5/22/08 Good Karma Continued

This is a long story that ties up last of the loose ends of the Good Karma story.

UMF announced that it was offering vision insurance to its employees. I received a packet with all the information about the program and how to sign up. I decided to sign up for the program but when I tried to follow the steps listed in the packet for signing up online, I ran into technical difficulties. I called the tech support number for the UMaine System and that person referred me to someone on my campus who then referred me to Rick. But my technical issue was not easily resolved and Rick said he would look into it and get back to me. After a few days I called back and the technical issue still wasn't resolved. I asked if it was possible to sign up on paper or some other way because I didn't want to miss the deadline for signing up due to a technical issue. Rick said I could stop by his office and take care of it in person. I didn't get over that day and in fact, it was a few days later before I remembered to stop by. When I arrived, Rick wasn't there but the woman at the desk next to his said she could help. She asked my name and then smiled and introduced herself as Kathy, the woman who had seen the article with my quotes and had passed it on to Laurie who passed it on to the provost et.al. Ah! So now I could ask how she ever found it. I had guessed that perhaps it was her job to be on the lookout for UMF's name in the media or that UMF had hired the services of a modern-day "clipping service" and she was the contact. But in fact, it was simply that she had msn.com as the default home page on her browser and when she got to work that day and turned on her computer, in the list of headlines for the hour was an article involving technology and higher education and that intrigued her so she clicked on the headline to read the full article. What wonderful serendipity! Good karma really does rule!! And that, as Paul Harvey says, is the rest of the story.

5/21/2008 Rainbow

My first rainbow in Maine. This is taken on Main Street just down the hill from my new apartment.

This is a photo of the same rainbow taken by Heather, one of my students last semester. She posted this to her Facebook. She's a better photographer than I am but we both appreciate a good rainbow when we see one. (permission pending)

5/19/08 Eating Fiddleheads

My first meal in my new apartment and I cooked those fiddleheads! I decided on the boiling recipe that was in the newspaper article. Frank Buckley said he boiled them for a few minutes, then removed all the brown stuff that is a part of the plant (Kathy told me it just comes off in the water and she was right) and then boiled for a few more minutes until done. Eeek. How do you tell when it's done? Well Mary told me that it's like any vegetable and you can eat it raw (some people eat it on their salads raw), al dente, lightly firm, or mushy. So I figured it didn't really matter.

Here's the finished product. There's still some brown on there but I got it all off. Look at the different colors of green depending on how long it's been cooked. They were delicious! I had enough to last for 3 meals, which Frank said he prefers to cook a big batch and then reheat them in small batches, so that's what I did. A little butter and salt and I was a happy camper.

5/19/08 Old Fashioned Road Construction Flag Man Set Up

I remember this from my childhood and was trying to figure out why I hadn't seen it in so long. I guess most of my driving has been on divided highways since my childhood and I just hadn't run into this. But here is an old fashioned flagman who is stopping the traffic in one direction while those of us coming from the other direction utilize the only available lane on the two-lane highway. Behind me was a truck that was part of the construction crew and he was the last one to get through from my direction. The flagman back on the other side of the construction had put up his STOP sign and was halting traffic coming from my direction. As soon as the truck and I get through, this flagman in the picture will turn his sign from STOP to SLOW and allow this line of vehicles to utilize the single lane. As I recall, back when gas was cheap and walkie talkies weren't, the construction truck was the signal of the end of the line and the time to let the waiting traffic proceed. That truck would then turn around and get at the end of the now moving line and follow it through signaling the other side that it was now their turn. I'm thinking it's all done by walkie talkie now but it was a fun flashback.

PS This was on the road to Dixfield where I taught my graduate course this semester. Except this time I wasn't going teaching, I was going to Mexico, Maine, which is just a few miles beyond Dixfield, and is the closest Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles. I got my Maine driver's license today!

5/18/08 & 5/19/08 Blooming Trees

Here are photos of the crabapple tree for Darlene to enjoy since she missed spring at her own house.

5/18/08 & 5/19/08 Tulips At My Door

These are Darlene's 4 new tulips that she planted last winter. She left town before they bloomed (she left May 16) so I promised I would let her know what color they were. I took the first two photos on May 18 when they were just blooming, then it got chilly and they closed back up, which is what is seen in the bottom two photos taken on May 19. This is so weird! It's the middle of May and tulips are just now blooming! It's worth the wait. :-)

5/17/08 interesting sign

As at all graduations that I'm aware of, parking is at a premium and folks get pretty creative at parking, so lots of temporary measures are taken to insure safety for all. This sign, however, baffled me. Are they creating a temporary parking space for handicap parking since there is such a need for a large event like this, or are they creating additional parking for those with temporary handicaps?

5/17/08 In Full Regalia!

Here I am at the reception for graduates with the president of UMF, Theodora (Theo) Kalikow. You can see my full regalia.

5/17/08 Graduation

Today is graduation day! I missed last year's graduation because I hurried home to Dallas to attend my own graduation. So this is my first UMF graduation. Some of the students I had in spring 2007 semester are graduating today. At the last minute, the call was made that graduation would be indoors. It's a tough call to make when the weather is being iffy but I certainly understand. Here you see faculty gathering underneath the tent outside the Fitness Center:

Those are the bagpipers who led the procession and are now on the stage while everyone marches in:

I'm about to sit in the second row behind these faculty:

That's Dave on the first row who is on the University Culture Committee with me. He teaches chemistry.

Just as Dave takes my picture, my tam (hat) starts to fall off, so this is an action shot of me trying to save my tam.

5/16/08 More About Fiddleheads

The Franklin Journal (no website) had a front page article Fiddleheads bring the first taste of spring. " In the article, Frank Buckley, age 68, who's been picking fiddleheads since he was a kid said, "I love fiddleheads. And I love fiddleheading. It would not be spring without it."

