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Years ago, a bona fide gourmet cook showed me how she passed off store-bought bread as homemade by sprinkling a little sifted flour on top.

From that day forward, I was always suspicious of her offerings at large gatherings, although I greatly admired her ability to economize time and energy.

Not long after, my mother tried to pull a fast one on us as well. She was a wonderful baker known for her Christmas cookies. But one year they looked just a little too perfect, a little too uniform and a little too thick.

She said it was a new recipe from a friend. It was. The cookies were from her new best friend, Mrs. Fields, who lived at the mall.

I told her the next time she needed to smear the frosting on a couple of them to make it believable—and not to leave the box in the kitchen trash, but to take it to the garage.

For me, the biggest time and labor expenditure before a big family gathering is making mashed potatoes. So, from time to time, I have engaged the assistance of my good friend Bob. Bob’s last name is Evans. He lives in the refrigerated case by the meat section at the grocery. I know Bob likes helping me, because the word “Family” is stamped in big, bold letters on his containers.

Because we have some purists in the family, I let Bob rest in a slow cooker set to low before people arrive. I then garnish the Bob potatoes with a pat of butter and sprinkle of fresh parsley before ferrying them to the table.

The finer palettes in the family are all on to me—but that doesn’t mean Bob and I are dissolving the partnership.

The second most time-consuming dish before a family gathering is potato salad. The potato salad of a nearby deli is highly regarded by many in the family. So, I did a taste test not long ago.

The oohing and ahhing over the potato salad and “best ever” comments went on and on until a son-in-law put his fork down and named the deli.

Busted.

One of the grands looked at me with big eyes and asked if it was really homemade.

“Well,” I said, “I went to the deli, brought it home and made it sit on the table. Homemade.”

I rest my case. And my kitchen.

Does anyone remember when you made a purchase, went to a doctor or took your car in for a repair and weren’t asked for a review? We are in the throes of review mania.

I recently visited a new dentist. Two hours after I left his office a text arrived asking for a review. I hesitated. What if I inadvertently posted something he took the wrong way? I could be looking at a root canal.

Plus, how do you review a dentist you’ve been to one time? The best I could think of was: “Nice guy and the waiting room didn’t smell like fluoride.” I didn’t leave a review.

A month later the dentist sent me a birthday card. I felt so terrible for not leaving a review that I began grinding my teeth at night. It could have been a plot.

Every time I get the oil changed in the car, I’m asked for a review.

How can I review an oil change? I can’t see the fellow working. He’s down in a

pit and I’m in a waiting area. I usually hear some rattling, but for all I know he is just banging tools against the underbody. I’ll leave a review after another 5,000 miles.

After a medical procedure that required sedation, I was asked to review my experience. How could I review the experience when I was unconscious?

Every bank, credit company, home and auto insurance rep we talk to on the phone wants us to hang on for a brief survey.

So many review opportunities, so little time.

Every time I check out at Walmart, a screen asks me to rate my visit. Since I always use self-checkout, I always leave five stars. It is basically a self-review. Glad to see I am doing well.

When my old Fitbit died and I was too cheap to buy another, I bought an off brand. I walked three miles and it registered as two. Then it began reporting my heart rate was 254 bpm. I reset the watch and my heart rate read 357 bpm. I should have been flat on the ground, but there I was briskly walking my “two miles.”

I returned the watch and received an email asking me to post a review.

Check and done.

Leaving a restaurant with a friend recently, the waitress gave us each an oversized bookmark asking for a review. We both thought that was daring considering the food arrived cold and she never returned with any water.

What percentage of customers write reviews? Depends on who you ask. Some sources claim as many as 74 percent of Boomers, 70 percent of Gen Xers and 60 percent of Millennials leave reviews. Other sources say only 5 to 10 percent of customers write reviews.

What we really need is someone willing to review the reviews.

 

When I was a little girl taking piano lessons, we lived in an old house with a dark, scary basement where mice frequently gathered and hosted parties.

Sometimes, mice ventured upstairs and hid behind the piano. When I began practicing, they would shoot out due to the horrible off-key sounds piercing their teeny, tiny, perfect-pitch sensitive ears.

I would jump up on the piano bench and scream and cry. Forte. Super forte. With the biggest crescendos you ever heard in your life.

I blame mice for the fact that I failed to become a concert pianist. It has nothing at all to do with the fact I had no talent.

My in-laws lived in a farmhouse that was a hundred years old and had mice. My husband assured me the mice had been trained by a mouse-whisperer named D. Con to stay in the cellar and on the ground floor and never, ever went upstairs.

One evening, we went upstairs, turned back the bedding and discovered mice had already booked the room. The mice were gone but had left numerous calling cards and tons of teeny tiny red Solo cups in the bed. Clearly, it had been some party.

I did not respond well.

