Glimpsing D Has Moved

Thank you so much for following Glimpsing D.  Effective immediately you can follow Dorothy and her family along with great DIYs at www.thecreativerecycler.com.

Button in the making.

Ooohhh ahhh… a button for Glimpsing D!  See how I do it here.

This is just a test…

I am using this site to test my new button for my other site.  Here it goes…

The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

This is something I desperately wish I could have gone to.  But my friend Susan did!  Read her blog here.

Here is a picture Susan took of one of the fabulous people who flocked to this event.  And here is a link to this fabulous person’s blog here!

He’s Dead.

Last week I found out my father is dead.  He didn’t die last week or even last month.  He’s been dead for quite some time.  March 30th of this year, to be exact.  I found out because my mother has been having some abnormal reoccurring dreams.  All of her dreams are fundamentally the same.  She’s having trouble finding him, she’s afraid something is wrong, when she finds him something has happened with his heart and he’s dead.  She felt like someone was trying to tell her something.  So she Googled Robert Henry Butler to see what would pop up.  She found his obituary.

Here’s a copy of his obituary which hints at why I didn’t know until now that he is dead until now.

This was taken from The Winchester Star newspaper:

Robert Henry Butler,

68, of Bloomery, West

Virginia, died Tuesday,

March 30, 2010.

Mr. Butler was born at

Washington, DC on July

12, 1941, the son of the

late Dennis F. and Dorothy

Quick Butler.

Mr. Butler is survived

by his wife, Margery

Butler of Bloomery, WV;

daughter, Sherri Ross of

Minneapolis, MN; a sister,

Pat Butler and her husband,

Steve Taylor of

Woodstock; and a brother,

Ret. Col. Dennis Frederick

Butler and his wife,

Rosemarie of Seattle, WA.

Service will be private.

My mother was pissed when she read it.  I was less surprised.  She was pissed because, if you notice, I am not mentioned in the obituary as a survivor.  I knew this is how it would be.  My father and I were estranged.  Those of you who know me know the story of my past and more importantly the story of my past with my father.  So I won’t speak ill of the dead.

I will give a brief history of our estrangement.  Our relationship came to an abrupt pause during my 16th year when I wrote a letter.  A letter that my counselor, at the time, was very impressed with (good for her).  It stated that I was terminating our relationship for my own reasons spawned from our own nasty history.  I sent it certified mail so I knew he had received it.  Some of the fall-out from that included his mother (my grandmother of whom I’m her namesake) called me to tell me I was a bitch and my father’s unexpected arrival and then removal from my high school.  A few years later I, being in college with a child of my own, decided to reinstate contact at about the age of 22.  That turned into a few choice letters, phone calls, and then my father ambushing me at a class.  I could tell he was anxious to see me.  I went to see him a couple of times.  I brought my son to one such meeting at his home.  As soon as we (my father, my son, and I) were the only ones left in the room he proceeded to confront me about how none of what had happened was true.  He couldn’t let it go of the lies.  So for the good of my own sanity and my son’s that was it.  I didn’t contact him anymore and I ignored his contacts.  I received a letter a few months later stating that he hoped I was happy with myself and I would be written out of his will and I would not know when he died.  I left it at that.

So there it is.  I’m not surprised.  I’m not sad, either.  I don’t really know what I am.  I feel like an ugly part of my life has closure.  But to me it seems so cold.  He was my father and I will remember the good times and the bad and I will give a fitting farewell to the man who is at the origin of most of my fears.

So here are pictures of him during the “good times” when he was young and his life was before him.  Before getting kicked out of the military, before jail, before my mother and myself.  Just… before.

 

The left picture was taken in August 1946.   My guess is he’s the one all the way at the top.  He would have been 5 in this picture.  The right picture was taken at some point during his days in military school at Massanutten Military Academy.  It’s during his high school years, anyway.  There is no date listed.

 

 

Goodbye and I hope your soul finds rest.

Big Enough for Ballet

  Last week Abby started tap/ballet class.  I enrolled her in Tiny Toes.  It’s a dance school for kids ages 18 months to 5 years.  She was so exited to go.  Abby is one of those kids that is always dancing.  As soon as the music comes on she is moving.  She was so exited.  She’s been telling everyone all week that she’s going to dance class. 
  What I really like about it is the layed back nature of the class.  What it’s really about is having a great time dancing.  Sure, the instructor uses real dance terminology but she understands how to make it fun for the kids to learn.  She also understands the age groups that she’s working with.  As you see in the video, Abby frequently gets distracted and runs off.  The instructor goes with the flow. 
  If you have a little person who loves to dance and you live in the Northern Virginia area I highly recommend Tiny Toes!
  Above are photos of dress up time and Abby getting ready for class to start on her first day.

