Uncategorized

Field trip to Augusta.

~ thedailydish ~ Leave a comment

It’s not enough to simply live here.  Over the past several weeks my daughter has been indoctrinating us in ALL THINGS MAINE.  Often at dinner, when none of us can get away.  What is the Maine state bird?  The Black-Capped Chickadee.  What is the Maine state insect? The Honeybee. And the largest vegetable export? Po-ta-toes.  Being non-natives, I actually find this knowledge helpful and interesting, if not strictly practical.  Perhaps someday I’ll be invited to a cocktail party where this sort of thing will simply WOW my fellow guests.  ANYWAY. Yesterday was the culmination of this Maine school segment – at least for me.  B/c yesterday I chaperoned my older daughter’s class trip to Augusta.  For those of you with fuzzy recollections, Augusta is the capital of Maine.  It’s where the State House is located, the governor’s mansion (The Blaine House), and more.  My daughter & I were EXCITED!!!  Not only to soak in our new capital, but to have a capital adventure together.

Behold!  The beautiful Maine State House.  The building below is its next-door neighbor.  It looked governmental, so I took its photo too.  [I believe it houses the cafeteria.]

Our group arrived early.  Mostly b/c we live in MAINE where traffic is virtually unknown.  To pass the time, the students were grilled on Maine facts.  YES!  I thought!  TIME FOR ME TO SHINE!!  Until I realized they were only asking the 4th graders.  Not wanting to seem pushy, I kept my mouth shut.  Even though I knew all the answers.  YOU KNOW I DID.  Those 4th graders were thrusting hands in the air, chanting in unison and even singing a song about all sixteen counties.  (I did not know that one and will now have to practice.)  Before we knew it, the time had flown and our tour guide had arrived!

But WAIT!  That’s no tour guide — that’s

Governor Baldacci ~!!

Who delighted each & every one of us with a PERSONAL VISIT!

[Insert Loud Applause]

After all, Maine’s motto isn’t THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE for nothing!  Even though our beloved Governor is beyond busy, he took the time to greet us, let us all traipse through his office and – he even shook my hand!! (AND Yes, I did wash it grudgingly this morning.  But only b/c I knew I “had to.”)

PS: Governor Baldacci is so cool and important, he’s even got a RED PHONE.

But the Governor has a job to do – so back to the tour!  Our (real) guide led us upstairs to the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Conveniently located at opposite ends of the enormous hallway.

This is the House of Representatives.  No offense to the Senators – who likely prefer their chamber b/c of its cozy size – but I found the House much more impressive.  It’s HUGE!

And the Representatives allow tour groups to sit in their chairs.  Which we didn’t have time to do b/c of the Governor’s surprise visit, but still it was a nice offer.  Those Representatives are really nice about their stuff.  Remind me to register to vote sometime.

This is the Senate.  At the other end of the hallway.

Like I told you, meh.  They’d tried to curry favor with us by including an electronic welcome message on the board:

But the tour guide kept reminding us not to touch anything.  Senators are really particular about their stuff.  No chair testing.  HANDS OFF!  You’d think these Senators would share the wealth a little bit (seeing as we TAXPAYERS are footing their bills..)  Sheesh.

In the middle of the hallway is the Rotunda, and BOY is it lovely.  You can look straight up several stories to the inside of the capitol dome.

I was also really impressed by the scope of the artwork on display throughout the building.  TONS of exquisite oil portraits, as well as landscapes, and in Governor Baldacci’s quarters, even Norman Rockwell originals!

And then, all too soon, our tour was over. But the fun wasn’t!  We proceeded a short distance across the complex to the Maine State Museum.  A hidden gem of a place, that truly everyone in Maine should visit at least once.

After eating lunch, we broke into smaller groups in order to take in the exhibits.

I kept thinking how much my husband & family would enjoy it.  It really is such a neat place.  They have displays on everything imaginable in Maine’s history.  From the earliest Paleo Indians to the industrial revolution and beyond.  And all the native Maine trades are covered.  Things like Agriculture, Stone Quarrying, Timber, Fishing, Ship Building.

I particularly liked the display of colorful sardine tins.. But was incredibly saddened to hear from my husband last night that the last remaining Maine sardine cannery had recently closed.  A tragic loss for a state where jobs are already incredibly hard to come by.

Many thanks to the Maine State Museum for keeping it alive – at least in spirit.

