The Most Wonderful Summer

     Could it have been a better summer?  Not to many sweltering hot days.  Just enough rain to keep the grass green.  The summer of 2014 was as perfect weatherwise as you can get.  So, on this last day of the season, this tune popped into my head -



     Robin Ward (Jaqueline "Jackie" McDonell Ward) was born in 1941.  After she and her two sisters won a talent contest, the family moved to Los Angeles to find work in the music business. When Jackie was 13 she became a regular singer for KTLA radio.  After leaving KTLA, she recorded demo records for songwriters and did session singing for recording studios.
    In 1963, she made a demo of "Wonderful Summer" for Perry Botkin.  Botkin decided to experiment with the sound by speeding it up.  The result sounded like a teenage singer rather than a 21 year old married lady who had a baby daughter.  Botkin decided to release the demo as a 45 rpm single.  Jackie's daughter's name appeared on the record label since the name Robin sounded more youthful.  "Wonderful Summer" went to #14 on the charts.
     Jackie Ward went back to session singing after her one hit wonder.  She was a vocalist on The Danny Kaye Show, The Carol Burnett Show, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, and The Partridge Family.  She sang theme songs for Flipper, Love American Style, and other TV shows. She also sang jingles for commercials, the Rice-a-Roni theme song probably being the most well known.  She was also a ghost singer in the movies.
     If you want to know more about Jackie Ward, here's a link to an interview she did in 2000 -
http://www.cmongethappy.com/interviews/jw/ 

Git 'Er Done

     Some jobs are big jobs.  When it comes to those jobs, you have to put your nose to the grindstone, put your shoulder to the wheel, put your back into it.  You have to git 'er done.
     I managed to get one done recently - for the last time.  I pulled all the crabgrass out of the lawn, then fertilized and overseeded.

My nemisis.

     For me, eliminating crabgrass is like trying to make a decent cup of coffee.  I just can't do it.  Other people make terrific coffee that tastes just like restaurant coffee.  I have bought every brand of java out there and used filtered water.  I have tried various brewing methods from Keurig, to drip coffee makers, to a french coffee press.  My coffee tastes like swill.  Other people have lush, weed free lawns that rival the greens on the finest golf courses.  I apply lime, weed 'n' feed, and crabgrass preventer.  By August, my lawn is full of clover, crabgrass, and other plants I can't name.  If I want a decent cup of joe, I have to go to Dunkin' Donuts.  I am beginning to think I'll have to go to Grass Masters to get a decent lawn.
     There's lots of advice out there on how to eliminate crabgrass.  Of course, you should apply crabgrass preventer in the early spring.  The problem is that it's difficult to know the best time to spread the chemical.  Folk wisdom says it should be dropped when forsythia is in bloom. Scientists say it should be applied when the soil temperature reaches 57-64 degrees Fahrenheit. Evidently every homeowner needs a soil thermometer to get it right.  Since the chemical looses effectiveness over time, an early spring application will not prevent late germinating crabgrass from thriving at the end of the summer.  Some lawn services lay the pre-emergent chemical down twice per season.  Here's an article that explains just what a buggar crabgrass is: http://www.townpridelawnservice.com/blog/bid/376088/6-Myths-about-Crabgrass-Preventer-in-New-Jersey
     This article outlines plan of attack against crabgrass: http://www.familyhandyman.com/landscaping/how-to-get-rid-of-crabgrass/view-all
     This is a good video: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/video/0,,1639399,00.html
     As I said, this is the last time I do battle with this weed.  I crawled around the lawn for a couple of hours each day for 3 weeks.  I pulled out all the weeds. I loosened the soil on the bare spots, and I broadcast grass seeds everywhere.  Then I spread a thin layer of peat, followed by lime and starter fertilizer.

You can see all the brown areas are where I yanked out crabgrass and replanted grass.

It's looking pretty good right now.

     This was way too much labor for an old lady.  Staring in the early spring of 2015, I will diligently follow a program of fertilization and weed killing and prevention.  I will apply a crabgrass pre-emergent when the soil temperature reaches 57°-64°.  I will apply it again in 4-6 weeks to keep effectiveness high and to prevent late germinating seeds from sprouting.  I'll use insect control to keep my grass healthy.  And if I end up with another crop of crabgrass next August, I'm going to sit back drinking my cup of Wawa coffee while I watch the lawn service git 'er done in the future.

