age and technology

I feel honoured to be as old as I am. I actually do remember the "good old days". For Example:

Being way way up north in the freezing country, our vehicles needed help starting. There was no such thing as an engine block heater to get the oil warmed up and thusly starting the engine. So...we had a pan, much the shape of a wok, and we would fill it with hot coals from the house furnace topped with kindling. We would set this pan of burning fire under the block under the car and leave it for thirty minutes. Voila!!! The car would start!

Speaking of furnaces, ours was a full on wood/coal burning furnace. Early in the freezing morning, way before daylight, we would hear our dad downstairs stoking up coals and throwing on new fuel. It would take about two hours for the house to heat, but still be very chilly in the outer rooms. We would be up and out of bed around 6 am and we would rush into the closed off kitchen, full of bright lights and bacon smells and warmth. Coffee would be brewing on the old wood stove and the oven door would be wide open with our clothes laying over the door, warming. We would huddle in front of that stove in our calf length, long sleeved cotton nightgowns, waiting to dress in our warm clothes. My mom would turn the radio, CBC (the only station we had) on and listen for the farm report.

Our telephone, at that time, was a crank phone. Everybody between Smithers and Telkwa, an eleven mile stretch full of farms and houses, was on that line. Our ring was a short and a long. Everytime the phone rang for someone along that route, we would hear it and we had everybody's ring code memorized. Three shorts and two longs was my best friend Barbara's ring! I will never forget the day they came and installed a rotary dial phone. I just didn't understand how one ring , and everytime it rang, it would be for us. And that we no longer heard the others rings. If we picked up the phone to use it, and if we heard someone talking that meant someone else was using the phone and we had to say sorry and hang up immediately. As I got older, the hanging up part got slower!!

So, now here I sit in a room, three thousand miles away from home, typing this missive on my laptop, occasionally picking up my cell phone to text one of my kids, listening to my music on my ipad, answering the house phone when it rings, and keeping an eye tuned into the tv (something we never had while in the north). This is when I am happy to be old enough to still be blown away by these forms of communication. And oh oh!! what is that I hear??? Its a jet flying over getting ready to land over at the airport. When the first jet landed in Smithers all those many many years ago...the whole town turned out to see it! Now I ride in one several times a year....and it still scares the hell out of me!







\

ox tails

Have you had them? Have you cooked them? Have you eaten them, slowly sucking the tender delicious meat from the bones, the kind of bones that have secret hideyholes that, thank God you have a tongue, you can stick your toungue into and make loud rude sucking noises, pulling out every little tasty morsel? Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......................

I have just discovered them. Ox Tails. They truly are the most delicious part of the bovine. They make owning that guilt inducing, dust collecting, "I don't know how to use it right!" crock pot, pushed to the back of the cupboard, taking up valuable space, and ever on the verge of garage saledom, finally justified. Pull it out people. Do yourself a favour and pull it out, dust it off and pop a few oxtails into it, whole onions and a grind of sea salt. Put that lid on and let her go for eight hours.

When they are done, let them cool just a little. Don't besmirch the delicious experience you are about to partake in with any other food. It will only detract from the experience that is ox tail.

You are going to get messy, so wash your hands, put on an old shirt, dish up a couple of those bones, onions and juices into a bowl, sit at the table and dig in. Suck the bones, chew up the meat, taste those yummy gummy onions. Lean back and take a moment and then...start again until they are gone. You will love them.

They are expensive, afterall a cow only has one tail. But the taste and the whole experience is worth every single dime, (and worth keeping that stupid crock pot!!!!)

conditioning

I find it amazing how strong a neuropath can be burned in your brain and how long (if ever) it takes to re-route the thinking.

In our condo here in Maui our hot water is solar heated on our roof. For whatever reason, the little box on the side of the tank where the switch is, clicks, loudly, every thirty secons. Fortunately we can't hear it down the hall in our bedroom when the door is shut. But everywhere else in this place, you can hear it.

The click is very similar to that of an oven or element on an electric stove. In fact it is pretty identical, only a bit louder. Over the few weeks we have been in this place I have been completely unable to ignore it. For fifty years this little click has not been a good thing. i am continuously thinking I have left the stove on. No matter how many times I fix my thinking, I still think the stove is on. It is totally nerve wracking. A dripping faucet is annoying, a barking dog next door is aggravating, people living over your head throwing the ball for their noisy thumping dog is disturbing.....but this clicking is driving me insane. I Keep Thinking The Stove Is On !!!!! That clicking is a warning sound. So, I am in in a perpetual state of "Oh Gee!! What Have I forgotten on the stove?!!"