Life in Geezerville: Helper Edition

Geezers by definition are senior citizens. We've lived long enough to need help with walking, hearing, seeing, working, driving...sometimes even with making decisions. I'll get to latter three at another time...today I'm going to talk about the former.

As geezers, we are out on a limb, literally, with replacement knees, hips, shoulders, even toe joints. Walking and balance can be an issue. At first we think walking with a cane is a good idea. Then we progress to a four-pronged cane which is bigger and heavier but a bit more helpful. Canes work. They provide stability. They are also really good pokers. Geezers have been known to use a cane as a mini-weapon if someone should get too close for comfort. But there is a downside with canes-- they get lost. One day I walked into every church in Wittenberg Germany seeking a blue cane--to no avail. Another time the Walmart in Acapulco sold me una bolsa (aka cane in Spanish) after the one we had on the ship went walkabout. We've lost canes around the world. I believe there's a tiny corner, somewhere in the world, where all lost canes go. It might be near the lost sock final resting ground.

As lameness and balance become more challenging, the next helper is a walker. This might be the true sign that you are a geezer. Walking with a walker means you are on the geezerhood slippery slope to using a wheelchair or electric type cart. Generally, walkers are a nuisance. They are bulky. They are things you do not want to have, but they give you mobility. My good friend Jeannie decorates her walker according to the season. From Valentines to Christmas Baubles, you can see Jeanne as she rolls down the hallway with a smile on her face and a sashay in her hips. She's strutting her stuff. if your balance becomes worse or you are wobbly on your walkered feet then the next device is a wheelchair. When I was using a wheelchair, I discovered that no one wanted to talk to me. They would avoid eye contact. So I would talk like I was normal, and soon others discovered I was normal, just in a chair. Were they afraid I would give them whatever I had. Whatever! A geezer in a wheelchair has mobility and that's a good thing. A geezer in an electric cart is even cooler as now the geezer can give his grandkids a ride. Is that cool.

The next big device that geezers shun are hearing aids. Gees is this crazy or what? We can't hear without them but we don't want to get them because it will make us look old. Gimme a break. WE ARE OLD. If you can't hear and a hearing aid will help, get the blankety-blank hearing aid.

That leads to glasses. Most of us have worn glasses for years. There's no stigma with glasses. Eyes change, and to retain 20/20 vision (or something close to that) we wear glasses.  That is  normal. Why, then are hearing aids bad and glasses are good. BOTH are good.  Geezers need to see--get glasses. Geezers need to hear--get hearing aids. They are not as good as the mark 1 ear, but they do reasonably good job.

We're all in this together. We are geezers. We are proud. We don't really want to be old, but somehow we got old. Now we need some helpers throughout the day to make our lives as comfortable as possible. Geezers, wear your glasses with pride. Geezers wear your hearing aids for everyone to see. Use your cane or walker or chair, with a smile on your face. These are necessary helpers. Be brave and don't care what other people think.

 

Life in Geezerville: Grocery Edition

Remember when going to the store was relatively easy. You hopped in your car, drove to the store, got your stuff and returned home. For some reason it's more difficult today. 

First off, there's not a lot of "hopping" nowadays. Geezers lost the ability to "hop" a long time ago. Now we saunter to the car. Getting to the store is about the same, no change there. The change is the store itself.

Us geezers have lived a long time and "things" have happened to our bodies. Now we shop with special diets in mind. We are  low sodium, gluten free, low fat, organic, keto or something else these days. I've been on a low-sodium diet for years therefore I read labels. I know how much sodium I can eat. The problem is there are no large print labels. How on earth is a cataract-challenged Geezer supposed to see the tiny writing on the label. We like-- no we NEED--large print on all labels. I went to a store the other day that had magnifying glasses hanging off the shelves to help Geezers out. What a grand idea.

Going to the dairy aisle, I am confronted with 12 types of milk, from whole, 2%, and 1% and at least a half-dozen different containers ranging from plastic to some type of cardboard. Getting yogurt is an international experience. I can buy Greek, Australian, Icelandic, French, European (is that different from French?) and American style yogurt. Which one to choose? Geezers might be tempted to sample the food but I fear that would be frowned upon. We need more sample ladies like those at Costco. 

