Category: Learned List

1. I’ve never heard of sous vide style cooking. Read about it here: A Beginner’s Guide to Sous Vide Cooking on a site called “Spruce Eats”. Pronounced “soo-VEED”. Not planning on trying it. I made it through the Insta-Pot and Keurig crazes without buying anything and will continue to keep my life and possessions simple wherever possible. But it is fun to learn about what other people are doing. If you want more info, Serious Eats is a great website for all sorts of cooking info.

2. Do NOT let piles of paper accumulate! I finally went through the stack of birthday and Christmas cards and in that stack I found THREE Very Important Items: 1. a letter I thought I had mailed in October (ARE YOU KIDDING ME??) 2. a gift certificate to Luis Nursery (ARE YOU KIDDING ME??) 3. An email and phone number for a dear old friend (HI CAREEN!! WE ACTUALLY TEXTED AND I ALWAYS THINK OF THINGS TO TELL YOU BUT DON’T WANT TO BE A WEIRDO AND A PEST.)

3. “Faff” can be both a verb and a noun, considered British English. (Great word, thank you, Elisabeth from Canada!) NOUN: An unnecessary or over-complicated task, especially one perceived as a waste of time. VERB: To waste time on an unproductive activity.

4. “Cruft” is similar to “faff”. It means redundant, old, inferior, especially as it relates to code (computer stuff).

5. Brushing scam is an entirely new term to me. It is yet another scam, this one a “fraudulent tactic where sellers send unsolicited packages to individuals to create fake “verified” reviews under their names, boosting the seller’s credibility without the recipient’s consent. This can expose personal information and lead to identity theft or other scams.” So, beware if you receive something you did not order! Keep it, donate it, bury it in your garden, but do NOT review it online or respond to the wicked “geniuses” who sent it.

6. Lone Oak Cemetery, still there in spite of neglect, still with poppies and a lone oak, right there in the orange groves of Ivanhoe as it was 60 years ago.

7. There are tollways in California. I thought there were only freeways, but I was wrong. It is a real privilege to live in a place where we say “the freeway” and everyone knows what is meant.

8. My cousin was a voracious reader and a list-maker. How did I not know this about him? Despite all our differences, we really and truly were related!

9. I went to an awards dinner (as a guest of a winner friend) and this tiny oval-ish citrus fruit was part of the centerpieces. I took a couple home to try and they were Very Sweet. No idea what they were! I should have taken more. . .

10. Wisdom from James Clear about unexpected forms of generosity: 

• Not taking things personally can be a form of generosity. You give people the space to say things imperfectly.”
• Leaving something unsaid can be a form of generosity. You don’t always need the last word. 
• Being early can be a form of generosity. You wait, so they don’t have to. 
• Delivering your work on time can be a form of generosity. You make life easier for everyone downstream. 

11. I learned how to make scrambled eggs that don’t stick to the pan. (But where did I learn this??) Put your fat in the pan and heat the pan hot enough that a drop of water dances, not sizzles. Then your eggs won’t stick! It actually works. ‘Bout time I figured this out.

And thus we conclude a month of many new pieces of information. I wonder how much I will retain.

Did you learn anything new in March?

1.The most fun thing I learned is that Reader Sharon had a heart-shaped potato.

2. My friends went to Jordan and Israel, and I recognized all but one of the places just from their photos. Actually, I recognized that they were in Petra, which I knew was in Jordan, but I don’t understand the Biblical connection, having never read about Petra in the Bible. I learned that it was Edom, which was where Esau and his people lived. It shows up by that name multiple times, and it reminds me of a canyon in Death Valley. Here, look at the canyon I’m thinking of:

Okay, not totally. The rock walls in Petra are much smoother and more colorful.

3. I tried and didn’t finish three books: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, The Next Day by Melinda Gates and My Friends by Fredrick Backman. The first one was repetitive and tiresome with people making bad decisions over and over; I couldn’t relate to Melinda’s life; the third was just full of depressing details and foul language. Since I was listening to an audio version, I decided to not get all that embedded in my brain. Life’s too short to spend time reading (and listening to) books that are not enjoyable. This wasn’t really a new thing to learn, but I seem to have been a wee bit mentally idle in February, so it made the list.

