Apple Juice Concentrate as a sweetener....

JENNY brand Imported Dried Kalamata Greek Figs

 They are good.

Tourtière: A French-Canadian Meat Pie Recipe

 https://growagoodlife.com/tourtiere/

Most people who die in fires don't burn to death; they die from smoke inhalation that kills the respiratory system. that's why the fire service is going on and on about smoke detectors. These little ten-dollar gadgets are one of the truly wonderful inventions of man. The wake you up from a deep slumber so that you and your family and your dog or cat or whatever can get out of the house in time to live and call the fire department. If this sounds like a public service announcement, it is. If you don't have one, buy one today. They make great Christmas gifts. Plus they're cheap. Give a gift of love to a loved one you love. End of announcement.
― Larry Brown  

All we have to do as people is keep teaching children to read, and the rest will more than likely take care of itself.

― Larry Brown

 If you want to write, you've got to shut yourself up in a room and write.

― Larry Brown, Big Bad Love

Reading, for pleasure and knowledge, has always been, will always be one of my favorite things to do. (Larry Brown: A Writer's Life by Jean W. Cash)
― Larry Brown

All my life, the library has always been one of my favorite places to go. (Larry Brown: A Writer's Life by Jean W. Cash)
― Larry Brown

You take what you're given, whether it's the cornfields of the Midwest or the coal mines of West Virginia, and you make your fiction out of it. It's all you have. And somehow, wherever you are, it always seems to be enough.”
― Larry Brown

There’s a Rhode Island woman trying get the Corkscrew Roller Coaster back to Rhode Island where it was originally part of the former Rocky Point Amusement Park

A Johnston Rhode Island woman named Chantelle Croft is trying get the Corkscrew aka 'Wild Thing' back to Rhode Island. 

Ask PAWTUCKET RI. They have the Loof Carousel another historic piece of Rocky Point. If they say no, ask Woonsocket ask Lincoln!

Emerson said, “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.”

He was choosing to skip gatherings entirely and calling the decision a new family tradition.

It seems to me that if there is no spiritual undercarriage beneath the ideological, if the political does not rest upon what can only be called love, then our politics grow hard and narrow, turn in on themselves, become tribal, cannibalistic, and lacking in mercy. Look around and see. Nick Cave 

O mangiar questa minestra o saltar questa finestra

This classic Italian saying literally means ‘Either eat this soup or jump out of this window’, and is interpreted as ‘take it or leave it’. Minestra, originally used to symbolize the food on the table, can be a symbol for anything according to the situation. The saying is also frequently used about accepting a situation, settling for something /being happy with what you have and can’t change, to avoid unfortunate results.

Steel Cut or Pin Head Oats incorporated into Recipies from Scotland

https://hamlynsoats.co.uk/recipe_products/hamlyns-pinhead-oatmeal/

https://hamlynsoats.co.uk/recipes/hearty-tomoato-pasta/ 

https://hamlynsoats.co.uk/recipes/chocolate-chip-oatcakes/

Steel Cut Oats Cooked with Raisins are the secret to warmth in Winter weather

 

Join Blackstone Valley Regional Animal Control

We service the communities of Blackstone, Millville, Uxbridge, Mendon, Douglas, and Hopedale

14 Chestnut Street, Blackstone, MA, United States, Massachusetts (508) 883-2822 ACO@Blackstonepolice.org 

Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past; without hope of a future he becomes a beast.

― P.D. James, The Children of Men

We can experience nothing but the present moment, live in no other second of time, and to understand this is as close as we can get to eternal life.
― P.D. James, The Children of Men

Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other people. Nothing that happens to a writer–however happy, however tragic–is ever wasted. Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell.

P.D. JAMES

Overheard

Early this morning as I was leaving the pool I overheard two women talking while standing waist deep in the water while waiting for their Aqua Fitness class to begin. One woman said to the other, "Well, she gets to sleep and we get to eat!"

I thought this was hilarious and my husband didn't get the humor. Perhaps it's only funny to women? You tell me! 