After finding all the groceries on the list, the next challenge is checking out. Does a geezer go to the self check kiosk, or to a checker. I choose to go to a checker so I don't have to shuffle groceries, bags, credit card, loyalty cards and the like. I put my items on the conveyor belt and the checker does the rest. Geezers are saving the checker's job. And, if I'm lucky the checker will return the bagged items to my grocery cart so I don't have to lift them again. Today I remembered my ecologically approved shopping bags. I worry though. Everything I buy, from meat to vegetables is shrink-wrapped in plastic, even ice cream is in a plastic container, yet it's against the law to use a plastic bag when I check out. And, if I forget my bags, there's an additional charge for a store bag, and guess what--it's a plastic bag. Geezers can get a little fed up with the idiocy of that logic.

A short saunter to the parking lot and I'm ready to go home with my washable bags full of groceries. One more day in the life of a geezer. 

Life in Geezerville: The Do It Yourself Edition

Remember when we were young and we could do "things" like use a screwdriver or hammer a nail? Nowadays, that type of dexterity is low on the list of what we can do. I have some recent examples from the 'hood, and I'm sure you can give me more. For Christmas we were given a fancy-dancy "Ring" doorbell. My niece said it was an important safety item and we would enjoy it a lot. Sounded good to us. We forgot that we would have to install it. That however turned into a community event. Since we were the last folks in the 'hood to have a Ring Doorbell, we had local experts who had installed their doorbells. There were four fellows on our porch telling each other what needed to be done next.  Soon the wives came out, then Delta who was walking her dog from her golf cart came over...and we had a neat gab-fest in the middle of the cul-de-sac. We were all discussing the benefits of the Ring doorbell, how my doorbell installation was different from any of the others; then we talked about kids and grandkids and baking bread...it was a great time. BUT it was not installing the doorbell. We left the project "hanging" that night. We had fun but we did not have a  doorbell. I wrote a note on the door saying "please knock."As you can tell, geezers get distracted quite easily.

The next morning, I called the help line at Ring and talked to Charlie in the Philippines. He was most helpful and together, he and I got it working--kind of. I took down the please knock sign. But when a friend rang the Ring, it did not ring inside the house nor on my mobile phone. I put the please knock sign back up and called a local electrician. He just left--the doorbell was installed wrong, as was the indoor chime. In less than  20 minutes he got the whole system working, sync-ed to my mobile, and all was good. Before Geezer-hood, we could have done that without a hitch. Post Geezer-hood, impossible. Do it yourself has a whole new meaning in Geezerville.

Another friend wanted to install a timer on his bathroom fan. The fiasco started with finding the breaker box in an impossible place; finding the correct breaker to turn off; taking out the old switch and installing the new switch. He was thankful YouTube had a video of the exact product. The electrician who put up the 2 minute video explained that it was easy. Don't you hate it when you are told something is "easy" and you can't do it? It might have been easy, but our friend does not have steady hands any more. His wife has long fingernails (but her hands are steady). The combination of long fingernails and shaky hands is not good. Again a call to the electrician and voila! The timer was installed in less than 2 minutes, just like the video. One more example on how YouTube can solve all of your problems.

Us geezers have been independent for four score and several years (to borrow a phrase from Lincoln). We are not used to asking for assistance as we've always done everything ourselves. We did what needed to be done because we could always do it faster and with less hassle. Something happened. Time and tide took away our dexterity along with our close up vision. What was easy then, is not easy now. We still know the process, but the skills are not there anymore. Geezers need to remember that DIY is something we don't do anymore. We call electricians, gardeners, mechanics, handymen, and the like. We ever so nicely ask for their help. It's all good. All we have to do is remember that DIY now stands for Don't do it yourself. So, we'll stick to our MLC cars, green hair, and have helpers on speed-dial. Life is good in Geezerville.

Life in Geezerville: Loneliness Edition

Not all is fun and games in Geezerville. Yes some of us have MLC cars, and green hair, and are president of the Ping Pong Club, others are exploring the possibilities of gourmet cooking and gardening, others are not fairing as well. Some of us are terribly lonely. So lonely that some days, it's incredibly hard to get up and move around.

