Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

Review, Reconsider, Restore, Reconnect  While driving home from Florida, while keeping my eyes on the road and paying attention, my brain decided to take a detour into some of the deeper, darker recesses of memory.  There I found myself reviewing about a half dozen, if I recall correctly, truly awful situations where my behavior was at least horrible if not reprehensible.  I don't know what triggered said review and try as I may, the visuals and audios refused to shut off.  Now, this did keep me very attentive as I drove so perhaps that's why this occurred at that moment, but really, these were events that I hadn't revisited in many years nor did I harbor any interest in seeing them make the Grand Review. What would happen is this: I'd be driving, the highlight reel would kick in.  We'd stop, Dan would take over the driver's seat, and I would work hard on reconsidering what I had done and, more importantly, why I had done it.  Truth be told, I pretty much f...

When I started this blog lo these many years ago, the intention was to cook New York Times recipes AS WRITTEN, utilizing ALL the ingredients identified, and then blog about the results. Well, hmm.  That didn't exactly happen. Before retiring, I saved a stash of NYT recipes and actually cooked some of them, however seldom did I follow the recipe as written, for the following reasons. 1. I didn't have that much time to cook dinner.  My commute home was 45 minutes on a good day--let's not talk what traffic was like when it snowed, shall we?  Though I like to cook, by the time I hit the garage door, what was cooked was me as opposed to the food.  So I used the recipes more like guidelines as opposed to be followed to the letter instructions. I love this. 2. Often the ingredients specified in the NYT recipes, or so it seemed to me, were either a bit arcane or more readily available if you actually lived in New York and there was a neighborhood bodega or Asian market on th...

 The cleaning people came yesterday, and in the short span of two hours effectively wiped away all traces of the past two weeks. We engaged in our own version of chaos here in Florida, one imbued with love as opposed to the national political version laced with evil.  For the first time in the 7 years we've been snowbirding, all four of our children's school districts had the same spring break.  Usually spring breaks spread out over a month, giving each family time alone together, bunking with Grandma and Grandpa.  The turnover is not dissimilar to a revolving door, often one family being picked up at the airport while another is packing up their suitcases to leave later in the day, beds being stripped and remade, towels washed, etc.  There has been some overlap of families for a couple days but never all 4 families here at the same time.  Until this year. I must admit, I'm proud of how my children worked out where they would stay, and when, and who would b...

  ( * because these boo boo heads will, no doubt, vote in lockstep with their Dear Leader to obliterate the Department of Education) The insanity/chaos/shittiness going on in Washington has not gone unnoticed by this blogger and I simply cannot keep up with it, blog wise.  I've opted for daily posts on Instagram (@bigtenmom2000), if you're interested. However, as a career educator/administrator and grandparent of a child with special needs, I felt this current move calling to me, thus warranting a blog post. The President claims to want to return control of the schools to the states.  Below is what is in place today. In education, local control refers to (1) the  governing and management of public schools  by elected or appointed representatives serving on governing bodies, such as school boards or school committees, that are located in the communities served by the schools, and (2) the degree to which local leaders, institutions, and governing bodies can make i...

  As a youngster, I remember watching Meet the Press on Sunday mornings.  I have a feeling this began when I stayed overnight at my maternal grandmother's Chicago apartment (4051 West School Street).  She was the home district secretary to Congressman Roman C. Pucinski (D), 11th Congressional District of Illinois, and had a keen interest in the workings, and machinations, of politics.  Rose Laura Dach Piekielko was a died in the wool Richard C. Daley (D), Mayor of Chicago, Democrat.  Those beliefs had a significant impact on my own political ideals. Consequently, it has become my habit to watch the Sunday morning political interview shows.  I stuck with Meet the Press when Tim Russert and Chuck Todd were the hosts.  Television scheduling being what it is, Meet the Press interfered with the last half hour of CBS Sunday Morning, another stalwart view in our home.  Scrolling around, it seemed as if the various political parties shilled out the same p...

  Recently I heard some younger than me radio commentators question the need for Christmas cards.  Their rationale for not sending cards included the following: 1. Nothing of worth comes via snail mail any longer.  Communications are conducted primarily, if not exclusively, through text, messenger, email. 2. Everyone is on social media.  Throughout the year, everyone has shared with everyone else anything of note happening in their lives, thus negating the need for not only a card, but also the often mocked Christmas letter.  If you already know what's happened during the past year, why regurgitate it in a Christmas letter often populated with adjectives of excess (the best!  most wonderful!  amazing!  so blessed!). 3.  Cards themselves require a fair amount of time to create, if in fact you don't simply purchase a box of cards at the local Hallmark or Target or Walmart.  First you need to choose a company which produces photo cards, the...

  Lately, I've been thinking about my mom and dad.  Thinking about them a lot.  And I am thankful for the infrastructure and scaffolding they built, because I see and feel it in so many different ways.  I think about how much they would enjoy their grandchildren and now their great grandchildren, my dad in particular.  He would, I imagine, have great patience with Jackson, his oldest great grandson who has special needs.  I believe he would delight in each developmental step Jack takes, although I think he would tire quickly of Jack's echolalia and some other quirks of his cognitive disability.  I mean, let's not make the guy a saint--but since he's dead, maybe he is.  He would delight in how smart Beau and Ethan are, be excited at their burgeoning interest in sports, especially baseball.  My dad would laugh aloud at the kindergarten humor of Jameson and Ace.  And his great granddaughters, Millie, Sloane and Georgia, would have him wrapp...