The Crab Chronicles

Songs and Movies

Ever have a song in your head and you cannot stop hearing it?! This happens to me occasionally and I just go with it. No point in fighting it.

Michael and I were in the car the other day and I did something I really enjoy, I embarrassed my son. I decided to groove along to what was playing on the radio, and it happened to be a song by Foster the People called Pumped Up Kicks. I dare you to listen to that and not at least nod your head. I don't like the lyrics particularly, but the song is catchy. It's rather different from a lot of the songs that are played on the radio station Michael likes. Pumped Up Kicks has a catchy, singable melody and they play instruments.

A good example of a song I can tolerate but don't really like is Just Can't Get Enough, by the Blackeyed Peas.It's Michael's favorite song. I am somewhat fond of it, though, because I have a cute memory of having Bart, Colton, and Michael in the car recently and all of them were sitting in the back seat singing along to this song. Colton especially was grooving to it and knew every word, even the part in the middle where they do "switchout," which he got to do in his best bass voice. Definitely a happy song for this generation.

My idea of a happy song is September by Earth Wind and Fire. I thought it was interesting that at the end of the first Night At The Museum movie when things are fine and they need a happy song, they play September, not something made in the past 20 years.

Great music is timeless.

I was in the car yesterday on the way home from work, and a news story came on NPR that was boring, and I thought, I want to hear that song Pumped Up Kicks and I hit the button on the radio that has Michael's station plugged in and there it was, like magic. What are the odds?!

Life has been rather routine the past few days. I am in a better mood than I was in the other day when I posted about feeling down, thank goodness.

We watched the updated version of Tron, Tron Legacy, last night. Eye candy is how one of my friends described it. I prefer character over visuals. That was weird, seeing Jeff Bridges looking very young again. Creepy. It was a little too "out there" for me. Michael LOVES that film, for unknown reasons.

I preferred Life As We Know It, which was mostly just an update on Three Men and a Baby, but it was cute. They filmed LAWKI here in Atlanta, and once that was mentioned, I got totally distracted trying to figure out where scenes were filmed. Except for a couple of views of the skyline, it really could've been anywhere.

Gotta go make breakfast for the boy. Y'all have a good Friday..

Recipes

I was looking through some old files on the computer and I ran across three of my favorite recipes. Each one is very different from the rest, but I have made each of them many times and I can attest they are all excellent. I am reprinting them here. They are all wonderful!

 

BORSCHT [American version]

 In soup kettle :

Briefly saute 1 c chopped onion and 1 tbsp chopped garlic in 1 tbsp butter.  Stirring constantly, add :

10 cups beef stock

2 c chopped tomatoes

1 cup peeled, grated beets [I buy canned shredded beets]

4 cups shredded red cabbage [I buy the kind shredded for coleslaw, near the bag salads]

1 tsp caraway seeds

1 tsp sugar (optional )

2 tbsp lemon juice

Bring just to the boil, reduce heat and simmer 90 minutes.Stir occasionally. Serve hot.

Garnish with sour cream and dill.

I have made this in the crock pot with the leftovers of a beef roast and gotten 2-3 meals out of it. It's really a one dish meal, and very tasty, whether you are a Russophile like me, or not.

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Apricot Brandy Pound Cake

 3 cups sugar                                             ½ t. rum flavoring

2 sticks butter                                           1 t. orange flavoring

6 eggs                                                       1/4 t. almond flavoring

3 cups plain flour, sifted                             1 t. vanilla flavoring

1/4 t. soda                                                 ½ t. salt

½ cup apricot brandy                               1 cup [8 oz.] sour cream

           Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add other ingredients in order as above; except when adding flour alternately with sour cream. Bake 1 hour and 10 minutes in two well greased and floured pans at 325. [Note: this will also make one large bundt pan cake; increase baking time by 10 minutes and check]

    This receipt was given to me by a lady I worked with years ago in Knoxville, and she got it from her grandmother, so it's probably quite old. The flavorings and brandy make it really yummy.

