The Tomato Sandwich

One of my favorite summertime treats is a big sloppy, with juice running down your arms, tomato sandwich made with fresh ripe tomatos straight from the garden.

Now this is a "TOMATO SANDWICH" NOT a "BLT" or a "Club Sandwich". Just as a hamburger is not the same as a cheeseburger, they are another kind of sandwich, which I also sometimes enjoy, however, a pure tomato sandwich is sans any flavor detraction such as bacon, lettuce or any other ingredient other than those listed here.
In our family this was a treat shared through the years of my youth by myself and my mother, Donna Page and I credit the invention to her. I don't recall any other members of my family relishing them with as much uninhabited gusto as me and my mom. 

A. The Ingredients

1. Tomatoes: You must start with a summer-ripened tomato. Any color will do, but it has to be dead-ripe, succulent, and bursting with juice. It should never be refrigerated. 

2. Mayonnaise:  You need mayonnaise, NOT ‘Miracle Whip’…Miracle Whip is a nice condiment for making potato salad but should never be used on sandwiches as it’s strong flavor overpowers the other fillings. If you don’t have any mayo on hand, STOP now and go to the store and get some. Mayo is part of the magic of a perfect tomato sandwich.

3. Bread: Two lightly toasted slices of that soft and squishy bread that you never admit buying. You don’t want highly flavored bread that detracts from the filling.  

4. Onion: Sweet onion sliced, preferably Vidalias if in season.

5. Last but not least, salt.

B The Assembly:

While the bread is toasting, use your sharpest knife (if you don’t have a Cutco #1721, you should get one it is the best tomato slicing knife in existance) to slice the tomato vertically in 1/2 inch slices & then cut off the tops of the slices that have bellybuttons where the stem was. Peel the onion and slice it horizontally in 1/8th inch slices. Slather the mayonnaise on both slices of the toast, making sure it flows all the way to the edges, perhaps with an artful drip over the edge. Carefully fit the tomatoes onto the toast cutting it to fit the best you can. Top with a layer of the onion slices, lightly salt, put the top on and VOLA!

C The Eating:

Sandwich in hand, you may now move to the sink and start eating. Grasp the sandwich with both hands, shielding the backside as the tomatoes sometimes try to escape by squishing out the back. Have plenty of napkins or paper towels handy, as the juice will run down your chin or your hands. Optionally put your sandwich on a plate and eat at the table, don’t forget the paper towels.

The first bite is all about texture—the soft bread, the velvety emulsion of mayonnaise, the luscious tomato, bursting with juice – a unique and wonderful sensory experience. By the third bite, be ready for the harmony of flavors in which yeasty bread, creamy mayonnaise, crisp onions and tart-acid-sweet tomato come together, accentuated with the salt. Don’t hurry. Savor the flavors.

Tomato sandwiches are about as basic as you can get, every one of them is delicious. In the summer I eat them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or in between. And every last one of them is perfect.

The Eyes Have It!

Last fall before we went west for the winter I noticed that I wasn't seeing as sharply as I was used to, particularly with my right eye. This was somewhat surprising to me because I had my glasses prescription updated just the year before and my prescription usually did not change much over a much longer period of time. "Oh well," sez I, "I'de better go in for an eye exam to get new glasses before we depart." So I made an appointment with Dr. Jodi Hummel at the Cedar Run Eye Center here in Traverse City for an exam.
Well it didn't turn out as I expected when she informed me that I needed eye surgery as I was developing cataracts in not only my right eye but the left as well, although not as advanced. But because we were leaving shortly to spend the winter in the Southwest she assured me that I could wait until this spring when we returned.
So in May after we had gotten settled in here at "The Farm" I made an appointment with Cedar Run Surgeon, Dr. Timothy Hanley for a total lens replacement in my right eye. The surgery on my right eye was done on August 3, followed on August 31 on the left eye. The good news is that there is now an improved lens implant called Crystalens that allows eye focusing with your eye muscles just as your natural lenses. Since Mother Nature saw fit to give me lenses were not focusing correctly I have been nearsighted all of my life, but with the new lenses I am not nearsighted anymore and no longer have to wear glasses. Hooray, hooray! For the first time in my life I can buy sunglasses right off the rack.
But...now here's the rub, medicare will only pay for the old fixed lenses. The new lenses come with an additional out of pocket expense of $2500 per eye that medicare will not cover. What would you do?
To me it was Hobson's choice...we forked over the additional five grand which means that we will be rag picking and eating gruel for the next year or so.  ;-)
I am still on a daily course of eyedrops but the outcome on both eyes appears to have been successful and I am now driving for the first time sans glasses.
Here is a video of actual lens implant surgery. It is a large file so unless you have a high speed connection it may take a long time to download.
Warning: Not for the faint of heart


