P is for Poppies

Every spring, social media comes alive with posts from my California friends about the poppies. The poppies are about to bloom, the poppies are blooming, the poppies bloomed. They are a VERY BIG DEAL to Californians, and when we lived there, we were told they were NOT to be missed and that we should make a point of going.

My parents came to visit us one spring during the poppy season, and as we were looking for ways to entertain them anyway, it seemed like a good time to finally see the famous poppies. I was also HUGELY pregnant, so it made perfect sense to drive a couple of hours to the high desert and walk around a poppy reserve.

We drove to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve with no information other than that we would be speechless at the beauty of the poppies. It was spring, so we each had a light jacket and high hopes for a lovely day. We began to see some orangey splotches on the hillsides as we neared the place.

"Are THOSE the poppies?" someone in our car asked, probably my mother.

"Nah, THAT can't be the poppies! Everyone told us they were EVERYWHERE and all you could see was fields and fields of them!" someone in our car answered, probably me.

We arrived at the reserve, parked the car, and got out, ready to find the poppies, but the moment we opened the car doors, we were blasted with a frigid and wickedly strong wind that cut right through our little spring jackets.

Bracing ourselves against the cold and wind, we huddled together and joined the other visitors on a trail. 

"Where are all the poppies?" someone asked, probably my mother.

"I DON'T KNOW," someone answered, probably me, because we saw fields of little green plants and an occasional peep of orange, but not the acres and acres of gorgeous flowers we were expecting.

We were miserably cold and could feel the icy wind all the way to our bones, when someone, probably my husband, asked another visitor where the poppies were.

My parents trying not to show they are half frozen.

"Right here," the other visitor said, sweeping his hand from the hillside with the flecks of orange scattered over it to the edge of the path we were on. 

We looked at him, looked at each other, then looked more closely at the orange flecks in the field next to us and realized that THESE were the famous poppies. And they were colder than WE were and had curled up against the relentlessly chilly wind, refusing to show their faces, and I can't say I blame them. It's exactly what I wanted to do.

We snapped a couple of photos to prove we'd been there, then we headed back to the warmth of the car. Adventure over.

Someone may try to change my mind (you were there on a particularly windy day, it's not always that cold, the poppies REALLY ARE gorgeous), but while I commiserated with those trembling, cold poppies, I believe poppy viewing is best done by looking at photos of them from a warm, comfy place.

Oh, so pregnant!

O is for Owl Babies

I've been walking a lot during this coronacation. That's a good thing, because I've also been EATING lot during this coronacation. 

The other afternoon, my walk took me past some big pine trees in a little park. I know very little about pine trees, but it seemed that there were two different kinds of them at this park, because the pine cones off of one kind were long and thin and slightly curved (you can draw your own conclusion as to what that was reminiscent of), and the other type of tree had short, squatty pine cones. I gathered up an armful of both kinds and took them home, figuring I could come up with something to do with them for the A to Z Challenge.

Came up with something. Owls. Fuzzy, little owls. It's kind of a fall craft, but you could get started now and have an enormous flock by the time fall rolls around.

I used the short, squatty ones, because who wants poop-shaped owls?

Here's what you need:

Cotton balls, pine cones, and some kind of
poking stick. I used a pencil. Small children
could use a q-tip with some of the cotton removed.

Pull the cotton balls apart, like this:

This is a great fine motor skill for
little kiddos.

Poke the pulled pieces of cotton into the gaps in the pine cone. Use the poking stick to secure it in place.

Poke gently. 

This is what they look like when you are done poking cotton into the gaps:

Looking owlish yet?

Embellish with googly eyes and bits of paper to make beaks:

Stinkin' cute, right?!

 Read "Owl Babies" to your little ones (or to yourself if you don't have little ones around; it's a terrific book), then name YOUR pinecones Sarah and Percy and Bill.

My kids' favorite book!

Mike drop....