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Apple Dip

 8 oz. Cream cheese

¾ cup light brown sugar

pineapple juice

½ pkg. Bits o’brickle toffee pieces

3-4 Granny Smith apples

 Take out the cream cheese to soften and let it soften for about an hour before mixing it with other ingredients. Wash and slice apples thinly without peeling. Set slices in pineapple juice and refrigerate. Mix together all other ingredients and put in a bowl. Just before the party, arrange the slices around the bowl of dip.

Every time I've ever served this at a party, it gets eaten up quickly.

Thoughts and Feelings

I saw a little book in Kroger the other day and I can't recall the title, but it was something about controlling your thoughts. I picked it up and flipped through it, but I didn't buy it. I remember thinking to myself, well this is obvious.

I emailed Lesleigh the next day and told her I was going to try and control my thoughts and be more positive. I really thought it would be easy.

To say I failed spectacularly would be an understatement. I started thinking about how little money I have right now and how I might not be able to pay the property taxes on the house next year. While I was eating my lunch I looked at nearby apartments. My thoughts were in full panic mode.

Thank God for work. I could re-direct my thoughts because I had to.

The more I think to myself, gotta stay positive, gotta have faith, gotta stop worrying - the more I worried. What's up with that?!?

I was successful some years ago at banishing a lot of negative thoughts from my mind, and my life expanded exponentially. The next thing I knew I was going to Russia, having a grand adventure.

Of course, most of those negative thoughts were along the lines of "You're short. You have fat legs and cellulite. Your head is too big. You burp too much." etc. Ending up with the biggest bad thought, "You'll never get married."

Then one day I thought well so what? I won't get married. Big damn deal. Life goes on. I can decide to be happy anyway.

My negative thoughts these days all center around money. I'm not a good money manager. I hate hearing about money managament. HATE IT. My friend Cindy is always reading books about ways to better manage your money, and she enjoys that. I applaud her on that. I'd rather stick knitting needles in my eyes.

So much of the time here I blog about everyday life, the minutiae of it all, but I don't blog much about my feelings. So today is a feelings day.

If I can control my thoughts I can control my feelings. Any ideas, suggestions, thoughts YOU have, leave me a comment.

Bargains and Eggplants

Yesterday was a typical Monday, frenetic. I am always more tired on Monday than any other day because after staying up late on Friday and Saturday nights, it's hard to go to sleep at the regular time on Sunday night, so I end up staying up too late.

Then on Monday I am sleepy all day.

I had kind of a fun time with Michael last night, looking for his new Ralph Lauren shirt on Ebay. We didn't find the exact shirt but we found some Lauren sports shirts for $40+ and I cackled gleefully, since the one I found for him the other day at Goodwill was $4. We were also looking for him another long-sleeved Champion brand tee shirt made out of that wicking material - another $4 Goodwill purchase. We never found any really the same, but we found very similar shirts on the Champion website, for $30+. A friend was telling me he likes to shop at Marshalls and TJMaxx. I just said "They are too high. Goodwill is a LOT cheaper and we can find designer clothes, like new."

I also enjoyed picking two beautiful eggplants from my garden. I took one and made Emeril's fried eggplant. I didn't deep fry it; I just sautee'd it in olive oil and Plugra. Then I proceeded to eat a small bowl of chili and WAY too much eggplant, and I ended up with an uncomfortable bloated feeling. Oh well.  It was wonderful, all of it. The chili used tomatoes from our garden. Stuff I grow just tastes so much better. If I ever start a food blog I can call it So Much Better...

I will end this with an old photo I just love. This is my grandfather Papaw Hasty's family, in about 1910. Papaw is the tall young man on the back row, second from left. I think the young woman on the front row is my aunt Daisy and the younger kids down front are hers. Daisy lived to be 103.

Waffle House

We had glorious weather yesterday, a crisp blue sky and fluffy white clouds. I am so glad the intense heat of summer is over.