               "I Can See Clearly Now"

You CAN go back again!

Last Saturday evening, 9/20, Teddy & I motored down to my old home town, Manistee, MI, a distance of about 70 miles, to attend my 55th High School reunion.

Here's a page from our yearbook showing what some of us looked like then..

That's me, 2nd from left, bottom row.

..and here's what we look like now.

That's me, left end, front row.

Hmmm, looks like I've put on a few lbs. ;-(

We had a lovely dinner at the Manistee Golf & Country Club. 

It was great catching up with old friends and finding out what paths their various lives had taken them. We had Doctors & Lawyers but I don't think that we had any beggars or thieves, at least I certainly hope not.

Visitors from Wisconsin

July 27 thru 30 we were again honored with a visit from our very good friends from Appleton, Dick and Jen Orr. They timed their visit to coinside with the annual Traverse City Film Festival which was running all that week. We had great plans to take in some of the film at the festival but we got caught up with other activities and never got to any of the films. Oh well...there's always next year. (smile)
They arrived Wednesday evening; we had a nice dinner and then we spentThursday visiting the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Dick wanted to have a go at climbing the dunes.  He was ill and missed going to the dunes last year and didn't want to let the opportunity go by again. It turned out to be a beautiful day; not too hot, just right for a dune climb.

I waited in the car while Teddy , Jen & Dick attacked the dune.

Here they are just starting out...

...and here they are just cresting the first stage about 20 mins. later.

After that they disapeared from my sight as you can't see the second rise from the ground.



Meanwhile I amused myself by watching people play on the dunes and engaging total strangers in conversation, as I am wont to do. (grin)

About 40 minutes later the reappeared none the worse for the wear. Next we drove the "Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive" a 7 1/2 mile loop that meanders through forest and dunes with several overlooks of Lake Michigan along the way from the top of the dunes which rise some 400 feet above the lake in this area. If you should ever visit the area this is a not to be forgotten look at the magnificence of Northwestern Michigan. Growing up here I was not aware of how beautiful it is where we live, I suppose I was thinking that the whole world was like this. It wasn't until I left that I appreciated the land of my birth.

We arrived back at "The Farm" late in the afternoon tired and happy and toasted our friendship with double Martinis all around before dinner.

Then on Friday we went on a drive through Leelanau County, stopping at historic "Fishtown" in Leeland, had a smelt lunch at "Dick's Pour House" in the village of Lake Leelanau, drove to the tourist town of Suttons Bay and finished up the day with ice cream at Moomers, named the best ice cream in America by ABC's "Good Morning America" a few years back.

Sadly, Dick & Jen had to return to Wisconsin Saturday morning so after a hearty breakfast of Belgian waffles made by yours truly, the waffle King, we bade them Bon voyage for their trip home.

Their visit was all too brief but we are looking forward to seeing them as well as all of our other Wisconsin friends when we visit Appleton later this fall.

