Why I Don't Believe Her

There was once a 9 year old girl who escaped being molested by her 21 year old cousin.  Some 60 years later she remembers every detail.

She remembers her cousin asking her to go for a ride at night to 'shine the deer.'
She remembers the pickup truck was red and white with rusty spots on it.
She remembers the seat cover was red plaid with some spots worn through.
She remembers the smell of stale cigarette butts in the ashtray.
She remembers when they stopped at the edge of a field and he plugged the spotlight into the cigarette lighter.
She remembers seeing three deer in the light from the spotlight.
She remembers how dark it was when he turned off the light.
She remembers feeling sick to her stomach when he started kissing on her.
She remembers crying and him stopping and telling her she better not tell.
She remembers spending the remainder of the evening at her aunt and uncle's house, drawing cartoon characters over and over again with a pencil on notebook paper.  Goofy and Pluto and Mickey Mouse, mostly.
She remembers pretending to be asleep in the back seat of the car on the ride home, listening to her parents talk.
She remembers her mother saying something was wrong and she thought the cousin had done something bad.
She remembers her father saying he didn't think the cousin would ever hurt his daughter.

She never told.  Her mother had often told her that she was a bad girl, for she was headstrong and tended to get into mischief.  Children often believe when something bad happens, it is their fault, so she remained silent.  When the girl was a grown woman with a family of her own and when she knew none of it had been her fault, it made no sense to hurt family by dredging up the past.  It did not take years of therapy to come to that conclusion.  It just took believing that forgiving is the right thing to do.

You just can not convince me that a 15 year old girl now a grown woman has so few memories of an attack except for the name of a man who is up for Supreme Court Justice.  A man who has never had even a whisper of scandal associated with his name.    It may be what the Dems want to hear as truth.  It may be what her lawyers have told her is truth.  But you just can not ever convince me that her testimony is the real truth.

Be Back Soon

Taking a few days off.  Been feeling sort of like something you might want to scrape off the bottom of your shoe.  Pretty sure some chicken soup and sleep will fix me right up.  Until then, read those in the side bar.  Lots of good stuff there. 

Russian Food Preservation

A couple of posts back I mentioned that I had a new home health care nurse, Tatiana, who was born in Russia, immigrated here and became an American citizen.  On her first visit she noticed my shelves full of home canned food and remarked that many in Russia did home canning.  When she was here last Friday, I asked her more about the subject.

Tatiana told me that back in the old USSR, everybody canned everything they could find.  It was a matter of survival.  She said the grocery stores had very little in the way of food, canned or otherwise.  She remembers standing in line for over an hour to buy one loaf of bread.

Her mother used the old fashioned canning jars that had glass lids held down by stiff wire.

I asked if her mother used a pressure canner to process food.  Tatiana wasn't sure what a pressure canner was, so I showed her one of mine.  She said she hadn't ever seen one in Russia and that her mother used large kettles similar to my stock pot.  Food was boiled and ladled into the jars and the glass lids tightened down with the wire.  She  said much of the vegetables were preserved in a vinegar brine and they made lots of sauerkraut because it required only cabbage and salt, both of which could be had fairly easily.

I asked if her mother had ever canned meat and she said she had not heard of anyone doing that.  She was amazed at the variety of meats that may be canned.

Tatiana says that things are much better in Russia now.  The stores carry a large variety of foods and people don't spend nearly so much time standing in line.  Like here in the USA, home canning isn't done as much as it was years ago.  And like here, the Russians, especially in the cities, don't bother preserving food, but just get what they want at the stores.

I found it fascinating to compare how things are done in one part of the world to another.  If we kick the politics into a corner and just concentrate on the people, we may find we aren't so different after all.

Prayer Request

A regular commenter on this blog has become one of those friends I will never personally meet, but is considered a friend, nonetheless.  She just this past week buried her beloved husband of 40 years.  Her home is owned by the company her husband worked for and must be vacated within 60 days.  Her adult daughter is chronically ill.  The lady has a lot on her plate.

Through all of these hardships she has not lost her faith in God.  She and I both believe in the power of prayer.  I know that some of you are already bringing her situation to the Throne of God.  I would humbly ask that any of you who are of a mind to, please include her and her daughter in your prayers.

And So It Begins...

Once in a while I will go from one room in my apartment to the next, only to forget why.  I wasn't too worried about this.  Talking with others of my vintage and even younger, I find this is fairly common.  But there were a couple of things lately that make me wonder if I have started on the downward slide toward total memory loss.

