Norms Bait and Tackle

MaryPage · December 28, 2024, 05:22:16 PM

By the way, I love my new walker more every day. I do not walk around outside anymore, though. I only go out at all to medical appointments. Sad, but the way it is. This is still one of the loveliest spots on the planet to have landed on, though. I count myself extremely lucky.

MaryPage · December 28, 2024, 05:35:21 PM

I have been fighting to get this right for simplu ages now, and will have to give it up. I have been going blind with Pellucid Marginal Degeneration for a very long time now, & I think it has finally overcome the odds. When my eye surgeon told me I had it, eons ago that was, she sort of laughed & said that I would probably be dead before I went completely blind, though. I that is what is not working out here. I'll keep on trying, as time goes by.

BarbStAubrey · December 28, 2024, 09:17:33 PM

Oh dear MaryPage - loosing eyesight is the pits - thank goodness you are with your family and I'm assuming you pretty well know where furniture and doors are located - do you listen to books on tape? That to me would be difficult not being able to get into a book - listening to music is nice but nothing beats hearing a story or learning something new - oh yes, you did share you were studying math - is that study still part of your day? Hope so - thinking of you... and wishing you good days...

MaryPage · December 29, 2024, 02:44:19 PM

I will be 96 in May, & as you have probably each discovered, we tend to adjust fairly quickly & smoothly to new setbacks. At least, that is how it has gone for me. Just about every old age ailment on the books has hit me, but I use that old trick I fell back on as a teenager & count the pluses. Didn't we have a hit song about that eons ago? Something about you've got to accent the positive & eliminate the negative? I'll have to Google it.

With the going blind thing, I have discovered it starts with the smallest things, and grows stronger. Thus, I have small handled magnifying glasses all over this house to aid with the reading problem. They diminish in helpfulness as time goes by, but that is to be expected. The rooms of this house, by themselves, I can pretty well figure out. I can no longer read most captioning, which is a bummer. I have special hearing devices, & they help a lot. The tv screen is blurry with the pictures now; another bummer. I am profoundly deaf, but with all the helpful stuff, I manage to at least HEAR about all the horrors assailing our world, & I am not so certain I want to see most of them, anyway. My mantra is COMPENSATE! COMPENSATE! COMPENSATE!

MaryPage · December 29, 2024, 03:11:27 PM

& HERE YA GO!

You've got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
E-lim-i-nate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mr. In-Between

It was written in 1937 & sung by Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters. For those of you who do not go back that far, if you have an AI gadget (we have two of them varmits!) you can probably ask them to play it for you. There are A LOT of verses.

MaryPage · December 29, 2024, 03:35:38 PM

YES, I do still study, BARBARA. & like you, I do not like to listen to books on tape. I have oodles of them, but just don't like the switchover, either. I have literally thousands of dollars worth of THE GREAT COURSES put out by THE TEACHING COMPANY. These are sponsored by a large variety of colleges & universities.
Mine are all on DVDs, & I have fallen in love with several of the professors. They are switching over to digital, & I have no idea how that is going to go; but I have enough of these on hand to see me out. And yes, a number of them are mathematical. Not my favorite subject, but fascinating, nonetheless. History is my fav. HUMAN PREHISTORY and the FIRST CIVILIZATIONS blew my mind recently. It took us litereally Millions of years to manage speech! Who knew? Well, they have had time to exhume way down in the earth & look for particular bones we grew for that, & so now we know! It becomes easier & easier to dismiss many of the myths that have been concocted re our origins now that we have scientific facts. I love it all. Wanted to know all that is known before I shove off into whatever the nowhere is, but they keep coming up with new stuff! Scheesch!

RAMMEL · December 29, 2024, 06:59:19 PM

Mary Page, - My son is well into THE GREAT COURSES. He also likes History and has many of the Great Courses DVDs. Sadly, for me, is that I was never good with History. Electricity and electronics was my thing. I like anything mechanical.
So much variety in those of us here on Seniors And Friends. It's great to have so many friends as I do here.