4. I learned the name of a new weed: Hedge Bedstraw. Weird. It’s also called False Baby’s Breath, which causes me to wonder if I should just let it grow. It’s kind of hard to pull, because it is so low growing.

5. Have you ever heard of Chocolate Avocado Mousse? Me either, but I saved a recipe because it just looked so bizarre. Seems like it would be a waste of both avocados and chocolate.

6. Finally, I learned that the sturdier Crocs that have been working as hiking “boots” for me are no longer made: All Terrain and Off Road. I found some on Amazon. I also learned that just because they seem to be the same shape as the ones that I just walked a hole in the sole, they gave me a blister.

7. In addition to wearing a hole in the sole of my Crocs, a hole is developing in the sole of my slippers. Because I am frugal, I didn’t buy new yarn to make a replacement pair. Instead, I went to my yarn stash and chose 4 possible samples, knitted up swatches, and then washed them to see which felted best. It didn’t really matter if they looked great, so I did a tiny bit of mixing and matching to squeeze out enough yarn for two slippers. If one takes the same number of steps with each foot, why does one sole wear faster than the other? Hmmm, I might be walking a little bit funny since one foot is more numb than the other. So, what did I learn? Nothing, really. But the February Learned List was short, so I tossed this in. You’re welcome.

8. Cruft is a great word that wraps up clutter, junk, stuff, and porkadelia all into one little package. Here is the definition from DuckDuckGo: “Cruft is a jargon word for anything that is left over, redundant and getting in the way. It is used particularly for defective, superseded, useless, superfluous, or dysfunctional elements in computer software” (but I don’t care about computer software).

Did you learn anything new in February?

1. Ammonia is the main active ingredient in anti-itch medicine. If you put it on a cotton ball and rub it on bites or rashes, it helps better than those tubes of overpriced placebos. I have no idea what happened to my right foot, but it swelled up like a burrito and I scratched like a crazed animal for days. Ammonia was the only thing that provided some relief. (Nope, not gonna show you a photo.)

Learned from Intern:

2. The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web where people can search through old websites; he found my first website from around 2003 or so.

3. People in Asian countries make vertical emoticons (°-°) instead of sideways :-). I’ve been having fun with this! (*U*)

4. Youth view using a period at the end of a sentence in a text as a method to makes things look really serious. Good grief, I must really scare them when I text.

5. “Frunk” is a real word, which in itself is a new piece of learning; do you know what it is? I laughed aloud when I heard it and when I saw it. It is the FRont trUNK on a Tesla, a storage place where an engine normally sits under the hood.

6. Seems as if everywhere I read, the name G. K. Chesterton appears. I finally looked him up and learned a little bit about this great thinker and prolific writer, using this site Who is G.K. Chesterton? I realized that learning about him could involve a great deal of reading. Information overload, so many books, so many sites, so little time; I simply read a few paragraphs, composed this entry, and moved on. Sigh.

7. “Nalbinding” is a needle art I have never heard of before. Here’s a definition: “Nalbinding stitches are created with a single needle, using a series short lengths of yarn (18-36″ pieces) at a time. Each newly formed loop is created when the tail end of the yarn is pulled completely through the added loop, making it unravel-proof. “ It is also called “knotless netting” or “single needle knitting” or “looped-needle netting”. There is a thorough explanation with examples and even video instruction here: nalbinding. (I don’t need any more hobbies that use up my exhausted wrists so I didn’t look too closely.)

8. “Dongle” is a little gizmo that goes into a computer to enable a mouse to work with a laptop instead of the trackpad. A friend misplaced hers, and used the word, which made me ask if it was a real word. Yeppers. We looked and looked, and it turned out that it had magnetically adhered to the bottom of her laptop as we were scrambling around with a flashdrive. So the word is new and the fact that it is magnetic is new. These tools and their words. . .!

