No, I haven't been sick. But after working the garden and planting some early seeds a while back, watching robins returning and taking walks with Gabe... BOOM! Winter came back. Of course I knew it would, but the reality of it caused me to go into several days of pouting. Yes, pouting! It wouldn't have been so bad except for the three or four inches of snow and that one night (50 hours ago) with a low of 8ยบ.
Yesterday spring-like weather returned and I commenced rejoicing. After church, I planted a few seeds in three peat-pots and put them in the window, then cut up the seed potatoes, getting ready to plant them on St. Patrick's Day, like my father did... although his favorite day to plant potatoes was Good Friday, because the moon was in the right sign then. I'll plant a few more at that time. I don't plant by the signs, and I don't necessarily plant the same varieties of seeds as he did, because a lot of things have improved since that time. I usually will plant a handful of Top Crop green beans because I remember my mother saying, "I should have planted Mom's good old Top Crop green beans," but now there are varieties that yield more and better beans. It's the same with Iochief sweet corn, which was introduced in the early fifties; I like the new "supersweet" corn, my favorite being Bodacious. It grows to be as tall as field corn and is so sweet, you'd think someone put sugar in it when it was cooking.
What did I do while I pouted? We got rid of Directv forever and discovered Hulu for streaming; it's $12 monthly with no commercials, as opposed to Directv's almost $100 monthly. And with streaming channels, you have no contract. If there are programs we'd like to see that Hulu doesn't have, we can get rid of it for awhile and get another streaming app instead that has different shows. Hulu has so many of the older shows we love: M.A.S.H., Frazier, NYPD Blue, Golden Girls. And lots of great documentaries; therein lies a story.
We started watching a series called "The Food that Built America". The first episode, I think, was about cereals, starting with Grape Nuts, which I have for breakfast almost every morning. It was interesting, seeing how breakfast cereals began. Then there was an episode about chocolate, beginning with Hershey. The next day I went into a Dollar General for some tea they didn't have, and came out with a Valentine Day chocolate rabbit, the first candy I've bought for years.
Yesterday evening we watched one about the hamburger wars between McDonalds and Burger King, where you'd find our favorite fast-food sandwich, the Whopper. Until the big shot who owned Burger King invented the Whopper, he was fighting a losing battle with McDonald's. The Whopper saved his company. I'm telling you this because the Whopper is our favorite fast-food sandwich; by the time that show was over we were salivating, and I even woke up this morning thinking about a Whopper (the sandwich, just to make things clear). I'm dying here!
We also watched a show that not everybody would want to watch, I'm sure, about a cafe/bar called the Red Dog; a young man wanted to know more about his past, and found out his mom had been a go-go dancer when he was small (he had always assumed she was a bartender there.) He interviews her and some of the women who worked with her, way back then. It's pretty sad, really, and the language is very rough, just so you know. The women talked about all the drugs they took in the past, and the men who came and went in their lives. But we were riveted to the TV, the whole time. It's one of those shows I will never forget. It really did happen, it's not a made-up story. I'm sure thankful my parents raised me the way they did.
OK, that's it! Gardening and go-go dancers and Whoppers. I'm all over the place today. Enjoy your day. Spring is on the way!
