Last week was the 2-day week.

Each and every day seemed to be two days in length.

On Thursday, I said, “It’s still Wednesday to me,” and it was still Wednesday to me.

It worked like this: There was my first Wednesday, then there was my second Wednesday (when I caught up with you on your Thursday), next there was my first Thursday (which overlapped your Thursday), then I was in my second Thursday (which was your Friday), and so it went throughout the week.

The effect was, I admit, confusing; but, at the same time and in a strange way, it was somehow exciting, invigorating — even rejuvenating.

To “rejuvenate” is to make someone look or feel younger. That’s the definition. It’s like when you “turn over a new leaf.” That’s the idiom, which doesn’t mean to pick up sticks. It means to start a new life, to make a fresh start, to resolve to do better, and to roll out of bed the next morning with a youthful spring to your step and a child-like smile on your face. You’ve been rejuvenated. You’ve turned over a new leaf. You’ve been washed in the Fountain of Youth.

People have long sought the Fountain of Youth, and it has long been thought to be a real place.

Out there somewhere, around the next bend in the path, up high nestled in those mountains, or on that faraway undiscovered mythical island of legend, there’s an upwelling and outpouring of life-renewing water that can cause troubles to fade away and age spots to disappear.

Juan Ponce de Leon was a well-traveled and well-connected Spanish conquistador. He had the ear of King Ferdinand and the funding to outfit a fleet of ships. As the first Governor of Puerto Rico, he’d heard of a place to the North laden with gold and dripping with – you guessed it – the waters of the Fountain of Youth.

Long Ponce de Leon sought the fabled land of Beimeni and its waters of rejuvenation.

One day, he thought he’d sighted that place of fable. It was a tropical paradise of rich exotic blooms. Ponce exclaimed, “La Florida!” “La Florida” means “The Flowery.” He had discovered the beauty of modern-day Florida, the peninsula stretching and separating the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean and the longest coastline of any state in the contiguous United States. Of course, Ponce didn’t know what a “state” was, and he could have cared less. He was in a mad rush for treasure and new life.

Over the years, Ponce de Leon sailed and landed, hiked and fought, and sailed and landed, over and over again, up and down that long coast. His energies ebbed and his body tired in his unrelenting drive to find and dip in those elusive waters of youth.

Finally, on his last voyage to Florida, in July of 1521, a poisoned arrow pierced his thigh. Ponce de Leon retreated to Havana, Cuba, where he died old and broken at the young age of 47 years.

There is a saying: “It’s not when you get old, it’s when old gets you.”

Juan Ponce de Leon discovered old can happen even when you should be young and youthful.

It might be said that Ponce de Leon caused his body to age in his efforts to lose his age. He let old get him, rather than waiting to grow old. The adventurer died too young. That is sad. He is a well-remembered man. The wish is that he could have enjoyed more the life he did have and grown old in the length of those days.

Ponce de Leon sailed after riches and youth and lost both.

Perhaps, there is more in a day than just one day? Perhaps, some extra time can be spent savoring the seconds again – as confusing as that might, at times, seem? In the rush to acquire more is more actually lost? Could more be with us, and we only need to slow and linger to find it longer?

Can it be that the fountain of youth is not letting old get you, but allowing you to grow old?

It is good to have an extra day or two to think on these things.

The 2-day week may be time well spent.

I do feel younger.

Grandpa Jim

Apple pan dowdy is not betty, buckle, grunt, slump, cobbler, crisp, crumble or clafouti. These are all desserts made with apples or other fruit, but only one is the real dowdy.

Apple pan dowdy is a Colonial American after-dinner (or anytime-you-can-get-it) treat dating back some 200 or more years. It is a baked apple dish resembling a pie or cobbler, but with a top which has been made to look “dowdy” by layering overlapping pieces of rough cut dough, rather than carefully stretching a single uniform piece of nice smooth pie dough. The result is sort of frumpy, old-fashioned and frowzy appearing, which are synonyms for the word “dowdy,” which itself means somewhat unfashionable and out-of-place. Think of Carol Burnett dressed up like The Charwoman, her signature character – not fashionable, but certainly endearing and memorable. That’s Carol’s character and that’s apple pan dowdy, a slightly messy but delightful result.

Here is a Google image of an apple pan dowdy.

