian of Google, Wikipedia couldn’t really make up its mind.    The “seed” response was popular, as was  a fruit being “any edible part of a plant with a sweet flavor  whereas vegetables have a savory  flavor.  I’m sorry, but there is not a soul on this Earth who can convince me brussel sprouts are savory, unless savory is a synonym for “BLECH.”

Reproductive properties are apparently important for fruit definitions:   a fruit is the ovary or womb of a plant, containing the seeds.  When a Mommy and Daddy fruit love each other very much and are way, way older than you and able to support a family and are using safe methods,  then the Daddy fruit uses its special fruit parts that only boy plants have and the Mommy part has special parts that only ladies have (but which you should never show anyone)……oh, never mind, just go watch some HBO.

So it seems like “fruit” is easy to define, but vegetables not so much.   The dictionary defines a vegetable as:   The edible part of a plant, such as the root of the beet, the leaf of spinach, or the flower buds of broccoli or cauliflower.

So in other words, because a tomato is an edible part of a plant and is also a “ripened ovary that contains seeds”   that makes it a fruit AND a vegetable.   But wait a minute…..doesn’t that then also apply to apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries, etc???  They are also edible parts of plants that contain seeds.   That doesn’t  make sense.     Someone else suggested that the difference is “generally determined by the amount of Vitamin C content.”    I think that person needs to get a Smart phone.

Finally, we found some responses from actual Botanists.   It seems that botanists don’t even really like the word vegetable.   Kind of like how psychologists don’t like the word “crazy,” a word which also has no technical definition.

One says:

“Botanists generally don’t use the word vegetable to mean a plant or even a plant part. The basic parts are roots, stems, leaves flowers/fruit/seeds. Vegetable is a grocery store term: Tomatoes are called vegetables to distinguish them from the sweeter fruits like peaches. Carrots are called vegetables but the part we eat is of course a root.” 

and another says:

“Vegetable is a culinary term. Its definition has no scientific value and is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. All parts of herbaceous plants eaten as food by humans, whole or in part, are generally considered vegetables. Mushrooms, though belonging to the biological kingdom, fungi, are also commonly considered vegetables…Since ‘vegetable’ is not a botanical term, there is no contradiction in referring to a plant part as a fruit while also being considered a vegetable. Given this general rule of thumb, vegetables can include leaves (lettuce), stems (asparagus), roots (carrots), flowers (broccoli), bulbs (garlic), seeds (peas and beans) and of course the botanical fruits like cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, and capsicums.”(Wikipedia.org)

So that solves it.   Vegetables don’t even exist.   It is simply a made-up word to make plants sound a little more appetizing.    The next time someone tells you to eat more vegetables you can safely respond that vegetables are imaginary and to do so would make you “crazy”.

Things I’ve learned recently

In no particular order:

• I learned about the history of the “Soccer Mom” stereotype, thanks to my college sophomore daughter Jenny, who wrote an A+, “best in the class” paper on the topic (they are never too big to brag about).  Here’s an excerpt:

  The soccer mom concept is a relatively new one; the phrase really took flight in the 1990s, but the first mention of the soccer mom is traced to 1982. A Massachusetts town was put in the spotlight when the “Soccer Moms Booster Club” was robbed of over $3,000 by the treasurers’ husband (Weisberg 1996). It wasn’t until 1995, however, that the phrase returned with a connotation attached to it. Susan B. Casey ran for Denver City Council under the slogan “A Soccer Mom for City Council,” intending to assure voters that, although she had a PhD and had managed presidential election campaigns, she was no different from them (MacFarquhar 1996). The phrase came about during a time of great doubt concerning women’s achievements, particularly with their ability to maintain a successful career while still showing love and support for their family. Casey ended up winning the election by just over half the votes, but the “soccer mom” concept was far from gone, and would actually take a large role in the 1996 presidential election the following year.

• I’ve learned how to use Powerpoint.  I’m putting all my groups/class materials on PowerPoint.  Hence, little time left to blog.

• Every year the US State Department has a lottery to allow 50,000 immigrants to move legally to the US without the usual family and/or employer requirements.  They select 90,000 randomly from more than 14 million applicants(!) then choose the winners based on “extensive interviews, background checks, and medical exams.” I know about this because this year they screwed up the selection process with a computer error then had to go back and tell people who thought they had won,   “Oh, not really….never mind.”
  

