Patience is Its Own Reward

What’s on my mind? A study in patience.

When they ask: “What did you do, during the plague?” I’ll say: “I learned to cut my hair!” (The results of that  will never, ever become public. Now, my sister’s attempt, I’ll show you. She didn’t respond to blackmail.)

What has Himself been up to? Himself has been using his time to enhance his gardening skills, as well as teaching himself astral photography. Despite all of that, if anyone were to ask, he’d shrug and say: “I did a jigsaw puzzle.” 

Being the modest type, he won’t say the puzzle required a magnifying glass and a ruler to examine its 1,000 tiny pieces. He won’t say his wife tried, failed, and stomped off in frustration several times, unable to find even one piece of the puzzle.

For him to say: “I did a jigsaw puzzle,” minimizes the feat. So this is how things went:

May 5: Gung-ho. 

Purchase, unpack, place and sort puzzle pieces on dining room table. Begin with edges. Hmmm ... (Muffled cuss words will occasionally escape this room. Hours will meld into days, with all becoming a blur. Himself doesn’t know this, yet). 

May 9: Cautious. 

May 11: Measured.

May 16: Persistent. 

May 18: Undaunted.

May 22: Tireless.

May 23: Again. And again. And again.

May 24: Relentless.

Early morning, May 27: Bathrobe. 

Mid-morning, May 27: At last!

Victorious!

©  Nicole Parton, 2020

The Major Problem-o with Mr. X’s Pickles

What’s on my mind? When Mr. and Mrs. X came to dinner in December, Mr. X handed me a jar of pickles as he sailed through the door.

“Made ’em, m’self,” he said.

With the appropriate thank you, I tucked them into the fridge.

We love pickles, but - with two jars already open - we soon forgot about Mr. X’s. Seemingly unaided, his jar of pickles migrated toward the back of the fridge. Once in awhile, I’d spot them, thinking: “Must use those pickles!” 

And then I’d quietly close the fridge door and forget about them again. Until yesterday, when … 

“Hi, hi, hi! Imagine running into yo-u-u-u!” It was Mr. and Mrs. X, their car next to ours at Home Depot. Himself had already dashed off to get whatever Guy Thing it was he needed.

Stuck for words at the best of times, I now stared into Mr. and Mrs. X’s happy faces, clueless about kicking off a meaningful conversation. 

Feeling downcast, my eyes went in the same direction, which meant I was staring at Mr. X’s crotch. And then it came to me! Words to say. Not Mr. X’s crotch.

Smiling broadly, I raised my eyes and said: “I lo-o-o-ve your pickles!” No need to say we’d never opened the jar. 

Mr. X looked mortified. Mrs. X looked shocked. 

(What did I say? What did I say? I must have put my foot in it! Oh, gawd … They probably thought I meant …)

“I didn’t mean that in a sexual way!” Now Mr. and Mrs. X both looked shocked. 

“You didn’t mind the slime?” asked Mr. X. 

(Oh, gawd … oh, gawd! What can I say? What can I say? That I LOVED the slime? That I didn’t NOTICE the slime? Either way, I’m in too deep - or Mr. X wants to be … And WTF - WHAT slime?)

So, wanting nothing more than for Himself to arrive in the parking lot with his Guy Thing, I innocently asked: “Slime?” 

“Slime,” nodded Mr. and Mrs X, grim-faced.

“The cukes were slimy when I bought them,”confessed Mr. X. 

Bravely holding up my end of the conversation, I asked: “Huh?” And then: “Huh?” 

“I rinsed them,” he continued, “but couldn’t get it all off. They just kept getting slimier in the jar.” 

“Slimier in the jar,” repeated Mrs. X, shaking her head in sympathy.

(BLOODY HELL! She’s sympathizing with the DOUGH HEAD who bought slimy cucumbers to make slimy pickles??? Why the EFF would he give them to us as a PRESENT???)

That’s what I thought. What I said, was: “Oh, dear.” 