We've lived the good life, a long life, yet some of our friends and loved ones are passing to the next life without our permission. John lost his soulmate of 55 years. They met in fourth grade, were married when they graduated high school. She put him thru college. He became a teacher and they were side-by-side as they reared 2 wonderful children. They were blessed with 5 lovely grand children and now she's gone. He says it's hardest on birthdays, holidays, their anniversary and every day in between. John eases his pain by cruising. By sailing around the world, he meets  people and that cheers him up. Covid was hard on John. To that end, he found a hobby: making Lego creations. In fact he's running out of room for his Lego builds that completely fill every available shelf in his modest apartment. It does not stop the ache but it covers it for a time.

The vagaries of time can weigh down on geezers. When making a life and a career, we were tumbleweeds floating all over doing our jobs, rearing our children, while traveling and having a grand time. I have had addresses from Guam to Washington DC having made over 30 moves in my married life. We are tumbleweeds and the kids are the same. Many geezers have kids and grandkids all over the US, or the world. Priscilla has a daughter and 3 grandkids in Sweden; another daughter and grand children in Illlinois, and she's in Florida. Being a tumbleweed makes it difficult to see loved ones when everyone has scattered away....just like their parents who scattered away.

Lee solved the problem by giving her extended family vacations every year. Gathering up the crew for a couple of weeks to cruise a river in Europe or sail the inside passage to Alaska is a way to quell the loneliness and see her beloved people. Renting motorhomes and camping in Jasper or Yellowstone or Zion is a great reunion. To spend time with her precious sons, daughters, nieces, and nephews that she loves staves off the solitude, and has an added benefit of reminding them all that we need each other.

We're geezers. We have lived and loved; won and lost; and now, some of us are doing it everyday of the year by ourselves. Friends and family make us tick. We need love and friendship. We don't want to be sad; we want things to be as they were before it all changed.

Life in Geezerville: Newby Edition

It's hard to teach a geezer if the geezer doesn't want to be taught (come to think of it, that might be true with young'uns too??) Us geezers in Geezerville are up for new things once in a while. Right now I am working on two new projects. 

One is pretty simple. I love to crochet (the sport of most grannies) but I've been crocheting for 3/4 of a century. I'm pretty good at it. My newby project is making items that I see in pictures without using a pattern. (Pinterest is a good source for fodder.) It's way more challenging than traditional crochet with a pattern and way more exciting too as you never know what you are going to get. I'm truly creating a one of a kind "thing" that a) has never been created before and b) will never be created again (as I don't have a pattern). It's a cool thing to do. I see a picture and the Xerox machine in my head tells my fingers what to do. It's a little miracle when my creation looks like the picture. Gee, I did that! Whooops of joy.  Geezers need miracles to keep them going when a negative "something" attacks.

My other newby item is making sour dough bread. Now I've not made any yet, but I've been feeding my starter. Rick gave me a small bottle of 116 year old sour dough starter with verbal directions on what to do. This is precious stuff. It's lasted 116 years, making lo and behold millions of loaves of sour dough bread and he entrusted it to me, the geezer who can kill plants in a single bound. 

After getting over the awe of 116 year old starter, I immediately  forgot the directions. YouTube to the rescue. As my brother says, "if you want to know how to do anything, go to YouTube." YouTube is every geezer's friend as it is our online memory for everything we've forgotten. By the time you get to geezer-hood,  that's a lot of online memory. I searched for sour dough starter and found at least a thousand videos on what to do. Don't worry about picking the right video, as I found out they all say about the same thing. I know...I saw ALL of them. 

After seeing the videos I started feeding my starter. Thank goodness it's not a greedy eater. Equal amounts of flour and water will work. I've been dutifully feeding my starter and it should be ready by tomorrow. Then I have to figure out how to bake the bread. Come back later and find out how I did. I already know YouTube will be there.

I'm not the only oldie seeking newby knowledge. One geezer I know created a vertical micro-gardening wall on the side of her house. Her eye-level planter box is filled with herbs and other goodies. When she needs fresh salad fixings she goes to her own private garden where everything is fresh and yummy. She's using her noggin.