  I don't think I've seen this outfit in the women's department at Penney's.

• Cher is 65??!!

• The white, good old-boy network is alive and well in the South.  (oh wait, I didn’t actually learn that, I was just reminded of it).

• Dogs can be allergic to their own cataracts and eyeball removal is called enucleation.    I would say its a new experience to have a 1-eyed pet, but its not because we had a 1-eyed cat for almost 20 years and a 1-eyed frog for awhile too.

• 

  At least I have a good personality

The life of a hard-working dog

Calvin

This blog isn’t about something new, its about something old:  our  Shetland Sheepdog (Sheltie) Calvin who took suddenly ill this week and died just a few days before what would have been his 13th birthday.  I’m sure I could come up with analogies to make this topic fit the overall “New Experience and Learning” theme of the blog:  new sheltie facts, or changing doggie dynamics or something but I’m not up for that.  Instead I’ll revert to a childhood response  for that observation…….”So sue me.”    (do kids even say that anymore?).

In the summer of 1998, we had just moved from Cleveland to Ft. Wayne, Indiana.   We had 2 brand new important jobs, a nice new house with a big fenced in yard, 4 active daughters ranging in age from 2-13, one sweet but neurotic rescue dog,  and 2 cats.   What more could we possibly want?  Well, a puppy of course!   While visiting relatives in Illinois, we saw a classified ad for a litter of sheltie puppies.  Might as well just LOOK, right?  So we  headed out to the farm in the middle of nowhere (also known as Carlock)  where they had kennels full of Shetland Sheepdogs with pedigrees and titles and fancy names.   And soon the shaking nervous little puppy in the back of the  crate was  thrown into the chaos that was the Lewis family.  We named him some long official name that I can’t even remember anymore, and sent in his paperwork to the AKC. I’m not sure why we did that since we also had him neutered as soon as possible  but I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Here in no particular order are a few top Calvin memories and pictures:

• Calvin  took his job as a “herding dog VERY seriously.   Any creature, human or animal, was expected to stay with the herd.   If one went outside, we should all go outside.  If the rest of the children were in the family room and one wandered into the dining room, Calvin would fret.  Calvin was quite good at fretting. For years he would grab our pant legs or shoelaces in his mouth and try to pull us back in if he caught us trying to go out the front door.   Failing that he would stand and bark wildly at us, letting us know how dangerous it was out there.  He always positioned himself on the periphery of any given situation, often near a door or gate—presumably so he could keep track of his flock and be immediately alerted if one tried to escape or a wolf tried to get in.  Now Calvin was the wimpiest dog on the planet so if a wolf DID get in you were sunk, but he’d feel responsible.   A risk-taker he was not.
  

  Catie, Anna and Calvin when he was about 2 or 3

• Since we were busy people,  when Calvin was about 6 months old we decided to send him to a local  “Canine Boarding School” for training.   We had thus far found him to be a nervous dog who didn’t want to do “dog things” and barked all the time.  The trainer was supposedly going to teach  him commands.  Instead, we got a call to come get him within a week or two—-it seemed that he couldn’t even get Calvin to come out of his crate, much less do any of the typical things dogs need to be trained for.  The trainer decided that he needed to start by learn to walk on a leash.  Except Calvin was too afraid when they walked outside, so he just taught him to walk on the leash inside.  From then on, we had a dog who would walk INSIDE on his leash perfectly.  Outside – forget it.   And he still wouldn’t stop barking or sit & stay or stop peeing in the house or any of the other things we’d hoped he would learn.  Lesson learned for the Lewis family: no more boarding schools, we bought our own dog training books.  And we potty trained him along with Anna (2 at the time).  M&M’s or liver treats for both….neither ever seemed to care which they got although it was confusing to both when Calvin got a treat for peeing in the shrubs while Anna got in trouble for it.