The Xs were pleased - but uncertain - I was telling the truth when I said loved Mr. X’s non-sexual pickles. If at first you don’t succeed, lie, lie, again. Before we parted ways, I reassured them Mr. X’s pickles were perfect, even if my words (BLOODY HELL!) produced a marital rift between them.

When Himself returned to the car, Guy Thing in … um … hand, I told him about the pickles, neatly dodging the sex stuff.

Indeed, when we peeked in the fridge, Mr. X’s pickles were entombed in grey slime. “Ew-w-w-w!” I said, with my usual eloquence. 

Himself makes pickles, too. He knew Mr. X’s were a Major Problemo.

“You can’t lie!” he said. “I’ll send the Xs an email to clear things up.” Which he did.

“Hey, Mr. and Mrs. X!” he wrote. “It seems Nicole was mistakenly praising Mr. X’s pickles, the other day. What she really intended was to praise my pickles.” 

I bit my lip when I read that. Didn’t say a word. I’m a happily married woman. It would be mighty fine to keep it that way. 

©  Nicole Parton, 2020

Bunny Bulletin!

What’s on my mind? Bunny Bulletin! 

After sitting smack in a formerly beautiful bunch of sedums (flattened by overnight chewing), a very fat rabbit starts to eat her way ’round the sedum’s edges before progressing to the flowering ground cover between the flagstones in our garden. 

I was once neighbors with an otherwise pleasant guy who shot the rabbits in his garden. This was in Arizona, so not completely unexpected, but still upsetting. 

Himself and I merely yell SHOOSH!, clap our hands, and apply stinky stuff to what we think of as our garden and rabbits think of as their exclusive buffet. 

Our tactics work reasonably well until a heavy rain. When that happens, we’re disinclined to run outside shouting and clapping, and the stinky stuff washes off. Right now, it’s raining cats, dogs, and rabbits.

©  Nicole Parton, 2020

Double or Nothing

What’s on my mind? Budgeting 101. 

I’ve always prided myself on my ability to manage money. Even when I had none, I was able to shave a nickel and get four cents change. “It’s a gift,” say spendthrift friends and relatives. 

Sigh! “I can’t help that I’m talented and clever.”

Even now, as the world plods through COVID-19, I’ve managed to stay above water, putting away a few nickels when no one else can.

“How ever do you do it?” asks my banker. 

(I almost never see him these days: The bank’s doors are bolted. I’d barge in wearing a mask, but someone would probably press the alarm and I’d be off to the hoosegow, which is a $2 word for the clink, which is a $1 word for jail, which returns me to the subject of my money-management skills.)  

My banker is always eager for me to share my tips with him, so he, in turn, can share them with his multi-millionaire clients slowly drowning in debt. 

“I already know how much you’ve got,” he whispers, prying for information.

Clutching my purse, I think: “Not true. Why would he look at my puny bank account?” 

“You have a puny bank account …”

(Gasp!)

“So how do you manage? What’s your secret? You can trust me-e-e,” he says.

I can’t. But I’ll tell you, blog reader, why I have money jingling in my jeans when others don’t. And yes, it is in coins. And no, there’s nowhere to spend it, or I probably would.

Gambling! That’s my secret. I am a wild, unrepentant gambler! Sometimes, I even bet double or nothing and lose everything - but always win it back. I’m a gambler of the know-when-to-hold-’em, know-when-to-fold-’em persuasion. Lemme tell you my “system.”

With COVID’s arrival, Himself and I emptied our pockets and checked under the couch pillows and looked under the bed to come up with precisely $35.70 between us.

And then gambling fever hit us - big time. 

Each afternoon, Himself and I began sitting down to a cut-throat game of cards at a nickel a point. Once in awhile, our neighbors Mr. Harris and Mrs. H heard shouting coming from the direction of our house. After hearing one of us yell: “That’s cheating!” Mrs. H ran around telling the whole neighorhood we had an “open marriage.” 

When the news got back to me, I told Mrs. H the only things open in our house were the window and the door, and she was welcome to exit either. Mrs. H seemed disappointed to hear all we do is play cards, and that (as I bragged) I usually win. 