9. DMSO, or dimethyl sulfoxide was featured on 60 Minutes several decades ago as a potential remedy (or at least a relief provider) for arthritis. It was controversial, but now it can be purchased without a prescription. A friend gave me some, and sure enough, it provides almost instant relief for my wrist (De Quervain’s Tennosynovitis is my diagnosis, not arthritis or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.) So far it hasn’t done squat for the peripheral neuropathy, and WebMD is rather dismissive of it. However, I am finding it to be helpful. Never mind. It messed up my stomach after 5 days. Go figure—it is applied to skin! But messed up digestion is one of the possible side effects.

10. Remember when I said that intermittent fasting didn’t work to lower my A1C? According to sources (isn’t this how the media gives authenticity to its reports?), I was doing it wrong. Doing it right (as my source says, who is not a medical professional but is a very smart person) is really a hassle, and I don’t feel desperate enough to mess with this method of deprivation and inconvenience.

11. WAIT stands for Why Am I Talking? so I will stop now. Thank you, Blog Readers!

This is a reposting of the December Learned List, one that was still in draft form; the final version disappeared in The Great Website Splat.

Photos accompanying our monthly Learned List are very random this month, sprinkled in to prevent this from looking daunting and TLDR.

1. Cursive writing is good for your brain, according to The Case for Cursive. (Thank you for the link, Reader Sharon!)

2. COL might actually stand for “chuckle out loud”, although my friend wrote it as “chuckle out load”, which made me COL. (Thank you, Reader JC!)

3. “Cuco” is the common nickname for “Refugio”. Go figure. (How does “Billy” emerge from “William”, or even weirder, “Jack” from “John”, or perhaps weirdest of all, “Chewy” from “Jesus”?)

4. Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, a professor, historian, and farmer, is the most brilliant person I have ever encountered. I cannot keep up with his podcasts, articles, or books, and much is way over my head. Here is a recent article he wrote on the decline of Western civilization (and for the sake of honesty here, I don’t even know exactly what “Western civilization” means). Can the Dark Ages Return? is a sobering look at what is taking place in our time, and well worth laboring through. (He makes it a little easier by using far more paragraphs than were deemed necessary when we were all learning to write, because he understands that his material is a bit difficult for us lesser minds to digest with our current squirrely attention spans.)

5. I subscribed to something called Tangle, a daily email that breaks down the facts of one major news topic per day. This is what caught my attention from their website: “Most news outlets have biases that are obvious to every American, we are all living in self-curated “news bubbles” where we are spoon-fed beliefs we already have, and if we log onto social media the people we disagree with are caricatured into the worst people possible.” So far, I haven’t made it through a single article, but my intentions remain good. I think I am getting exhausted by current events.

6. After 2 weeks of inconvenience, I found the inner fortitude to stand my ground: when a customer wants a mural but will not provide access to the building, hold to common sense, which is that humans need facilities where they work. (Thus, I will only be painting in Ivanhoe on Fridays when the library is open.)

7. Eighty-Four is the actual name of an actual town in Pennsylvania. Something (a labor union? a lumberyard?) called “84 Lumber” originated there.

8. This large-ish wooden panel of a redwood tree was displayed at Stem & Stone. I stopped by to deliver more notecards and saw that it had developed a problem. Turns out that knotholes in wood contain substance that soaks through paint.

9. Have you ever heard of a Tule elk? I hadn’t, but there is one wandering around Three Rivers. They used to be plentiful in the Central Valley but were a nuisance to cattle ranchers, and the largest ranch in the valley, Miller Lux, may have had a role in mostly eradicating them. (Who knows for sure? I read it on the interwebs. . .)

*Of course they are “new” —otherwise would they be on a list of things learned? Supposedly the Search Engines bring more readers when one includes “new” in a post title. Why do I care? I know my readers, write for them (YOU!) and don’t need a pile of strangers “liking” me in order to feel validated.