 

Myth Dispelled

by Adam Possner, MD

The flu vaccine cannot give you the flu, I tell him. It’s dead virus, there’s nothing alive about it. It can’t make you sick. That’s a myth. But if we bury it in the grassy knoll of your shoulder, an inch under the stratum corneum, as sanctioned by your signature in a white-coated ceremony presided over by my medical assistant and then mark the grave with a temporary non-stick headstone, the trivalent spirit of that vaccine has a 70 to 90 percent chance of warding off the Evil One, and that’s the God’s honest truth.

__________

Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), December 5, 2012, Vol. 308 (21):2178.

Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experience. Jon Kabat-Zinn

Three Rats

This morning I jumped when I came upon a dead rat on the sidewalk. I was walking my 2 dogs and I immediately crossed the street and after a few steps we came upon another dead rat on the sidewalk. I kept walking and crossed to another street. I was relieved that we did not encounter any more. 

This afternoon I spotted a 3rd dead rat on the sidewalk in front of my neighbors building. Three dead rats all on the same street.

My husband said it's a spell. All of the drug dealers were hit with a secret City Rat Ray Gun and turned into rats. I like it. So far that explanation works for me. They perished, not knowing how to be proper rats.

Being alone on Thanksgiving is rather wonderful, like not attending a party that you didn't want to go to and where no one will realize you're not there.

 John Thorne

Baking Two Pumpkin Pies for my Husband's Birthday Tomorrow

Pumpkin Pie re-posted from my blog The Insomniacs Kitchen, March 2012, adapted 10/27/2021 and DOUBLED.

I just made pumpkin pie for the first time and it came out great! I put it in front of the tiny fan so it would cool off fast so we could eat it. I am so excited. I think pie is my new friend.

This is a delicious whole wheat crust and the pie is light like Indian Pudding and not too sweet. This is an adaption of the Libby's Pumpkin pie label recipe and the One Pie brand label recipe. I love pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin ice-cream, pumpkin everything!!

Ingredients and instructions for 2 pies (9-10 inch) or 6 mini pies (6 inch)

Pie crust:

2 cups of whole wheat flour
1/2 cup corn oil
3/8 cup (6 Tbs) white or brown sugar (the sugar is the glue holding the crust together)
2 teaspoon Kosher salt (less if using regular salt or white flour)
1/4 cup water

Mix ingredients with fingers so it is pebbly. Press into pie pan with fingers. Prick dough on the pan bottom with a fork. It can be sticky and hard to handle but hang in there, it will be delicious.

Bake at 350° F for 5-10 minutes. Then let it cool.

Tip from Once Upon a Chef Jenn Segal: Press the crust into the bottom of the pan with the back of a measuring cup.  This will make sure the crust is in the pan nice and firm, so that it won't fall apart when you cut this for serving.

Pie filling:

1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1/4 cup of dark molasses
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon Kosher salt (half if using regular salt)
2 teaspoons ground ginger (I used freshly finely grated frozen ginger root)
2 teaspoons vanilla (homemade)
4 large eggs
1 large can of pumpkin puree (29 oz.)
2 cans of evaporated milk (12 fl. oz.)

Mix sugar, dark molasses, cinnamon, salt, ginger, vanilla, and eggs in large bowl. Whisk in pumpkin puree and evaporated milk. 

Pour into the pre-baked, cooled pie shells.

Bake pie in preheated 425° F oven for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350° F; bake for 40 to 50 more minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

Some bakers use sweetened condensed milk so I tried it but I discovered that it is cloyingly sweet and drowns out the pumpkin taste compared to a pie made with evaporated milk and 1/4 cup sugar (per pie). The evaporated milk pumpkin pie is much more like Indian Pudding and tastes like a food!

sooner or later if he walks down a dark street, fate will slip out with a stuffed eel-skin and get him.

The cat sat on the mat is not a story; the cat sat on the dog’s mat is the beginning of an exciting story, and out of that collision, perhaps, there comes a sense of retribution. Now you may call that God, or you may call it the presence of fatalistic forces in society, or you may call it man’s inhumanity to man. But, in the immortal words of P.G. Wodehouse, what it boils down to is that if your character does something wrong, sooner or later if he walks down a dark street, fate will slip out with a stuffed eel-skin and get him.