MaryPage · December 29, 2024, 07:22:17 PM

It astonishes me to contemplate how many of us there once were, & how difficult it now is to remember them all. When the names crop up, I do remember though. Was it 1986 when we started out? And do we have bashes anymore? I used to go to a lot of bashes.

so_P_bubble · December 30, 2024, 05:46:09 AM

Oh MaryPage, thank you for the breath of optimism you just infused in me with your last posts. I so needed it:

Old age has been creeping insidiously and finally caught up with me with a bad flu. I felt totally despondent, unwilling to react.

Now, thanks to you - such great person to have "met" and to know - I am ready to fight.

Thank you, thank you and again thank you - keep writing/posting. S&F needs you!

MaryPage · December 30, 2024, 03:17:39 PM

BUBBLE! Whatever caused those beautiful sentiments from you, I am undeserving, yet grateful. Hey, when you get to be as old as I am, you eat up every crumb of praise, & ignore the fact of your undeserving! Thankyou. I am passing you my hoard of rum balls, & I assure you, I am not known to share Those!

Rammel, I wrote a response to your post somewhere back there, & it just did not take. I lack strong memory cells these days, & thus cannot ressurect it; but I will state firmly that we refugees on the sands of Time in these forums could not keep on keeping on without your thoughts popping up in our midst. Thank you for that!

RAMMEL · January 01, 2025, 12:06:41 AM

Happy New Year Everyone

Marilyne · January 05, 2025, 09:03:30 AM

Bubble, I saw your message about the man who was found unconscious with hypothermia. That is so sad. I'm wondering if you have outside homeless encampments, like we have here in California? It's a serious situation in the Winter. There are some community shelters or churches where people can go to get out of the cold and get food. It's shocking how many will not take advantage of help.

so_P_bubble · January 05, 2025, 01:22:51 PM

apparently not a homeless but someone living
alone who went - maybe- to buy something, probably fell and was not able to get up.

patricia19 · January 05, 2025, 02:07:30 PM

We have a couple of warm up shelters here that mostly operate overnight plus two full time shelters and one for abused women only. We do have some street homeless, but as I understand it, most have mental or emotional issues. The police work at getting them off the street and into shelters. While Anchorage, to the south, has a homeless problem, most of the ones here have the aforementioned issues or are drug related.

MaryPage · January 05, 2025, 10:23:17 PM

The human condition fills me with a deep sadness over & over & over again.

It does help to contemplate that we had among us someone as good to the core as Jimmy Carter. He may not have been perfect, but he sure did try to be. Thank you for not shaming us, Mr. Carter. Annapolis, where I live, remembers you well & salutes you as well. We are all weighed down by our sense of loss at this time. You did the Navy proud, too.

MaryPage · January 06, 2025, 11:22:35 PM

One of the main topics we have pursued in this forum has been books we have been reading. I believe I have told you, probably more than once, that to my great disappointment relating to the myriad streaks of old age ailments we are each of us stricken with, I have senile dementia. What we are forced to do on a daily basis is be grateful if we, & in my case, this IS the shoe that fits, if we turn out to be on the less horrible, as opposed to the worst case scenario, case of whatever we are suffering. My dementia took hold slowly & not particularly noticed, certainly not in the early days. It took about a decade of the process before I caught on. Seriously. I suddenly came to the realization I had lost my life. With that expression, I mean I had forgotten almost every speck of my life story. I had not forgotten my children, my parents & other close family members, my husbands, & so forth. I had forgotten details of my life with them. I call this MY FORGETTERY or LOSING MY MIND. Once upon a time, eons ago, I worked as a journalist. Nothing Big League, or anything like that. But the skills learned pretty much stayed with me, & so I have been able to continue on here in SeniorNet or Seniors & Friends or whatever we call ourselves these days. I have literally forgotten my LIFE, but sometimes I blurt out something from somewhere that actually recalls a person or an event or some type of memory. Alleluia! I am so gratified when this happens!

