Wannaskan Almanac

Hello and welcome to a last-Saturday-of-September Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is September 30th. Hi, everybody! I know you guys have been wondering where I am. But, don't worry, I'm still here. Last week, I visited my oldest sister in Massachusetts. Saturday - In the morning when we woke up, we went to the Boulevard Diner for breakfast. It was an ordinary day in Worcester, Massachusetts for people who live there. But, not for me, my mom, and my sisters. It was unordinary for us because we were going to do something fun! I hadn't been to "Worcsty" before. The Boulevard Diner was a train car. On the inside, it looked like a mini cafe. It was long and narrow with one counter and one row of 4 or 5 booths. I ordered The Bully Special. It had sausages, pancakes, toast, eggs, ham, bacon, and home fries. We ordered 2 specials and had leftovers for the next morning. [Mom note: "The Boulevard Diner is a historic diner at 155 Shrewsbury Street in Wor

    "Travel is great once you get there." I don't know who said that first. Possibly Marco Polo. Maybe Lewis in a note to Clark. I know I said it to Teresa as I opened our hotel window overlooking the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. "We are here," Teresa added.   Some people say planning a trip is half the fun. That's only true if you're planning a day trip to the beach or some such easy destination. We were planning to go on a pilgrimage in Spain. For over a thousand years people have been hiking across northern Spain to the city of Santiago de Compostela in the northwest corner of Spain. We wanted to join them.   The most popular route starts in France, crosses the Pyrenees Mountains, and travels west for around 500 miles. It takes most people 35 days and when they get to Santiago they get a scallop shell on a string to hang on their backpack. That sounded like fun till I read that long sections of the hike were like walking across northern Min

2007: Wrinkly Hands I looked at the wrinkly skin on my hands just now and thought how they didn’t look like my Dad’s hands that helped shovel out the school bus when he went to school, one Iowa winter’s day i n the early 1900s. K ids were expected to help shovel the bus out of snow drifts. The wrinkly skin that is on my hands neither looks like my Mother’s hands who met up with a wolf on her way to her school, District 44 West in Palmville, and lived to tell the tale. I’d like to think her hands gripped her lunch pail bail and swept the wind aside as she ran north for home, as the wolf ran south for its life too, her scream still ringing in its ears. No, the wrinkles on my hands are my own, I reckon. They've cut my infant daughter’s umbilical cord the early morning she was born, clapped together when she was chosen queen of her senior prom, and wiped my tears away when she graduated from Bemidji High School.  They held the telephone receiver when she called to tell me she had made

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for September 27, 2023, the thirty-ninth Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of fall, and the two-hundred seventieth day of the year, with ninety-five days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for September 27, 2023 Peaking Peek The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources confirms what we already know, our fall colors are almost at their peak. Looking up tonight, Spot the Space Station:  8:02 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 69°, Appears: 10° above WNW, Disappears: 14° above E September 27 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special : Potato Dumpling September 27 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch : Updated daily by 11:00am, usually. Earth/Moon Almanac for September 27, 2023 Sunrise: 7:17am; Sunset: 7:13pm; 3 minutes, 33 seconds less daylight today Moonrise: 6:49pm; Moonset: 4:33am, waxing gibbous, 92% illuminated. Temperature Almanac for September 27, 2023                 Average            Record              Today High        

My money  daughter is attending Baylor University.  It is a very expensive  beautiful campus located in Waco, Texas.  This means that my one and only daughter is now nearly 24 beers  550 miles south of my Kansas home.  I am really enjoying  tiring of writing with the strikethrough, so this will be the only paragraph done in this manner. Yup, that is real gold! We drove down to visit my daughter over Labor Day weekend, which is kind of ironic, since it was more work to drive there and back then I would have done if I had just worked Monday.  The town of Waco is a pretty nice place to live, and I am sure that my daughter will enjoy her college time there.  There is plenty to do...you can watch the Baylor Bears football team allow record breaking offensive numbers to their opposition...you can go to the Dr. Pepper museum...and you can tour the Silos.  I did that all.  I have the receipts to prove it! More than you would ever want to know about Dr. Pepper One thing that I learned on my tri