Off The Road & On "The Farm", With Larry & Teddy

There comes a time in  every full-time RVer's life when he/she must give in to the revenges of age, claim a spot on this planet and hang his hat there.
The physical demands and the cost of travel have finally convinced us that we must now bite the bullet and stay here in Leelanau County, Michigan year around on the Schlueter family cherry farm. Teddy's brother, John owns the farm but has his own home and as the farmhouse was standing vacant since the passing of Teddy's parents, John has given us a life lease on it in lieu of Teddy's share of the farm. We have named the house "The Farm" and I am changing the title of our blog to "On The Farm With Larry & Teddy" to be more indicative of our current life style. In the past three summers we have had some badly needed major upgrades done and are now finally finished with the remodeling. I really enjoy being here and am thinking that I might even enjoy looking out at the snow covered fields this winter, knowing that I don't actually have to go outdoors to shovel snow as John will plow us out and I don't have a job to go to anyway. So Teddy and I will just stay indoors, drink hot chocolate, read books and watch the birds on the feeders.
We have made many lifelong friends during our six years if RVing and treasure their friendship. We are hopeful that some them as well as our Wisconsin friends might, visit us here on "The Farm" winter and/or summer. There are many things to see and do here in the Grand Traverse region of Michigan and it is truly one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

CPAP

As I mentioned in my blog of June 13 We decided to establish local doctors and dentists here in Traverse City. Well one of the upshots of that resulted in my new cardiologist, Dr. Michael Lauer putting me through a pretty through physical examination. I've had blood tests, a chemical stress test, had funny machines whirl around my body probing my insides with mysterious rays, underwent  a cardiac catheterization where they run a probe up the artery in my groin to my heart and then squirt a dye into my blood stream and watch it on a TV which is mysteriously looking at my insides. Then he had a self administered test kit sent to me where I hooked myself up to some kind of a computer, slept through the night with it and then mailed it back for analysis.  Results were that I supposedly need more oxygen at night so I was sent to a gas man (Harbor Oxygen) to get an oxygen machine to wear nights. But hold on, Dr. Lauer wasn't done with me yet; On Tuesday night July 12, I had to go to a "Sleep Center": where I slept in a room with about a hundred wires attached to my body & head, with a "Darth Vader" mask over my nose and a voyeur watching me on CCTV all night. The voyeur, was apparently disappointed that he failed to catch me in some kind of self-abusel activity, and to get even, he diagnosed me with sleep apnea. So on Thursday the 14th, back I went to the gas man to get hooked up with a CPAP machine.
To use the machine you have to wear a "Darth Vader" mask which covers your body's air input ports and supplies you with a constant positive air pressure when you inhale. There are several types of masks available, some that cover your entire face, some that only cover your mouth & nose, some that only cover your nose, and some, called nasal pillows, that seal directly to your nostrils. I went with the Swift FX Nasal Pillow mask as it seemed less invasive. Well...that night I lasted about two hours with that CCRAP machine. It made the inside of my nostrils very sore. Torquemada could have used one during the Spanish Inquisition. So Friday morning I packed it all up and back to Harbor Oxygen. They then sent me back home with a nasal mask made by Drive Medical.

Here I am pretending to sleep in my second mask all ready for SCUBA diving. I wore this one thru Friday night but it makes the bridge of my nose quite sore so Monday it goes back for a third try. If I'm gonna do this then I hafta get it right or I won't wear it.

You will notice that Nazzie appears to be a bit skeptical of the whole thing. ;-)

Reflections on turning seventy-four

Reflections on turning seventy-four

Tomorrow, July 4, 2011 I attaine the ripe old age of 74. In truth I don't feel much different mentally than when I was 24. It's just that the old body starts to break down like an old Buick.

It brings to mind the old adage, " if I had known that I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."

Here are 15 good things and 15 bad things about being 74 years old in the modern world. I'm sure that those of you who are seniors can add some more of your own.