Is that not a hoot? Well Karen S., a faculty member in Special Education, brought me some fiddleheads today. She and her family had been picking fiddleheads on the riverbank by their house and had so many they wanted to share, so I received a quart ziploc bag filled with fiddleheads. I asked her about cooking them and she suggested several different ways, explaining that it's all about your preference. In the article, Frank Buckley described how he cooks them as well. Online, I found an interesting article about fiddleheads from a pair of sisters in the Belgrade Lakes region which isn't very far away. So many choices! Such great timing! I can't wait to try this Maine delicacy.

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retrieved 5/22/08 from http://www.oneforthetable.com/oftt/stories/fiddleheads.html

Fiddleheads

by Brenda Athanus

It wouldn’t be Spring in Maine without eating at least a couple “batches” of fiddleheads. This has been a record winter for snow and the melt has been gentle and slow until a few days ago when it rained for twenty-four solid hours! Since fiddleheads grow along the banks of waterways they literally disappeared until the waters receded. Interesting vegetable, huh? There are two varieties of ferns that are most desirable to eat, the cinnamon fern, a smaller more compact variety, which arrives first, and then the more prized ostrich fern, larger in size and more elegant in flavor. Fiddlehead ferns have a flavor like nothing else. They taste something like the fresh tips of asparagus with the texture of okra. You either like it immediately or you don’t. There is no middle ground or negotiation with this vegetable. Period. The banks of rivers are covered with people picking huge bags and baskets of this spring delight in large quantities. My sister and I call them the stolen vegetable. No one ever picks their own from their land; it is always people sneaking onto your land and wiping out the fiddlehead crop till next year. There are two schools of preparation, which give very different results, like cooking squid: cook it swiftly or cook it long and slow. I know -- which one do I prefer? Having eaten fiddlehead since birth there never existed any of this “eating fiddleheads al dente”, but, true confession, I really like the slow method. Diced salt pork (before pancetta became mainstream), rough chopped onions, washed and cleaned fiddleheads, cooked slowly for at least an hour. That is pure heaven! No, they don’t get mushy, they get sweeter and sweeter as they slowly cook. The ferns are cut with a knife riverside as the fern frond is just breaking/popping its little head out. There is a brown sheath that is partially covering the fern. This has to be removed before cooking as it imparts a real bitterness and turns the cooking water a very tannic brown, like over steeped tea. I fill the sink with cold water and agitate the ferns and wait for all the wispy brown covers to get waterlogged and fall to the bottom of the sink. Next I cover them with water in a large uncovered pot and gradually bring them to a boil. Boil for 2-3 minutes until they turn a bright “spring green” and then dump the first cooking water. Now you can finish cooking them any way you like for another 7 or 8 minutes. Cooking twice will ensure a sweet not bitter fiddlehead and then use your imagination to finish cooking your long awaited, foraged, first vegetable feast of the Spring. Serve it with a cold salad with an assertive vinaigrette as a side dish to a nice spring hard shell lobster or even make a risotto with coarsely chopped fiddleheads and aged Gouda cheese. However you cook them they are well worth the time and effort. The season lasts for about thirty days as the “pickers” chase the season from the southern part of our state to the Northern border with Canada. The fiddlehead pickers then all transform into “wild mushroom foragers” . . . Now that is evolution! Brenda Athanus runs a small gourmet food shop in Belgrade Lakes, Maine with her sister Tanya called the Green Spot. The Green Spot greenspotmaine@yahoo.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it 207.465.2921

5/16/08 preparations for graduation

It's Friday night and tomorrow is graduation at UMF. If weather permits, we'll be outside in the Computing Center parking lot. It's all set up tonight (I saw this driving back and forth between my old house and my new apartment).

5/16/08 outside my new digs

Here are views of the porch and from the porch. The green tarp is over the lawn mowers--that's only temporary. The 4 chairs and table are provided by the landlords. What a deal!

That's the Sandy River way down there. The field in front of it (the river bank/floodplain) is nicknamed The Dog Walking Park and I can see all the dogs and dogwalkers from my porch. You can also see "The Highway," the lawn, and Darlene's vegetable garden (she promised me green beans and tomatoes through the summer...I didn't harvest any rutabaga even though she told me I could).

Notice the crabapple tree on the right of the house in full bloom. There's a closeup of it in the next photo. Yes, it's the end of May and fruit trees are just blossoming.

5/16/08 need smellavision

More wonderful fruit trees blooming. This is an apricot tree at "my old house" in the backyard. Oh my, does it smell incredible!

5/16/08 Pandas!

Imagine my surprise walking into WalMart to see this sign at the front door. The greeter gave me a funny look when I pulled out my phone to take this photo, but she let me do it anyway. I have no idea what this is about, but if it's pandas, I need to investigate.

5/15/08 First guests

After signing the lease, I went downstairs and put my food in the refrigerator and just started looking around. I had some stuff in the car and I unloaded that. Then Rodney called and asked what I was doing. :-) So he and MRM came over to see the new place. I hadn't been in 20 minutes and already I had company. I love it! They looked around the place, sat on the porch with me (I do love the porch), met the landlords (hmmm, that new tenant is already having folks come over to party), perused the property, and gave it their seal of approval. Then we all went out to Dunkin Donuts for free iced coffee (well, I didn't have any, but I went anyway) and then to Farmington House of Pizza (F-HOP . . . not to be confused with I-HOP) for dinner. What fun!

In this photo you can see the entrance to my apartment and my "covered" porch. The porch goes the entire length of the front of the apartment and above it is Darlene and John's sundeck which shades my porch for me.

Half veggie/half pepperoni pizza from F-HOP.