Other geezers, wanting to do something far more exciting than watching plants grow or yeast rise--are playing with their Razors...not the kind for your face or legs, but the kind you drive. The newby Razor geezers go to the "shape up" in the morning and follow each other to local desert formations seeking thrills and adventure. The geezers with Razors are having a grand time roaming around finding relics from the past. Some geezers decorate their yards with bleached bones from the Pleistocene, others specialize in old mining equipment rusting (resting?) away. Don't forget the rock hound Razor riders. Finding the perfect geode or piece of manmatite makes their day. There's lots of stuff you can find in a desert, including your newly defined self, when you are on a Razor. You can also get into some mean dust, dirt and mud. When the geezers come home with their treasures, they are covered with grit, grime, mud, dust and smiles. How wonderful is that? 

The bottom line--geezers can be taught new tricks but only if they wanna be taught. We have the time; we have the background (remember we were the doctors, lawyers and chiefs in our previous non-geezer incarnation); and now we have the place to fulfill some dreams that were not possible way back when.

Life in Geezerville: Surgical Edition

Surgery is a way of life in Geezerville. We are old...so stuff happens. We talk about our surgeries with great abandon. All of us have had one or two while living here. We know the good docs who do knees, hips, pacemakers, and the like. Oftentimes, geezer news revolves around how we feel.  At any given time, there's the opportunity to talk about a health problem. However, I have one friend, Katherine, who refuses to talk about health challenges. She says there's no sense dwelling on the obvious.

Most of the geezers I know have had several big surgeries. Surgeries have 2 sides...the upside and the downside. In Geezerville we see both. A friend had both of his knees replaced at the same time. The upside is he's out of pain; the downside is he can't walk for a few weeks.  Heck I've had 2 hips replaced in 18 months. The first hip replacement was "normal," that was the upside. But the second hip came with a surprise. Doogie accidentally broke my ankle, that's the downside. So while I recovered from the hip surgery in record time, the broken ankle is persisting. For the last two months I've been limping around in a boot that weighs at least a ton. Doogie said if I was 25 the ankle would have healed by now. Trouble is, if I was 25 I wouldn't have needed the hip replaced. Geezers are tough, but we can break.

On my block alone everyone seems to have a zipper scar. Ron has a zipper that goes up and down both legs, as he survived by-pass surgery. More commonly, geezers compare their knee zippers. One geezer I know, has a collection of 6 zippers from a badly broken arm to a pacemaker. He thought it might be fun to have a whimsical tattoo identifying each zipper, but decided against the idea as he felt it would be more painful than the surgeries. Again, geezers are tough and realistic.

With all the surgeries geezers have, we have an opinion about hospitals. In our Geezerville there are 3 choices...our tiny town with a tiny hospital with personal care; the bigger town 50 miles north with a humongous hospital complex and good care; or the biggest town in the state 90 miles south that has just about everything including hospitals of all sizes and care quality. The biggest town is also Sin City. Do out-of-commission geezers want to go to Sin City for surgery? Is that too much of a gamble? Geezers need to consider after-care too. Is it realistic to drive 100+ miles to see Doogie the doc for a fifteen minute post-op appointment? It's a good thing I chose our little town, as care has been wonderful and the commute is small. Because my driving ankle is broken and driving with the boot is impossible, I have to ask for help. My wonderful neighbors never say no. They take me to the appointment. I'm thankful they don't have to make the l-o-n-g trip to Doogie's office.

That's the great thing about Geezerville. We are all in this together so we help each other out. Geezers know what goes around comes around and we are loyal to our new friends.  We are in the same boat. All we need to do is ask for help, and the neighbors give it freely. You gotta love Geezerville.

Life in Geezerville: Mid-Life Crisis Car Edition

Life in Geezerville is never boring. Us geezers have a lot of experience at making life interesting. One way we do that is by buying a car we've always wanted. I call these Mid-Life Crisis cars or MLC cars for short. In our little Geezerville there are not one but TWO Ferraris. We have less than 25,000 people in town and it takes 11 minutes to go from one end of town to the other, yet there are two Ferraris. What is going on here? Now this is very high priced, very fast vehicle...and both are driven by white haired LOMs a wee past their prime. I've seen both Ferraris  parked in the farthest corner of a parking lot, and I have to wonder if they are guarded by video cams. I'm afraid to get too close for fear that my popping eyeballs might scratch their shiny red paint.

