What’s going on around here? Well, I cooked a whole chicken in the instant pot yesterday for the first time. The five-pound chicken cost me almost five bucks, and the Instant Pot did it justice; it was delicious. For those who’ve never used an Instant Pot, that name can be pretty deceiving. The chicken cooks under pressure for thirty minutes, but it takes at least twenty minutes to build up the pressure, and then you don’t open the lid and take the chicken out until twenty to thirty minutes after it gets done cooking. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but it surely isn’t as “instant” as my old, “not-so-safe” pressure cooker. Also, I’m used to those Costco cooked chickens, which give us at least three meals every time: When we bring one home, we just eat some chicken with a baked potato and a vegetable. Next day I make one of the several recipes I have that call for cooked chicken, then we usually have chicken salad sandwiches from what is left. Today, from yesterday’s left-over chicken, I made a healthy version of jambalaya that we really like. However, there isn’t enough of this scrawny chicken to make much of anything else. OK, there’s about half a breast that I might grind to make a couple chicken salad sandwiches (with the addition of two boiled eggs), but that’s it. Costco must start out with a six-pound bird.
Lately I’ve been going down lots of rabbit-holes on Facebook. I’ll be looking at my status and perhaps see a surname that reminds me of somebody from the past with the same last name, and I’ll think, “I wonder if she’s on Facebook...” Then the search is on. If I chance to find good old so-and-so, that I might be reminded of that person’s sibling, so I search for that one. Sometimes if I don’t find them on Facebook I just type a name in the browser, and I may find them that way. I like it when I find them on Facebook, though, because even though most people have their privacy set to “friends only”, any picture they’ve used as a profile picture can be seen by everybody. So I get to see how they look after all this time.
Here’s an example of my facebook searching: I worked for a now-defunct mail-order company, National Bellas Hess, after I graduated high school. For two or three years I worked in the yard-goods section. Customers would order yards of fabric by the yard, and three other ladies and I would pull down bolts of material and cut the required amount of cloth for each order. This was my first full-time job, and evidently, those ladies, all older than I, must have made a big impression on me. I remember so much about each of them. They were Lois Hedrick, Josephine Romig, and Edna Thomas. Lois was from the Lake of the Ozark area; she had a daughter “down home” living with her mom, and she was living with her uncle in the city. She was worldly-wise, and wouldn’t put up with of my oftentimes childish, self-centered ways. One time my feelings had been hurt by someone... it may have been her... and tears began falling. She noticed this, and rather than sympathizing, she said, “Oh, THAT’S all we need: a damn cry-baby.” That may sound cruel, but that has stuck with me all my life and kept me, many times, from crying over something that really wasn’t important. I’ve often wondered whether Lois is still living. She wasn’t so much older than me. She smoked a lot of Winston cigarettes, though, so who knows. There’s another thing I recall about her. She was a fast worker, and would get her tickets filled a good fifteen minutes before I finished mine. That’s when she’d take her frequent cigarette breaks: She’d pick up her pack of smokes, singing “Winston tastes good like a (clap clap) cigarette should” as she headed to the rest room.
Josephine had a great sense of humor, sometimes embarrassing me. She was a white-haired lady whose husband Otto worked as a stock-man there. She had a son, Craig, who was her pride and joy. She talked about his accomplishements a lot. She thought farting was the most hilarious thing, the louder the better. However, one time she was showing off her flatulence, and the boss turned and walked down the aisle where she was working just as she “cut the cheese”. Turns out it was a really aromatic fart. It was great to see Josephine so embarrassed, since she was always making me blush. I found Craig on Facebook, and sent him a private message to tell him how proud his mother had been of him when he was a kid. Unfortunately, he had his settings fixed so he didn’t even see my message. I didn’t want to “friend” him, so that’s as far as that went. I poked through his pictures that were public, though, and found one of his mom. She still looked the same, only older. I’ll try to get on the big computer later and add the picture.
Edna, the other woman I worked with, was a sensible, no-nonsense lady, the kind of person you knew you could count on. I corresponded with her a few times, years ago. If she’s still alive, she’d likely be in her nineties, as would Josephine.
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| That's Josephine, and her son with her. |
The other day I noticed somebody on Facebook with the last name Hicks, which made me wonder about a family from my youth. My dad had a boss named Chester Hicks. When Alton box moved to Blue Springs and my parents moved to be close to Daddy’s job, Mother would go pick up the Hicks kids on Sundays and take them to church. Those three boys were so sweet and well-behaved, I’ll never forget them. They are all on Facebook. Why on earth do I spend all this time hunting them up? I don’t know.
These are only examples: I’ve looked up preachers from my childhood (and their children) to find out what they’re doing now (most of the preachers are dead, but their children can sometimes be found). I’ve looked up my old boy friend and his wife, who have very little web presence at all. None on Facebook, and hardly at all on the World Wide Web. The only way I found them was by remembering his older brother’s name and typing that in the search. I found the brother’s obituary, so of course all the relatives and their wives were mentioned. Do I want to get together with the old boy friend? No way! It’s just my nosy nature, wondering what people from the past are doing and where they are. I guess I’m a stalker at heart.
There you have it: The workings of my mind on slow-moving winter days. I’m hoping I cause no problem for the people whose full names I’ve used, but I did that in case someone does an Internet search for any of them some day that leads them here, because then somebody will know I have good memories of my association with them.
Peace. Oh, and GO CHIEFS!
I do the same thing on Facebook, and sometimes on ancestry, although that's more to find out if people are still alive than to see photos. When my parents talk about friends/relatives from their home towns, I often check them out on ancestry; it's fascinating for my parents!!
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