wordy wednesday: ambisinister/ambidextrous

 

I first became familiar with the word ambidextrous when my dad took the family to Cincinnati Reds baseball games at Riverfront Stadium and he told me about batters who could bat equally well using either side. 

Ambidextrous (coming from the Latin word dexter) implies something good. It throws off a positive vibe. Ambidexterity is a special quality that few people have.

When you think of something (or someone) sinister, there’s a good chance it’s not a pleasant because it means “threatening or portending evil, harm, or trouble.”

The word sinister, which comes from Latin, originally meaning “left” or “on the left hand or side” and took on nefarious connotations of wrong or unfavorable. The idea  is connected to historical associations of the left-hand as weaker, and therefore less favorable, than the right. In Christianity a description of Judgment Day in the Gospel of Matthew states that the sheep on the shepherd’s right will be brought to heaven while the goats on the left will go to the devil. In Judaism, ancient texts associate the right with strength and godliness and the left with weakness. The left is associated with uncleanliness in Islamic texts, and eating or drinking with the left hand is frowned upon.

In my school school days, a few people wrote with their left hands. No big deal when I was growing up. 

People notice differences. One of my older relatives didn't like her hand writing, she thought it was messy. She was left-handed but back in her school days when learning to write, left-handedness was unacceptable. The teacher forced her to write with her right hand, smacking her knuckles if she used her left hand. A bias because she was different.

There’s a bias against left-handers that’s built into the language. For example, if a person dances with two left feet is he or she is clumsy. There’s also the phrase left-handed compliment, which, like backhanded compliment, means to compliment someone in a way that’s also unflattering.

Sinister may have a linguistic and historic connection to left-handed people, but at the end of the day, lefties are as skillful, lucky, and dextrous  as right-hand dominant people. 

sunshine on a stalk

The sun has been MIA for ten days. The other day while in the check out lane at the grocery store, I noticed the cashier's name tag had Denver on it. She was born in Colorado, lived there for many years, and ten years ago her husband's job brought them to Dayton. As we talked about differences in the landscape, she mentioned that what she missed most was the sunshine. "Yes, it gets cold in Denver but we get a lot of sunshine in the winter. It's so gray here." 

Yes, it is gray this time of year.

I don't complain about the weather because there's nothing I can do to change it. But I can look through hundreds of photos of sunflowers, feel their sunshine, and get a smile from these bright and happy blooms.

monday's mulling: 1000th post!

Today is a milestone. It is my 1000th post for House Dust and Wanderlust.

Back on January 14, 2013, I made my first post, Resolutions. With this being the thousandth post, it's obvious that I was sporadic in my writing. From 2013 to 2020, I made 136 posts. After we sold our house in 2020, moved to downtown Dayton for a year, and then moved to Columbus, I jump started the blog on September 15, the eve of my 64th birthday, with a post called transitions, resolving to write every day to help me with the transition to a new city after living in Dayton for 40+ years. (We've moved back to Dayton...it's been a crazy few years!). So far I've done well, missing two days of blogging in both 2022 and 2023.

So how did I get started with my blog?

After our 30th anniversary trip to Italy in 2010, I was so in love with the Italian life and started reading blogs about Italy. One of my friends whose husband was stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB moved to Germany and she began blogging about her life in Germany. My interest was piqued.

While researching how to start a blog, one of the constant pieces of advice was to have a focus: What do you want your blog to be about? 

Oh my...blog about ONE thing? I love to travel, cook, read, drink wine, hike, ride my bike, vegetable and flower garden, yoga. I was adjusting to empty-nesting and reinventing my life after being a full time mom and having kids around for many, many years. I'm a word nerd...I love word origins, plays on words, having fun with words. The list goes on and on. 

Now for the title: You know how ideas can come in that hazy, fuzzy time when you're sleepy? That's when House Dust and Wanderlust found me. 

So my blog focus...adventures in everyday life. 

House dust...it's an everyday thing. "House" is also part of my last name. 

Wanderlust...always dreaming about that next adventure, whether it's local or even a little bigger than that.

And word nerd that I am, dust and wanderlust rhyme.

Diaday. I'm Diane from Dayton. I also taught Spanish and "día" is the Spanish word for "day."