JOHN LE CARRÉ

The Singing Lady

For years I have heard the singing lady. She sits in the alley between my house and the apartment building next door. I wave and say hello when I am walking by with my dogs. She's a large woman. The phone is always propped up on a tripod in front of her when she talks. I have seen her out there under a big black umbrella in the rain. She sings wildly out of tune. When I am in bed or in my office I'll grumble and run my box fan to blot her out.

The other day I saw a woman coming down the sidewalk in a motorized wheelchair. I noticed she had a missing leg cut off at the calf. And she was singing wildly out of tune. It was her! The singing lady!

A dead bishop’s behavior is back in the spotlight

 Boston Globe Headline Today

Bumpersticker

 

Blue Moon

Once in a blue moon a tall man with a radio voice would drive to our house and offer to take us for the day. Supposedly this was our father. He was on his second of 3 sets of kids. We were the first set and the second set were waiting in the car with the third wife. We were driven to his apartment in Yonkers to celebrate his birthday. His brother Seymour was there with his 2nd wife, a short woman built like the Tasmanian Devil with a strong Hungarian accent. All I remember is Seymour throwing my father's Yorkie across the room. The dog's shoulder was dislocated but wife number three popped it back in place.

Don't just see family on holidays. Healthy relationships rely on regular, low-pressure contact throughout the year rather than waiting for forced holiday gatherings.  Why Year-Round Connection Matters:  Low-pressure bonding: Regular phone calls, quick weekend check-ins, or casual coffee meetups build genuine familiarity without the high stress of a massive family reunion. No sole window for connection: Healthy dynamics do not treat a single holiday as the only chance all year to maintain a relationship. Reduced holiday resentment: Spreading out time together stops you from trying to fix a year's worth of communication gaps across a single dinner table. Simple Ways to Stay Connected: Micro-interactions: Send a quick text, a photo of something that reminded you of them, or a funny meme on a random Tuesday. Low-stakes visits: Plan a casual lunch, a walk in the park, or a phone call while you commute instead of an all-weekend obligation. Set clear boundaries: It is okay to skip a holiday gathering if the dynamic is toxic, provided you are intentional about how and when you choose to connect the rest of the year.   

A man who does not understand the benefit of suffering does not live a clever and true life. Leo Tolstoy 

When I read my story aloud, I convert myself from being a writer to being a reader. And the better reader I am, the better writer I can become. Avi

Bon anniversaire!

 In French, a birthday is called un anniversaire. 

etiquette

etiquette /ˈedəkət/ Etiquette is a system of conventional rules, norms, and customs that regulate acceptable social, professional, and public behavior.  

Core Principles  According to guidance from the Emily Post institute, etiquette is divided into two parts: manners (the actions) and core principles (the foundation).

 • Respect: Acknowledging the worth of others through punctuality, open-mindedness, and self-respect.

 • Consideration: Practicing empathy and thoughtful behavior to help and positively affect others. • Honesty: Acting with sincerity, tact, and benevolent truth.

https://parade.com/living/how-to-politely-decline-an-invitation

My observation over the years is that couples who cook together tend to have the happiest marriages. Perhaps it should be mandatory that before a couple weds they must take a cooking class together. George Bilgere

Lentil Potato Tomato Gloop!

Learning to cook in restaurants in my 20's has been one of the best gifts of my adult life. One of the hazards is I still make everything in 10 gallon pots! I do make use of the freezer.

Tonight I cooked a pound of lentils with some carrots that I chopped and a huge red onion chopped. I added the leftover German potato salad I made the other day* and added a splash of Chianti and Adobo and some more olive oil and a 1 pound bag of frozen spinach. It cooked for 30 minutes in the instant pot and tasted AMAZING, like it simmered all day. Now I am making Royal brand brown basmati rice to go with it. 

*(with Yukon gold potatoes and red onion and red bell peppers) 

All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you’ll never write a line. That’s why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.

