Tag: Funny

Among my goals for the coming year

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

I don’t do “resolutions,” which all too easily become self-defeating. Goals are more like compass readings when you’re trying to get somewhere and want to leave some flexibility for when problems arise. So here’s what I’d like to improve in my life in the upcoming year.

  1. Be a better listener. That includes asking more questions rather than spewing so many facts.
  2. Do a better job of putting names and faces together and then recalling them with ease. I’ve met a lot of new people since moving Way Downeast. Too often I’m baffled when greeted by name.
  3. Cull my collections of vinyl albums and CDs, books, and private journals. There’s only so much shelf space, even with our home renovations, and no way I can play or read them all in my remaining years. Which leads to …
  4. Indulge in a reading orgy, meaning print on paper: mags, books in general, Bible, and personal journals. Put another way, that means less time at the laptop.
  5. When I am online, I intend to interact more actively with others. Yes, that includes you.
  6. Distill my files of original poetry. There’s a lot to revisit in my 50-plus years of serious writing.
  7. Get out in the wild more regularly. I’m not the hiker I was, but that shouldn’t keep me from pursuing more trails around here or even sitting quietly in the open air.
  8. Explore neighboring Canada. We got a start on that late last year. So far, the border crossings have gone smoothly. I’m hoping Grand Manan, an island reached only by ferry, will be a highlight.
  9. Do a better job of house cleaning. There have been complaints.
  10. Give more attention to my Beloved.

‘New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

With that insight from English essayist and poet Charles Lamb, let’s consider ten more quotes befitting a new year.

  1. “You know how I always dread the whole year? Well, this time I’m only going to dread one day at a time” — Charlie Brown, Peanuts
  2. “We should celebrate every year that we made it through” — Ellen DeGeneres
  3. “Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life” — Robin Sharma
  4. “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves” — William E. Vaughan
  5. “Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each year find you a better man” — Benjamin Franklin
  6. “It wouldn’t be New Year’s if I didn’t have regrets” — William Thomas
  7. “Many years ago, I resolved never to bother with New Year’s resolutions, and I’ve stuck with it ever since” — Dave Beard
  8. “I’d rather regret the risks that didn’t work out than the chances I didn’t take at all” —Simone Biles
  9. “Celebrate endings, for they precede new beginnings” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie
  10. “8 p.m. is the new midnight” — unknown wit of a certain age who just could have been living where I do

Popcorn? It’s why the microwave was invented, seriously

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In 1945, when American electronics expert, Perry Spencer paused in front of a power tube called a magnetron, he felt a “weird” feeling and noticed a chocolate candy bar in his pocket had melted. He decided to see the waves would pop popcorn, which they did.  

The microwave bags had to wait until 1981 to take shape and head for market.

~*~

But back to popcorn. So much good stuff popped up in my digging that today I’m doing a first at the Red Barn, a double Tendrils. The first ten will deal with the grain’s popularity, and the second on just what we’re eating as a snack food.

Here goes:

  1. By volume, popcorn is America’s favorite snack food
  2. Approximately 70 percent of popcorn sold in America is eaten in the home. The other 30 percent is eaten in theaters, stadiums, school, etc.
  3. Americans eat more popcorn than any other country – about 70 quarts of popcorn per person each year.
  4. Most of the popcorn eaten around the world is grown in the United States. Indiana recently overtook Nebraska as the leading producer, followed by Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa.
  5. Autumn is the peak time for consumption, followed by winter. Sales taper off in spring and summer.
  6. It’s cheap. Two tablespoons of kernels produce a quart of popcorn for about 25 cents. By the way, in case you’re counting or bored and looking for something to do, there are about 1,600 popcorn kernels in a single cup. Not that I’ve confirmed that.
  7. Its popularity as a concession-stand staple originates with Charles Cretors, an Ohio-born candy store owner who was so upset with a peanut roaster he had purchased in Iowa that he redesigned it, and moved to Chicago to manufacture more, leading him to create the original large-scale commercial popcorn machine in 1885, a line of products his family is still producing. His steam-powered machine was the first that could pop popcorn in its own seasonings uniformly. Fame and fortune followed its appearance at the 1893 World’s Fair (Columbian Exposition) in Chicago.
  8. In movie theaters, where popcorn’s been sold since 1912, about 90 cents of every dollar spent on the snack is profit. Its role as a moneymaker is enhanced by making people thirsty, leading to the sales of overpriced colas or water as well.
  9. Orville Redenbacher is the best-selling popcorn in the world. The brand’s founder, Orville, first grew popping corn in 1919, when he was just 12. He then went on to become an agricultural scientist who, according to the New York Times, became “the agricultural visionary who all but single-handedly revolutionized the American popcorn industry.” That was even became a household face with horned-rimmed glasses and a bow tie through his appearances in television commercials in the 1970s. As some of us still remember.
  10. It’s been a human food and ceremonial element for more than 5,000 years – basically, the full scope of recorded history.