GOOD THINGS:

1. Senior coffee at McDonalds.

2. Can flirt with young girls as they just dismiss you as a harmless old coot.  (men only)

3. Can drive at 55 as have nowhere that you have to be any way.

4. No longer a slave to fashion; i.e., Can buy your clothes at Goodwill.

5. Can take a nap whenever you want.

6. Don't understand popular music, nor care to.

7. Food you used to not care for is now delicious.

8. Get to wear your cap with the bill facing forward.

9. Men talk to you while looking directly at your face instead of staring at your boobs. (women only)

10. Don't have to worry about gall stones as have no gall bladder.

11. Don't have to shovel snow.

12. No more periods. (women only)

13. No longer get a "stiffy" every time you see a hot girl. (men only

14. Don't have to pay income tax as income is not high enough.

15. The knowledge that you aren't going to die young.

BAD THINGS:

1. Decaf coffee.

2. Remembering how much things used to cost.

3. All your friends are old people too.

4. Have to take a whole lotta' pills every day & don't know what most of them are for.

5. Your feet hurt, your back hurts, your knees hurt...everything hurts.

6. Don't understand popular music, nor care to.

7. Hot flashes. (women only)

8. Food that you used to like doesn't taste quite so good.

9. Insomnia.

10. Anti-insomnia i.e., fall asleep at inopportune moments during the day. Like in the middle of a movie or when talking to wife. (men only, could be a good thing too)

11. Getting up to pee two or three times in the night.

12. Going into the next room to get or do something and then forgetting what it was.

13. Have to wear suspenders to keep your pants up. (men only)

14. What used to be your cute perky breasts now are not cute and definitely not perky. (women only)

15. Most of the time you can;t find your glasses.

BEST THINGS ABOUT HAVING A BIRTHDAY ON THE FOURTH OF JULY:

1. Strawberry shortcake.

2. Burgers & Dawgs on the grill.

3. Get lots of cards & greetings as folks usually remember your B'Day when it's on the 4th.

4. Fireworks on your birthday. How great is that?

5. Never have to work on your birthday as it's a holiday. (What, never? Well,...hardly ever)

BAD THINGS ABOUT HAVING A BIRTHDAY ON THE FOURTH OF JULY:

1. NONE

Meanwhile, down on "The Farm"!

Greetings from "The Farm"

 My blogging frequency has been suffering lately because I've run out of things to say. We live our lives day by day, for the most part repeating what we did yesterday and there is a limit on what you can say about a trip to the dentist, beach, movies, garden walk, etc. Since we arrived here on "The Farm"May first we have been busy sprucing up the place, mowing lawns, grocery trips to Traverse, visiting, my brother & family and Teddy's brother and sister & their families.

American Robin

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Downey Woodpecker

I have also been busy trying to photograph the many birds that visit the feeders that Teddy so faithfully maintains.  (click on a picture for a larger view)

American Crow

Mourning Dove

Blue Jay

Chipping Sparrow

Bluebird

Northern aka Baltimore Oriole

These are all photos that I have taken this year since we arrived May 1st.

Common Grackle

We have also had visits from Chickadees, House-sparrows, House-finches, Ring-billed gulls and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds which I haven't gotten picts this year yet.