Today, Thursday, my grandson Chris is having surgery to repair damage to one of his fingers due to an accident at his place of work.  (His mother, my daughter, called to tell me the surgery went well and is successful.) So yesterday, Wednesday, I called my daughter to find out how the surgery went.  Daughter said I must have lost a day somewhere, for the surgery was the next day.  I thanked her for giving me back my lost day and hung up the phone with the sound of her laughter ringing in my ear.

About suppertime yesterday Duane showed up with a club sandwich and fries from the little restaurant in our neighborhood.  He knew I had been feeling a bit off all day so he brought my evening meal so I didn't need to cook.  Bless him!

Anyway, while he was here I asked him if he had noticed any changes in my memory capabilities lately.  I told him about calling his sister a day early for surgery results.  And I said there was one other thing that made me wonder, but I couldn't remember what it was.  He just laughed and said as far as he could tell, I still had all my marbles.

Later in the evening I messaged him on FB...

"The other thing was yesterday I couldn't remember how to work my apple peeler.  Peeled all those apples by hand.  Remembered how it worked this morning.  Plink - plink - plink-  the sound of marbles hitting the floor."

His response was a cartoon picture of some sort of little animal, rolling on the ground, laughing hysterically.

Deep, exaggerated Sigh along with a grin.  :)

Silly Phone Call Day

So the first phone call today was from my caseworker for the county government nursing and housecleaning services I use.  He thought it would be a nifty idea if his office collected the fee I pay to have my groceries delivered, and they would then add that to my monthly bill.  It took some time and lots of patience to convince him that my grocery delivery service was a volunteer service for Seniors and has nothing to do with his government department.

The second call later in the day was from the very same caseworker.  He was concerned that I was paying for the supplies used in the care and treatment of my legs, out of pocket.  He offered to call Medicare for me and find out if they covered those supplies.  I understand he might just be trying to be helpful, but it still took some time and lots of patience to make him understand that I had already done that when I first found out that I was responsible for the supplies and found they weren't covered.

He then suggested that I get prescriptions for the supplies so that my prescription insurance would pay for them.  It took some time and lots of patience to convince him that I had already checked into that possibility and found it was just as cheap and less of a hassle for me to order supplies from Amazon than it was to go through a prescription.   I can order in bulk and Amazon delivers to my door.

Sometimes I think that some government workers have the mistaken notion that their clients do not have more than a couple of functioning brain cells.  I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on them as they are likely used to folks who work harder at getting free stuff than they would at a regular job.  To run across someone who takes care of her own stuff is a shock to the system.

The last call was from Kevin at Windows who was terribly concerned about the state of my computer.  Being out of time and patience, I informed Kevin that he was a fool if he thought I was going to fall for that old scam.

I wonder just how many fellows named Kevin there are in India. 

Farmer's Market Haul

There was a time when my son would make a Farmer's Market run and bring me bushels of produce.   Now that things have changed and I can no longer process bushels of produce at one time, the haul is smaller, but still very welcome. 

There were 2 small - a little bigger than grapefruit sized - cantaloupe.  I ate one last evening and the other for breakfast this morning.  They were delicious.  I saved some of the seeds.  One of my daughters has a small garden and I think I can maybe talk her into planting some of them in the spring.

There were a dozen green and two red bell peppers.  What a difference between the  store bought peppers and the ones from the Farmer's Market.  These I sliced thin, packaged in individual portions and froze them.  I probably wouldn't have thought to preserve them this way, but one of my readers left a comment a couple of posts ago telling me that's how he had preserved his peppers.  Thanks, "Red."

The last item was two bags of apples - about 20 lbs. total.  They aren't pretty enough to sell in the grocery store, being of different sizes and not uniform in color, so they are sold at a reduced price as 'seconds.'  I don't know why the buying public has to have the perfect looking produce.  These apples are fresh picked locally, which is more than you can say for those in the stores.  We have been enduring another heat wave that should end by tomorrow, so then these apples will become applesauce.  The applesauce will be canned in half pint jars, which is just the right size for Son to take in his lunch for work and for me to consume.

Today I had a new home health care nurse attending to my legs.  She is from Russia.  When she saw my shelves of home canned food, she asked if I had canned it all myself.  She said that here in America she hadn't seen anything like that.  She works in city areas and I told her that it was fairly common in the rural areas, but many living in town just go to the grocery stores instead of canning at home.  She told me that in Russia, everyone cans food at home.  She said that they can't count on the stores to have what the people need and if they didn't garden and can, they might go hungry.  She thought the Farmer's Market was the most wonderful thing. 

Tatiana immigrated from Russia and became an American citizen.  She speaks fluent English with just a slight accent.  She is a lovely lady who came highly recommended and seems to be doing a good job in her chosen field of nursing.  She is the kind of immigrant I will welcome.