  Three’s the Charm My first stint of three waitress jobs was at a mom and son operation not far from where my family summered in rural New Hampshire. After daydreaming about earning some money, I was ecstatic when at my cold call interview they agreed to take me on. I remember the mother as wiry and short. She had gray hair tied up in a bun and, everything she did, she did fast. I shadowed her as she buzzed around the kitchen out back behind the counter and stood at attention as she barked directives:  Only two slices of tomatoes on the BLT!  Add fifty cents if they order extra cheese!  Scoop just this much tuna onto the melt!  This is where we keep the knife to slice a sandwich; don’t move it anywhere else! These many fries with the burger - no more!  Like her, I’m scrappy, too, so I wasn’t intimidated by her. I will admit to shock, though, the day I watched her accidentally cut her finger while slicing turkey for a sandwich. Her lesson on how to salvage a sandwich from an accidental

  Writing is a strip tease upon a barren stage Where even the youngest fear showing their age I swear there is a demon  Who waits the ‘Net to tend He uncorrects my spelling As soon as I hit Send The point when a dish seems ruined is just part of the process for a top chef.  I’m new at this game I’m not very skilled It’s my first rodeo I think I’ll be killed Every small town in America has a sports bar.  Why are there no fashion bars where couture contests play on a dozen big screens?  Muted of course.  The river of life runs always downstream  I sit back —relax. It feels like a dream But then at the falls I get badly addled With the current against me I must madly paddle We often curse our God -That won’t make us die Our god’s a tin roof The Lord is the sky If you’re carrying too much And don’t have time to stop Make sure what you don’t care about  Is on your pile’s tip top.  At the exit to the airport security zone there should be a stand selling toothpaste, jackknives, and other stuf

Hello and welcome to a pretty spectacular Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is September 23rd. Last weekend, hubby and I celebrated 23 years of marriage, 17 of which have been here in Wannaskaland. Like most marriages, I'm sure ours lands somewhere between "Good Grief!" and "Thank Goodness!" on the dysfunctional scale. But big picture-wise, I think we're doing okay so far. In honor of our 23 years, on this 23rd day of September, here are 23 things I appreciate about my husband. He can fix anything. Seriously. Anything . He is a big adventurer. For example, he hiked down into the Grand Canyon and back up in one day. Twice . Once in his twenties and the second time 4 weeks ago. He made sure our entire family learned how to ski. Even me. Today, we all love to ski. Well, everyone except the youngest who'll need some convincing after last winter's broken leg. He's also the reason we do the crazy kind of camping trips we do. One of my a

    We've flown and driven from Wannaska to Massachusetts dozens of times over the past fifty years. Driving straight through takes 34 hours. I'm too old for that. When we retired we started taking back roads, giving ourselves five days for the trip.  Thanks to this method, I got to visit the home of Rutherford B. Hayes in Fremont, Ohio.   But for our most recent trip East we were in more of a hurry and stuck to the freeways, giving ourselves three days to go 1,800 miles. I-94 from the Twin Cities to Chicago is rough and clogged with semis. We've discovered driving down to Rochester and taking I-90 east is only 20 miles longer and is a smoother, calmer road, at least until reaching Chicago which is always hectic. The most common billboard along the freeway in Chicagoland is for injury lawyers.    Cruising through Indiana and Ohio is fairly pleasant and all the formerly squalid travel oases have been updated. We spent the first night in Madison and the second in Jamestown, N

 

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac with Word-Wednesday for September 20, 2023, the thirty-eighth Wednesday of the year, the fourteenth and final Wednesday of summer, and the two-hundred sixty-third day of the year, with one-hundred two days remaining.   Wannaska Phenology Update for September 20, 2023 Dropping in for a Quick Snack It’s that time of year again, and Wannaskaland’s fields flow into the Mississippi Flyway, including the airports, golf courses, and other human-focused venues along the way. These beauties earn the sobriquet “Big Honkers” in several ways besides their vocalizations: Fun fact for Wannaskaland farmers: a Canadian Goose averages a pound of droppings a day. Spot the Space Station 8:47 PM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 57°, Appears: 10° above W, Disappears: 21° above ENE September 20 Fickle Pickle Wednesday Menu Special : Potato Dumpling September 20 Nordhem Wednesday Lunch : Updated daily by 11:00am, usually. Earth/Moon Almanac for September 20, 2023 Sunri