The reason I thought of apple pan dowdy is because I used the words with my wife and she said, “What are you saying? Where did you hear such a thing?” This is before I figured out — with the Internet’s help above – the whole bit about Betty and Slump and Carol and The Charwoman. I didn’t even draw the connection to the word “dowdy,” which is obviously the source of the dish’s name. I didn’t even think, “dish.” I just remembered, “hearing” something. It was in my head, that catchy little apple pan dowdy something, humming and singing to me.

It was before my time by a few years, but I bet it was still on the radio when I was a little guy crawling on the floor beneath my Mom, who was singing and baking around the kitchen, with this song:

Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy

Makes your eyes light up

Your tummy say “Howdy.”

Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy

I never get enough of that wonderful stuff

That’s it. A young Dinah Shore sang the song. In 1946, it was #7 on the Billboard chart. With those lyrics and catchy tune, I’m sure people kept singing, baking and shaking to “Apple Pan Dowdy” for a long time after that. I mean, who could resist a friendly pan of dowdy and a song to sing along with it?

To listen to Dinah and Apple Pan Dowdy on YouTube, just click below.

I just did and that was so good.

I feel better all over.

Shoo Fly Pie

and

Apple Pan Dowdy

I’m wondering, “What’s for dessert tonight?”

Not cobbler, betty, buckle, grunt, slump, crisp, crumble or clafouti, I hope.

I’m looking for something a bit more dowdy.

If you know what I mean.

Sing it again:

Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah

Someone’s in the kitchen I know

Bakin’ an Apple Pan Dowdy

And shakin’ to the radio

Now, where did that come from?

Why am I thinking “Railroad”?

Fee, fie, fiddly-i-o-o-o-o

Fee, fie, fiddly-i-o

Bakin’ to the

Old radio

Grandpa Jim

What do elephant seals and kolaches have in common?

Let’s start with kolaches.

This is what’s left of our share of the kolaches from a recent “Czech Kolache Workshop.” That’s right: Kolaches are from the Czech Republic. Actually these are from Texas; and historically speaking, kolaches originated more broadly in the area of Central Europe.

At the start, kolaches were a wedding dessert. Only those first kolaches were so much fun, people started making and eating them all over the place. Growing up, my wife’s family would make twelve dozen kolaches on a Saturday to get them through the week. With twelve kids, those kolaches were long gone before the next Saturday rolled around.

As you can see from the picture above, kolaches are squarish-roundish pastries with a base and rim of interestingly light puffyish-but-still-chewyish risen golden dough and a generous dollop of fruitish-preservish-jamish tasty mixture ladled smack dab into the middle. My favorite fillings are poppy seed, apricot and sweet cheese. These in the picture are apricot. At the workshop, we also made apple and strawberry.

Growing up, my parents would head on down to the Kolache Festival at St. Ludmila’s Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and bring back a sampling for us kids. I loved all the fruit-fillings, and I remember the kolaches well.

This is where the controversy begins.

To understand the developing dispute, let’s now look at the elephant seal.

Embed from Getty Images

These are Northern Elephant Seals. Notice the long noses. Those noses can grow up to two feet in length. Not long ago, Northern Elephant Seals were hunted for their oil, which was second only to sperm whale oil and quite valuable. In fact, the northern seals were thought to be extinct when a small group was found on an island off the Baja California coast. Conservationists stepped between the hunted and the hunter; and, with government help, the Northern Elephant Seal has made an amazing come back. When we visited the Hearst Castle in California about a year ago, we watched hundreds of the seals lounging on a beach nearby.

Returning to the controversy in the kitchen, at our Kolache Workshop, we also made these.

These are klobasniky. (Klobasniky is the plural of klobasnek.) Yes, klobasniky are made of kolache dough, but that dough is wrapped around a sausage. The results look and taste somewhat like kolaches, but these treats are not kolaches. Some insist (some even in this house) that klobasniky are true kolaches. To the contrary, there is no record of such a kolache in the baking history of the Czech Republic or the pastry archives of Central Europe. Check the Internet.