~*~

Personally, I’m most likely to eat it during the Eastern Orthodox fast periods of Advent and Lent, after tackling the dietary restrictions one year and discovering how it filled in for snack foods I was missing.

And now I’m delighted to find out there’s no need to feel guilty about indulging. It’s actually healthy in addition to being vegan and gluten-free. Here’s more:

  1. It has more protein than any other cereal grain. More iron than eggs or roast beef. More fiber than pretzels or potato chips. Vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, too. Most of the nutrients are in the hull or shell rather than the fluffy, white part.
  2. A cup of plain popcorn comes in at a mere 31 calories.
  3. Beware, though, of countering the health benefits with too much butter, salt, oil, white cheese, or caramel.
  4. The popped comes in two shapes: “mushroom” or the bigger “snowflake,” typically sold in movie theaters.
  5. Its one of six major maize types and come in three shapes: rice, pearl, and South American. Most commercial popcorn is the pearl type.
  6. The distinguishing trait shared by all types of popcorn kernels is their ability to create a flake when exposed to heat. Unlike many other grains, popcorn’s shell is not water permeable, preventing the small amount of water inside from escaping until the pressure to the point we hear the “pop.”
  7. Cooked popcorn expands up to 30 times its original size.
  8. Many other corns also pop, but their flakes are smaller. Additionally, some varieties of rice, milo, millet, and sorghum also pop. Some varieties of quinoa, a sacred Incan food, also pops like popcorn, as does amaranth.
  9. Unpopped kernels are called “spinsters” or “old maids.” As a guideline for quality popcorn, no more than two percent should remain spinsters.
  10. The ideal popping temperature for popcorn is 400-460 degrees Fahrenheit. A kernel will pop, on average, when it reaches 347.

This time of year, let’s not overlook strings of popcorn as garland for the Christmas tree and windows.

How to tell if you’re becoming a gnome

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Ever have one of those days? You may have some serious reasons for concern if it includes the following symptoms.

  1. Feel like you’re shrinking in size? Down to two spans high?
  2. Suffer deep embarrassment or shame?
  3. Have a desire to retreat underground?
  4. Get hot-tempered? Irritable?
  5. Find gold-diggers offensive?
  6. Sense a reluctance to interact with humans?
  7. Sympathize with prudish women?
  8. Have flashes of innovation or cunning?
  9. Wild hair?
  10. Ugly?

And here I had thought these were simply symptoms of aging.

Not to be confused, geographically speaking

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Living in Down East (aka Downeast) Maine is confusing enough, considering that it’s mostly north. How about some other place locations?

  1. Upper Cape versus Lower Cape Cod as well as the Inner Cape and Outer Cape, meaning Cape Cod, Massachusetts, not what you’d usually think
  2. Deer Isle (Penobscot Bay, Maine) versus Deer Island (Passamaquoddy Bay, New Brunswick)
  3. Swan’s Island, off the coast, versus Swan Island in the Kennebec River
  4. Saint John (New Brunswick) versus Saint Johns (Newfoundland)
  5. Round Pond versus Round Lake, both in Washington County, Maine
  6. Salem, New Hampshire, 28 miles from Salem, Massachusetts
  7. Portland (Maine) versus the newer one out west
  8. Washington, the state, versus the District of Columbia
  9. Columbia, as in the river, and Colombia, the nation
  10. Missouree, as it’s pronounced in Saint Louis, and Missourah, in the rest of the state

Woodville is its own contentious issue, at least in the renamed Baileyville in Washington County, south of the one in Aroostook. Blame the U.S. Postal Service for trying to end the confusion.

Ever really look at those playing cards?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Yup, there are 52 in a deck, plus one to six Jokers, at least if you’re looking at what’s considered a standard commercial deck. There are, however, other traditional, and often older, suites to consider. Today we’ll put those off for another time and stick to the French-suited cards that are almost universally found in English-speaking countries. Got that?