I still have green tomatoes in my garden. I will wait on bringing them in as long as possible, because sun-ripened are so much better. I have a watermelon getting bigger every day. There are two eggplants almost ready to pick. I grew them from tiny seedlings planted in July. I am pondering recipes; leaning towards eggplant parmesan.

Mike and Colton went for a long bike ride yesterday around the neighborhood. I told Mike this is perfect bike weather.

Except for a trip to Kroger and some writing, I took it pretty easy yesterday.

Michael informed me about 6:00 he wanted to go to Waffle House for dinner. "I'm craving waffles!" Yet another reason I know he was meant to be my son. We all love Waffle House. My parents used to have a thick book that guided them to every Waffle House in the southeast, and they consulted it often when on trips. If there was a Waffle House along the way, they almost always stopped there.

You can gasp in horror if you want to, but so be it. Nobody in my house has high cholesterol.

Michael wanted to order two waffles, and hash browned potatoes. I said nope, one waffle, and if you eat everything and want another, you can have it. Then he proceeded to eat half my order of bacon, and I ordered him some bacon. That boy can eat some waffles, for sure.

More will be revealed..

Chili Day

I now know it's really fall because we had chili for dinner last night. Fall = chili

Even though the high yesterday was about 80, that's a cool day here in Hot-Lanta. The high today is supposed to be 86. That's warmish, but not hot. A lot depends on the humidity, too, which isn't too bad right now. 

John made a big pot of chili, and man was it tasty. He is a wonderful cook, and I was too happy to turn over the cooking of dinner to him.

Michael's tennis team had a match yesterday, although he didn't play. The other boys did well. Strangely enough, at the end of the match, the two teams were tied exactly, at 27 points each. In 3 years of being the team captain I've never seen that.

My friend Maria and I went to a play in Marietta at The Lyric Theatre, Thoroughly Modern Millie. It was great fun, except for the horrible traffic slowdown on I-285 going there. I hadn't seen Maria in a while, though, and we chatted while we were sitting in traffic.

Colton came over and hung out with Michael and spent the night. He's such an easy houseguest, and a sweet kid.

When I got home from the play, each boy was stretched out on a couch in the family room, and they were watching TV. I asked them what they were watching. "I don't know," Michael said. "There are guys in army uniforms running around with guns, so we watched it."

Typical answer for two adolescent boys, huh?!

Mike and I ran an errand yesterday and we passed an upholstery shop. Out of curiosity I asked Mike if he knew that word, "upholstery." He thought a minute. "Does it have something to do with chickens?" he asked.

"Nope, that's poultry. Upholstery refers to a cloth covering on a piece of furniture, not a farm animal," I replied, laughing. That connection never would've occurred to me. LOL

We also saw a custom license plate that said OLD HAG. Mike said "Did they see her coming and make her have that license plate?!"

"I certainly hope not!" I replied, chuckling.

Today I am going to Kroger and I am going to write a review of Thoroughly Modern Millie, but otherwise I am hoping to take things easy. You do the same.

Glasses

There hasn't been much to write about in the last few days that I thought would be of interest, but here are the highlights.

These are Mike's new glasses. The school has a program to help kids get glasses, and what a godsend, since I have no money right now. I knew he was having trouble seeing, but he said the old glasses just didn't work. The new ones, he says are like "seeing the world in high-def."

See the plastic bracelets on his arm? These are apparently very popular with kids at his school. They just have one word on each one - FEARLESS, TROUBLE, REBEL, etc. Don't know why he likes these so much but I see no harm in them.

Went out to dinner last night with my friend John, at Edoardo's, and we brought food back to Mother. It was so nice to visit and catch up. John and I have been friends since high school in Knoxville. He's going back to school soon, studying to be a massage therapist.

I decided to make burritos Thursday night, and I was tickled by how much Michael ate. I sauteed 3 whole peppers and half an onion and added about half a packet of taco seasoning mix. Then I cooked the ground beef separately. Mike and I like our burritos with lots of pepper/onion mixture, sour cream, beef and cheese. I truly didn't think we would finish all those peppers but we did. Mike didn't want to heat up a second tortilla so for his second helping he just ate peppers and cheese on a plate, with a fork. YUM. Such a simple meal yet lots of food value. The taco seasoning really enhances the flavor of the peppers and onion.I also add some Plugra butter and pepper. Mmmm...