Unfortunately, as I later heard, Mrs. H sought out each neighbor to say: “It’s a den of inequity! She usually dominates!” Also unfortunately, Mrs. H neglected to say we play cards, so what everyone heard (and spread further) was that our house is a “den of iniquity,” and I’m a sadist.

Which is quite a different thing from the “inequity” of my domination - my winning streak - at cards.

As everyone knows, gambling has winners and losers. Himself and I start with the money equally divided, but after we’ve tallied the score, the loser forfeits a nickel a point. When we eventually lose our shirts (a term known only to professional gamblers), we apply $35.70 to our line of credit, thus bolstering our credit rating. 

A couple of days later, when gambling withdrawal produces the sweats and the shakes, we borrow $35.70 from our line of credit and start over. 

So that’s my secret! Pssst … Don’t tell the bank.

©  Nicole Parton, 2020

The Future is Now

This blog is about the resurgence of bread-making. To it, John Denniston - my journalistic colleague and friend of 40-plus years - cleverly replied: “The advantages of bread making as a hobby for a man include that: You don’t have make a shelf for it, don’t have to frame it, don’t have to repair it or buy a pickup truck to tow it, don’t have to get up early in the morning to do it, and most importantly, don’t have to sell it on Craigslist when you tire of it. Basically, it’s bake it; eat it; it’s gone.”

*     *     *

I’ve long had a deep interest in the marketplace and in consumer behavior. My conclusions aren’t always right - but I’m a reasonably good guesser.  

Prediction: We’re about to see a resurgence of bread-making and the renewed popularity of bread machines. This is a slam-dunk, folks.

COVID-19 has had (and will continue to have) serious economic consequences for almost all of us. As job-replacement funding runs out in Canada and the US, the spin-offs will hit even harder. 

Many of us will need to give some hard thought to belt-tightening - starting with our household spending. Himself and I have had a bread machine at the back of the kitchen cupboard for many years. I’d even considered giving it away.  

About a year ago, Himself hauled it out and started making bread. Until then, I’d been buying commercially made bread at $3-to $5 a loaf. No more! That’s just too expensive.

 One in five American households owned a bread machine in the late 1990’s. Less than 20 years later, almost no one was interested in making bread by hand or in a machine. A few stalwarts like my sister Paulette regularly make multiple  loaves at a time, mixing, kneading, and forming them by hand. Paulette has never had a bread machine, which does all that as well as baking the bread in about three hours (and pizza dough in far less).

Packed with goodness and nutrition, Himself’s bread weighs 2 lb. (nearly 1 kg) and costs … I’ll tell you about that in a moment. 

Last Fall, while nosing around Costco, we discovered the bargain of the century - a 45-lb. (20 kg) bag of coarse (i.e., stone ground) whole wheat flour. With breakfast and sandwich picnics included, we normally consume two-to-three loaves a week. 

We went through this big bag in something like six months. Himself had been steadily making whole wheat and raisin breads for all that time, and was almost out of flour. At $13.49 Cdn., this gigantic bag of flour presented a huge saving over the 5- and 10-lb. (2.26-to-4.5 kg) bags we usually bought. 

(Not every Costco store sells big bags like this. Phone around to find it. We found our first bag at a Costco far from the island where we live and the second, on that island.) These large bags of flour have dropped the cost of Himself’s bread-making to less than $1 a loaf, electricity not included. 

We store this flour in its bag in a well-sealed, high-quality container under dark, cool conditions. Anyone who lacks a storage area could easily share such a large bag with family, friends, and neighbors. (If you live in a hot climate, you’ll already know it’s a good idea to store grain products in a moisture-proof container in the deep-freeze.)

It’s only logical that as more consumers try to spend smarter, more will begin making their own bread. In turn, the demand for larger, money-saving bags of flour and gluten-free alternatives will increase. 

The company that mills the flour we bought confirms that; it’s fielded literally hundreds of consumer inquiries about bread-making over the past six weeks. 

If you can’t find what you’re seeking, my advice - as always -  is to ask, ask, ask. Happy baking!

©  Nicole Parton, 2020