Wednesday Hodgepodge: Jazz it up

1. April is National Jazz Appreciation Month. Are you a fan? If so what's a favorite you'd recommend to someone new to jazz listening?

Favourite type of jazz, group, performer, or radio station? One we haven't caught for awhile but which we used to listen to regularly was the Ronnie Scott's Radio Show with Ian Shaw.

It's hard to say whether I like old jazz performers or new ones better. Around here we never get tired of people like Oscar Peterson and Miles Davis, but it's interesting hearing music from current performers as well, like Robi Botos.



2. Mandolin, ukulele, harp, accordion or banjo...which would you be most interested in learning to play? Or do you already play one of the instruments listed?

I have never tried any of those and don't have any plans to. I like to listen to music more than I like to play it.

3. Do you judge a book by it's cover? Elaborate. You may answer in either/both the literal or figurative sense of the word.

I judge lots of books by their covers every week, when I sort and price at the thrift store. Covers, as well as size and shape, are quick clues to genre and quality. Paperback novels usually are a different size from non-fiction. Adventure fiction (like Clive Cussler) looks different from romance novels. The store shelving is alphabetical, so the Grishams cozy up with the Gabaldons, Graftons, and Goudges. If we ever get any Goudges, which is rare.

4. According to a recent study the ten most nutritious foods are-almonds, cherimoya (supposed to taste like a cross between a pineapple/banana), ocean perch, flatfish (such as flounder and halibut), chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, swiss chard, pork fat (shocking! but I don't think they mean bacon), beet greens, and red snapper. Are any of these foods a regular part of your diet? Any you've never ever tasted? Which would you be most inclined to add to your diet?

That list would make a very interesting party menu, at least. I have never eaten cherimoya or red snapper, and I wouldn't say most of the others are regulars here.  We don't eat fish as much as we used to--it's gotten expensive. Almonds, ditto, but I did buy some for Easter.

We used to have chard more often when we grew it ourselves--it's never as good from the store.

5. Besides a major holiday what is the most recent thing you've celebrated with your people? Tell us how.

A double birthday party--cake and a mixture of food. No beet greens or pork fat, but there was some hong shu tofu.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Yesterday I found this wire basket (or flower wall art, if you like) at the thrift store. It can sit on a table by itself, but I thought I would jazz it up with something placed in the middle.

A glass jar of beach pebbles, plus a tea light

Or a bowl of seashells.

Maybe an angel? (I'm thinking with a bit of green stuff at Christmas.)

Or a basket, and something in the basket like a pot of flowers.

What would you do with it?

This post is linked from the Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

Wednesday Hodgepodge: Tripping Over the Hodgepodge Edition

1.  I recently read here about four secrets to happiness from around the world. They were-Overcome your fears by facing them head on, allow yourself to relax and reset, work to live versus living to work, and find the good in life. Not sure if these are the actual secret to happiness, but which of the four do you struggle with most? Which one comes most easily to you?

Struggle with: overcoming fears; but when you "see things for what they are" (Marcus Aurelius, courtesy of Father Tim), they sometimes shrink to manageable size.  Not as hard: finding the good in life. One of my daughter's favourite kindergarten books was Good Times on Grandfather Mountain, and it was a good lesson in bad-turned-to-good.

2. How would you spend a found $20 bill today?

I'd get a pizza for dinner. It's too hot to cook.

3. Ego trip, power trip, guilt trip, round trip, trip the light fantastic, or trip over your own two feet...which 'trip' have you experienced or dealt with most recently? Explain.

Round trip. See #5.

4. If you could master any physical skill in the world what would it be, and how would you use that skill?

Driving. Enough said.

5. As July draws to a close, let's take inventory of our summer fun. Since the official first day of (North American) summer (June 20th) have you...been swimming? enjoyed an ice cream cone? seen a summer blockbuster? camped? eaten corn on the cob? gardened? deliberately unplugged? watched a ballgame? picked fruit off the vine? taken a road trip? read a book?  Are any of these activities on your must-do-before-summer-ends list?

Swimming, no. Corn on the cob, yes. Read a book, yes, several. Over the last week I took a road trip/400-foot ferry trip/air trip/road trip to the U.S. and back, so that would include several of the above and some you haven't even mentioned including Cameroonian coffee, Vegemite chocolate, and Chicago airport pizza (I don't think it was deep-dish though).  And fireworks from the C.N. Tower in Toronto. In a way I did "unplug" during that trip since I misplaced my watch (found when I was repacking to go home).

6. The Republican Presidential candidates will debate on August 6th. What's your question?

I'm staying out of that one.

7. What's your most listened to song so far this summer?

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk. That's a whole album, not a song, but good enough.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

I'm sad that my praying mantises never hatched. But we can't have everything.

Wednesday Hodgepodge comes courtesy of This Side of the Pond, where you can find the linky and add your own thoughts.

Not spending at all...um...

Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in thinking of frugality only in terms of getting good bargains. What is important to remember is that often we can save the most money by not spending at all.--Crystal, Saturday Savings Smorgasbord at Frugal Hacks

Sometimes, frugal as we Squirrels are, it's hard to wrap my brain around that. I have a hard time understanding how those pioneer families managed on their infrequent trips to a store for sugar, salt and shot...or how people concerned with simplicity (who haven't engineered the whole thing ahead of time, stocking up on every possible thing they might run out of) manage to go on one of those no-buying-anything-at-all shopping unbinges.

I mean, some things are obvious to me: if you need to wrap a present and haven't saved up all the bags everybody else has given you presents in, you find some creative wrapping, even the thoroughly-clichéd colour comics. If you're short on baking powder, you can combine baking soda and cream of tartar, assuming that you do have cream of tartar. It makes more sense to use up the getting-dusty bag of split peas to make soup than it does to complain that the canned stuff hasn't gone on sale lately. If you don't have a crib, you can use a playpen (we did). And the list of ways to amuse children and improvise free toys and games can and does go on for pages. That, I get.

But it isn't a toy famine that we're usually experiencing here, nor a lack of furniture. We have more than enough kitchen equipment, lots of books to read, and a flip of the switch provides us with free radio entertainment and edification. What we run out of are the small things. Socks that fit growing feet. Tape. Printer paper. Working ballpoint pens; and I don't think the backyard crows would lend me any quills. Flour (and therefore all the things we make with flour). Toilet paper; and I have no burning desire to start substituting catalogue pages in that regard. Baking powder when there isn't any cream of tartar around. Foil. A VCR that quit working and that Mr. Fixit can't resuscitate. How do you manage without spending at all when life today seems like one big pile of little receipts?

"'What do we need to get in town, Caroline?'

"Ma said they did not need anything. They had eaten so many fish and potatoes that the flour was still holding out, and the sugar, and even the tea. Only the salt was low, and it would last several days."--On the Banks of Plum Creek

I'm looking at this from the perspective of one who went out and BOUGHT a cake this weekend for Ponytails' belated birthday party; not because I'm that lazy generally, but because I haven't felt up to it this week (still under the weather with a cold) and because I didn't particularly want to handle food that five non-Squirreling little girls were going to be eating. Meredith, we could have done the Pepperidge Farm thing too (your baby's cake was beautiful), but at least this took care of the cake, the decorations, and the name--except that the supermarket's cake decorator, despite our having said Ponytails' name clearly several times, wrote "Happy Birthday Aunt Ponytails" on the cake. She then scraped off the "Aunt," leaving the icing somewhat less pristine than it started out and not offering to compensate us for the mistake.

Maybe we would have been better off with Pepperidge Farm. But I digress.

Could I actually go any length of time without buying anything? I know there are so many things you can improvise, and many more that you can just do without. We lived through our hot chocolate mix famine last winter. I really do like using things up and finding ways to use what's in my hand. It's the Year of Abundance, after all.

But then there's the really good candy corn for Thanksgiving from the Bulk Barn...and some classical CDs from Dollarama that will make great stocking stuffers and Secret Sister gifts...and the purple Northern Reflections sweater I found at a rummage sale Friday night (I do need sweaters). And the Turkish Cookbook I got there for a quarter, and a spool knitting set as well. (Crayons thought those were both awesome.) And dancing-class shoes for the younger Squirrelings, because their last-years' pairs are worn out (call them the 2 Dancing Princesses); those cost more than a couple of dollars, but we didn't want them to have to dance in their bare feet.

And that aseptically-packaged apple juice from Giant Tiger for 77 cents a box (amazing deal)...and, if you don't think we should be eating candy and drinking juice (too much sugar), how about the pumpkins and apples and squash and broccoli and the most excellent popcorn that will be gone all too soon when the farm stand closes up for the season? And we just bought a hot-air popper at a yard sale for $2...and a couple of VCRs for about the same price, no kidding. I said VCRs, not videos. See, you have to admit, sometimes spending is just fun. And smart; check the big box stores, VCRs are quickly disappearing from the shelves, and then how are you going to watch all your Star Trek videos?

So while my preferred way of dealing with don't-have-that problems is trying to see another way around it, I'm not going to stress out with guilt over the things we do need to buy. Want to buy.

"And in the lean-to they found a boughten broom! There seemed no end to the wonders in this house."--On the Banks of Plum Creek

Life would certainly go on without a purple sweater and a popcorn popper; I'd wear my old frog-playing-with-a-yo-yo sweatshirt awhile longer, and keep making popcorn in a pot on the stove. If we found ourselves without any means of watching videos, we'd probably read more books or listen to more records. (We found a few of those yard-saling yesterday too. Lena Horne at The Sands, 1961--that would cheer anybody up.) Life goes on no matter what little you have, right? But a few well-spent dollars here and there can be all right too.

[P.S. Update and Little House nitpick: Crayons and I are reading, obviously, On the Banks of Plum Creek. While they're stuck in winter blizzards and living off beans and cornmeal, Pa plays his fiddle and Ma knits. What I want to know is, where did she get the yarn? That's another thing I have a hard time keeping in stock here unless we find a yardsale cache.]