1. Home Depot is a mess. In 2021 I bought a mini-refrigerator. It only worked for one year. In 2022 I bought another one, which wouldn’t fit in my car. They put it in their Will Call department (or something similar) and I returned with the pick-‘em-up truck to retrieve it the next week. They couldn’t find it. I chose another. Did I or didn’t I take it? I sort of remember canceling the entire transaction, and I think a friend got me one from Costco instead, but my memory is a mess. Home Depot sent me a refund check, which I returned to them. Two years later, I got another refund check from Home Depot. This time I decided that if they are dumb enough to keep giving money away, I’ll take it. In early October, I received a third check from Home Depot. After about 7 or 8 phone calls, I found a human who told me that I had purchased 3 refrigerators from Home Depot. Hunh? It took them three years to refund my money?? I cashed the check.

2. I am a mess in my bookkeeping. Why do I not know if I got a refund or not for all those refrigerators? Ugh. I’d rather draw or paint or teach people to draw than fiddle with numbers, paperwork, phone trees, and records.

3. Phone calls are a mess. For many years after Kodak croaked, I used Shutterfly to print my photos and to create photo books. Several months ago the site stopped working. My photos won’t load. I postponed calling them because those kinds of phone calls require much time and patience while listening to menus, terrible hold music, and people with difficult accents reading polite scripts. It took 45 minutes for Shutterfly to determine that the problem is DuckDuckGo. I told them that I will no longer be using Shutterfly because I am unwilling to download another browser.

4. Keeping life simple creates a mess. Well, not exactly a mess, but some sacrifices and some work. Since I insist on keeping life simple by not downloading another browser, I will not be able to print photos or photobooks unless I spend time looking for another company.

5. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life was a mess. My favorite blog, The Frugal Girl, posted What I’ve Read Lately. One of her books was Prairie Fires: the American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser. That book sparked more discussion than any of the others mentioned. It also led me to Wilder, a podcast by Glynnis MacNicol which completed and corrected (and stole some of the magic from) the Little House books. The impact and influence of those books is worldwide, transcending several generations, and now, sparking controversy. Warning: the final episode on the podcast was full of vitriol and cussing so I didn’t finish listening.

6. Staying current with computers is a mess. While editing a new book, Word lagged. The spinning beachball of doom responded with rotations every time I did anything on the book. I went online to see if there was any help. The main information was that Word needed to be updated. In attempting to update, I learned that my laptop must first be updated. I called Apple and learned that my laptop is maxed out in terms of updates. (They think a 2015 is old?? Listen, punks, I have a NEW car that is a 2004, so what are you talking about??) So, wanna know what I did? (I figured this out all by my lonesome—please be impressed.) I divided the 187 page book into 2 documents, so there! Now I can keep my 2015 going, while all those know-it-all children keep buying new things (probably made by slave labor) and putting their old (probably functional) machines out there into landfills (or their mama’s basements.) But I’m perfectly reasonable and calm about it all.

7. AI is messing things up. But if you want to find things on the internet, information NOT created by Artificial Intelligence, type what you are seeking into the search bar, followed by a space and -ai. That’s a minus sign with the letters “a” and “i”. I haven’t tried it yet but learned about it on a non-AI using blog.

8. AT&T is a mess, and they are messing with me. In 2023, I tried unsuccessfully to get a phone reconnected at the cabin. AT&T had no humans available who could handle landlines in California. They couldn’t understand how to flip a switch to activate the phone, which was already in place from previous years. They insisted that a tech guy needed to drive up the hill to do the job in spite of merely flipping a switch in the past. Alas, the road was unpassable for the AT&T giant truck. So, we decided to do without a phone and have managed without one for three summers now. A few months ago I got a letter from a collection agency that I owe AT&T $666. (evil number!) Au contraire, they provided no service, I had no phone, I never received a bill, I owe nothing. However, this crock of barnyard fertilizer has cost me several hours on the phone with the collection agency, and several dollars in mailing things in a manner that no one will be able to lie about receiving my documentation. They insist that I owe them, and I insist that I do not. I wonder if I can get through to Dave Ramsey so he can tell me how to deal with these stupid hon-yocks.