Rather, the klobasniky arose with the rising of the Lone Star State and are solely of Texas origins. Stop at any Czech stop in Texas and you will find klobasniky and kolaches. The meat-filled ones (the klobasniky — as good tasting as they are) did not exist in the Midwest of my youth. A true kolache always had, and always will have, a fruit or cheese filling. If it is different in the North these days, just take a peek into the kitchen and see if you don’t find a baker with a big grin, wearing cowboy boots, waving and hollering a friendly “Welcome, y’all!”

Klobasniky are sausages in blankets of dough. Some refer to these as “pigs-in-a-blanket,” but here again we see a flagrant pictorial inaccuracy and an obvious aesthetic mis-representation. Gaze upon these pictures.

Embed from Getty Images

What do these look like to you and to me?

Pans of klobasniky! That’s what they do so all look like.

Klobasniky are not kolaches, and they are not pigs-in-a-blanket.

Klobasniky clearly resemble elephant-seals-on-a-beach!

How could anyone have thought otherwise?

The beach ones are well protected.

And the pan ones are also

Well appreciated for

Whey they

Are:

NOT KOLACHES!!

Grandpa Jim

I was thinking about apples.

We were in the grocery store, and I was watching my wife choose an apple. There were many varieties, over thirty named types. It was that kind of grocery store.

As I watched, I thought, “What do you think about when you think about apples?”

The first answer was: “catchy phrases.” The phrase that jumped to mind is: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” It is another one of those idioms. The words do not mean that a fresh apple placed on the doorstep will scare away doctors in the manner that garlic is supposed to scare away vampires. Heaven forbid. It means that if you eat healthy foods (represented by a bright red apple), your body will be healthier and you will not need to visit the doctor as often – which is why that wizened witch hid the poison in the apple her gnarled hand presented to Snow White. An apple is a good, attractive and inviting thing. For sure, discretion is advised when considering a gift from a stranger, especially a witch or a talking snake; but, as a general rule, the apple is a healthy food, and healthy foods can contribute to a better and improved life.

As more catchy apple phrases raced through my head, they were stopped in their tracks by a loud ringing sound. The source of that ringing is the second apple thing. You see my cell phone is an Apple. That’s a big “A” for Apple, Inc., one of biggest and most successful companies in the world. Apple makes, distributes, promotes and sells cells, pads, laps and pc’s, all with its distinctive Apple logo.

Here is a picture of the “Apple Logo.” Actually, you’ll just have to remember the shape or look at your own phone. Apple owns the mark and is very protective of its trade.

There is a third apple, I thought, “The Big Apple.” No, not the company, the town: New York, New York. New York City, aka, The Big Apple.

And when you’re talking about apples and how big they can grow and what a good job they can do making even the unsuspecting and unintending very healthy and wealthy, you naturally think of a very ordinary and extraordinary guy by the name of “Forrest Gump.” That was the 1995 Best Picture and Forrest, played by Tom Hanks, was the Best Actor of the Year. Hooray. From the movie, this is one of my favorite “Gump” talking’s: “Lieutenant Dan got me invested in some kind of fruit company. So then I got a call from him, saying we don’t have to worry about money no more. And I said, that’s good! One less thing.” The company was, of course, Apple Computer, Inc., which later shortened its name to Apple, Inc., some kind of fruit company, which is the fourth apple I saw in my mind. By the way, it is estimated that Forrest and Lieutenant’s Dan’s investment in Apple would today be worth in the range of $7 billion. That is certainly one less thing to worry about.

Talking about worry brings me back around to the fifth thing I thought of when I saw my wife pick up an apple. You got it: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the Apple Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Remember the advice from above: “Discretion is advised when considering a gift from a stranger.” If only our first parents had seen the movie “Snow White.” In any event, that first apple was certainly an apple of impact. Admittedly, the pitch of the fork-tongued stranger was seductive. Nonetheless, I bet that apple was, in its own right, very attractive — if, under the circumstances, perhaps somewhat wrong.

Still, life may have been better afterward without that first bite.

Now, the apples are bagged, tied and we are on our way.

Apples find their way and are found in many places:

Catchy phrases, huge companies, big cities,

Famous movies, some very old stories.

But the best are always the ones

You pick from the shelf with

Out another’s tempting

Hand, crooked smile

Or slippery word.

I think the first

Bite is the

Best.

Grandpa Jim

“Well, it’s time to pick up the pieces.”

