Ask an Angel: August 26, 2021

I’m finding it more and more challenging to pursue outdoor recreation in the heat of summer. I’m seeking recommendations on how to maintain my active lifestyle, despite the hotter weather.

The results are in, gardening is good for you

Saturday night, my husband and I enjoyed a rare and delightful night out at a neighbor’s home. Laughter filled the air while we caught up on each other’s lives. During the evening I noticed a folded newspaper on the coffee table in their living room. I was filled with nostalgia. Reading a newspaper is one of my true pleasures in life.

Visiting ‘The Real’ San Francisco without restrictions

This is going to be a somewhat different travel story. We’ve all had trips where, if we had actually established a plan, things didn’t go as we expected or wanted. This is kind of like that but with teens in tow.

Our daughter took her two boys to San Francisco. Their spring trip had been canceled by Covid so now (July 4 weekend) seemed a good time to travel. Little did she know that many of the past restrictions, due to Covid, were still in place and counter to any differing news reports. They flew to SF and stayed the first two nights downtown. Yes, we all know a lot of SF is crazy but she wanted them to see the ‘real’ SF.

A hidden gem

We received an email from Nola telling us about a restaurant she stumbled upon and thought it was a gem. Being the ever-vigilant food critics that we are, we searched the website of the restaurant she recommended. The first item on the menu caught Jim’s eye. Putting our own concerns for our health aside (we will explain shortly), we hopped into the Mini-mobile and sped out, leaving Del Webb in the dust, and headed northwest to the Tavern on Clark in Rockford.

“Hm-m-m,” I said, because as luck would have it, I had chopped wood and carried water just a few minutes earlier on my way out to get the paper off the drive. (Well, I carried a watering can and sprinkled that pumpkin vine at the back of the yard, and I broke up a fallen branch lying on the lawn, so… yeah, close enough.)

La-dee-da it’s Lalo’s

Jim and I have a long list of perspective restaurants to review, or so we thought. We have learned to always “Google” the restaurant before we show up to make sure they haven’t fallen victim to the COVID-19 fallout. To our dismay, we discovered that restaurant after restaurant was either permanently closed, or only open a very limited number of hours/days.

When “Groundhog Day” comes home to roost

I was watching a Cubs game the other day, a slow-moving duel between two ace pitchers, and while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

E.T.A. at “EPH”

Nancy and I are in our so called “Golden Years” of retirement. Our kids have grown up and left the nest years ago. It’s just the two of us now in our little home in Del Webb. Old habits die hard. Nancy uses the same recipes to feed the two of us that she used to feed four to six people. Everyone knows change is evil and recipes cannot and must not be altered. This is why she asked me to take a run with her to Sam’s Club to stock up on ginormous containers of just about everything.

Extremely “Loki”

To paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche, art is dead and we have killed it. Ok, so I may be exaggerating a bit. However, the entertainment industry has always been a struggle between art and commerce. A lead weight, however, has been placed down on the commerce side of the scale recently. After being without a year of Marvel movies, a void had been created in the interim. So, when it was announced that Disney+ had new programs and “Black Widow” would be released in theaters, optimism set in. Here is the halfway point of the year and that feeling is running low.

Pesticide precautions

In late May my husband, Chris, spent hours potting up 15 tomatoes in 18” wide containers. He set them around the edge of our patio and began to dutifully care for the plants. By early June, I noticed that the leaves on our tomatoes looked different. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the plants were growing in a curly cue fashion and the leaves were disfigured. Unfortunately, I had seen this before and suspected that the plants were suffering from herbicide drift.

Ask an Angel: July 15, 2021

My siblings and I are planning a mini-family reunion this Independence Day. Two of my siblings have not seen our aging parents since the onset of the COVID pandemic, as they live out—of-state and couldn’t safely travel. Now that we’re all fully vaccinated, we cannot wait to see each other in-person. We’re hoping to surprise our parents too. However, our parents are getting older and seem to get tired more quickly these days. As much as they love to see us and their nine grandchildren, I know the noise and energy can be draining.

Getting used to this whole ‘normal’ thing

A pandemic can do horrible things to you — even if, blessedly, it passes you by.

I fall into that category. Although I was able to stay virus-free long enough to get the vaccine and become bullet-proof, the pandemic did horrible things to me.

From lows to ‘Heights’

To be honest, not much on the summer movie roster stirs interest in me. Scrolling down IMDb, the usual pops out as standard fare. In regards to quality, 2021’s theme is almost like that of the late 90s. “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard,” “Jungle Cruise,” “Snake Eyes,” “The Suicide Squad”; all of these are big and dumb. Even in last year’s dearth of Marvel, “Black Widow” has even waned. Given the way “Loki” is going, the MCU is a bit lackluster. One film though has been on my horizon since the beginning: “In the Heights.”

All Aboar… Wait , not so fast

With the coronavirus starting to be corralled, vacation travel is beginning to pick up. Now the big question, with answers changing daily: masks or not? Plus, not everything is back to normal as we write; cruise ships are still shut down from US ports, Canada and Mexico borders are closed for visitors and with the tension in the Middle East, well, you might not want to travel there anytime soon. India is in the midst of a major coronavirus situation, so avoid it also. New variants appear to be cropping up daily, so should you travel? If vaccinated, I say “yes,” but with caution.

A full-service garage

You may recall in a previous article Nancy alluded to the nightmare she was having getting the bocce ball club up and running. Her work was finally finished, and she was looking forward to the first game of play. Mother Nature cooperated perfectly, it was 90 degrees, with 80 percent humidity. The sun was hot and so were some tempers. Twenty minutes into the first game Nancy got into a rather heated discussion with a man on the opposing team. Taking a tip from hockey players, I just let them go at it. They’ll tire out eventually.

Confessions of a later-in-life Peeping Tom

Look, it’s a curse carrying around a name like “Tom” all your life, having to endure childhood taunts like “Peeping Tom” from early school classmates. Because I was not then, nor have ever been, a Peeping Tom.

Well, at least not until recently, thanks to that video camera I recently bought, so well-camouflaged that those who are being peeped-upon don’t have a clue that I’m watching them.

I’ll get to that, but first a bit of background.