And when you get a chance to visit Maine – check it out yourself!  You’ll be glad you did.

Grease stains, Ice cream cones and Walmart – Oh MY.

~ thedailydish ~ Leave a comment

A couple months ago, I was in a pickle.  I’d put a pair of pants up for sale on eBay before noticing they had a subtle grease spot on one of the legs.  What can I say, I’VE BEEN DISTRACTED.  As luck would have it, the pants sold and I was left in a quandary.  I couldn’t sell misrepresented merchandise, but I didn’t want to forgo the sale if I could help it.  So I looked online, searching for a sure-fire way to get that grease out.  Trust me when I say there are a lot of questionable suggestions out there.  Everything from talcum powder to WD-40 to Cheez Whiz is supposed to remove grease.  But I needed foolproof.  I didn’t have time to spare, and I didn’t want to further damage the pants in the process.  Several websites spoke glowingly of a product I’d never heard of before.

Dawn Power Dissolver.

Dawn Power Dissolver is a spray cleaner made to remove caked-on crap from dishes, but people online raved about it taking grease off ovens and more importantly, OUT OF CLOTHES.  I wasn’t optimistic, but figured it was worth a shot.  It wasn’t expensive.  And if it worked…  OOooh!!  So I googled the stuff, trying to find someplace to buy it.  The only store w/in miles?  Walmart.

I don’t normally shop at Walmart.  Apart from what it’s done to local economies, I hate the parking lot.  Nowhere else on earth (apart from Christmas Tree Shops) are pedestrians put at greater risk.  But I needed THAT SPRAY.  I told myself I’d just be quick – in and out, then home.  But being at the Walmart here (versus the old one in Philly) was sort of a novel experience.  Whereas the Philly Walmart offers rock-bottom prices in filthy surroundings with hordes of half-dressed shoppers, the store here is ginormous.  It’s new and super clean.  And, perhaps b/c of the cooler climate, the clientele here wear more clothes.  I may hate Walmart, but I love bargains.  So after I’d picked up a bottle of spray, I got a cart and tooled around the NASCAR-sized arena.  I bought a new mop.  Some hamburger buns.  And then I remembered my older daughter wanted ice cream cones.  She’d been asking for them for a week, I’d kept forgetting.  I found them, helpfully located at the end of the frozen foods aisle.  They had several boxes, I reached for some at eye-height, feeling joyful as I put those Joy Cones into the cart and proceeded to checkout.

I returned home to launder the pants.  The Dawn Power Dissolver worked WONDERS! removing the grease stain completely w/ no ill effects whatsoever.  My daughter enjoyed her ice cream cones, whilst I mopped happily and my husband grilled burgers for our buns.  We all sang Kumbayah and .. and… AND!

The first part of my story is completely true.  Dawn Power Dissolver IS the best grease removing spray in the world.  I sprayed it on those pants, waited 10 minutes and then washed them.  The stain came out like magic, I marveled at my good fortune, and everyone was happy.  As for everything else..  ALL LIES.  The mop broke the first time I used it, the burger buns were stale – but the biggest kicker were those cones.

Does this look like the face of a happy child?

She is, after all, holding a box of JOY.  You’d think she’d be a bit thrilled.  But no.  And why?  B/c Walmart and the Joy Cone Company played a terrible trick on me.  Oh yes they did!  And here is the rest of my story.  (ALL TRUE.)

Look at the package.

Pretty, right?  Attractively colored, sure to please.  Placed at eye-height, just where I’d grab it and stick it in my cart.  It’s a box of ice cream cones, for pete’s sake, what the heck could be wrong?!  BUT IF YOU LOOK CLOSELY..

You will see each and every one of those 60 (yes, 60) cones is actually .. smaller than the size of my THUMB.

Here is one of the cones beside our (quite average sized) ice cream scoop.

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn’t belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

Although my husband was simply overjoyed by these shrimpy JOY cones, thinking they would restrict our daughters’ consumption of ice cream significantly, my daughters & I were not amused. AT ALL.