So in a nutshell, there you have it. 

the roger glass center for the arts

The Roger Glass Center for the Arts had its soft opening yesterday and T and I attended the festivities for Dayton's newest arts venue.

GET TOGETHER brought art works from 90 local artists from the Dayton area community to showcase the spirit of this art center. This Center for the Arts is intended to be a gateway to the University of Dayton as well as having everyone "get together" to complement the arts community in general. It's a new landmark for the university and the city.

The arts center also has a Concert Hall and Experimental Theater and performances are scheduled for mid-February. 

I'm looking forward to attending performances in Dayton's newest arts building.

Paul Laurence Dunbar Dialect Playing Cards by Misty Thomas-Trout. I am going to contact the artist to see if she plans on selling the decks of cards. Paul Laurence Dunbar grew up in Dayton, in the same neighborhood as the Wright Brothers and is another one of Dayton's favorite sons.

Bottlecap Chain by BIll Montana

Ancestral Spirit #612 by Willis "Bing" Davis, 2023. An earlier post from this month, homerun of a concert, shows another art work from this artist displayed at the Schuster Center of Performing Arts in downtown Dayton.

gray days

I don't complain about the weather. I may not like what Mother Nature throws our way but I'm not among those who moan and groan about the cold, the rain, the cloudy days, even though right now we're on quite a streak of grayness. 

The other day in between rainfalls, I got out of the house - it was 57°! - and went to Lincoln Park to take a walk around the pond and the Commons. A few people were out on their fresh air walks releasing their cabin fever.

The pond had a layer of ice, mist was rising in spots, and there were reflections. Each season brings its own reflections.

the friday feed: dehydrator

One of my Christmas gifts from my kids was a food dehydrator. A little while ago, I was talking with a friend and she was using her dehydrator to dry herbs for her secret spice blend. That sounded intriguing and like a lot of fun. 

Since it's winter and a few months away from growing herbs, I tossed around a few ideas for the dehydrator's first test and settled on citrus fruit. The dried lime and lemon garnishes sitting on restaurant bars always catch my eye and I thought, "Why not?" So I did.

This was a learning curve. The fruit was in the dehydrator for 18 hours because I cut it too thick. The recipe called for 8. What's an extra 10 hours?

Now there's a cool looking jar filled with dried citrus. What to do with it? Some will go to a friend who makes all kinds of creative cocktails and I'll figure out ways to utilize it in cooking.

My sister-in-law was over the other day and she saw the fruit drying. She looked at the dehydrator, she looked at me, and said, "Leave it to you to make dried fruit instead of beef jerky!" (I have a good beef jerky recipe). That will be the next project.

backroads

My last dog was a big guy: half Great Pyrenees and half mishmash of other breeds. Ted had epilepsy so twice a year we made a trek to Cincinnati to have a visit with his doggy neurologist. One day we had an afternoon appointment and driving back to Dayton the traffic on I-71 was a mess. At the nearest exit I got off the interstate, sort of knew where it would take us, and after winding around on some country roads we came upon this idyllic setting. We were the only ones on this backroad and the opportunity to stop in the middle of the road to take a few photos beckoned. 

Don't be afraid to take the road less traveled. It sure beats bumper-to-bumper traffic and there's always GPS to get you back home. (I didn't need to use it...that time 😁).

wordy wednesday...connections

Connections, a New York Times game that is all about finding the common threads between words. 

This is a completed game. To start, each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets comprise anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer. If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

The bottom row - words spelled with an upside down calculator - I had to try it. I dug through a drawer and found an old school calculator and here you go! "HELLO" turned to "HELL" because when you're doing this you have to work backward. The 0 started the number and then disappeared after punching in the other numbers.

Go on...get that calculator out...you know you want to try it!

thinking spring

Photo: Groovy Plants Ranch

These cold, gray days of winter have me looking forward to spring and looking through garden catalogs. One garden center, the Groovy Plants Ranch just north of Columbus, is tantalizing customers with pre-orders of some colorful flowers. The above is Passion Fruit Lantana and it loves heat, has long-lasting color, and draws pollinators to it.

Below is an African Daisy named Zion Purple Sun. These psychedelic tie-died flowers also brighten the garden and attract pollinators.

These bright colors sure got my attention and I tried but just. couldn't. resist.

PS...Two months until spring! 