Slang

     I love slang.  It's proof to me that language is alive.  Slang adds color to speech, and as anyone who reads Happy in Hainesport knows, I like colorful language.  I like the wit and cleverness of slang.
     I was watching the Hainesport turkeys the other day, and I thought about how no one ever uses the term jive turkey any more.  Likewise, no one ever bets their bippies, nor do they keep on trucking.  These days I would just call someone an idiot, say you bet your sweet ass, or encourage someone to keep up the good work.
     My mother had a vernacular all her own.  When she grew tired of our chatter, she would tell us to dry up.  If we were wrong about something, she told us we were all wet.  When she lectured, we got an earful.  When I complained about the way a neighborhood boy treated me, she said he was just razzing me.  Most of Mom's slang vocabulary came from the 1920's.  That makes sense since she was born in 1923.  However, I was a kid in the 50's and 60's.  I wish I had a mother who kept up with the times and assured me that the kid next door was only trying to bug me.
     Some expressions that started out as slang were so perfect that they went into general usage.  Attaboy was first used in the early 1900's, and you won't be mistaken for a time traveler if you use attaboy today.  Blind date and Bible belt originated in the 1920's.  Brainchild, slang for a creative idea, originated in the 1940's.  Raggedy (though I prefer raggedy-ass) originated in the 1890's.  The term to rattle someone (to make someone nervous or uneasy) was first used in the 1780's.
     Some slang doesn't enter polite conversation, but it remains in use with a new meaning when adopted by a new generation.  Ripped meant drunk in the 1950's, but it means having well defined muscles today.  
     Some slang can enjoy a revival.  Millennials might think that Michael Jackson invented beat it or killer diller, but beat it comes from the 1920's and killer diller comes from the 1930's.  I thought the Four Seasons were oh-so-original when they sang, "I'd change her sad rags into glad rags if I could," but the term glad rags, meaning one's Sunday best, also comes from the 1920's.
     Cool is probably the only slang word used by everyone from 18 to 80.  Everything else runs it's course, then falls into obscurity.  Slang makes you part of the group until it goes out of style, then it date stamps its user.  When Mom said you slay me she might as well have worn a t-shirt that said "born in 1923."
     I was sitting on the patio a few weeks back.  The little girl from next door came over for a visit. After the usual inquiries about school and bicycle riding, her father interrupted by calling out to her.  "I'm just chillin' with the neighbor," she hollered back.  My mother would have said we were shooting the bull.  I thought we were hanging out.
       
     

Cast Iron Tree Bench

   
     Mike and I went into the woods on a friend's property and salvaged an old iron tree bench (or tree surround).  It wasn't a job for a dainty type, but I ain't no dainty type.  I would like to say the finished product was all my doing, but I had to cry "uncle" and call in the professionals.

Here it is, neglected for who knows how long?

My arsenal - insecticide for spraying the work area, Deep Woods Off for spraying the two of us, penetrating oil for loosening rusted bolts, and seltzer for rehydration.

The legs were buried in leaves and dirt.

Really rusty.

Real men know how to use vise grips.  Check out Mike's wellies.  When we first scoped out the bench, we ended up throwing away our socks because of all the deer ticks embedded in them.  Rubber boots up to the knees solved that problem. 

The bench has six seat/back sections or twelve pieces.

I thought a soaking with penetrating oil would allow me to break the nuts and bolts loose; however, I had to hack saw most of the bolts.

Each seat had a support attached to the leg.  This one was rusted off.  The others were so fragile that removing the bolts would have broken every support.  I decided to leave well enough alone.  