• Speaking of walks, one of my funniest-ever Calvin memories was several years later in Virginia.  Jim & I decided that it would be healthy for Calvin, who was battling a weight problem, to go for walks.  Calvin was the eldest dog by then, and Hobbes, the younger one LOVED to walk. When we got out the leash Hobbes would go crazy with excitement.  But not Calvin.  He still  hated anything having to do with a leash and thought there was no reason to ever leave our yard.   But that particular day we put a leash on Calvin and set off. We got about 4 blocks away but then, because he had a big fluffy neck with a small pointy-head, he slipped right out of his collar.   Once he realized he was free, he turned around and started running back home.  But Calvin couldn’t really run—-his legs were too short, and he was too fat, so it was really more of a waddle-trot.  He had absolutely no desire to go anywhere but HOME, which is exactly where he headed.  We called him and he ignored us, neighbors who were in their yards and had previously admired how pretty he was when we first walked by now turned to laugh at him and he ignored them too, we waved treats in the air and ran behind him.   Other dogs barked at him and a couple even ran out  to greet him and see if he wanted to play as he ran by, but he focused SOLELY on his goal of getting back home.  He ran all the way, getting there long before us, huffing-and puffing and very indignantly clear that walks are NOT acceptable.  So that ended the “going for a walk”  experiment.

• But we didn’t give up easily.   Our other dogs liked to go to a local dog park.  They ran and played and socialized.  There were lots of humans and  dogs there, in a big, huge fenced in play area. You can see where this is heading, right?  This was not FUN, it was work!   A HUGE flock, full of unknown sheep, all misbehaving!  Humans and dogs all coming and going and no one staying where they were supposed to.   So Calvin decided to handle this by staying as close to the entrance as possible, checking out whether the fence was really strong enough to keep out the wolves that were surely out there.  He fretted the entire time. I thought we were going to have to give him Doggy Prozac.

• 

  Calvin loved to pose for pictures

• Even though he worked hard, Calvin also liked to play.  But only for short periods of time, on a pre-arranged break of course.   One of his favorite games was the “flashlight game.”   He would chase the light around the floor, try to get it on the wall, and bark like crazy at it.  And even later in life he would go through playful periods where he’d try to engage the other dogs or join in on a game of ball.   He didn’t quite know what to do with a toy once it was in his mouth and when we played ball we had to hold the other dogs back occasionally so Calvin could get it.   As long he was off the clock and there weren’t any wolves around, of course.

• Luckily for us Calvin relaxed and mellowed a lot in his old age.  He stopped barking so much, stopped worrying so much and welcomed whatever humans and/or animals that might come to visit without feeling like he was responsible for their entire well-being and probable imminent wolf attacks.   He learned important tricks, like “lying my head on someone’s lap while they’re eating dinner, because they’ll think that’s adorable and reward me.”  He still, however, kept many of his old habits.  Even up until last week,  our morning routine was for me to get up and shower, then all the dogs to accompany me downstairs.  Calvin was convinced I probably couldn’t find the way unless he followed along behind me, herding and barking at me  the entire way. Good herders never go first—-they have all their sheep in sight at all times and Calvin was a good herder.

• Calvin has a diet named after him.   As I mentioned before, he got kind of heavy when he was younger and Jim took him to the vet who informed him that our dog was overweight.  Jim asked him earnestly, “What should we do?”   thinking  there was probably some special doggie diet food or routine, or even a medication he would recommend.   The response was, “Well, you control his food—–feed him less!”   (thinking, “DUH, that will be $75 please.”)  So that’s what we did.  And lo & behold he lost weight.  So now we occasionally put our other dogs and ourselves on the Calvin diet, which basically consists of this complex principle:   eat less.

• Calvin HATED to be brushed, so he was usually “overly fuzzy.”  Every once in awhile we’d take him to a groomer who would chastise us and tell us we had to brush him every week or we were horrible, awful doggie-parents,  but we never did and I like to think he thanked us for that.  Like most Shelties, once the weather got warm he’d do what they call “blow his coat” which basically meant he would shed and shed and shed and shed and shed.   The rest of the time he just shed (and shed).   I love you Calvin, but I will not miss your hair.

• 

  taking a rest break

• He LOVED snow.  When he was young he would play and roll in it; when he was older he’d eat it and lounge happily in it.   We’d bring the other dogs in and just leave him on the deck to enjoy the feeling of the snow.  I’m happy he got another couple of snows this year.

No photo session is complete without the obligatory "picture with Calvin"