Let Them Eat Ice Cream!

Recently I was visiting with my husband’s side of the family.  They had rented a cabin in Thurmont, Maryland and had taken a brief vacation away from their normal lives.  When I arrived on the last day they were about to partake in some amazingly yummy ice cream.  If you’ve had Hagen Daz’s 5 ingredient ice creams then you know what I’m talking about.  My father-in-law announced that we were eating Thomas Jefferson’s recipe for ice cream.  That sparked the question, “where did Thomas Jefferson get his recipe anyway?!”  I thought it was from China but others though Italy.  This blog is the answer to that query.

It turns out that the origins of ice cream go way back and, in a way, everyone was right.  Aspects of ice cream came from both the Roman Empire and China. “…ice cream can be traced back to at least the 4th century B.C. Early references include the Roman emperor Nero (A.D. 37-68) who ordered ice to be brought from the mountains and combined with fruit toppings”  Also, “King Tang (A.D. 618-97) of Shang, China who had a method of creating ice and milk concoctions. Ice cream was likely brought from China back to Europe.”

However, no one person can be credited with bringing ice cream to the United States.  The colonists brought the recipe with them.  “The earliest reference to ice cream given by the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1744, reprinted in a magazine in 1877. 1744 in Pennsylvania Mag. Hist. & Biogr. (1877) I. 126 Among the rarities..was some fine ice cream, which, with the strawberries and milk, eat most deliciously.^[16]“

For all of those who would like to give it a try, here is Thomas Jefferson’s ice cream recipe as taken from Monticello’s website:

2. bottles of good cream.
6. yolks of eggs.
1/2 lb. sugar

mix the yolks & sugar
put the cream on a fire in a casserole, first putting in a stick of Vanilla.

when near boiling take it off & pour it gently into the mixture of eggs & sugar.

stir it well.

put it on the fire again stirring it thoroughly with a spoon to prevent it’s sticking to the casserole.

when near boiling take it off and strain it thro’ a towel.

put it in the Sabottiere*

then set it in ice an hour before it is to be served. put into the ice a handful of salt.

put salt on the coverlid of the Sabotiere & cover the whole with ice.

leave it still half a quarter of an hour.

then turn the Sabottiere in the ice 10 minutes

open it to loosen with a spatula the ice from the inner sides of the Sabotiere.

shut it & replace it in the ice

open it from time to time to detach the ice from the sides

when well taken (prise) stir it well with the Spatula.

put it in moulds, justling it well down on the knee.

then put the mould into the same bucket of ice.

leave it there to the moment of serving it.

to withdraw it, immerse the mould in warm water, turning it well till it will come out & turn it into a plate.

*The sabottiere is the inner cannister shown in the drawing. There was no crank to turn it; when Jefferson wrote “turn the Sabottiere in the ice 10 minutes,” he meant for someone to grab the handle and turn the cannister clockwise and then counterclockwise.

Why can’t we have this on I-66?!

Recently I was listening to NPR (shocker, I know) on my way home from work.  On All Things Considered they were airing a program about a couple of guys who stage a puppet show in the back of a modified pick up truck.  They go out and look for traffic jams and perform short puppet shows for folks stuck in traffic.  They have a low power FM transmitter people can pick up the signal for the show within 200 feet of the car.  It’s called SuperClogger and as Joel Kyack (one of the fellows who puts this on) puts it, SuperClogger “aims to briefly halt the progression of chaos by temporarily drawing the audience out of the commute experience and placing them within an intimate space of engagement and performance that highlights their own individual presence within the broader structure of the traffic jam.”

This picture is found on the Roski School of Fine Arts website which can be accessed by clicking on the link below.

To read more please visit the Roski School of Fine Arts or NPR.org.

Garden Under Attack!

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been having some serious problems in my garden.  My zucchini and pumpkin plants have gone downhill… fast.  I first noticed that the stems coming out of the ground looked crumbly.  They were looking thin and they were coming apart at where the stem came out of the ground.  Then the plants started to droop.  Today I went to pick my pumpkin and noticed the same crumbly material coming out of the pumpkin.  It had obviously been compromised.  As I watered my garden I noticed some little nasty bugs running for their lives.