For instance, one night last week Debi & Steve & I were eating dinner & Debi asked me if I wanted seconds of anything. To our intense surprise, I burst forth with this, & I do mean burst. I was the MOST surprised of the three of us, & I did not have to stop to remember a phrase or anything. It just gushed forth.

"No, I thank you. I have had a generous sufficiency of the numerous delicacies. Any more would be an unsophisticated super fluency, as gastronomical science admonishes me that I have now arrived at the ultimate stage of delectation consistent with dietetical economy." Shades of forgotten days of new boarding school student initiation. I mean, we are talking waaay back here!

What all this is leading to is that I still read British cozy murder mysteries. Do you recognize the name Anne Perry? She died a couple of years ago; 2013, I believe it was. Wrote 102 books! Made a fistful of money.
Well, here is the gritty revelation: She was convicted of committing murder herself at age 15!
Oh, & if this sends you to a book store or library to check her out, the series featuring William Monk as the lead detective is the best.

patricia19 · January 07, 2025, 12:31:36 PM

MaryPage, that was an amazing story that could be a novel in itself!

Marilyne · January 07, 2025, 12:55:28 PM

Mary Page, I like the way your memory harkened way back to your boarding school days, with that response to being asked if you wanted seconds at the dinner table! That was a complicated thing to remember. I recall having to memorize, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere", when I was in the Seventh Grade. I could recite that long, long poem for many years following, but at my age now, I can't get past the first line - "Listen my Children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere". That's all I remember and it may not even be correct. . .

MaryPage · January 07, 2025, 01:37:46 PM

Yes, Patricia, it could!

Good on you, Marilyne. I never had to memorize anything THAT difficult, but I thank you for remembering having to memorize & bring forth on demand as new boarding school students. Sort of buttresses my lost memory! One amazing thing I have learned with this brain thing is that what I think of as a HEAD full of mud up there now is actually a fascinating section of our bodies, & I believe that one day we will cure mental illness; deed I do.

Anyway, I sure cuddle hopes of that. And yes, I do remember that poem. And later, as a soon to be bride discovering there were just one whole bunch of silver patterns named for that famous horseman! PAUL REVERE!

BarbStAubrey · January 07, 2025, 11:03:02 PM

A note of the giggles there was also pots with copper bottoms that were named Paul Revere - does anyone remember - they were pretty good pots as I recall.

Also committed to memory was The Wreck of the Hesperus

Marilyne · January 07, 2025, 11:25:00 PM

Barb, I still have my old Revere Ware pans in four different sizes, and I use them every day. Lightweight stainless steel with those wonderful copper bottoms. Everything always cooks evenly. I'm sure that Paul Revere himself, would be pleased that these pots and pans were named after him.

RAMMEL · January 08, 2025, 12:07:05 AM

I have some too.

CallieOK · January 08, 2025, 01:21:02 AM

I do, too! They were wedding presents...65 years ago.

so_P_bubble · January 08, 2025, 04:00:40 AM

I have one such stainless steel, with copper bottom, bought in '64 in a garage sale from a U.S. embassy member returning home. It is my favorite cooking pot. I wonder if it is the same... How can you recognize them?

BarbStAubrey · January 08, 2025, 12:47:26 PM

They had Revere or Revere ware written in the center of the bottom

Marilyne · January 08, 2025, 01:16:39 PM

Bubble - as Barb said, if it's genuine Revere Ware, you will see the name embossed into the copper bottom. Even on my oldest pans, I can still read the name, and where it was made . . . but I have to have a magnifying glass, and good natural light. My oldest pans say - REVERE WEAR, Clinton, Ill, USA - on the bottom.

patricia19 · January 08, 2025, 04:31:34 PM

I used to have all Revere wear for a long time and then switched to all cast iron.