     This is where the project took a turn.  I took one seat/back section and tried to remove the rust with a power drill and wire brush attachment.  All those curlicues made it a difficult task.  I wire brushed, chiseled, and scraped, creating piles of red powder.  Still, I never seemed to get past the layer of scales that had formed over the years.  I settled for what I had wrought after a couple of hours of hard labor.  Then I sprayed with a Rustoleum product called Rust Reformer.  When that dried, I spray painted with white enamel,  The results were disappointing.  Mike saved the day by deciding we should sandblast and powder coat the bench.
     We found a great local business, Mt. Holly Powder Coating.  They sandblasted the bench removing every trace of rust.  Then they applied a white powder coat finish.  Check out their website:
http://www.mthollypowdercoating.com/  

Each piece has a perfect finish.

The fragile led supports survived the sandblasting.  The powder coat finish sealed the cracks, so rust should not be a big problem around the old nuts and bolts.

We selected a tree and prepared the ground around it.

Here's our bench.  

 

For Sale By Owner

     It was almost impossible to buy a house in Hainesport twenty-five or thirty years ago.  This township was like the Hotel California - you could check out, but you could never leave.  If you wanted to check in, you had to wait for some old timer to die.  Then you could buy the place ... unless one of his kids moved back into the house.  Thanks to a couple of developers (and a couple of retired or dead farmers) we had some spurts of population growth.  When the housing bubble broke around 2007 there were some houses, but it was difficult to qualify for a mortgage, and the properties sat, and sat, and sat.
     These days I see lots of for "For Sale" signs.  When I go to Realtor.com I see that the properties don't last long on the market.  Unless a place is tied up as a foreclosure or short sale, or it is priced too high, it sells pretty quickly.
     As Mike and I ride our bicycles around town, we see that Weichert, Remax, Century 21, Keller Williams, Long & Foster, and Berkshire Hathaway hold most of the listings.  Those guys are getting about 5% of the sale price of every piece of real estate that's sold.  That's $15,000 on a $300,000 house.  You can buy a Ford Focus for that kind of money.  Why don't people sell their houses on their own?
     Before Mike and I moved into our current abode, I sold my former home as a For Sale by Owner (FSBO pronounced fizzbo).  It didn't take long for me to figure out that the professionally lettered sign I planted in front of the place was only drawing some local looky-loos.  I sent emails and flyers to all the local real estate offices.  I got a bunch of offers to sign up and list the house from various agents.  None of these agents wanted to bring anybody over.  I could have placed advertisements in the local papers and hosted open houses, but newspaper ads are expensive.  Besides that, most people were shopping on the internet.  The answer was to get the house on the MLS which would get it on Realtor.com.
     Thanks to my sister-in-law, I learned about Realmart Realty.  For a flat fee of about $395, Realmart put my house on the MLS, which meant that the house was also on Realtor.com.  I decided to offer the buyer's agent a small commission.  Suddenly real estate agents were trooping through, and I had a contract in two weeks.
http://www.realmartrealty.com/Default.aspx
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jackyao

     I just got an email from Realmart.  They have an interesting new option called the Buyer Rebate Program.  Instead of going to Remax or Century 21, buyers sign up with Realmart.  They travel around to open houses until they find a place on which they would like to make an offer.  Then they contact a Realmart agent who handles the sale.  When all is said and done, the buyer receives a rebate from the commission paid by the seller.  They can use the rebate toward closing costs or to reduce the purchase price of the home.  All of this happens because Realmart is a transaction broker.  Transaction brokers remain legally neutral, working for neither buyer nor seller. They have to act honestly and fairly within the law.  They often work for a flat fee.  Here's an article about transaction brokers: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/transaction-brokerage-750.html

And here's a video:
     
         


          Working with a transaction broker is not the way it's usually done.  From the seller's side, a transaction broker is an attractive option because the costs of selling are reduced.  When I sold my house five years ago I had two options.  I could pay just $395 to get my house on the MLS and hope buyers came my way.  I could also offer the buyer's agent a commission of 1% to 3%.  I offered 2% thinking it was neither so cheap as to insult the agent nor so generous as to hurt my pocketbook.  These days the seller can't get out of paying a commission of 2% to 3% to the sellers agent - unless you are lucky enough to find a buyer without an agent.  Even with paying a 2% to 3% commission, the costs are smaller with a transaction broker.
     From the buyer's side, there may be more disadvantages than advantages to going agentless. You have to find your dream home by yourself by researching on the internet and going to open houses.  Since a transaction broker doesn't have a fiduciary responsibility to anyone, you won't be suing your agent if something goes south.  You could hire an attorney, but that would eat up your Buyer Rebate.
     Still, a transaction broker could be the way to go for those with an independent streak.  You won't find smaller commissions or rebates to buyers anywhere else.
   