Here are pictures of my zucchini… post Squash Bugs : (

So I went searching on Swagbucks to see what I could find out.

This picture was taken from the Minnesota extension office.

I found a picture of the little buggers.  Turns out they are Squash Bugs.  They lay their eggs on, live on, and eat/destroy squash and gourd plants like pumpkins and zucchini.  : (

There’s only one problem that I can see.  That is they are only easy to get rid of only if you are extra vigilant.  The Minnesota extension office suggests:

• Remove or knock off and kill nymphs and adults by dropping them into a pail of soapy water. This is particularly effective if only a few plants are affected. This can be challenging because squash bugs hide under leaves and move quickly when disturbed.
• Crush eggs that are attached to the undersides and stems of leaves.
• Trap squash bugs by laying out boards or pieces of newspaper. Squash bugs will congregate under the boards at night, and then can be collected and destroyed in the morning.
• Remove plant debris around the garden during the growing season to reduce the potential harbourage where squash bugs may hide. Clean up Cucurbita and other plant matter around the garden in the fall to reduce the number of overwintering sites.

The other suggestion they have is pesticide.  I’m not keen on that.  I was attempting to have a garden without any form of pesticide.  That is a part of the benefit of growing your own at home.  So I’d say my pumpkins and zucchini are out for this year.  But I’ll be ready for the Squash Bugs next year!  Bring it on Squash Bugs!

Southern Funny

Lots of people don’t consider Loudoun County, VA part of the South.  I do.  Maybe it’s because I spent so much time with family members in West Virginia, Winchester, VA, and Western Loudoun County that I feel like I’m a little more country than city.  Maybe this example will show a little bit of what I’m talking about. 

Every spring I get this urge to get outside and just be.  I don’t need to do much.  Just sitting and thinking works fine.  The spring of my freshman year of college wasn’t any different.  I think it was late March or early April.  Someone can correct me on this.  I went out driving and stumbled across a little park.  I immediately went back to campus to recruit some fellow students to come to the park with me.  I really tried to talk it up because I sensed no one really wanted to go.  So I said, “They even have a man mad waterfall.”  I guess I had never really seen a dam on a tiny creek before and known it was a dam.  Well I guess everyone else had a picture in their heads of a scenic waterfall with a really well-groomed park.  We got there and they all wondered where the man-made waterfall was.  When I showed them the dam they were disappointed.  I felt like such an ignorant hick.

Anyway, that story is a round about way of introducing this one.  It comes from a really amazing blog named Trugars.  All I have to say is it involves a polecat and the story made me feel at home.  Here it is:

A Skunk in her Closet

 “Last week, I mentioned Big Mommy shooting a skunk in her closet.  Gather ’round, and I’ll tell her trugar.  I wish you could hear it from her mouth, but I’ll do the best I can.  (Family members, here’s your chance to correct me!  Comment away.)

For quite some time, Big Mommy had been hearing skittering noises in her walls, and knew it must be “pole cats,” as she called them.  We know them more familiarly as skunks.  They were aggravating the stew out of her, so when she saw one in her closet–out where she could get at it–I think she lost her head just a bit.  She grabbed her .22 and promptly shot that critter.  “That got him,” I remember her saying to me.

Well, she may have gotten him, but not before he got her…or at least her clothes.  She bathed in tomato juice and washed everything in the closet multiple times.  She aired out the house, and (so she thought) rid herself of the scent.

Then she went to church.

Not until halfway through the church service did she notice the pastor, walking up and down the aisles, spraying air freshener as he went.  Then, as she wondered what he smelled, it dawned on her that no one was sitting in her general area.  It took her a while, but she did finally put two and two together.  But my great-grandmother was dedicated.

She walked up to that pastor and said, “Preacher, that stink you’re sprayin’ for, well, it’s me.  I shot a pole cat in my closet this week, and some o’ his stench must still be on me.  Go ahead, spray me.”  After looking at her, dumbfounded, for a few seconds, the pastor meekly obeyed.  He sprayed her up and down with the air freshener, all the while mumbling apologies.  She smiled, said, “That’s better,” and sat down to enjoy the sermon.

What stench are you bringing to church this week?”