Where is the piano bench when you need it?

Every fall, our clan of 19 gets together for a weekend. This year, I reserved three rooms in an inn at a state park, as well as a cabin we can squeeze into for meals.

The cabin has two beds and a pull-out sofa, which can take overflow kids from the inn. I was on the park website double-checking numbers and beds, figuring out sleeping arrangements, when I noticed recent reviews mentioning mice.

One reviewer said two mice darted across the room while they were having dinner. Another reviewer said a mouse greeted them when they entered the cabin.

Sure. It’s in the woods and the mice were there first. I understand.

But the mice aren’t paying—we are.

The real worry is this: should any mice appear, our group is incapable of a united front. We are a family divided.

We have the Get Them Before They Get You wing, which I am hoping is a clear majority.

We also have the Preservationist wing. They will agree that any mice need to go, but will insist on dispersing them in a peaceful manner consisting of coaxing, cajoling and luring them with small treats consisting of our meals.

The group that has me awake at 3 a.m. is the Catch and Keep wing. There are at least three, possibly four or five, that will want to catch them, name them, feed them, build them little houses out of toilet tissue in a dresser drawer and carry them in their pockets when we go hiking.

Fingers crossed we get a cabin that is mouse-free.

I’m taking a piano bench just in case.

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*The answer to last week’s Jumble was “WRITE ON”

I’ve read that doing puzzles helps keep your brain sharp as you age.

I don’t like to brag, but I can often solve the Jumble puzzle at a glance. After years of making millions of typos at the keyboard, I’m accustomed to seeing words with letters in the worng odrer.

A granddaughter brought over a new game called “Mobi.” It’s like Scrabble but all the little tiles have numbers, plus, minus, multiply, divide and equal signs on them. The goal is to see how fast you can use all your tiles making math equations in a Scrabble-like configuration.

I’ve played it with her five times now and she’s won every game. I told her she doesn’t need to bring it over anymore.

The critical issue with my brain is storage. Most of my brain is taken up with random miscellany. I fear my brain is basically a large kitchen junk drawer—a few essential facts and figures nestled amid a whole lot of dead AA batteries, old keys and dried up ink pens.

Why is it that I can remember my phone number from when I was in kindergarten? It’s not like someday I will try to call my younger self. Our phone number started with Ingersoll 6. That tells you how long ago my childhood was.

I can’t always remember all the words to hymns we sing at church, but I can remember my high school fight song — and the motions with pom-poms that went with it. (Bonus points!) “Y-E-L-L-O-W  J-A-C-K-E-T-S! We yell it! We spell it! All through the game!”

To my credit, I’ve never broken out with the Yellow Jacket fight song midway through a hymn.

I sometimes can’t remember where I left my reading glasses, but I clearly remember the look on the face of my fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Grimsley, tears pooling in her eyes, when she told us President Kennedy had been shot.

I remember 90 percent of everything I learned in high school shorthand class. I was good— not as good as my friend Jo Ann, who entered shorthand contests and won awards, but I was going places with my shorthand skills. I went to a computer keyboard.

I’m not sure how Jo Ann fared. Last I heard she was teaching at Cornell, so I guess shorthand worked out well for her, too.

I can remember how long I was in labor with each of our three children. You don’t forget that. You can’t afford to forget that. It comes in handy even now.

I have three-ring notebooks filled with recipes, but I don’t have many of my mom’s recipes in writing. They’re in my brain, floating amid random paper clips, old ChapSticks and dried up tubes of Gorilla Glue. A dash of this, a dash of that, potato salad, baked beans and brisket. Everything a good cook needs to know.

It’s fun to rummage through the catchall drawer now and then. You often find forgotten treasures tucked in the corners.

 

There are two sounds that follow natural disasters. The first is an eerie, unnatural silence. No traffic, no car doors slamming, no children’s voices, dogs barking or birds chirping. Just a disquieting quiet.

The second sound is that of motors revving and gears whining, followed by the deafening buzz of chain saws slicing into downed trees.

My husband and I covered the aftermath of tornadoes, forest fires and the explosion of Mt. St. Helens in our younger days as newspaper photographers.

There are 59 “one another” verses in the Bible: directives to love one another, forbear with one another, be kind to one another, comfort one another and pray for one another. I believe I have witnessed all 59 of those “one anothers” kick into action on the heels of natural disasters.

This spring I was in eastern Indiana where tornadoes ripped through at 165 mph, ravaging several small towns and peaceful countryside, injuring more than 80 and killing four.

An old man with bloodshot eyes sat dazed in a chair on a neighbor’s porch staring at a giant oak now lying on the middle of his house across the street.

The orange shirts were there, the volunteers with Samaritan’s Purse. They come from every direction. They know how to work with heavy equipment—the really big stuff they roll in on tractor trailers. The volunteers are all ages: retired, middle-aged, thirtysomethings and college students.