“Pick up the pieces” is an idiom. As we know, an idiom is a group of words that doesn’t mean precisely what it seems to say, but does sort of mean what it appears to say. In this case, the phrase’s meaning may not be limited to picking up a bunch of broken stuff. It can mean to take a hard look, accept what’s broken, get over it and start again to do whatever needs to be done to resolve, address and otherwise handle the situation.

“Whatever” may be a new job, a new car, a new garden or a new approach to the garden.

I fear the garden is done for and cannot be fixed up — again. The branches of the young tomato plants are stretched and pulled to the ground. The small green tomato fruits are bitten in parts and strewn about as if tossed by a mini-hurricane. Never will those parts reassemble to form the round, red and succulent fruit we worked for and hoped so to find on our plates.

It is, as we feared: “The Squirrel Wars.”

Squirrels are rodents. Our squirrels live in trees. Others of their kind stay on and under the ground. Ours do not. The squirrels we have use the trees as roadways to scout, sight, descend and devour anything and everything eatable in site. These, our squirrels, are voracious eaters and cute little critters — until we, with tears in our eyes, collect the broken remnants from their last meal. Cuddly looking in a rich draping of brown and orange furs, our rodent residents are eating machines. In the Greek and Latin languages, the word for “squirrel” derives from words describing their long bushy appendage. Our rodents should be named for their tummies, not their tails.

In fairness, it is noted that squirrels and humans bear certain things in common. Both species are tenacious, persistent, resilient and optimistic – some might say overly, if not incredibly, optimistic. In the face of adversity, we, like the squirrel, never give up. Together, we seem born with a shrug and a smile to stare disaster square in the face, proceed to pick up the pieces and start over again.

In this regard, whatever we, the human residents of this property, might do to deter those bushy tailed banditos from their unbridled munching — fencing, fake owls, recorded wolf howls, alternative foods (try some popcorn?), loud screams, frantic gesticulations and mad racings about the yard – whatever we do, they persist. The cute little cuddly running rodents turn, smile and keep eating until the garden and its greens resemble a moonscape and its rocks.

Yet, the long-tailed ones are recognized for their traits — which are ours, too.

And, ripe red tomatoes inhabit the grocery stores, as ours will never do.

And, the costs of conflict strain temper and resources, to little avail.

Yet, it is not our nature to surrender, not in the midst of our trial.

In the face of such logic, there is a long-standing saying: “If you can’t beat them, join them.” The foe must become friend. In that accomplishment, our forces are joined and our difference resolved.

But, how?

Flowers!

The tree squirrel’s digestion cares little for non-eatable flowerings. As we remember from the Gomph and the gomphrena, flowering plants build in their taste a natural distaste on the part of those who would eat their blooms. It is their natural defense.

A squirrel solution presents itself: We turn the vegetable garden into a flower garden. The ravenous rodents leave the garden alone. We win!

How do the squirrels win? The good will, of course. In exchange for ceasing their slash and burn, we abate our frantic antics to deter. We allow the squirrels free passage over our lands to those of our neighbors and their gardens. The squirrels win!

It is a: “Win-Win!!!!”

You see we are not that different.

It just takes tenacity, persistence, resilience and optimism.

It is really not that difficult to negotiate with a squirrel or two or three.

Grandpa Jim

Today is the day.

More specifically, this morning is the first morning I peeked out through the mist and spotted the first bloom of the straightkneck yellow summer squash plants I had planted from seed some six weeks or so ago. I was ecstatic, but skeptical. “Honey, look out there and tell me what you see?” She raised the blinds and said, quite matter of factly (I thought), “That’s a squash blossom.” She grew up on a farm. It is hard to argue with roots, and she is Uncle Joe’s sister. Still. . . . “Are you sure?” I asked.  “Let’s go out and see,” she responded

We did and here it is: The First Yellow Squash Blossom Bloom!

There is a controversy here. Squash scientists, you see. They can’t agree. My squashes, if they produce the smooth yellow-golden fruit on their label, will be of the C. pepo scientific namenclature. Those smart persons in the back rooms seem to be in agreement that the yellow squash now native to North America is C. pepo, but there is disagreement as to origins. Some (I suspect they may be neighbers) argue C. pepo first developed from its ancient ancestor, Mr. C. texana. Others, seeking perhaps to diminish the grandeur of the Lone Star State, argue C. pepo is the true ancestor and C. texana is a rogue and feral offspring and upstart. How could that be?