"The hum of bees is the voice of the garden." ~ Elizabeth Lawrence

 

Photo: Groovy Plants Ranch

monday's mulling: corn and cactus

Last Monday Sharon from Phoenix Daily Photo shared a photo she took of an Arizona mural which has a cactus flower and an ear of corn on it. She is trying to figure out the message that the ear of corn is supposed to send.

Arizona ear of corn ~ Photo: Sharon, Phoenix Daily Photo

On the other side of the US in midwestern Dayton, Ohio, a mural artist painted one of the city's newest murals on some abandoned silos close to the Second Street Market and the railroad tracks. Some very colorful cacti now brighten these old silos. They seem out of place in this semi-industrial part of town but nonetheless they're fun. My thought is that the artist needed something big to fit on a tall and slender space.

But isn't that what art is supposed to do...make the observer think?

Regardless, I like the ear of corn in Arizona and the Saguaro cactus in Ohio.

Ohio cacti

face palm

Here's an example of why you should know fractions, decimals, and that there are 16 ounces in a pound.

A few years ago I was at the Kroger deli and needed a quarter pound of pancetta. The person looked at me and said, "A quarter pound?" By the look on her face it was evident that she was confused so I said one-fourth pound thinking that might make more sense to her. Well, this is what I got, and her response floored me. 

"Is 5/7 of a pound OK?" 

(Deep breath and smile) "Why yes it is." 

It's not a bad thing to have too much pancetta.

❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄

Today is my daughter's birthday. She was born on a bitterly cold January day but has brought sunshine to all those who know and love her. Happy Birthday, Sari!

bright spot on a cold day

In the cold, monotone winter months a spot of bright red brings a smile to me out my kitchen window.

Unlike many other species of birds, cardinals don’t migrate during the cold winter months. Instead, they stick it out, surviving by foraging for wild berries, nuts and seeds, all while seeking shelter and security in evergreen trees, shrubs, or wherever they can find protection from the cold, wind and snow.

Cardinals are early and late feeders. They prefer to eat in the early morning and right before the sun goes down. Why? Because in the winter these two times are very critical when it comes to their health and survival overnight. They need energy the first thing in the morning to replace what they burned overnight trying to stay warm. And at night – they are trying to build up reserves to heat their bodies as the temperatures drop.

I need to go to Wild Birds Unlimited to buy some black sunflower seeds and suet for these beautiful birds to make sure they have full bellies. It's such a joy and almost mesmerizing at times to stand at the kitchen window and watch them at the feeders. Then along come the pesky squirrels and the power struggle begins!

the friday feed: winter squash and spinach pasta bake

It's that time of year to tackle the many partially used boxes of pasta. Different recipes call for different pasta shapes, which leaves a pantry full of pasta this-and-thats. First to go is a fun shape called Reginetti, using Smitten Kitchen's Winter Squash and Spinach Pasta Bake.

I had a sweet potato that had been hanging around for a while so I used that in place of winter squash. It's a warm and cheesy comfort food and can be a main dish or a side dish. Pine nuts are a tasty addition and leftovers are good, too.

Mangia!

reinventing the square

Who would have thought that an uneven toilet paper tear would be a #1 consumer complaint to Proctor & Gamble's call centers?

P&G spent five years researching the uneven tear to get to the bottom causes of the problem. There is a department for toilet paper R&D and the research found the straight line perforation was the cause of the uneven tear. According to senior scientist Gregg Weaver, "Toilet paper fibers mostly run vertically through the roll,  which means that when you tear across, you’re tearing against the grain of the paper. And the motions people use to tear vary widely, depending on where the paper lives in their bathroom, whether they’re left-handed or right-handed, whether they prefer over-the-roll or under-the-roll. But most people tear in more of a downward diagonal than a straight line, which leads to that last straggling strand being left on the roll."

Charmin reinvented the square by replacing the traditional perforation line with a wavy edge. The scalloped edges are not merely aesthetic; they provide a better, smoother tear.

Now that the #1 consumer complaint has been resolved, I wonder what the #2 project will be.

wordy wednesday: a valentine's heads up

A downtown Dayton florist has a countdown going to Valentine's Day. As of yesterday, 28 days to remember flowers for your loved one.