Those tiny ice cream cones might look cute, and charming, and if they were sturdy, they indeed might hold something other than the two drops of air inside.  They might even hold – gasp – a spoonful of ice cream!  We could have stood round scooping a good cup or two total of ice cream into all 60, placed them in a bowl or on a tray and eaten the whole lot of them, whilst chuckling heartily at the hilarity of it all, snapping pictures, and wondering when we were going to do it all again.  Instead, when I tried spooning the barest wisp of ice cream into a single one of these cones, it left the damn thing in crumbs.  Each of those petite ice cream cones is a ruse, a mere TEASE.  You cannot get ice cream into any of them, without smashing them into smithereens, unless your ice cream is soup.  Whereas most people would chalk all of this up to experience, WHHHOOOPSIE, I bought some tiny ding-dong cones, MY BAD>, I am not one of them.  REMEMBER?? I am a crazy woman having to sell greasy pants on ebay to get by !!!!!! That dollar or two I spent on that box of worthless ice cream cones – and believe me, they are completely worthless, was TOO FREAKING MUCH.  I do not like being had.  Joy Cones, FOR SHAME.  And here’s an idea for you.

Please tell me what I am supposed to do with the remaining 58 minuscule cones I still have in my possession.  B/c apart from the above, I cannot think of a single thing.

Oh, Bag Balm!

~ thedailydish ~ Leave a comment

Back before we re-did our kitchen, I was washing dishes every day BY HAND.  That’s right; The Daily Dish washing The Daily Dishes.  Cute, huh?  Not really.  All that dish washing was wreaking havoc on my hands.  With each passing dish, they grew a bit drier, a little more chapped, until finally my knuckles began to crack and bleed.  I tried different dish soaps, grotty gloves, scrubbers on sticks.  I slathered on hand cream, I drank water by the gallon.  I even tried letting the dishes pile up, hoping my husband would wash them.  But I was STUCK.  After months of scrubbing, my hands hurt like hell and they looked even worse.  One particularly bad night, as I lay in bed thinking about my poor hamburger hands, came two words.

BAG BALM.

Bag Balm – OF COURSE!!  Anyone who’s ever milked a cow knows about Bag Balm.  What?! You’ve never milked a cow? Okay, me neither.  But I had heard of Bag Balm.  I’d read about its wonder properties some time ago.  Originally created to soothe cow udders, Bag Balm is a treat for teats and more.  Its patented blend has been known to cure all sorts of ailments, not just in cows, but in goats and horses and even HUMANS.  I’d bought a can of it before we left Philly, I thought surely I’d need it sometime.  As soon as those 2 beautiful words popped into my head, I leaped from bed & found that tin.  Oh, Bag Balm!  I coated my hands in goopy goodness & fumbled to turn out the light.

In the morning I gazed open-mouthed at the wonder before me.  My hands weren’t just better, they were BACK!  When I’d gone to bed they’d been red cracked & bloody.  Now – like magic – they were soft and white, pain-free, the cracks GONE.  I had never seen such a transformation in all my life.  But it hasn’t stopped there.  My hands, despite all of the renovation work we’ve been doing, all the hand washing, and until last week – daily dishes – have remained baby soft.  Truly, the loveliest they’ve been in years.  Oh, Bag Balm!

But there’s more.

About a month ago, we adopted two guinea pigs off Craigslist. OH YES WE DID.  We already had two, we figured what the heck.  But when we went to pick them up, these new guys looked weird.  Their fur was dull, not glossy, and one had bald spots.  We would have turned & walked out the door, but those poor ugly guinea pigs just screamed HELP US.  So against better judgment we took them in, brought them home and (yes) introduced them to our two healthy males.  Almost immediately, the second pig began losing fur.  Ignorant of the fact that the “harmless balding” we’d been informed of was in reality sarcoptic mites, we allowed all four pigs to remain together in the same pen.  By the time we realized this was serious, it was too late.  All four pigs had mites.  I was HORRIFIED.  To think these poor creatures had been dealing with this disgusting, incredibly itchy and potentially lethal situation w/out us knowing.  My blood boiled.  After some online research, I discovered people have treated this very same issue w/ success using (you guessed it) BAG BALM.  Which I just so happened to have!!  And so I did what any good guinea pig owner would do.  I sat down with my piggies and smeared them head to toe with greasy salve.

We let that grease work its magic for a few days, and then followed up with two small doses of the topical mite treatment Revolution (Selamectin), which we also just so happened to have.  It’s been two weeks now, and I am thrilled to say all four piggies now appear mite-free.  They are no longer balding, some hair has begun to grow back and the scabbing & dandruff are virtually gone.  YOOOHOOOO!!  Oh, Bag Balm!!

For more information on where to buy Bag Balm, click HERE.