Fishy Thoughts

09/22/2004

Fishy Thoughts

We begin a new feature to this tome to you sweet Kaitlyn Mae, as Grandmother has made an executive decision. I have decided that at various moments in my life lightening strikes of pure genius streak through my mind. The thoughts might not require a lengthy missive but do deserve commemoration forever in this remembrance to you. With a hope on Grandmother’s part that a bright and keenly intelligent Kaitlyn will too entertain genius thoughts and who knows, maybe someday re-invent the wheel.

All of the above said, of course dear Kaitlyn, with an abundance of modesty.

BEST PRODUCT OF THE CENTURY
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Let us begin with what Grandmother considers perhaps the greatest invention of this century. Which is, Kaitlyn Mae, a very young century in this year of our Lord. But such is the genius in the newest product to hit the air ways that Grandmother will hereby proclaim it the best product modification for the rest of the century 2000.

I’m talking about clear duct tape, Kaitlyn, and by the time you read this clear duct tape will be used so abundantly by everyone in your surround that you will wonder that there was ever a time when the product didn’t exist.

Indeed, child, duct tape used to come only in the ugliest color of grey possible. That ugly helped put the proper and perfect use of duct tape in a less than stellar light. People were ashamed of duct tape. They tried to hide it. Young students would not be caught dead porting a backpack with that big hole patched with some handy duct tape. Which is actually the perfect product for such a job, Kaitlyn, but with that ugly grey and everything …

As you read this sweet Granddaughter, I bet there are two or three ugly holes on your backpack fixed handily with clear duct tape and perhaps a personal raincoat or two.

GERALDO..CLOWN OF THE NIGHTLY NEWS
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It’s likely Geraldo Riviera will still be around when you read this missive, Kaitlyn. If so he will likely have a long grey beard, wearing a hard-worn, bill-capped camouflaged hat, and be speaking to you on television in some foreign and exotic locale.

Grandmother hasn’t gotten over Geraldo’s infamous visit to Al Capone’s vaults over twenty years ago. Seems he found some wine cellar below a house somewhere. He vaunted this fabulous find as the vaults of famous gangster Al Capone. A TV special of the grand opening of the vaults and the intriguing information assumed within would be broadcast live for all of America to gasp.

They dug and dug in that thing, Kaitlyn, going from dank room to dank room. Wherever Geraldo was it seemed to be some sort of warren of sweat-walled rooms that held nothing and led nowhere. The broadcast ended with no fantastic finds and for many years the hyped episode of Al Capone’s vaults became the joke of America.

On this day of our Lord, Kaitlyn Mae, I watch Geraldo, now a spokesman for Fox news, who is wearing that worn out but serious hat and in Sudan of all places!

I give the man a salute of my own hard-worn hat. He’s a showman and a survivor. And he knows how to tease the public.

Should you ever watch Geraldo, Kaitlyn, pay attention because he almost always got shot at or placed in some journalistic danger that requires him to jump behind a strategically placed boulder and the camera to rock wildly from blue sky to brown ground.

God Bless America because could Geraldo become such a star in any other country but this?

GADGETS I’VE BOUGHT AND LIKED
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Grandmother, Kaitlyn, in that all-American way, will buy any new gadget hyped across the airways. Some, not as many as I’ve disliked-more on this later, I’ve really liked. Perhaps Grandmother can gain use from the experiences as a warning to Kaitlyn that she buy any similar product with forewarning.

The chopper thingy
The problem here, Kaitlyn, is I’ve had this gadget for many years and don’t know where it came from or even if it’s still sold. I know the name imprinted on the thing is “Quick Chop”.

There a zillion quick chopping things on the market on this day of our Lord, Kaitlyn, and likely a zillion more to confuse Kaitlyn at time of purchase. Because the chopping, peeling, slicing, dicing, parsing and curling of various vegetables and fruits is, Kaitlyn, a large concern to someone who cooks.

Which would be all of us at some point in time.

There are available mandolins, food processors, specially designed knives, peelers, corers, pitters, blenders and more, all about chopping vegetables and fruits.

Forget them all, Kaitlyn. This Quick Chop thing works the best. Grandmother’s spent, oh, maybe three or four thousand bucks in search of the best to chop her veggies.

There are two parts to this thing, Kaitlyn. The top has a knob and is affixed with a ribbon of blades. I’m serious about that description, Kaitlyn, as it’s important. The blade is a singular piece of stainless steel that is bent to a “wave” patter with wide spaces between the blades. The bottom is nothing but a plastic cup type of affair in which the handle is inserted.

An onion is laid on a chopping board. The cup of the Quick Chop is placed over the onion. The top of the Quick Chop is fitted into the cup as designed, with those wavy blades hovering over the innocent onion.

Push down on the knob, over and over. The physics of the design have the wavy blades turning slightly after each chop. This keeps the onion from being sliced over and over in the same place.

The cup at the bottom holds the chopped onion in place. When the onion is chopped it’s small matter to push the cup along the chopping board into a waiting container.


GADGETS I’VE BOUGHT AND HATED
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Grandmother doesn’t really hate the handsome wedged window cleaner she purchased as a result of its hype. Somewhere in this huge world there are very large windows that have corners that are few and far between. Grandmother has seen houses on HGTV that have bountiful walls of windows and skylights over most of the house’s roof.

These people need to buy one of those window wedgies.

For those of us with more normal windows and mirrors, the use of this device is not worth the bother.

This device is but a triangular piece of plastic fitted onto a trowel-like handle. The plastic triangle is designed so that it wobbles from the handle in a manner meant to make turning upon glass or mirror a simple twist of the wrist.

The plastic triangle has a special cap type of affair that fits over it because, well you really wouldn’t rub the bare plastic around over mirror and glass now would you?

Grandmother properly squirted some spritzes of Windex over the sliding glass door then began running that brand spanking new window cleaner over the glass. All the wrist turning in the world wouldn’t send that thing running in the right direction. Finally Grandmother grabbed the thing on each of the long triangle sides and began to hand move it.

Then I was dismayed to discover that all the flotsam and jetsam of that debris wiped from across the pane would lodge in the corner of the pane. And that triangle point, ostensibly specially designed to dig into glass corners, didn’t pull it out.

Grandmother had to get a paper towel and dig the wedged in dirt. The special cap for the device was by now very dirty and no way could it be used to clean another piece of glass. The Windex had it wet and the dirt would simple transfer to any other glass surface upon which it would be rubbed.

Not to fear! The device comes with another little cap thing!

So that’s two pieces of glass the thing can be used for Kaitlyn, because after this you either have to clean the little caps or you’re out of luck.

Paper towels and handy Windex, Kaitlyn, are all yon average homeowner needs to clean windows.

Maybe a ladder if windows are up high.