Hello, Monday

[lydamorehouse]

 This is not probably going to be a very long journal entry today. The sun is out and Mason would like to go off for a walk after he finishes his Stats quiz. 

I just wanted to catch y'all up on a couple of things. Do you remember when Shawn had suddenly very dark and scary urine? This was not the bloodclot or any of the other small (and large) dramas around that, but had happened right about when all the COVID-19 stuff had only just started to make it impossible to get in to see your general doctor? At any rate, some time ago she FINALLY had a tele-appointment with a urologist who agreed that, as it is listed as a possible side effect of one of the drugs she was taking, that might be what cause it (since it did also clear up immediately after she went off the drug.) HOWEVER, he did not like the fact that the discoloration was, in point of fact, blood in the urine. He ordered a few tests.

And we waited.

And waited.

But FINALLY, some time last week the tests were scheduled. So, we went off this morning to Saint Paul radiology for Shawn to get yet-another CT scan, this time of her bladder and kidney areas. She has one other test on the docket on Friday, but then we should hear from the doctor about what the hell was/is going on.

I have been extremely grateful that the discoloration went away immediately after she stopped taking the drug because otherwise I would be beside myself with worry over this whole craziness. It doesn't help that one of the Christmas presents Shawn bought herself this year was a subscription to the New York Times. Let me tell you, this is not the year that you want DAILY news coming in from COVID-19 hotspot, New York City. And, worse, right after all this stuff started both with Shawn and the pandemic, I read an article about people who could not get their regular cancer care and... well, things did not go well for them, as you can imagine. So, of course, I've been sitting here thinking, WHAT IF THIS WERE MORE SERIOUS??? And, why, of course, we need to be vigilant about spreading this disease. If the hospital beds are filled with COVID cases, that means that other people who also need them for OTHER THINGS can't get them.

Stay home. Keep washing your hands. Don't touch your face. This is for the COMMON good.

/public service announcement. 
 
 So, that was my morning.

I was grateful for last night's rain. I have been waiting for rain because my garden is looking pretty parched. I also spread a bunch of cover seeds and I am anxious for them to begin to spout. We are supposed to get rain on and off this week and I very much hope we do (even if it means I can't go for my daily walks.)

This weekend I seem to have inspired a bunch of my Facebook friends into remembering the pie crust cookies their grandmothers/mothers/parental unit types used to make for them that involved taking scraps of leftover (or screwed) up pie crust and dusting them with cinnamon and sugar and baking them for a few minutes.  I normally just do like gramma did: leave them as misshapen scraps, brush them with a bit of water, and throw cinnamon and sugar on them, but I got fancy this weekend and pulled out the cookie cutters and the colored Christmas sugars:

Because: DINOSAURS

Image: dinosaur and star cookies with an egg wash and Christmas sugar.

I feel like both my grandmothers would be rocking this apocalypse. For certain my grandma Mouse had already lived through the Spanish flu pandemic, having been born in 1909. I remember her birth year because it was, apparently, also the first year they issued the Lincoln head penny.  Of course now that I am so certain of it, 1909 could very well have been my grandpa's birth year.  Memory is like that.  

The point is, however, they were already doing like a lot of people who had lived through the Great Depression were doing: saving all the things and never wasting ANY food.  Hence the recipe where you even use the sort of dull pie crust leftovers. 

Did your grandparents/parents do anything like this you've been thinking about later? I'd love to hear some wisdom from the elders, as it were.

Comments

[pameladean]

My parents and grandparents both used the scrips of piecrust dough, putting either butter or margarine on them depending on which side of the family it was. My mother always put cinnamon and sugar on half the scraps and grape jelly on the other half. The grape jelly always burned and we always squabbled a bit over the burnt ones because we liked them. My paternal grandmother used sugar and cinnamon throughout.

My parents were born early in the Depression, but neither set of grandparents was greatly affected by it. My mom recalls that her own grandparents lost their jobs and that my grandmother and grandfather sold the house they were living in and got a larger one so that the grandparents could move in with her and her family. My grandfather ran a furniture store, and I guess enough people still needed furniture.