N is for Neighbor

When my husband and I bought our first house, we looked long and hard before we found what we wanted. We first looked in the western edge of the San Fernando Valley, but the homes that we could afford were either very small and on narrow streets built into the hills, or they were bigger but in neighborhoods with bars on the windows.

We moved our search out of the Valley and into Ventura County, finally setting our sights on a couple of neighborhoods in the Agoura Hills area. They were neighborhoods with wide streets, sidewalks, and homes with nice yards, and there were families taking walks and children playing outside. We loved the area, and it wasn't long before we were homeowners.

The house on one side of us was empty; it had been badly damaged in the Northridge earthquake about 8 months earlier and had still not been repaired. But the house on the other side of us had a married couple living in it, probably 20 years older than us. The day we moved in, we noticed the gentleman pretending to work in his front yard so he could watch us move in.

Then we started doing work on our front yard, and he came over, and from that moment on, he came over every time we were in the yard. Every. Time.

He offered us unsolicited advice about any and everything, especially as it pertained to gardening. As we were planting bougainvillea on either side of our garage doors, he told us it wouldn't grow there because of the winter. He told us we had the wrong kind of grass, used the wrong products, or needed to do any number of things differently than we were doing them. 

Between the two of us, we called him Newman.

He was outside a LOT. His front yard was some kind of drought-resistant, clover-like ground covering (not what we had; see above) that he weeded every day with a butter knife, so that kept him outside a lot. and that seemed to be a pretty full time job for him.

We were polite at first, but it didn't take long for us to find out why the other neighbors would give us a sly smile when they saw him talking to us, and we began dodging him when we could.

We would scan the yard for him when we pulled in the driveway, and if we saw him, my husband would say, "Nnnnewman." We would then try to make it inside the house before Newman could make it through his carefully-tended roses (which were scraggly and unattractive for all the work he put into them) to corner us for a conversation. When he caught us both at the same time, it became a game to see which one of us could come up with a reason to go in the house first (I was the MASTER at that game). 

Newman didn't limit his visits, riddled with largely unwanted advice, to the front yard. Until the cinder block wall between our two houses was repaired about a year after we moved in (another Northridge earthquake casualty), he could see us on our patio and would hang over the wall and talk. One of my most memorable fence lectures from Newman was shortly after my son was born, when I was having a horrific time with breast feeding (super long story and I'll spare you at this time), and I was, per instructions from the lactation consultant, sitting on the patio with my raw and bleeding nipples exposed to the sun. Next thing I knew, Newman was hanging over the wall, talking about how my husband was planting the wrong ground cover on our hill. He was so engrossed in his lecture that he never seemed to notice my full frontal exposure.

"The problem," my husband once said, "is that he occasionally has some good information. But the other 95% of the time, he doesn't."

We had a big change of plans a couple of years after we bought that house, and we moved to Missouri to be near our families. When we left the house for the last time, the last thing we saw as we drove away was the two enormous, flourishing bougainvillea plants on either side of the garage doors.

M is for Meal in a Mug

I watched a quarantine episode of Pioneer Woman recently where she was making meals and snacks from pantry items, including making a cake in a mug. It seemed to be more trouble than just making a whole damn cake, but mug starts with "M," and today is "M" day (funny, I don't know what day of the week it is anymore, but I know what LETTER it is).

A quick Pinterest search led me to Buzzfeed and 15 Mini Meals You Can Cook In A Mug. Hello!

Being that I can't run to the store and grab a couple of ingredients, I could only pick recipes I could make from stuff I actually had. That took out 12 of the 15 recipes. Out of those three, I chose Pepperoni Pizza in a Mug and Chocolate Chip Cookie in a Mug. If you're wondering what didn't make the cut, it was Creamy Loaded Potato Soup, which was basically just a cup of broth with a little bit of instant mashed potatoes stirred in, plus a sprinkle of cheese and bacon, and it seemed more like something someone might make in their jail cell rather than in a kitchen.