We shall leave this heated debate to the university laboratory and return to the backyard arbitory and its first bloom.

There is a concern there, a very serious concern, a concern as the future of our C. pepo and its bloom.

To express this worry, I worry we must depart from the more defined and uncertain land of science and enter the more amorphous and uncertain realm of verse:

Ode to

Oh . . .

Why do Odes

Always start

With an

Oh . . .

Watch out

For the squirrels

And rabbits and birds

They will scratch and bite and peck

You clean

Watch out now you

Little first yellow squash blossom bloom.

Oh . .

Watch

Or . .

Ode to you

Oh . .

Oh, yes

A second blossom, two bloom

And a third blossom, three bloom

Oh, ode

Oh, yes

And, no

Oh, oh, oh

If you survive the carnage

Is it the table for you

And for me

Oh, ode, ode, ode

I can’t wait

Oh, oh, oh, ode

Can you?

Grandpa Jim

Gomphrena is a favorite summer flower. I ran into them at the plant store, and they brought back memories. So, I bought a few for a hot strip of soil to the side of the drive. With the Texas summer fast approaching, not much will likely grow there in the heat; but my experience with gomphrena is that they can take the heat and keep on blooming. It is hot today, and this gomphrena plant looks like it is enjoying the sun and warmth.

Up close, gomphrena globules are almost molten purple.

These pretty spheres are a deception. That’s right. What look like purple petals are not blooms at all? They are magenta bracts. A “bract” is a modified or specialized leaf. Now, don’t take my words at face value. Look beyond me at the face of these older globes from a nearby plant and form your own opinion.

See those yellow-white specs? Those are tiny trumpets. If you look real close, you can sort of see them. Those small trumpets are the true flowers of the shy gomphrena.

“Why?” you ask.

Although the gomphrena originated in Central and South America, on the hillsides and among the trees from Guatemala to Panama to Brazil, the plant is now a global citizen. From Portugal to Nepal to Japan to Hawaii and back home again to Latin America, the globes and their hidden flowers have assumed names in the languages of the world. There is no hiding these trumpets from their fans.

So, why are they so small and who are they hiding from?

Far back in the beginning of time in the primeval forests of long ago, there lived the Gomph. The Gomph was a dreadful creature of great strength with a special fondness for a particular plant, when it wasn’t gomphing around the forest after the animals and peoples, making life generally miserable for everyone in those far-back ancient times. Well, the plant the Gomph loved to munch more than anyone or anyotherthing was the sweet yellow trumpet, a large white-yellow flower with tiny leaves. Through many years of Gomph salad breaks, the only trumpets left were small greenish plants with reddish leaves and tiny trumpets. And still, the Gomph munched and munched and terrified the neighborhood between trips to the salad bar. Until, all the trumpet flowers were gone, depleted, ingested and nowhere to be seen easily or found readily. The Gomph was not amused. He searched and searched and sighted some tiny yellowish trumpets hidden in the magenta leaves of some stunted and dwarfed plants that had grown through his repeated onslaughts. Sniffing, they smelled similarly. Why not? The Gomph gulped a great mouthful of the purplish blooms and let out a terrible screech, jumping and kicking, gagging and spitting, round and around in a circle of distress. The flowers were simply terrible to eat. So terrible, that the great Gomph kicked up his heels, raced from the woods and was never seen again. The native peoples visited the patch and with glee on their faces and jumps in their steps, they twirled and spun, singing, “Phrena, Phrenabeanah, Hoppiedoodlepaahs Gomph-Phrena!!!!!!” which everyone knows in the ancient languages of Guatemala-Panama-Brazil means, “Free, Free at last, Hooray for the Gomph-phrena plant.” You see they had in their joy named the plant for the wonder it had wrought. In a crowd, they gathered around and touched and admired the purple globes with the tiny trumpets and vowed to plant forever the flowers around their villages and to spread the Gomphrena to the ends of the earth.

And, they did.

And, that may not be exactly how it happened.

But, it certainly does explain a tiny trumpet surrounded by purple leaves.

And, it does seem to explain why you do not see those leaves on salads.

And, why you do not see that Gomph anymore.

