grr!

 What is up with bananas?

    Jackie usually has a banana at lunch.  Julia eats them.  I sometimes have one at breakfast.

    So tell me, why do bananas start going brown and mushy after 3-4 days?  No matter where I buy them, they get spotty and then just turn to squish.  We freeze them to make banana bread, but right now I have enough bananas frozen to make about 347 loaves.

    I don't refrigerate them, but I wonder if the stores do.  Seems to me they are a fruit you should not refrigerate.

    Raspberries are another issue.  I bought some on Tuesday and on Thursday they were moldy.  Not all of them, but enough to get me frustrated.

    And it does not seem to matter where I buy produce.  Those two items just go south so fast.

    Blueberries and apples?  Last forever.

    I picked a cantalope from my cucumber patch and it is not very sweet.  Is that because it wasn't ripe yet or because it was a volunteer from the compost bin?  

    Oh well.

    In 2001 on this date I was at school when Michele Gates, our kindergarten teacher, saw me and said a plane had hit a building in New York.

    I pulled the hall tv over and plugged it in and saw the tower burning.  I went back into the classroom, checked on the kids working, went back to the tv and saw the second plane had hit.

    I told my fifth graders something terrible had happened in New York and they should talk to their parents about the news when they got home.  I don't think I told them about the Pentagon or Pennslyvania, but I don't remember.

    I do remember kids being scared when they were in school.  I remember the emptiness of the sky.  We had a field trip to Brookfield Zoo the next week and one parent was concerned, but I told her the zoo was far from downtown Chicago, the military was patrolling the air space, and we would be safe.  The girl did go, and for one day it seemed a sense of normalcy had returned to our world.

    The sadness of the day, the last messages to family members and loved ones, the faces of fear as New Yorkers fled the collapse......things that I hope noone ever has to experience again.

    Well, that was a bit of a downer, wasn't it.

    I am fascinated with car radiator caps, maybe hood ornaments, I don't know.   So, some leftovers from yesterday.  Daughter Emily might especially like one of these.

Peace and Love