ERICA JONG

 https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-nutrition/how-much-calcium-do-you-really-need

Overheard

They care about is the image of family, not the actual relationships. It’s about appearances not an actual connection.

Every muscle is sore from swimming, dog walking, and raking leaves. I'm making Irish oatmeal cooked with raisins and declaring today a snow day. Sometimes the body needs a rest.

“I continually get told by everybody from 90-year-olds down to nine-year-olds that the sharing part of my experience, sharing part of my story, has helped them,” Harry said. “And as long as that’s the case, then I’m always going to try and make it easier for other people. It doesn’t matter whether it’s one or a million.” Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex

Raking leaves in the sunshine

I love to be outside when it's quiet. Usually it has to be predawn but today I got lucky and nobody was around  at 3:30 PM and so I raked the leaves in the sunshine. The wind had done most of the work blowing the leaves to one side of the yard so I stepped in and gathered them before the wind changed direction.

Traditionally, Matt and I get Chinese takeout for Thanksgiving, a holiday I actively dislike. Despite its name, Thanksgiving is really the Family Holiday. Even Christmas pales beside it: that day's focus is on giving and receiving even more than togetherness. Strangely though, being alone on Christmas is to be almost hauntingly empty; you feel like a ghost. But being alone on Thanksgiving is rather wonderful, like not attending a party that you didn't want to go to and where no one will realize you're not there. At Thanksgiving, you gather with your family and stuff yourself with food as if it were love—or the next best thing —then stagger back to your regular life, oversatiated and wrung out. Christmas, however, creates expectations that are never met, so you leave hungry and depressed, with an armload of things you didn't want and can't imagine why anyone would think you did.
-John Thorne

Bored Lifeguard

Hiding a cell phone behind a rescue tube or flotation device while on duty is a serious violation of lifeguarding safety protocols. According to major organizations like the American Red Cross, lifeguards must remain completely free from digital distractions while actively scanning their zone. Because drowning is often silent and can happen in less than 60 seconds, looking down at a hidden screen—even briefly—can result in catastrophic oversight.

Calcium Tips

My doc told me to take calcium and vitamin D supplement and the huge pill was making me nauseous even with food so I cut the tablet in half. I have half with one meal and the other half with another meal and now there's no more nausea. Guess what I discovered cuts the pills in half? Our old cat claw trimmers! Yes, I washed them before using.

Split the Doses

Cap single doses at 500 mg or less: Your body cannot absorb more than 500 mg of elemental calcium at one time. Taking a large dose all at once causes unabsorbed minerals to sit in your gut, leading to gas, bloating, and constipation. [1, 2, 3]
Start low and build up: If you are new to supplements, start with a small dose (such as 200 mg to 300 mg daily) for a week and slowly increase. [1]

The Future

by Billy Collins

When I finally arrive there—
And it will take many days and nights—
I would like to believe others will be waiting
and might even want to know how it was.

So I will reminisce about a particular sky
or a woman in a white bathrobe
or the time I visited a narrow strait
where a famous naval battle had taken place.

Then I will spread out on a table
a large map of my world
and explain to the people of the future
in their pale garments what it was like—

how mountains rose between the valleys
and this was called geography,
how boats loaded with cargo plied the rivers
and this was known as commerce,

how the people from this pink area
crossed over into this light-green area
and set fires and killed whoever they found
and this was called history—

and they will listen, mild-eyed and silent,
as more of them arrive to join the circle,
like ripples moving toward,
not away from, a stone tossed into a pond.
 

“The Future” by Billy Collins from Aimless Love. © Random House, 2013. 

Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language. If you write a page a day for 30 days, and you pick the parts where the language is working, plot and character will start to emerge organically. For me, plot and character emerge directly from the word—as opposed to having a light-bulb about a character or event. I just don’t work like that. Though I know some writers do, I can’t. I’ll think, oh I have an insight about the character, and when I’ll sit down to write, it feels extremely imposed and lasts for two minutes. I find I can write for two lines and then I have nothing else to say. For me, the only way to find something comes through the sentence level, and sticking with the sentences that give a subtle feeling that there’s something more to say. This means I’ve hit on something unconscious enough to write about—something with enough unknown in there to be brought out. On some level I can sense that, and it keeps me going.