Goldfinch

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

White-crowned Sparrow

Pileated Woodpecker 

So we haven't been just sitting around twiddling our thumbs, although now that I think of it, that might be fun except that I'm not sure I know how to twiddle.
We had previously decided that if we were going to continue spending our summers and possibly future winters here in the Traverse City area that we should probably establish a local doctor, dentist, cardiologist, optometrist etc. With that in mind we picked up all of our medical records from Dr. Mckee's office in Appleton and made a "get acquainted"appointment with a family practice physician, Dr. Rebecca Hoffman here in Traverse. It went well and we both really like her. She recommended a cardiologist and we now have an appointment to see him. We already had a local dentist, Dr. Macare Lumbrezer as Teddy had to have a crown last summer and last week we went in and had our annual cleaning; we have to go back next week, me for a crown and Teddy for a filling. Bummer! We did have one little scare in that my vision in my right eye had been deteriorating over the winter. We already had made an eye appointment later this summer for cataract evaluation. I was told at my last eye exam that I had the beginnings of a cataract. However, three weeks ago I suddenly got massive strings of floaters that sort of looked like bird nests that covered my entire field of vision in that eye. We went in and they found that I had a torn retina. The eye clinic immediately sent my across town to an eye surgeon and within two hours I was having laser surgery done on that eye. Fortunately it went well and my floaters are gradually being reabsorbed. It isn't fun getting old but at least I now know that I'm not going to die young (or rich).
Here on "The Farm"  we have finally reached the end of our remodeling and are now beginning to enjoy the fruits of our (Gerard the contractor's) labor. Over the winter Gerard drywalled and painted the ceilings in the dining room, living room and  bedroom as well as the walls in the dining room and bedroom. He also put chair rail in the dining room and crown moulding in the living room. The difference is visually striking; when we walked in May first we were gobsmacked!
Here are some photos of the place now. A far cry from when we first moved in two years ago.
(Click on picture for a larger view)

Bedroom looking toward entrance

Bathroom from Entrance

Bedroom from entrance

Dining Room looking North

Dining Room looking South

Kitchen from Dining room

Living room looking West

Living room looking North

Living room looking South

The Good Life

Today Teddy surprised me at breakfast with some freshly caught morel mushrooms that she discovered in our yard (actually at an undisclosed secret location).
That combined with a sunny-side-up egg, toast, coffee, bacon & V8 made a breakfast fit for a king. Life is filled with surprises both good & bad and today's ranks right up there with the best of the best.
In the words of Mel Brooks in the movie, History of the World: Part I, "It's good to be the king."

I do love that woman to pieces!!!!

Now if that Readers Digest Sweepstakes guy would just stop by......

Back on "The Farm"

Well, we're back from our "long winters nap" in the Southwest and are settling in to our summer habitat here in Leelanau County Michigan. We had our contractor, Gerard Belanger do some final drywall upgrades to the farmhouse while we were gone and are very pleased with the outcome. The remodeling took three years and a lot of our cash reserves but we feel that it was worth it. We now have a comfortable home to settle into when we can no longer maintain our full-time RV lifestyle. Our twilight years, so to speak; it's hard to imagine but somewhere along the years we have evolved into a couple of old farts. It just doesn't seem that long ago that I was inviting this cute 18 year old coed out for coffee after class at Northwestern Michigan College. SIGH!
We arrived here on May 1 and Teddy has been busy every day tending her gardens and I have been busy holding down my recliner so that it doesn't fly away. ;-)
In the week and a half that we have been back we have already had quite a number of our feathered friends in or about our yard including:

Purple Finch

Goldfinch

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Mourning Dove

Black-capped Chickadee

Ring-billed Gull

Blue Jay

American Crow

Chipping Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Baltimore Oriole

American Robin

Northern Cardinal

Common Grackle

Ruby-throat Hummingbird

Needless to say our cat, Nazzie is quite excited for, as you might expect, he has a consuming interest in ornithology.

Click on photo for full size image

I haven't taken many photos yet but did manage to snap this shot of a Northern aka Baltimore Oriole.

Movin' On

Our time is up here at Nevada Treasure in Pahrump, NV. Tomorrow morning we will pull-out for our annual trip East to our summer home in Leelanau County, Michigan where we will stay until October.

Here is an itinerary of our planned overnight stops along the way from here to Appleton, WI where we will spend a few days visiting our son & daughter in-law and old friends from when we lived there.

Here is a map showing those same overnight stops.




Barring any unforseen snags we then will travel on to Michigan arriving there on or about May 1.
Over the winter we had some additional work done on the farmhouse by our contractor, Gerard Belanger and can't wait to see the result.