BONUS—This made me laugh: A dear friend recently said, “You can lead a man to knowledge but you can’t make him think.” Gotta be thankful for dear friends!

Perhaps November will be less of a mess and we can learn some good things together.

This month’s list is long, many thoughts, few photos. Settle in, and enjoy!

Food

1.Intermittent fasting for three months did not work to remove me from the category of pre-diabetes. I am discouraged, disappointed, disgusted. Dis, dis, dis. Maybe it is time to accept the reality. I hear over and over that “EVERYONE” is prediabetic, but that does not reassure me. I pursue removal from that category just in case it is the cause of peripheral neuropathy, as the neurologist is so confident about this.

2. When I was with Mrs. Texas, she did something so funny that I want to share it with you. Whenever we were eating something really extra good, she held up her hands, palms out, and said in a commanding voice, “NO TALKING.” (She said when you talk, you can’t taste things as well.)

On one occasion we decided to get ice cream. We stood there awhile, deciphering and considering the flavors, and then Mrs. Texas pointed to the price for small size dish with a single scoop—$6.75. EXCUSE ME?? Nope. We left without ice cream.

Still wanting a treat, we went to Starbuck’s because I had such curiosity about pumpkin spice lattes. I ordered a 12 oz. requesting only 2 pumps of the glorious flavored substance instead of the normal 3 pumps (the employee explained it to me—I didn’t know this from experience). Holy guacamole—I had to take it back to the house and dilute it with black coffee because it made my teeth hum. HOLY GUACAMOLE — it was $6.25!

No wonder I don’t go out to eat much. (at all)

3. Serious Eats is an interesting website with tips and information about food—articles about letting meat rest, how to really clean your kitchen sponge, never cry while cutting onions. . . and that was just the first time I went exploring on the site. (Already forgot most of what I read.)

4. Some friends said they like to drizzle olive oil and then sprinkle a little salt on vanilla ice cream. At first it sounds like ice cream abuse, but they said it was delicious.

Someone seems obsessed by food in this month’s learning. Is this a result of intermittent fasting??

Work

5. Sold five pencil drawings and no oils. WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?? I learned that I don’t know what I am doing when it comes to reading my customer base or understanding my market.

Since I didn’t sell any oil paintings, I will stop painting just for the fun of painting any particular subjects. Instead, I will accept commissions and paint sequoia trees or other subjects that stores sell for me.

Fun to learn

6. I finally toured the Point Pinos Lighthouse. (It ought to be Piños, but no one bothers with the tilde.) I learned so much about that lighthouse and lighthouses in general.

General Wisdom

7. Wisdom about anger from This Evergreen Home:

The late theologian and pastor Tim Keller once wrote that anger is energy spent defending what you love.. . .The next time you experience a bout of anger, be thankful that your brain has given you such a useful barometer into the things that you love. Take the opportunity to reflect on what makes you angry and whether those things accurately reflect the values you claim to treasure most. If not, it may be that the culture you live in has shaped you more than you realize, and that your loves have become misaligned.”

8. Getting older means loss. In the last year, I have sold my tennis racquet and my canoe, and this week I gave away my cross country skis. Tryna be realistic about my shrinking abilities to do stuff. The combination of a wrist problem and a foot problem have squeezed my limited activities even further. Never a fan of any sportsball*, the few activities I participated in didn’t require a great deal of athleticism. In actuality, I hadn’t used any of my gear for a long time. It just took awhile to face and accept this, and then figure out what to do with my unused stuff.

Maybe I should just join Pippin in the window, observing the outside world.

9. Clearly I need to face truth about my health, activity, business, and age. This wisdom is from M. Scott Peck. (When people use a first initial, does this mean they wish to be addressed by that initial? If not, then why even put it there?)

Truth or reality is avoided when it is painful. We can revise our maps only when we have the discipline to overcome that pain. To have such discipline, we must be totally dedicated to truth. That is to say we must always hold truth, as best we can determine it, to be more important, more vital to our self-interest, than our comfort. Conversely, we must always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and, indeed, even welcome it in the service of the search for truth. Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs. (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled)

*team sports