Now, do you?

Phrena

Phrenabeanah

Hoppiedoodlepaahs

Gomph-Phrena!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grandpa Jim

These are socks.

These socks are getting into the car because something has happened to the weather. It is chilly. This is the middle of May in Texas, and it is chilly. Normally, this is the season when bare feet ride in sandals and boat shoes. Now, an emergency car sock or two is needed to fill the gaps within from the drafts without.

On our old street in Houston, May 15^th was dubbed the unofficial start of “High Summer.” In many parts of the Lone Star State, this is about that time in May when the air conditioning is turned to run unstopping day and night to the middle of September and beyond.

This is not the case these days.

“The heat is upon us, me hearties.” On his peg leg, Long John Silver leaps from the pages of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 “Treasure Island” and brandishes his pirate’s cutlass at the scorching sun sailing high in the sky. “Shiver me timbers, laddies, we won’t be a’shivering for many a day. Get to work now. Man the yardarms and tote them bales. The doldrums of summer are upon the waves.”

Only, that is not the case here. The heavy heat is not upon us, yet. The waters, though, have very much arrived.

There is liquid water a’plenty. Some would say far too much. In December, the reservoirs around these parts were low and the water levels dropping. Of those reservoirs, it is said that every lake in Texas was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers and is man-made. Today, those man-made bodies of water are stretched to capacity and aching to release their contents and overflow in relief. What a change has been wrought from the drought and dry of recent days?

To that, we owe the rains a’plenty. Sunday last, some parts received over twelve inches (30.48 centimeters) of rain. Sadly, there was flooding and damage to property. Even more sadly, from the tornados spawned by the storms, there was loss of life.

With damp smiles in morning light, new blooms shed their tears for day’s passing.

It is a strange and sad spring.

Now, half way from the vernal equinox (the first spring day of equal light and dark on March 20, 2015) to the summer solstice (the first summer day of longest light and shortest dark on June 21, 2015), we wonder what more will happen and when it will.

A sense of reluctance hangs in the air. Things are slowed by the wet and rain. Reticence is evident in the hesitant expression of bud and bloom.

Hidden between lush greens from too much rain, I almost missed the delayed appearance of the first red hibiscus.

More days of wet are predicted. Over the weekend, we talked on the phone to Uncle Joe where he sat in the dark at the farm. The storms had taken the power and left the fields wet filled with rain.

Perhaps a pause.

The crops could use the sun.

There, I see it – it is peaking out now.

On a walk, I was surprised to find these appearing.

Cactus buds had braved to burst in bright buttons of yellow bright.

Now, there is a sign and a good one – at that.

Perhaps dry days are in the sights.

Hope does spring eternal.

Lift the glass &

Sneak a

Peek.

It’s what

Pirates do &

You can and should too.

Me Hearties, fine weather to you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grandpa Jim

One tough cookie is not a piece of cake, but clearing and cleaning your cookies can be a piece of cake and save your cache.

Cookies are small, roundish scrumptious treats. Here is a cookie I recently encountered and found quite tasty.

Cookies are often soft, sometimes crispy, sometimes frosted and sometimes candy-topped. A cookie is not tough. A tough cookie is not a cookie. Here is an example of a “tough cookie.”

Please note that this is a picture of a person, not a baked treat. This is a picture of a person who can endure physical and mental hardship and survive. This is a tough person. In this case, this person is a pirate from a wonderful book I recommend you read. We do not know why, how or when such a rough and rowdy person was first called a “tough cookie.” We do know our pirate in no way resembles a cookie, and we do know our pirate is certainly tough — so tough that dealing with such a pirate would not be a piece of cake.

Here is a picture that was a fresh, delicious, delectable and approachable piece of cake.

A piece of cake is very easy to deal with. You take the fork and proceed to deal. Hmmmmm! That was good. That was a piece of cake. “Piece of cake” is an idiom, as “tough cookie” was above. An idiom is a group of words having a meaning not deducible (a Sherlock Holmes’ word) from the individual words themselves. “Piece of cake” is an idiom used to describe not a real piece of cake, but rather a situation that is easy and requires little effort. As I put down my fork, I think, That was quite a good idiom and required little effort to reduce.

On the other hand, a pirate is one tough cookie and not at all a piece of cake.