   
         

Nom Nom

     I don't find stuffed cabbage appetizing.  Those slimey, translucent packages of rice and chopped meat never brought out the "nom-noms" in me.  Maybe it would taste delicious, if I could get it past my lips.  Then I found a recipe for unstuffed cabbage - the same ingredients, different presentation.

Unstuffed Cabbage

Ingredients:
1 lb. 93% lean ground beef (or turkey)
1 tbs. olive or canola oil
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced or crushed
1/2 small cabbage, chopped
1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce (8oz.)
1/2 to 1 cup water (depending on how juicy you like this dish to be)
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup rice
1 tsp. parsley flakes for garnish

Method:
Heat the oil in a large skillet using medium heat.  Saute the onions until tender.  Add the meat and garlic, and cook until the meat is browned.  At this point I drained off the little bit of grease that was rendered from the meat.  Add the remaining ingredients, stirring in the rice so as much as possible is submerged in the fluids.  Cover and bring to a boil, then turn the heat back so that it gently simmers.  Simmer for 25 minutes.

     Take the skillet to the table and plop it on a trivet.  Dig in.  Call it a one pot meal.  Call it an ovenless casserole.  All I can say is, "Nom, nom, nom."

Where Is the Fiction?

     Why do I almost never read fiction?  Did I have enough of romantic fantasy during my thirty years between husbands?  Did I hear too much hooey during my twenty-five years at the welfare board?  Maybe the old saw about truth being stranger than fiction means reality makes for a better read.
     Here are the mini reviews of what has been on my Kindle recently:

     With or Without You by Domenica Ruta - A story about growing up in a dirty house with a drug addict for a mother.

     David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell -  Do you have a disability (especially dyslexia)?  Are you stuck attending your back up college instead of your first choice?  Are there twenty-eight children in your kid's first grade class?  After reading this book, you might come to the conclusion that a lot of perceived negatives could be blessings.

     Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris - This is yet another collection of humorous essays by Mr. Sedaris.  Who knew the English are the world's worst litterbugs?  The dog poems in the last chapter are an unexpected surprise.

     F in Exams by Richard Benson - This is a collection of the funny wrong answers from people who didn't study hard enough for their tests.  It was funny at first, but it got old fast.

     My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag by Jolie Kerr - It's a collection of how to's for house cleaning and laundry.  Heloise did it first, and did it better, if you ask me.

     Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky - After ten years in the hospitality business, Mr. Tomsky was burned out.  He quit and wrote a book.  You'll never valet park your car again after reading this. The long and short of it is probably just tip everyone generously and you'll have a good vacation.

     Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell - I pretty much love anything Malcolm Gladwell has to say.  You can have a genius IQ, but most of the time you need timing and lucky circumstances more than smarts to get ahead.

     A First Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by Nassir Gaemi - When times are good we need sane people in charge; however, in times of crisis the mentally balanced are not our best bet.  Our best crisis leaders have been a little wacky. Whether they be depressed, manic and depressed, or sex addicted, Mr. Gaemi assures us nut jobs are best at the helm and  extreme personalities are the second best.  I'm not completely comfortable with that.

     Pilgrim's Wilderness by Tom Kizzia - It's a true crime story.  Robert Hale, aka Papa Pilgrim, relocated to the Alaskan wilderness.  He presented himself and his brood (a wife and fifteen children) as simple Christian folk.  He was really a sociopath, an abuser, and a child molester.

     I read one "real" book, Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham.  In 1954 Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, New Zealand teenagers, murdered Pauline's mother, Honora Parker.  After serving a few years in jail both left New Zealand and settled in Scotland. Pauline changed her name to Hilary Nathan and lived in obscurity.  Juliet Hulme changed her name to Anne Perry and became famous for writing mystery novels.