Another common MLC car is the Corvette, AKA Vette. These are beautiful creations, and like the Ferraris, they are low to the ground and next to impossible to get into or out of.  I've seen a LOM open the door and place his left arm on the ground and lever himself out of the driver's seat. Getting in is a bit easier. I call it the "controlled crash" method. The LOM opens the driver's door, and aims his fanny toward the seat and crashes into the car. It's not graceful, but there you go.  It's okay if you are a LOM  wearing slacks...it's harder for the LOL wearing a skirt or dress.

There's a pretty red Vette in town that has a great license plate...HI OFICR. I love that plate. If you are a geezer, driving a red Vette, why not have a conversation with the police. It might give the cop a laugh and you might not get a ticket for speeding.

That leads to another reason these cars are so funny. The max speed limit in town is 35 mph. These cars all look like they are speeding when they are parked, so you can imagine what they look like tooling around our quiet streets where you can't "open them up"  to their full potential of a zillion mph.  These MLC cars are speedy little rascals. A Ferrari, or Maserati or Vette or Porsche 911 Carrera will do zero to lickety-split in a nano second, yet it will never go that fast in town. Why LOMs need a MLC car that will do 200 mph in the blink of an eye and only drive it around town is something to ponder. I think it has something to so with a long ago dream. 

You might ask, "Do these cars ever go on the freeway?" I see a few of them on the open road but most stay in town. Maybe they don't want to take them on the freeway as they might get scratched or hurt. I'm sure these cars are all given names such as Baby or Penny Sue and are thought of as either a youngest child or a lost teenage love. Whatever the case, the geezers love their MLC cars and that's the truth. The rest of us are driving our SUVs, minivans (aka mom-vans), and pickups, which are easy to get into and out of, but definitely not as sexy. 

A Day in the Life of Geezerville: Geezer Hair Edition

The Geezers in Geezerville grew up in the 60s and memories of the halcyon days of endless summer and dancing in the street are still wandering in our heads. If you remember blue hair old ladies, you are definitely a geezer now. Nowadays, Geezer LOLs have their hair dyed many colors, few of which are original. Periwinkle blue, emerald green, magenta, and bright red are not uncommon as well as an assortment of “original” colors -- but not gray. (My MIL at 90 said that gray hair made her look too old!) The color changes according to whim or availability at the beauty shop. My best friend has purple hair, and she loves getting compliments about her hair color. She said she would stop counting the compliments when she got to 1000, yet she’s still counting. You must wonder what color hair these LOLs put on their driver’s license? The option of “whatever I want” does not appear on the form. My purple-haired friend has “brown” on her license. 

 

A while back my hairdresser said why don’t you try your natural color—so begrudgingly, I let the dye “fade” back to natural. Fade is the “beauty shop" term for “letting your color grow out” or “showing your roots.” My natural hair color turned out to be a rather uninviting gray. When my hairdresser looked at it she said “Ewww, mouse gray! Honey you’re not one of the lucky ones with pretty gray hair.” Back to the dye for me.

 

But not only LOL geezers get their hair dyed…so do gentlemen (LOM) geezers. Several of my older male friends have dyed hair. It does not look right, as they are dying their hair at home. What they need to do is get their hair professionally done. It would look a lot better but it is probably embarrassing...geezers do have standards.

 

The best (or is it worst) part of LOM hair style is the bald geezer with a ponytail. He’s probably had that ponytail for 50 years. Somewhere along the way, his pate became hairless and now he joins the wisps of hair into a scraggly grayish ponytail. It’s not attractive but he’s a happy camper as he still has some hair. 

 

If LOLs can have purple hair, then LOMs can have scraggly ponytails. It’s part of the game of geezer-hood. We know we are grown up, but who wants to act grown up all the time. 