AIMEE BENDER

Bohemian Twilight Czech Style Polotmavý Lager made by Jack's Abby in Framingham

 Amazing.

Colorful German Potato Salad with sauteed Red Onion and Red Bell Pepper

I couldn't resist a bargain so I bought a 5 pound bag of Yukon Gold potatoes for a couple of dollars and made my pressure cooked German potato salad using olive oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, Adobo, honey, salt and no bacon. I also added a huge freshly-chopped red onion.

Then my five red bell peppers were asking to be chopped today and I complied. I also chopped two more huge red onions and sauteed them with the bell peppers in olive oil. Then I sprinkled balsamic vinegar over the mix. Later I decided to add it all to the cooked potato salad.

It's delicious! The Yukon Gold potatoes held up, mixed in with the sauteed red onion and bell peppers. 

Great Northern Bean Vegetable Soup

I had no idea I was going to make a soup but I cooked the beans and went from there. It was so good I am writing it down.

1 pound  dry Great Northern beans rinsed, soaked and cooked. 

3 large cans of plum tomatoes (you can cut them later but they are more flavorful than pre-chopped).

1 pound carrots (peeled if skin is bitter), chopped.

1 pound frozen spinach.

Serious bloop of jug Chianti (Carlo Rossi).

Olive oil 

Homemade cilantro pesto .

Adobo

salt 

Simmer it all in the soup pot! 

Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.

John le Carré 

The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing.

― John le Carré, A Most Wanted Man

In chaos, there is fertility. 

Anaïs Nin

I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live.

 Anaïs Nin

Write. Write until it stops hurting.

 Anaïs Nin

Passion gives me moments of wholeness. 

Anaïs Nin

You cannot save people you can only love them. 

Anaïs Nin

Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again. Anaïs Nin

Keep on writing, no matter what! That’s the most important thing. As long as you have a job on hand that absorbs all your mental energy, you haven’t much worry to spare over other things. It serves as a suit of armor. 

Eugene O'Neill

 Rest and be kind, you don’t have to prove anything. Jack Kerouac

what the world asks of you is courage

Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear. For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage, courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.

ROBERT McKEE

Life is just a short walk from the cradle to the grave, and it sure behooves us to be kind to one another along the way. Alice Childress

We should look inward and think about the meaning of our life and its purposes, lest we do it in 20 or 30 years and it’s too late. Robert Coles

Hi Neighbor!

It was the bumper sticker that gave Eugenia away. The woman was swapping out license plates, wearing blonde wigs over her brown hair, hiding drugs in the engine compartment, but the tell was that darn bumper sticker. The detectives knew what to look for. They knew all about the tilted lady and her brother-in-law in prison and the decorative pillow found in the last raid, WE'RE NOT A DRUG HOUSE WE'RE A DRUG HOME. But this time it was the HI NEIGHBOR bumper sticker on the back of the silver Buick that did her in.

1,000 Top Hats, Dinosaur Masks, Easels: Inside NYC’s Free Store for Teachers

 https://www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/10/08/classroom-teacher-school-supplies-free-art-materials/

When asked why he wanted to turn his life into a comic book, Harvey Pekar said, “I wanted to write literature that pushed people into their lives rather than helping people escape from them.”

Tikkun olam (Hebrew: תִּיקּוּן עוֹלָם) translates literally to "repairing the world" or "healing the world". It is a central concept in Judaism that describes human responsibility for improving, fixing, and elevating society and the physical world.

True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Helen Keller 

It doesn’t matter how scared you are; everyone is scared. Work. Work is the only thing that takes the curse of fear away.

JERRY SALTZ

FOXBORO YMCA is Looking for an AQUATICS DIRECTOR

The Hockomock Area YMCA is hiring a full-time Aquatics Director for its Foxboro Invensys Branch in Foxborough, Massachusetts.  

Hockomock Area YMCA Staff Family Page

67 Mechanic Street Foxboro, Massachusetts (508) 543-2523