A man in orange approached the gentleman on the porch and said, “Would you like us to get that tree off your house?”

The old man quietly said, “Yes. How much?”

“No charge. It’s what we do.”

The old man’s lower lip quivered. He stifled a full-body sob, but there was no stopping the tears.

This is a thank you for all the first responders who rush in to help while the rest of us watch the unthinkable unfold on screens and feel absolutely, positively, utterly useless.

This is for neighbors who help neighbors, churches that open their doors, chaplains on the front lines, organized volunteer efforts, corporations that send semitrucks with supplies, National Guard members, FEMA workers, people who loan personal helicopters and small planes for rescue efforts, and for regular ol’ people with 4-wheelers loaded with bottled water and courage, who simply get behind the wheel and go.

This is also for those who can’t physically be of help and have the brains to stay out of the way. That said, most of us have a little piece of plastic that can help.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Sometimes we are at our best when we are at our worst.

 

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a question heard frequently around here with this small herd of grandkids. Answers range from archaeologist to teacher, bluegrass musician, artist, builder and welder. A 9-year-old grand wants to be a NICU doctor because she’s always wanted to be a doctor and loves babies. Win, win!

Of course, all answers are subject to change within five seconds.

I wonder how many people became what they thought they wanted to be when they were children.

At age five, our youngest said she wanted to become a teacher when she grew up. She never wavered, except for a brief period when she said she wanted to be retired when she grew up.

Our son had an ever-changing list of what he wanted to be: Lego creator, taxidermist, park ranger, sculptor. He’s an architect.

My husband knew from the time he held a camera at age 7 that he would be a photojournalist. He was, is and forever will be.

When I was in sixth grade, I was certain I was going to be a gym teacher. Who wouldn’t love having recess all day, every day? The fact that I held the girls’ push-up record in elementary school for doing 45 “boys push-ups” in 54 seconds had a lot to do with that.

Yes, I do still have the medal. Thanks for asking.

I wound up in journalism school completing the writing and photojournalism sequences. I married a fellow photojournalism student from college. The old line is, “We met in the darkroom to see what would develop.”

Thanks for laughing. Not many under age 45 get that joke.

My mother said our wedding felt like a spot news event. Many of our J-School friends came with cameras.

A few years later I became a mom. Then I became a mom another two times. It’s hard to lug camera gear with three little ones hanging around your neck. I switched out the camera bag for a diaper bag and began working from home—writing.

Eventually, I approached the Indianapolis Star with some sample family life columns. Thirty-three years ago this month, two editors decided to take a chance on an unknown. They said yes. My column was picked up for national distribution a few months later.

I’m forever grateful to a man named Ted Daniels and a fireball named Ruth Holladay who opened the door for me. I’ve tried to practice that same policy of saying yes when I can.

I hope some people along the way say yes to our grandkids as they explore different opportunities and paths in the future.

If you landed in a good spot a time or two, it’s probably because someone along the way said yes.

Why not keep it going? Say yes.

It has been 10 years since we bought a new car, which puts us roughly 2,000 light years behind the curve on automobile technology.

Our new car has smart car features, not to be confused with one of those little Smart cars that looks like it fell out of a Cracker Jack box and can be washed in a dishwasher.

We are still learning about all the features on our new car and hope to master them before it is time to trade it in. Our new vehicle offers adaptive cruise control, which means the car will automatically speed up or slow down to match the car it’s following.

If you’ve ever followed a vehicle that seems like the driver is punching the gas, then letting off, punching, letting off, you’re following someone using adaptive cruise control.

Change lanes.

Smart car technology also prompts yellow lights to flash on the side view mirrors if a vehicle is in your blind spot. If we rely on that feature, we will eventually (or quickly) lose our own reflexes for checking blind spots. And doesn’t that make us less smart?

Don’t answer.

Our new vehicle also comes with a warning for braking—the driver’s seat shakes and a red light flashes if the car senses you need to brake. This is fabulous as those riding with you no longer need to yell, “Brake! Brake! Brake!” Although, so far, that hasn’t stopped anybody.

We did not pay extra for the back massage feature for the driver’s seat. No doubt the intention is to soothe aching backs on long-distance drives, but for us it would signal naptime. Not smart.

The vehicle is also willing to wrestle the driver for control of the steering wheel. According to the driver’s manual, the steering wheel will “gently correct” when it senses you are veering out of your lane.

For all the shake, rattle and roll, there are a few obvious extras that were overlooked.

I’d like a voice-recognition feature that knows when I am seated as the co-pilot and after my every comment says, “Listen to her. She’s right 99.9 percent of the time.”

I’d also like a navigation function that automatically pinpoints the location of all craft and hobby stores within a 3-mile range.