The pepperoni pizza started with a canned biscuit. Now, who opens a whole can of biscuits just to use one of them for pizza in a mug? Not this girl. Besides, I didn't have canned biscuits (oops), but I DID have Bisquick, so I made one biscuit with it (I eyeballed it - a couple spoons of mix and enough water to make a dough, then I patted it into a biscuit shape). That went into the bottom of a microwavable mug and into the microwave for 30 seconds. When it came out, I added a couple of spoonfuls of marinara sauce, some chopped pepperoni, and shredded mozzarella cheese. Back in the microwave for one minute and done. 

I gave it to my guinea pig, a/k/a my husband.

Husband: Is it chicken? What's the dough? Is it ravioli? Is it egg?

Me: Is it bad?

Husband: If I were on a low carb diet and this was low carb, and I hadn't tasted pizza in a week or a month or a year, this would be really good. It tastes pizza-y. It's no Shakespeare's (a favorite pizza place in Columbia, MO). It's better than Little Caesers, though. I'm not going to be requesting it for dinner any time soon.

Note: he did eat it all.

The chocolate chip cookie in a mug started with melted butter in the bottom of the mug, followed by a tablespoon of white sugar, a tablespoon of brown sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. After mixing those, you were supposed to add an egg yolk (according to the recipe, only the yolk is used because the white makes it rubbery - ick). One egg yolk is still a lot of egg, when you consider you only use two eggs to make a whole batch of chocolate chip cookies, but I added it, followed by flour and chocolate chips, then microwaved for 40-60 seconds. I wasn't sure how to tell if it was done or not, since it doesn't brown, so I ended up cooking mine for 60 seconds, and I don't think it was overcooked. I gave it to my guinea pig.

Husband: Ooo! I like this! Can't go wrong with this! This is already better than the pizza. It's good! I would make this again if it's easy and not a pain in the ass (it was a little of both). It would totally satisfy a craving for chocolate chip cookies. It's more muffin-y than cookie-like. No, it's actually brownie-like!

Note: he ate it all and practically licked the mug.

My bottom line? Both weren't bad, and maybe something fun to do with kids or something, but if I want pizza or cookies (or potato soup), I'll just make the grown-up version.

L is for Light In The Darkness

I can't be the only one who feels like we are in a bad dream that we can't wake up from. Will we ever get our normal back? Can we ever let our guard down? When these thoughts start swirling around in my head, I have to give in to my inner Scarlett O'Hara and say I'll think about it tomorrow. Because today, I am choosing happy. Here are some silver linings to this Stay at Home order due to the Covid 19 pandemic:

I never have to set an alarm, because there's no place to go.

I have plenty of time to read, cook, and waste time playing Candy Crush

I have Zoom meetings with my co-workers that are about 5% meeting and 95% laughing and talking.

When I do have to get out and go to the grocery store, there aren't any crowds. There isn't any toilet paper, either, but I always have hope. (Anyone else feel like they're in Handmaid's Tale when they shop? I scored yeast this week. Blessed be the fruit.)

The kitties are thrilled that there's always someone around to give them scratchies or to provide a lap for curling up and snoozing.

Nora, Finn and Lewis
investigating a new
silk plant.

My daughter is being held captive by us, and while she wishes she could be at college with her friends, she knows she can't, and none of them are there, anyway. And we get to enjoy some bonus time with her (not that she's enjoyable 100% of the time). One more year of college and then off she will go. 

My jeans still fit. I wear them once a week, just to make sure. 

I'm not wearing out my FitBit battery with overuse. I've been up for over 15 hours and have only clocked 2,303 steps. When I'm working, I will have logged 5,000 steps by 10:00 a.m.

I have all the time in the world to deep clean my house. I haven't done it yet, but I have all the time in the world to do so!

I gave myself a corona haircut, and now I have weeks and weeks and weeks for it to grow back out....

I hope you can find light in the all the darkness out there. We still have a long row to hoe.