A Day in the of Geezerville: Going to the Doctor Edition

One of the common/favorite places for Geezers to go is the doctor’s office. We have so many different doctors, all graduates of the Doogie Howser School of Medicine (that is to say they are SO YOUNG) that we like to stay in contact with them. In fact, going to the doctor is high up on our list of things to do. Rarely a week goes by without a visit to one of these friendly YOUNG docs. We see so many friends in the doctor’s office too. It’s a good place to catch up with what is going on in Geezerville. How else will you find things out? You know, if it’s Monday I see the eye doc; on Tuesday, I have a standing appointment with the foot doc, on Wednesday I go to the hyperbaric chamber to lose a few years…and the list goes on and on. 

 

Since all the kids … I mean docs… are so young you must wonder where did they get their experience? Or did they get their experience by working on geezers? The jury is still out on that question. 

 

This Monday I went to the Vein doc. I wondered if he works on arteries too and it turns out he works on both. There are so many specialties and sub-specialties it’s hard to keep track of all of them. I had some tests done a few days back (who remembers when—remember I’m a geezer and retired, I don’t know the number of any given day, I’m lucky to know if it’s Monday. Then there’s the issue of weekend and holiday…things I used to look forward to but I don’t care anymore, as all days are more or less alike. But I digress.) He told me that my veins were fine but I needed to make sure I had enough electrolytes. How do I get more electrolytes? Was he talking about drinking Gatorade? I had to ask?

 

I have another young doctor who is quite charming. He thinks that oldsters (as he calls us) are sweet. Little does he know that we can be mean and vicious when he tells us to loose weight or stop eating our favorite dessert. The sweetness goes away at that point. We’ve lived a long time, and we need a few points of enjoyment after all. He’ll learn that sweet comes in many different flavors.

 

I have a foot and ankle doc. Every 61 days, any senior can get a medicare approved pedicure. It’s a good deal. Since I cannot see my toenails up close and personal, it’s a good thing for a real doctor to do it right. While not as relaxing as a pedicure, and I don’t get my toes painted in the latest color, the price is right.

 

Remember when your mother said “don’t crack your knuckles, you’ll get crooked fingers?” Or “don’t scrunch up your face, you’ll get wrinkles?” I bet you cracked your knuckles. I bet you scrunched up your face. You shudda listened to your mother. Now your doctor is giving you arthritis medicine and anti-wrinkle cream. I wonder what would have happened if you had listened to your mother. Would the doctor be unemployed?

 

As Red Green used to say, “Keep your stick on the ice, we’re in this together.”

 

 

 

 

Making Sasacetti

This weekend my whole family celebrated late Christmas. As you might remember, I had surgery on November 2, and the doctor said I would be able to fly after January 2. My family meshed their calendars together and set aside this weekend for the celebration. We flew in on Friday and the fun began with a wonderful Mexican lunch at a favorite restaurant; dinner with my sister that night. On Saturday Debbie and I made the sasacetti. It's a traditional Italian side dish that my family always serves with Christmas dinner, so it was imperative to make it. In addition it's my job. We started at noon and prepped the next ninety minutes or so--then we put the sasacetti together and placed them in the crockpot for several hours. 

Saturday night we had pre-leftovers (aka stolen sasacetti from the crockpot, served with tortellini and sour dough bread). The pre-leftovers were great, and they told us the final product would be perfect. 

This morning, we turned on the crockpots again and slowly cooked the sasacetti for a few more hours until dinner time. What a dinner we had! Christmas turkey cooked to perfection, sasacetti with tortellini, dressing, mashed potatoes, and everything else. The whole clan agreed it was the best sasacetti ever. I have to admit it was pretty good. After dessert we opened Christmas presents talked, ate leftovers, talked and laughed. It was good time by all.

In case you are wondering, sasacetti are stuffed meat rolls. First off, I have no idea how to spell the word. It's a dish bought to this country by my grandmother who spoke a dialect of Italian that is no longer spoken. I have found the recipe in many Italian cookbooks with the "new" Italian name, which is Braciole. Every region of Italy has a different recipe for Braciole and the one I know is called something that sounds like sasacetti. In American cooking it would be called a "stuffed meat roll" or "veal bird." The translation does not sound as romantic as sasacetti or braciole.

