Aging Knees

For the last couple of months, my knees have been making themselves known. I'm aware of them all of the time. At one point, they were so sore I had to walk down stairs backwards. Not good!

The way I usually treat problems like this is to use the affected joint, but gently. I stopped using leg weights during exercise class. (I was using 5 pounds on each ankle.) I stopped crossing my legs when I sat (which I couldn't do anyway because it was so painful). I used a neoprene brace on the more painful knee, but that didn't seem to help - and besides, it pinched. When sitting at my desk at work, I was careful not to have my legs at a funny angle and to stretch them regularly. I also tried to get up and take short walks down the hall more frequently. I learned that walking was good but standing was not.

I'm now happy to report that my knees, while not 100% are definitely much better. A couple of days ago (before the snow) I walked down to the end of my road (1 mile) and back (1 mile uphill). The next day, my knees were feeling better than ever.

I think I'll have to be careful of my knees for a very long time, but if I do I can avoid knee replacement.

Sally Field and the movies

Remember the television show Gidget? What about The Flying Nun? Both starred Sally Field. I didn't watch either of them regularly, but I rather liked Sally Field. I've seen her in several movies over the years.

Now at 69, Sally has a wonderful new movie, Hello, My Name is Doris. M. and I saw it at the Palm Springs Film Festival last month. I've been recommending it to everyone I talk with.

Sally plays Doris, a 60 something woman working as a bookkeeping at a company in New York City. She's single and lived with her mother on Staten Island in a house full of "stuff". Her mother has just died, her brother is pressuring her to clean out the house and sell it (he owns half), and Doris is in a muddle. A new manager arrives at work (some 20 years her junior) and shows Doris kindness. She immediately develops a crush on him. What follows is funny, sad, and very real as Doris learns more about herself in a few days than she has in the past 60 years.

Most fun of all was that Sally Field and co-star Max Greenfield were there. When the film ended, they went up on stage, talked about the movie and answered audience questions. One of the things Sally said that resonated with me is that our image of ourselves is often (always?) much younger than our chronological age. I'm only a few months younger than Sally, but my internal age is somewhere in my 40s. She also commented on how few good, starring roles there are for "older" women. How true.

Please go to see Hello, My Name is Doris. I know you will like it. Doris' outfits alone are worth the price of admission.

Workplace in Transition

The MLS building has been sold and the new owners have begun moving in. Most of the MLS-west staff are telecommuting and those of us remaining are now very "cozy" in one office. I will likely be doing some telecommuting myself during the next couple of months until we move into our new offices at the Pot Pourri Mall in Northampton.

I'm very happy about the new location. It's closer to home. It's closer to just about everyplace I might need to go after work. It's closer to restaurants, banks, drug stores and super markets. I can actually walk to all of these places from the new office. This transition has taken a long time - first to find a buyer for the building and then to find a place to which to move. I'll be glad to be settled in the new space.

The only negative is that during the summer months I'll no longer have to pass Golonka's farm stand on my way home. Golonka's has the VERY BEST corn on the cob. Since I've been working at MLS, I've bought 2-3 ears of corn nearly every Monday, Wednesday and Friday during corn season. Fortunately, Golonka's is not far away - just a few miles north on Routes 5&10.

In the meantime, while at work I continue to correct typos and merge records. I'm still on the letter F.

Acorn Squash

Winter is the time for - winter squash.

While I love just about all winter squashes, M. is not that fond of them. That requires dressing them up to make them more palatable to him.

I love acorn squash baked with just a little butter and brown sugar, but I also like more elaborate dressings. Several years ago, I discovered a recipe for stuffing acorn squash with pineapple, roasted walnuts, dark rum and pumpkin pie spices. That's what I use whenever I make acorn squash.

Recently, I found another recipe which I like even better. Here it is. This makes enough for 4 people, but I halve it.

Cinnamon Apple Stuffed Squash
2 acorn squash, cut in halves, seeds removed
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
3 cups diced yellow onion
2 celery stalks, diced
3 cups diced apple, cored and seeds removed (about 2 large apples)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
2 Tbsp maple syrup
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Pinch each salt and black pepper

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place acorn squash halves face down on a rimmed sheet pan or baking dish and add 1/2 inch of water to the pan. Bake squash for 40 minutes

While the squash is baking, heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and saute for 5 to 10 minutes until soft. Add the apples, cranberries, maple syrup, water and cinnamon; stir well and cook another 5 to 10 minutes until the apples begin to soften. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat.

After the squash has baked for 40 minutes, remove from the oven, turn them cut side up, and fill each with apple stuffing. Place back into the oven and bake another 15-20 minutes until the squash is tender. Serve warm.

Yum yum.

It's that time of year again ...

... when traffic is heavy, tempers are short, and Hungry Ghost bread will not reserve 2 loaves of my husband's favorite bread so that I can pick it up at a time that is convenient for me. Instead, I had to be at their door when they opened at 9 a.m. yesterday to make sure it was not already sold out.

Then I hurried off to Chair Yoga class, then to work, where there are all sorts of cookies, candy and coffee cake in the staff room. After work, I made a second trip to Northampton Center to buy vitamins at Cornucopia Foods.

This is also the time of VERY little daylight, as yesterday was the first official day of winter. I prefer summer. When it's dark, I feel cold regardless of the temperature. At least the weather has been relatively warm.

For me, because my family met and exchanged gifts last Sunday, Christmas feels over and done with and I'm ready to do "normal" things. Instead, my schedule is all askew. I'm working 3 days in a row this week and next.

Besides enjoying the uncommonly warm weather, I'm really looking forward to having 4 days in a row to hang around the house, tidy up, loaf around and read.

And I do, very much, love to see all of the Christmas lights on people's houses. They make me smile. I suppose the advantage of driving home in the dark is that I can see them better.

So and So

So have you noticed how many comments and questions begin with the word "So"?

So is this something new, or have I just not noticed it until recently?

So is "So", like, the new "Like"?

So shall I stop putting quote marks around "So"? So it would be easier to compose this post.

So I understand that a "prologue" (there go those quotes again) of sorts alerts people that one is about to say something, sort of like "Excuse me". So that doesn't explain seeing "So" begin an email or FB post, which I frequently see.

So language evolves and different people develop they're own "oral crutches" as they say in Toastmasters. So while I've never used a lot of "ahs" or "ums", it was during my several years as a member of Toastmasters that I became hyper-aware of how often such fillers are used in conversation.

So I guess "So" as a beginning word has, like, penetrated our culture, you know?

Anniversaries and the Letter "F"

Last week was Thanksgiving. It marks a milestone in my life different from the traditional giving thanks and turkey dinner. On the Monday after Thanksgiving in 1967, I began my first full-time library job. It was at the UMass/Amherst library - then Goodell - typing the headings on the tops of catalog cards and then filing them into the card catalog. I'm so glad that those labor-intensive cards are gone.

Who would have thought that 48 years later I'd still be "wearing the sensible shoes" as they sometimes say on the AUTOCAT email list.

As I consider retirement, perhaps I should keep this date in mind. In two years it will be an even 50. Now that's something to celebrate.

On the MassCat front, I've finally cracked the letter "F" in my alphabetical list of possible duplicates. I've been working on F for a couple of weeks now. To put this in perspective, I briefly blogged about arriving at "E" in early May and "D" in June of 2014. Even though everything is automated, it's still pretty labor-intensive.