It would be wonderful if new technology equipped vehicles with a laser that shot out from the steering wheel and disabled the cell phones of other drivers texting while driving.

How about a little red flashing light on the dashboard to signify radar up ahead?

And may I suggest AI evaluate establishments along the route and offer the driver notifications like: “Don’t exit. Keep driving. Clean restrooms in another 16 miles.”

They may call these new vehicles smart cars, but they should really call them “Smarter Than You Are” cars.

 

New research suggests that our thinking about aging is, well, old and outdated. A recent study claims people do not age gradually in a slow, linear fashion, but age in waves.

From what I gather, these are not gentle waves we are talking about, but waves more like tsunamis.

The first tsunami hits around age 44. Check and done.

My experience has been that as you slide into your 40s and near 50, it feels as though someone keeps putting your clothes in the dryer and leaving them there too long.

Research says the second wave makes landfall in your 60s. This often occurs the same day you receive your Medicare card.

Nothing ages you as quickly as carrying a Medicare card. Well, nothing except a slowing metabolism. Your 60s are when you need to start eating half as much as you used to and being 10 times as active.

The new research is probably correct. Aging is not slow and steady change—it comes in waves more like crescendos at the end of the “Hallelujah” chorus.

A biologist in Germany who studies colons in mice discovered similar aging wave patterns. My question is not about waves, but about how one studies the colons of mice. “Hop on the table little fellow and roll on your side. Do you have a driver in the waiting room?”

Another researcher commenting on the wave theory said, “Most changes are not linear.” Of course, most changes are not linear—they’re curvaceous.

The study also refers to “meaningful changes” happening as people age. As a wordsmith, I love good word choices. It’s not what you say, but how you say it that matters.

“Honey, I notice meaningful changes around your midsection.”

Another group of researchers noted yet a third wave of change sweeping over people around age 78. I have ridden wave one and wave two and am not pleased knowing yet a third wave lurks on a distant horizon waiting for a throwdown.

To care or not to care, that is the question.

I choose not to care. I am putting the next wave out of my mind and savoring each sunrise and sunset. By forgetting about the next wave, I am essentially planning a surprise party for myself.

And now I’m off to call the appliance repair people to come check the dryer.

 

Heat waves still emanate from the grill. Paper plates, smeared with ketchup, mustard and remains of burgers and hot dogs, litter the tables.

One of the grands is sitting on her aunt’s lap. The grand just turned 14 and is a good three inches taller than her aunt. She is in an uncomfortable looking plank position with her long, lanky legs outstretched far beyond her aunt’s.

Her aunt announces that her right arm has been rendered inaccessible and she cannot eat dessert. Her niece tells her to eat with her left.

This is the same aunt who often held the girl as an infant, one of the preemie twins who cried ferociously off and on for the better part of a year. Perhaps part of the girl instinctively remembers and has melded into the one who held her so many times long ago.

Maybe it’s simply some of the lasts. The last cookout. The last days of summer. The last time she can crush her aunt.

A kickball game is stirring. They’re on the verge of being too big for kickball in the backyard. But that’s part of the thrill—seeing who can kick the ball over the 80-foot pines and into the neighbor’s yard.

Six female grands ages 6 to 14, two young buck sons-in-law and the man I married, moving slower than usual because he has been digging a new garden bed for me the past two days, take their places.

The pitcher, our son-in-law who is a business guy by profession but a coach at heart, rolls the ball over home plate. The kicker kicks, the ball sails into the air. The pitcher jumps, catches it and takes aim.

No mercy. Direct hit on the left arm. The runner sees it coming, flinches and screams accordingly.

The hit makes a hollow smacking sound, but it’s not a hard hit. It’s not a real kickball; it’s one of the hundreds of assorted plastic balls that roll into the driveway every time we open the garage door.

There is more kicking, more running, more screaming and yelling. The neighbors often throw a party when cold weather sets in and we move these gatherings inside.

The youngest one in the group is kicking next. She, wearing a white eyelet dress and sporting a new back-to-school chin bob haircut that bounces with her every move, is in kindergarten this year.

She readies for the pitch. The ball rolls toward her. Run, run, swoosh. Her leg flies out and misses.

“Again!” the crowd yells. “Again!”

Another pitch. Run, run, swoosh. Another miss.

“New pitcher!” someone screams. It was me. Kickball can turn ugly so fast.

Another pitch. Run, run . . . her foot makes contact with the ball. To call it an actual kick would be an overstatement; nonetheless, the ball wobbles sideways and she’s off. Hair bouncing, dress flying.

An outfielder nabs the ball and takes aim—but knows better.

The crowd cheers wildly as she rounds second, third and crosses home. She stands as tall as her short frame will allow and carries her head high. It is obviously official – she’s one of the big kids now.

The sunlight wanes and the game ends. They all load up and head for home.

It’s a fine finish to a fine season.