I've been thinking a lot about Catherine's Hurry Up Chili recipe, because the weather has turned cooler, and cool fall nights make me think of chili. I think I will make a big pot of chili tonight. I am not putting in chocolate, though. Just can't go there.

Shop Til You Drop

After a friend of mine retired, his wife insisted that he accompany her on her trips to Target. Unfortunately, like most men, he found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunate, his wife is like most women - she loves to browse. Yesterday his dear wife received the following letter from the local Target.



Dear Mrs. Harris,

Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against your husband, Mr. Harris, are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.



1. June 15: He took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people's carts when they weren't looking.

2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in House wares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. July 7: He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.

4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, 'Code 3 in House wares. Get on it right away'. This caused the employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted with a union grievance, causing management to lose time and costing the company money.

5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&Ms on layaway.

6. August 14: Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told the children shoppers he'd invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department to which twenty children obliged.

8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?' EMTs were called.

9.. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.

10. September 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.

11. October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the 'Mission Impossible' theme.

12. October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of funnels.

13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'

14. October 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!'

And last, but not least:

15. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here.'
One of the clerks passed out.

R.E.M. Nostalgia

I was a bit sad to see today that an iconic band, R.E.M., has broken up after 31 years together.

I'll never forget going to the Atlanta Arts Fest in Piedmont Park in the summer of 1982 and my friend Klaus' excitement over hearing a new band play for free. He was German, visiting the US, but he loved REM's first hit single on the UGA radio station, "Radio Free Europe."

 

It was a hot day. We climbed up on the bleachers with a few others and the show started. The lead singer had stringy hair hanging in his eyes and he twitched like he was having a seizure. He didn't know the lyrics, but had grubby bits of paper in his fist and he would consult them before he sang. We couldn't understand the words anyway.

 

The band was terrible, I thought. That one his song must've been a fluke. These guys need to go back to the garage and rehearse. A lot.

(If you want some idea of what that performance was like, check out this video from 1983, although they had improved a lot by the time they got on Letterman. Ignore the stupid popup in the video, which is ridiculous.)

 

That was my first exposure to REM. I never thought they'd last a year, much less 30 years.

 

I had no idea that years later, hearing "Radio Free Europe" on the radio would make me want to cry, missing Athens and my buddies there.

 

REM embodied the recklessness of my youth, that weird time in the early 1980's when UGA Athens was THE hip campus, and bands like REM and the B-52's defined the Athens sound. We were part of an amazing movement, and we knew it.

 

I remember dancing at the famous 40 Watt Club, and wondering if I should drink anything out of the glasses there, they looked so dirty.

 

I marveled at the sheer number of bands that played everywhere in Athens, and I chuckled at the clever names like Phil and the Blanks.

 

The B-52's were the party band. You listened to the 2's if you wanted to dance. You listened to REM if you were serious about your music.

 

The band improved quickly after that disastrous 1982 performance, and it was only months later that a girl in my American history class burst through the door squealing "My friend saw Michael Stipe in the Food Lion BUYING BANANAS LAST NIGHT!" OMG.

With the blonde ringlets framing his face, Stipe was a gorgeous manchild, for sure. (Nobody knew he was gay until years later, not that that fact would've made him any less attractive.)

 

Sometime in the late 1980's I was visiting my cousins in Virginia and my cousin Lilla mentioned how much she liked REM. I laughingly told her about seeing them for free and how bad they were. Those were the days when they were selling out huge stadiums and were white hot in popularity. Lilla glared at me like she wanted to slap me. "You saw them FOR FREE?!" she said in a tone of outrage.

 

Well yeah, and you get what you pay for...