To continue:

  1. The deck has four suits (clubs, diamonds, spades, and hearts) that come in 13 ranks, starting with the ten numeral or pip cards – if you’re wondering why there’s no “1,” it’s actually the Ace, despite its usual power. And then there are the three ranks of royalty, the court or face cards we know as Jack, Queen, King.
  2. Each numeral card displays the appropriate number of pips (the suit images) as well as the numeral itself.
  3. Early cards were single-headed, or single-ended, but that changed around 1860, when the double-headed versions appeared. These could be read without having to turn them to an up-position. Corner indices were added around 1880.
  4. The Jack of spades and the Jack of hearts appear in profile and are thus known as “one-eyed” Jacks. Likewise, the King of diamonds is depicted with one eye. The rest of the royals are shown full-face or oblique.
  5. Suicide kings appear in hearts, where he usually has a sword behind his head, as if stabbing himself, and in diamonds, where he has an ax pointed blade-down toward him. Adding to the nickname is the blood-red color on the card.
  6. The Queen of spades, holding a scepter, is also known as the black lady or bedpost Queen. She’s the only Queen facing left.
  7. The Ace of spades is sometimes called the death card. Those printed or sold in England from the reign of James I until 1960 carried an indication of the printer and that an excise tax on the deck had been paid.
  8. The 52 cards are said to represent the 52 weeks of the year, with 13 cards for each season or the 13 lunar cycles of the year.
  9. Possibly originating in China or India or Persia, the cards arrived in Europe from Egypt in the 1370s, perhaps in the hands of Crusaders. The first cards were hand-printed, limiting them to the wealthy classes. That changed with the arrival of the printing press at the end of the 15th century.
  10. Originally, the suit symbols were taken from everyday objects, which may have had any symbolic meaning: flowers, animals, birds, shields, crowns, pennies, rings, even pomegranates. I rather like the possibilities there, “King of bears” or “Queen of bananas.”

Skillsets that became useful in my non-fiction book

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Returning to that adage, “Write about what you know,” I realize how some work experience from my past gave me a unique edge in drafting Quaker Dover.

For instance:

  1. My journalism career included an early gig of pure research for a daily Action Line column. (We had an editor/writer, a secretary, and two researchers – big time!) Writing and editing, of course, were the staples of the rest of those years.
  2. From writing and then revising the novels, of course, I had explored the dynamics of building a large book and then the distinguishing qualities of fiction in contrast to journalism. I even learned to excise a hundred or more pages from a manuscript and not weep.
  3. My long service in Quaker meetings, as presiding clerk in addition to committee work and visitation, steeped me in the decision-making process and culture of the Society of Friends, past and present. Along the way, I gained familiarity with our peculiar customs and historic language, ranging from liberal “unprogrammed” worship at one end and old-order conservatives at another to pastor-led evangelical at the other extreme.
  4. Genealogy research accompanied much of those discoveries, especially as I gleaned the old minute books and journals. (Many of my findings appear on my blog, Orphan George.)
  5. Triangulation of three or more differing versions of an event, as I encountered especially in material and correspondence regarding my grandparents, became helpful in considering Colonial history in New England. I could live with the ambiguity while letting the conflicting accounts still add to the bigger picture.
  6. My long interest in geography – maps, especially – came to play in placing Dover in perspective with the rest of New England as well as Devonshire in England itself.
  7. My training as an artist in high school and my work with photojournalists in the years after came in handy in examining portraits of Quakers (once those were permitted) as well as related locations. Sometimes I could see where an individual was in regard to changes affecting Quaker practice and the world around them.
  8. Online sleuthing, rather than archives (which I had explored in the genealogy), came to the fore during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Somehow, I think my experience in formatting my novels as ebooks, fed into this, but I had already devoured many digital texts by the time I became amazed at the number of rare old, arcane books I could download for free.
  9. Despite the fact that Quaking Dover is a history involving political conflict, I was surprised to find that my political science degree didn’t add that much, though the way Vincent Ostrom had taught us to closely read an argument came in handy, especially in looking at a system from the ground up rather than top-down.
  10. Moving to Maine before the final revision and publication also added to my perspective as I settled in. Dover, like much of New Hampshire, gravitates toward Boston, as did much of the Dover Quaker history. Little did I suspect just how much Dover Friends and the broader community influenced the growth of Maine to the east and northeast once the territory reopened to English settlement once the conflicts with the French and their Native allies wound down – earlier than I had presumed, in fact.