Recent Advances in Science 2011

Recent Advances in Science

2008    2009    2010    2012 

(4/1/11  •  AF News

by Pearl Gray

WASHINGTON –– At a press conference held this morning at the Sleep Research Center at the The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland  it was revealed that for over a decade neurologists have been working on a project that allows humans to live without the need to sleep. While working on a program investigating the underling causes of Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Doctor Roland Jerrome noticed  cognitive function correlations between REM sleep patterns and sleep deprivation. He was then able to get a research grant for further research and formed the "Sleep Research Center" under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health. A breakthrough came in 2001 when he implanted a microchip transducer behind the ear of a rhesus monkey. Probes from the implant were then routed into the ocular nerve center in the cerebral cortex and occipital lobe of the brain. It was then programmed to send artificial REM sleep signals. Astonishingly it appeared that the subject did not seem to require sleep and in fact was quite active during normal sleep periods.

In late 2003 an improved device dubbed a "stemulator", was implanted successfully in a human volunteer, another in 2005, two more in 2006, two in 2009, and in four subjects in 2010. That makes a total of ten subjects who are currently "wearing" the device and Dr. Jerrome said that they will be taking applications for twenty more volunteers in 2011. None have slept at all since their implants were installed. The stemulator implants are programmable wirelessly from a central transmitter which sends a pre-programmed "Sleep Dose" individually to each participant when it detects prefrontal cortex and parietal lobe activation. 

Currently the only drawback is that the subject has to remain within range of the center's transmitter for at least twenty minutes in any 24 hour period. However, Dr. Jerrome is working on a physical receptacle not unlike the USB connector on your computer that can be implanted behind the ear to allow an individual to plug in a dose of eight hours of sleep whenever the need arises. If the individual desires, he or she can skip this step and would then go into a normal sleep cycle. It is presumed that most people would initially opt to live their lives with normal sleep cycles and only program in sleep when needed (a cross country motor trip for instance). The advantages to emergency responders, long haul truckers, airline pilots, medical workers, military personnel, etc. are obvious. Applications may also include the ability to produce a suspended animation state that would allow astronauts to travel to deep space regions.

Future generations will most likely adjust work and production schedules for most activities across the board. Dr. Jerrome also stated that it is not unforeseeable that in the future, DNA or RNA splicing may make it possible to achieve the same results without the need of a physical device.

Dr. Jerrome predicts that barring any unforeseen setbacks, the procedure could become available to the general public by mid 2015. 

2011 NEVADA SPRING SAMBOREE

Just about everybody that RVs joins the "Good Sam's Club". The Good Sam Club is an international community of RV owners. Its stated primary goals are to make RVing safer and more enjoyable, and to save members money through club-endorsed benefits and services. It claims over a million members. The Good Sam Club is currently owned by the Affinity Group Inc., which also owns Trailer Life Publications, Motor Home Publications, Camping World and Woodalls RV park directories. Members also receive discounts at affiliated RV parks.
Many Good Sam members have formed smaller regional clubs or "Chapters" of like inclined members to share camping outings and social gatherings. These regional chapters then periodically host large "Samborees" where members of various chapters and members at large get together for a mass themed rallies usually lasting from three or more days. We had never attended a Samboree but noticed in the monthly Good Sams magazine, "Highways" that there was to be one at Nevada Treasure March 10 thru 12. Since we were going to be there anyway we decided to attend.
Starting Wednesday the 9th the park started to fill up and by Thursday afternoon the park was full with overflow parking regulated to a dry camp area specially created by the park.

A huge tent was erected in the parking lot and many of the activities were held there such as opening & closing ceremonies,

morning coffee & rolls, 
(here Teddy and our good friend Eva Syberden enjoy their morning coffee)

and a catered breakfast & dinner on Saturday. 








There were game and card tournaments, a pet parade, golf outings etc. 

The park has a large convention center and it was filled with various vendors including "waterless cookware", name badges, clothing, flags, books, RV accessories, and tour companies.

The theme was "Pirates of Paradise at Pahrump".

Saturday afternoon there was pirate costume judging at the pool area 

 

several of the pirates forced the host chapter president to"walk the plank"

We had a great time and will probably attend another Samboree in the future if opportunity permits.