Ed Smith Flowers, is a family owned and operated florist and has served the Dayton metro area since 1955. When we lived in downtown Dayton, my big dog Ted and I strolled past this shop many, many times. It's located in McPherson Town, a residential neighborhood across the river from downtown and close to the Dayton Art Institute. Even though using this florist is not as convenient as it used to be, I still enjoy going there when I want arrangements for my house or for other occasions. 

frozen feet

Every January a local running apparel store invites people to join the Frozen Feet Challenge, encouraging participants to run or walk a minimum of one mile every day. This year's challenge started on Saturday and ends February 24 and boy, oh boy, did it start out COLD! Frigid temps, as in close to 0°, and strong winds moved in Friday night. I wanted to stay cuddled up in my cozy UGG blanket Saturday morning but we were going to Cleveland to babysit Little Grandson and I didn't want to blow off the first day of the challenge. On went the clothing layers, thick socks, the warm, fuzzy boots, puffy coat, hat, gloves, and scarf, and then out into the winter elements get my first mile in as fast as possible.

Yesterday (Day 3) was cold but the wind has stopped and even though it was 9°, it didn't feel cold after I got moving. The only body part that got cold were my fingers. Rather than knocking out my walk, a few things caught my eye.

Looking down, a line of ice by the curb had leaf imprints in it.

Looking up, I had to quickly get my phone out of my pocket and throw my gloves on the ground to capture three objects in the sky: the crescent moon, the airplane, and if you look closely, there's a formation of geese below and a little to the left of the plane.

A little surprise during the walk...my neighbor was on her way to the grocery store and stopped to say hello. I thought she was going to offer a ride back to my house but instead she asked me if I would tutor her in some conversational Spanish. Her daughter is getting married in December in Spain and she wants to know some basic elements of conversation. It's been a very long time since speaking any Spanish so time to do some quick brushing up! 

monday's mulling: monday

How did Monday get its name?

What does the word mon look like to you? If you said moon, you’re right.

While the Latin word for moon is luna (and Monday is dies lunae), the name Monday comes from “Moon’s day” after the Norse moon god Máni.

It’s derived from the Old English Mōnandæg, later Monenday. Maybe that’s why it’s so tempting to stay in bed on Monday morning — you need more time to celebrate the moon.

The first full moon of 2024 will shine on January 25 and one of its names is the Quiet Moon. It also goes by the Cold, Frost, or Winter Moon.

Though the winter night be long and cold, wisdom beams through the old moon's soul. ~ Angie Weiland-Crosby

beatles wisdom

This took someone some thought and time to create. A graphic organizer to illustrate the overlapping relationships between concepts using Beatles' lyrics.

I would love to use some colored pencils to embellish this diagram but it's time to let it be.

 

here comes the sun (for a few minutes)

Yesterday's sunrise was magnificent. As I walked past the front door around 7:45, I noticed some red on the wall, looked out the door, and WOW!

That old adage, "Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning..." manifested itself and it didn't take long for the gray clouds and rain to roll in.

But what a beautiful gift to start the day! 

There is joy and beauty in the world...keep looking for it. And when you find it, share it with others.

the friday feed: the last of the leftovers

I'm going grocery shopping today. I haven't been since New Year's Eve when I went shopping for my New Year's Day dinner.

We had so many leftovers from the 11 days that the family was here. The fridge was bursting with food remnants. People took things home but there still was a lot of food to use.

After New Year's Day we ate out a couple nights and then it was time to get down to clearing out the refrigerator. To make this a fun challenge, I pretended that I was practicing for the Food Network show "Chopped," where contestants get random ingredients and they have to make a tasty dish. I chopped away at the leftovers, making some pretty tasty side and main dishes. My favorite one was a a creamy and cheesy cauliflower soup made with leftovers from a relish tray, chicken broth, mashed potatoes, a dollop of cream cheese, and some cheese cubes. T asked if there was any meat in the soup - nope - not a happy camper - so I added some sausage gravy and found a couple biscuits to go along with the bowl of soup.

My final dish was a frittata for last night's dinner. The veggies that went into it were onions, mushrooms, and spinach. A couple slices of bacon and a few sausage links went into this as did a couple pieces of string cheese chunked up, a handful of shredded cheddar, and five eggs. 

Chop chop...my leftovers are done!