This is what a crockpot filled with sasacetti looks like:

If you would like to make this dish, the recipe is below. It is a "rustic" or heritage recipe--that means that the amounts are not measured in traditional cups, teaspoons etc. They are measured in my hand, the way my grandmother taught me to make the dish before I was 10. (Grammy shaped my left hand to form a little bowl, then she put in the fresh spice and crushed it with her thumb...she said that the crushing released the flavor of the spice.) I have been making this dish for most of my life and I "know" what the amounts feel like, however, I don't know their exact measurement. I've given you my best guess. The prep work on this dish is long, so I've discovered some short cuts over the years. Sasacetti is messy to make, so I prep my counter surface with a layer of plastic wrap. When I'm done, I pull up the plastic wrap and the counter is so much easier to clean. I buy frozen diced onions instead of dicing fresh onions. The original recipe calls for round steak to be pounded into 1/8th inch thick pieces of meat. Round steak has become hard to find, BUT carne asada meat is easy to find and it's thin cut round steak therefore it needs less pounding and one carne asada cutlet makes one sasacetti (see the recipe below for this to make sense). The old recipe calls for a mixture of spices that is very similar to the spices found in Italian Seasoning, so that's what I use. Lastly the original recipe calls for cooking the sasacetti in a cast iron Dutch oven for several hours in a 250 degree oven. The crockpot works just as well, and frees the oven for other things. (A large electric fry pan works well too.) Like I said, you need to prep the meat, prep the stuffing; prep the pots, form and tie the "rolls" and then put them in the pots to cook. It's a labor of love! When my family said it was "the best ever" it was definitely worth it.

Sasacetti (Braciole)

4-5 lbs thin cut carne asada meat (I like to have 3 cutlets per person)

6 hard boiled eggs

1  bag frozen diced onions or 2 onions diced

1 whole garlic (minced)

About 6 oz  of Parmesan Cheese

About 1/2 cup  Italian Seasoning

About 3 T oregano

Parsley

Bread Crumbs (about 1-2 cups)

Pepper

Several cans of tomato sauce (1 can water for each can of tomato sauce)

1 can of tomato paste for each pot of sasasedi (1 can of water for each can of tomato paste)

Olive Oil

Worcestershire sauce

Salt to taste 

String

Prep the surface of counter top by wrapping it with a layer of plastic wrap to make clean up easier 

Prepare crockpots with 1 can tomato paste and 1 can tomato sauce and any leftover fat/meat/garlic--start cooking on low

Trim all fat and connective tissue off the meat and put in the crockpots

Pound meat at least 1/8 inch thick, and cut into "triangles" about 6-ish inches long and 3-ish inches wide at the base. Not all the triangles with be the same, but they should be similar, set aside. If using carne asada cutlets each cutlet makes one sasacetti

In a large bowl mix onions, garlic, mashed hard boiled eggs, Italian seasoning, oregano, parsley --mix well

Mix in Parmesan cheese

Mix in bread crumbs

Stir in olive oil until the stuffing sticks together, set aside

Spread stuffing on each thin triangle of meat 

Roll meat, wide end to narrow end (it should look like a crescent roll)

Tie with string 

When all the rolls are assembled place them around the perimeter of the crockpot first, then fill in the center; cook on low for several hours--if needed, add tomato sauce to cover the rolls 

Cook until each meat roll is tender but before it falls apart

BTW: The sauce they are cooked in is the BEST pasta sauce ever.

Signs, Yellowstone Edition

 Yellowstone National Park is an outdoor zoo. Folks tend to forget that the animals found in that "zoo" are NOT domesticated, they are the real deal. They will bite, attack, and in rare cases, kill.

Bison are NOT fluffy cows

and when you least expect it, bison can run you down and gore you too. Heed the first sign and you won't have to bother with the second one.

Given these warnings, every summer folks get hurt by these 2000 pound critters. There's no cure for "stupid" as someone said.

Life in Geezerville

I live in Geezerville. It's a community of friendly folks, well over the age of consent. We can do anything because we are old and experienced. The problem is do we want to do anything. Remember, we are old and experienced and we've done a lot of things. Sometimes the only thing we want to do is get out of bed and smell the roses (or in our case the cactus). Don't get too close to the cactus. But heck, getting a poke in the nose with a cactus spine might be your big accomplishment for the day. Gotta have goals to look forward to.