K is for Keys

My husband has worked in development for not-for-profit organizations for a number of years, and as such, he has often used our family to help him with special fundraising events. From the time our kids were little, they were skilled at filling "goody bags" to be given away at charity runs or walks or golf tournaments. I get assigned to registration tables and raffle tables and silent auction tables. We are indentured volunteers.

It was early summer, and my husband had a charity golf tournament scheduled at a local golf course. The kids had filled goody bags the night before, and I was scheduled to help at the registration table the morning of the tournament, followed by driving a cheer cart around the course. 

The only problem with my indentured volunteerism that morning was that both kids were enrolled in a two-week enrichment course at summer school, and they had to be there at 8 a.m. Since golfers start REALLY EARLY in the morning, my husband had been at the course since 5 a.m. to get everything set up, and the kids and I got there at 7:00. They entertained themselves (meaning they got in their dad's way and fought and argued with each other) while I checked off golfers as they came to the registration table. At 7:45, I turned my pen and list over to another volunteer, called to the kids that we needed to leave for summer school, and reached over to grab my car keys from the table next to me where I had left them, and there were no keys.

Panicked, I checked my pockets, looked on the ground, asked the other volunteers, and questioned the kids. No keys.

I had to leave AT THAT MOMENT in order to get the kids to school on time, so I told my husband about the missing keys (let's just say he was none to happy with me, even as I insisted they had been sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME all morning) and got the keys to his car from him, took the kids to school, then got back right before the shotgun start of the golf tournament. Before the golfers took off for their holes, I announced to them that my keys were missing and would they all please check their golf bags. A few them looked, most of them ignored me, and still no keys.

My cheer cart was loaded with cold drinks and snacks, and I started driving around the course, offering my wares to the golfers and imploring EACH AND EVERY FOURSOME if they would check for my keys. That was over 100 golfers. I knew one of them HAD to have picked up my keys from the registration table, thinking they had their own keys, but every single golfer said they didn't have them (meaning none of them wanted to look). No keys.

The tournament ended with a picnic lunch, and as the golfers ate, the scores were added up so the prizes could be awarded as soon as they finished. As the golfers were filling their plates, my husband stood up in front and made an announcement:

"Someone here has accidentally picked up my wife's keys, and we're not awarding prizes today until someone turns those keys in." 

He really wasn't kidding, and they knew it.

A few minutes later, a gentleman came up to my husband, grinning, and handed him my keys, saying, "I'm not the one who HAD the keys, but the person who DID wishes to remain anonymous and asked me to give them to you." Glory be!

And the moral of the story? No one cared about my keys until it affected them personally.

Do with that information what you will.

J is for June Bug

This is a Missouri June bug. In other parts of the country, they may look differently than this, but this is what we have:

Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! 

They are about one-half to three-quarters of an inch long, have scratchy legs, fly, are attracted to light, and will run smack into you and possibly get tangled in your hair if you are between them and a light source. They have pretty substantial bodies, and if you have your window open and a lamp on inside, you will hear them ping into the screen, where they hang on with those scritchy, scratchy legs. 

The female lays eggs on the ground in mid-summer, and the larvae, known as grubs, live under the ground for around 9 months, munching on the roots of your grass and other plants. Above the ground, they spend their lives chomping on plants and shrubs and flowers when they aren't flying into your hair. Truly, there is nothing positive you can say about them, except that they don't bite, aren't poisonous, and are food for birds and toads.

When I was a toddler, I loved them. I even caught them and carried them around in my hands. My dad called me "June Bug" as a term of endearment. 

My mom used to tell a story about me coming in the house with my hands cupped together, and when she asked me what I had in there, I answered, "A mouse." "A mouse?!" she said, getting a little concerned. I peeked into cupped hands, then answered, "Yes, a mouse." "Let me see your mouse," she said nervously, and when I opened my hands, there sat a scritchy, scratchy June bug.

My mother was greatly relieved it was not really a mouse.

In hindsight, I'm not sure which would have been worse!