I was looking at some non stick the other day but Claire talked me out of it saying the non stick had too many downsides.

so_P_bubble · January 09, 2025, 05:40:00 AM

Nothing embossed on the bottom of that saucepan, but still I would not trade it for any other.
I have never seen any copper-bottomed pans here in Israel.

patricia19 · January 09, 2025, 03:02:33 PM

From the web;

"Copper bottom pans are known for their ability to distribute heat evenly and precisely, making them a popular choice for cooking:

Heat conductivity: Copper is highly conductive, so it responds quickly to temperature changes. This allows for precise temperature control, which is ideal for recipes that require it, like frying or boiling.
Even heat distribution: Copper's ability to distribute heat evenly reduces hot spots that can cause uneven cooking.
Natural non-stick properties: Copper cookware has natural non-stick properties.
Durability: Copper cookware is durable.
Appearance: Copper cookware has a gleaming finish that can add elegance to the kitchen.

However, copper cookware can be finicky and may require some know-how to use properly. Here are some things to keep in mind when using copper cookware:

Temperature changes
Copper is highly reactive to temperature changes, so you should ease up on the heat when using it for tasks that typically require high heat.

Acidic foods
Copper reacts with highly acidic foods, like lemon juice or anything tomato-based. This means that the pan will alter your food when you're cooking items with those acidic ingredients for long periods of time.
Stainless steel lining

Most copper cookware is stainless-steel lined, which is more durable than traditional tin-lined copper. The steel lining slows the transfer of copper's heat, but it also helps the copper spread that heat around for more even cooking.

patricia19 · January 09, 2025, 03:07:36 PM

I use both cast iron in fry pans, and enameled cast iron in my dutch oven and casserole dishes;

Cast iron cookware has many advantages, including its durability, heat retention, and versatility, but it also has some downsides:

Pros
Durable: Cast iron is a durable material that can withstand high heat.

Heat retention: Cast iron cookware retains heat well and distributes it evenly.
Versatile: Cast iron can be used for a variety of cooking tasks, including browning and long, slow simmering.
Non-stick: Cast iron can develop a natural non-stick finish if seasoned properly.
Imparts iron: Cast iron can add iron to your food.

Cons

Heavy: Cast iron cookware is heavier than other types of cookware, which can make it more difficult to handle.

Slow to heat: Cast iron takes longer to heat up than lighter materials.
Maintenance: Cast iron cookware requires maintenance, such as seasoning, to prevent rust and maintain its non-stick coating. It's also not dishwasher safe.
Reactive: Cast iron is reactive and doesn't do well with acidic foods.
Leaching: Cast iron can leach iron into food, especially acidic foods.

Enameled cast iron cookware offers advantages like easy cleaning with soap and water due to its non-reactive enamel coating, preventing rust, and being suitable for acidic foods, but the downsides include potential chipping of the enamel, higher cost compared to regular cast iron, and not achieving the same level of natural non-stick quality as a well-seasoned cast iron pan; it also may have temperature limitations depending on the enamel quality.
Pros:

Easy cleaning: Can be washed with soap and water, unlike regular cast iron which requires special seasoning maintenance.

Non-reactive surface: Prevents food from reacting with the pan, especially useful for acidic foods like tomato sauce.
No rusting: Enamel layer protects the cast iron from rusting.
Aesthetic appeal: Often comes in vibrant colors and finishes.
Induction compatible: Most enameled cast iron cookware can be used on induction cooktops.

Cons:

Chipping risk: Enamel can chip or crack if dropped or exposed to sudden temperature changes, potentially exposing the cast iron underneath.

Higher cost: Generally more expensive than regular cast iron cookware.
Not as non-stick: While the enamel prevents sticking to some degree, it doesn't achieve the same level of natural non-stick as a well-seasoned cast iron pan.
Temperature limitations: Some enameled cast iron cookware may have maximum temperature limits, restricting high-heat cooking.
Potential for staining: Although non-reactive, certain foods may still stain the enamel surface.

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