But I am being flippant, and I didn't really mean to be. In all honesty, R.E.M. has been the background music of my life ever since college. I listen to the radio a lot. I can sing all the words to even the songs I am not wild about, like Stand and Shiny Happy People.

A note about the song "Shiny Happy People." Despite the treacly lyrics, that jangly guitar and danceable beat always make me nostalgic for Athens. There's a purity there that encapsulates those college years for me.

Another good example of that sound is heard in the song The One I Love, a song I really like a lot. You can dance to it, but it has angst.

Every time I hear Everybody Hurts I feel like crying. This is what music is supposed to do. It's supposed to reach inside you and find the pain, and massage it, and give it life, and maybe assuage it. It's supposed to MEAN SOMETHING, music. (Sorry, I was thinking for a minute about the crappy pop music teens listen to nowadays. Call me a fogie. I don't care.) R.E.M., unlike so many bands, came up with fresh sounds and intriguing lyrics more often than not. They weren't about mindless dance sounds and easily palatable "hooks."

Whether you like them or not, they have always been original and they deserve our respect and affection.

I had a really awful day, and although I am sad the band is breaking up, thinking back on their music and listening to some of their songs has been a great distraction for me.

Go in peace, guys. Thanks for all the great tunes.

Bloodwork

What's in your blood? It's an intriguing question. Maybe a better question would be, what's in your medical history.

Here's one thing I know about mine: I am half Hasty, and the Hasty body doesn't retain potassium or sodium very well. That's why my mother has suffered with leg cramps for many years. My brother and I have them, too, although it's easier for us to control them, perhaps because we are half Thompson. I don't know.

A cousin of mine made this comment on Facebook: "Many of us with Hasty blood retain neither sodium nor potassium as normal people do." I've written about this before. I've alerted all my first cousins to the fact most of us need to take potassium supplements. I take them daily. I also don't worry about salt intake. Sometimes I crave salt. It's better than having cramps.

Fran is not a close cousin. We'd have to sit down and talk for a few minutes to come up with a common ancestor. It doesn't matter. When I go to a reunion held in Canton, Georgia, I can look around the room and pick out the Hastys. Don't ask me how. I just know, even if I've never met the person before. I immediately feel a kinship to the Hastys.

Some years ago I was working for a very demanding, peculiar attorney here in Atlanta, and I learned there was a lawyer named Hasty representing our opponent. I suspected we might be related as soon as I heard he was from Cherokee County, but I didn't breathe a word of it to my boss. Even though I'd never met the guy, she likely would've fired me, accusing me of being on his side. She was that paranoid. When the case went to trial and I finally met him in person, I knew immediately we were related. Some years later when I met Jan, our Hasty family historian, I was able to trace the connection back.

I was thinking yesterday, I wish I knew more about Michael's birth father. I have no information whatsoever, not even a name.

Michael is having a tough time right now. I wrote about this yesterday.

I think his attitude is a combination of things. He is getting four teeth in. Now that the braces did their work and shifted all the teeth around, there's room for the new teeth. It's a painful process, though.He said yesterday after school his teeth were super sensitive. He couldn't even breathe through his mouth without them hurting.

He also may be growing, but I'm not sure. If he is, he's growing slowly. I quit suggesting we measure him against the bathroom door a while back, because if he hadn't grown he would get upset. So now I am trying to keep quiet about it. He may get bigger than 5'5 or he might not.

Maybe his father was short. I don't know.

I also think Michael is spending way too much time texting people on his iPod. I've taken it away for a few days. He was very angry at me last night because he couldn't sleep with it next to his head.

He's 15. He's going to get pissed off at me about something about half the time, is what I figure.I remember when I was 15 I was awful to my mother. She got mad at me one night and threw a bowl of tuna salad at my head. I ducked. It splattered all over oil portraits of my grandparents. We both got tickled. I think I had a better attitude after that.

Michael also goes today to get his eyes tested for new glasses. I am hoping and praying he can get some that work for him. The last pair didn't help much. Fear of the unknown always makes him surly.

If new glasses don't help, maybe I will need to make some tuna salad...