 

Remember I said we can do just about anything --we can--it's just harder to do most of those "things." Getting around is one of them. Geezervillians drive golf carts -- flat out at 15 mph. Beware of the speeding golf cart especially if there's a free event down the block. Geezervillians looking for a bargain are dangerous.

 

If you see a geezer driving a real car, don't pay attention to the turn signals. No one in Geezerville knows what those things mean even though they get used. A blinking turn signal could mean I'm going to turn now, or I'm going to turn later, or I completed a turn (aren't you happy I know how to turn), or I like the sound of the blinking noise, or I can't hear the sound of the blinking noise. A turn signal is not necessarily an indication of the direction I plan to turn…it could mean "you know the other right turn."  In Geezerville, we live on the edge. 

 

As far as driving goes, many Geezervillians are short. So short you cannot see who is driving the car. Sometimes you can swear the driver is a dog hanging out the driver's side window with his ears flapping in the breeze. The dog is navigating the streets with great abandon --beware of the driving dog or the short Geezer with the driving dog. All comments about turn signals no longer apply with the short geezer driving with a dog.

 

While life passes us by at speed of light (35 mph) or less we muddle along. Things that have not been done before NEED to be done NOW. Never been on a cruise, choose the cruise that sails next week. We've heard there are good nursing facilities on most ships and there's definitely enough food. Same goes for road trips...go while you can as tomorrow a new set of ailments will attack.

 

The golden years are filled with potholes. Lots of things can trip you up, literally. Steps, ladders, ramps, streets, rugs-- these places have trippers. And after you've tripped, how do you get up? Do you just lay sprawled on the floor like an ameba without a cellphone? Another thing to remember is to wear your cellphone like a pair of shoes (but not in your shoe). 

 

Another issue in Geezerville is the handicapped parking permit. These are coveted pieces of plastic. Younger folks aspire to that little blue permit to get a good parking space but in Geezerville, everyone has one and there are no good spaces to park. Rememer that little blue permit means we are handicapped in one way or another so don’t mess with us. What we really need is special parking for the few Geezers who are NOT handicapped as that is a rare old bird who needs recognition for living to geezerhood without any maladies. 

 

To accommodate the geezers, our stores have lots of electric carts. Get three electric carts in a narrow aisle at the store and there's a traffic jam as no one knows how to back up. (I've always wondered if "Traffic Jam" is a flavor, and what it tastes like?) The drivers of the carts zoom down the aisles playing bumper cars with each other. Going to the store is great source of fun. It's important to keep fun in your life when you are a geezer.

 

As a geezer in Geezerville, life is fun and full of surprises. Keep watching this spot to find out more about life in our small town.

 

Signs

Over the years I've taken pictures of strange or unusual or weird signs...there are a few you might like. 

Kotor, Montenegro

I don't remember where I took this photo...but what time is it anyway?

In other words, go with caution...this is somewhere in Manila

My final sign today is for my home state...I love playing with words.

Watch this space. I have more signage that I will post over time.

A Meme is Worth a Thousand Words

I'm going off topic today. I could not resist copying this meme

 found in the comments section of This Week in Pictures on PowerLine. 

Now you know why your money is going away faster than you can make it. 

Desert Sun

The light in the desert is magical. During the day it's bright and relentless. During the night, it's inky dark. Neither of these can be spectacular, but at the tween times, sunrise and sunset, be prepared for the magic to begin. Be aware, the desert is stingy! Not every sunrise and sunset is spectacular,  yet once in a while, the tween lightshow is awesome. Two mornings ago, we had "that" magical sunrise, where the light was splashed across the sky with great globs of orange, lavender, red and yellow. Absolutely stunning!

That same day, riding through the Narrows, I captured the sunset light painting a slim swatch of the mountains. 

 (Not to worry, I was a passenger, and the vehicle was moving at the speed limit of 75 mph...it's a wonder this picture even worked )

The peek-a-boo slash of light colored the rocks amid a gray and stormy sky painting them golden. As I said, the light is magical.

Wash Your Hands

I saw this chart that explains how soap defeats viruses. I hope you like it as much as I did.

Copied from BaBaMail

Happy New Year

My wish for each of you in  2024 is good health and peace.