There are “cookies” of a different kind than pirates and tasty treats. I speak of your computer and our browsing on the Internet. When you visit a web site to consider a purchase of something, say a pair of shoes, the site remembers the pair you liked. When you leave without purchasing those shoes, that site might deposit a packet of coded information on your computer and in your browser that contains the memory of those shoes you did not buy. The bits and bytes of that encoded shoe data are the “cookie” left behind in your computer.

In the Internet realm, a “cookie” is the packet of remembered information stored on one computing machine by another computing machine.

At a future time, when you return to the shoe site, that computer grabs a quick look at the old cookie left behind on your computer. Before you can say “Shazam!” up pops a picture of the pair of shoes from your prior visit, along with a few other similar and suggested footwears that seem to fit your style. “How did it know to do that?” you ask. “Cookies” is the answer.

Here is a picture of pair of shoes that could be a cookie on your computer – it was on mine and it was on my granddaughter’s feet at a recent feat and festivity.

Now, we turn to an even trickier thing. Now, we turn to your computer’s cache.

In common parlance, a “cache” (pronounced “cash”) is a collection of valuable things stored in an inaccessible location. Remember Scrooge McDuck and his big Money Bin full of gold. That bin or vault was Mr. McDuck’s cache.

In computereeze, a “cache” is a very similar thing. Computer cache is data stored on your computer (often without your knowledge) to speed up the retrieval of information when you return to a location on the wide Internet. Remember those shoes above. Cookies are often cached (hidden in inaccessible locations) to speed up future activities.

To illustrate, here is cache of cookies hidden from the grandkids but readily accessible on their next visit.

The problem with your cookie cache is that it may contain valuable treasure in the form of personal and private information. Because of this, there are tough cookies out there on the Internet who will stage hit-attacks (h-acks) to steal your cookies. Pirates will load their cannons and blast viruses and malwares to breach your computer’s domain. This is why you have firewalls, scans, clearings and cleanings to prevent and repel the hacks of pirates attacking your island to steal your treasure.

Don’t forget the clearings.

Often, the best defense is a good offense.

This is important: Clear the cache to clean the cookies.

Go on the Internet and figure out how to do this for your computer.

Then, clear your cache and clean your cookies. Do this regularly — as recommended for your machine. After learning the first time, this will be a piece of cake and the best defense against those tough cookies out there cruising the virtual seas for an easy hack. Don’t do this and one tough cookie may end up with your cache.

Happy Cache Clearing, To You

Until We Meet Again

Happy Cookie Cleaning To You

Keep Smilin’ Until Then

Grandpa Jim

The papers were full of it. “Turn and Greet ‘Em at the Arboretum,” one slogan read. “Smack your Tulips and Smile Together,” another chimed. Then, they froze. Snow battered the buds. Ice buried the blooms. Those tulips froze together, shut closed, and their smile was seen no more.

“But, that was weeks ago,” she pled.

“Okay,” I acquiesced in turn.

So, off we went.

It was warm, the first really hot day of Texas spring.

Not a tulip in sight, but there a pair of pretty pink azaleas, the last of their lingering line, bid fair greeting to our studied steps.

We left the wooded glen to venture under the sun and spy the rising spire of a century plant’s soon-to-tower-even-higher bloom.

Yes, the impatient days of summer’s red warmth would soon be upon us.

To that day, drooping buds of other cacti warm to rise and burst in the columned excess of a new day’s heat.

Trumpeted on their way by shy bells tolling yesterday’s shade.

In celebration, red maples lift leaves to sky.

Flashing sentinels on green-burst paths of spring.

A plaque-emblazoned bench dares all to bear the heat.

While an amaryllis sings.

Not to be frozen in time like those ancient ones.

Spring is seldom a time of reflection.

Spring is a time to see and be seen.

In its ways, spring is an uncultured time, a time true to its own particular hues — as different as they might be seen to the uncultivated eye.

Yes, the tulips arrived too soon and were too few saved from their caves of ice. Azaleas were themselves too soon passed and mostly missed by our late arrival. Our wait was due to weather and the whiling away of time. When we did arrive, it was worth the while and more appreciated for the unexpected hue and cry that rose from those lesser and later known.

That is and was an odd and pleasant surprise.

Grandpa Jim