Aside from saving bacon grease in an empty coffee can and using it to cook absolutely everything, I can't think of any other thrifty behaviors that came to my attention. On my father's side of the family this was seen as a Southern tradition; on my mother's, as having come from "Bohemia," my grandfather's parents' country of origin.

I am glad most of Shawn's tests are done and hope you will see good results soon. One of the effects of this pandemic that I hadn't adequately thought through was how very stressful it makes almost everything else. Our shower broke just before the stay-at-home order went into place. The whole process of getting the repair done was incredibly instead of somewhat stressful. And medical stuff starts with a higher level of concern anyway.

P.

[lydamorehouse]

I am fascinated to hear that the saving of the bacon grease was labelled as "Bohemian," as my grandmother did this as well and we are, in fact, Bohemian, having immigrated from the Czech Republic back in a time when my grandfather's naturalization papers actually labelled him as not only "Bohemian," but as having "swarthy" skin tone in the "race" box.

Not being a sensible vegan/vegetarian, I also so this bacon grease thing. It's especially yummy on some of the foods from Shawn's Germans from Russia heritage.

[pameladean]

I was very proud as a kid of being Bohemian. I thought the nationality and the popular term for a certain kind of people were the same.

I didn't become vegan or vegetarian until I was in my forties. My favorite foods from my grandmothers' tables were a spaghetti side dish with tomato sauce made with bacon grease; and my other grandmother's green beans. She grew these long long beans in her garden, boiled them with onion for a ridiculously long time, though they did not turn to mush; and dressed them with vinegar and bacon grease. My mother has tried all her life to reproduce those beans, including hovering over her mother in the kitchen and making notes, but while her beans are great, they are not those beans. I think my grandmother must have been growing a weird variety of green bean.

My mother told me that Bohemian food was very similar to German food, overall.

P.

[lydamorehouse]

My mother's mother was the Bohemian in the family, and mostly, I didn't get her food very often, because she lived in Central Wisconsin, in Neilsville. I do remember some of her bread buns fondly, but I don't believe she was drawing on any particular cultural heritage when she made those, alas.

Most of what I feel are the ethnic foods I remember are, in fact, my father's mother's foods: Polish and German (she was Polish, Grandpa was German.)

[bibliofile]

My dad's parents came from the old country (what would become Yugoslavia) and then had two kids just before the Depression started. Grandma always gardened and also canned a lot of stuff; I remember the sauerkraut and applesauce, mainly. (The house we visited had an apple tree and a pear tree, but they moved there after the War, I think.)

The thriftiest thing, possibly, was that she saved and reused all kinds of plastic bags. Especially the bread bags, from Pepperidge Farm. This was back in the '60s and '70s, before Ziplocs were a thing, and before plastic bags were common for groceries.

I hope you hear about Shawn's tests soon and that it's only good news. Like, she's having puppies! good.

[lydamorehouse]

Yes, the plastic bags! My grandmother saved wonder bread bags. And, yeah, they were weirdly handy? But she would always carefully wash them out and hang them propped open to dry.

And, yes, puppies is best! We will hope it is all just puppies.

[oracne]

We saved bacon grease in a tin can in Louisiana...my mom's dad was on German descent, but they came over in the 19th century.

Here's hoping Shawn's test results are good.

[lydamorehouse]

It sounds like the bacon grease thing is also very Southern. The difference would be that my grandmothers always saved theirs in glass jars. I'm sure it's all about what's most likely to be around.

[j00j]

Yep, definitely in full Do Not Waste Food mode here. I feel like I learned a lot of useful things from a childhood that was food secure but poor-- I've been turning leftovers into more interesting things like casseroles and vegetable fritters.
Make your own fun is also a thing they were good at, though we have it easy with the internet. Which is good, because no one in this house can play a musical instrument, though we could sing...

[lydamorehouse]

Ah, now you're making me nostalgic for when my father was taking piano lessons. He'd learned to play a few folk songs really well and I would often join him and sing along by the piano.

I'm kind of a terrible, if enthusiastic singer? But, I loved it.

I've been doing a lot of things with my leftover bread. Lots of bread puddings and breakfast bakes here. I've made croutons and ground up oven-dried bread for bread crumbs, too. It's like 1900s over here. :-)