Some random things

 * Mowed the lawn today (it needed it and I needed the exercise) and also cut some more branches. It is a challenge to figure out how to store them - I only have the one wheelbarrow, we're not supposed to stack them at the curb until right before pickup (which will be Saturday for me), and I'd rather not do a lot of extra picking up and moving of them. In the end, I dumped them on a tarp that I had laid over a weedy area (mostly Tradescantia, which is a really aggressive weed here, so I don't care if I kill it) and figure maybe I can just drag the tarp down and dump it on Friday. But maybe I also wait and take Friday off and do a lot more cutting and stacking THEN.

Also, they will pick up appliances, so I will finally get the busted vacuum cleaner and the two busted lamps out.It's not as convenient as in my mom's down where there's an appliance-recycling dropoff (it's free, though you do have to pay for the disposal of refrigerant-containing things like dehumidifiers), and she also has weekly bulky waste pickup that you don't have to call in advance to schedule. (Then again: she pays about five times what I do in property tax, so I don't know)

* I pulled the long-term ripple afghan out and started working on it again. It takes a long time to complete a row because I made it fairly wide - wide enough to be a coverlet on my bed. It's going to be pretty heavy.

I want to try to finish it soon, this is another long-time project that will feel like an exorcism to have done.

It does need to be longer. I just joined on a new cake of yarn and I have at least one (and maybe two) after this.

* I was looking through the copy of the Betty Crocker "Dinner for Two" cookbook* - this is the one I use the brownie recipe out of  - and found that they have a small-batch baked beans, which I should keep in mind when I want "real" baked beans but don't want to deal with 10 days' worth of leftovers

(*this is actually my second copy. The original one I had was an extra my mom had - apparently she got two as wedding gifts and kept both all these years, and then gave one to me - maybe she gave it when I was first out in an apartment in college? But anyway, the spiral binding failed on it last year and the pages were falling out. I found another copy - as part of a group with several other similar Betty Crocker cookbooks - from an Etsy seller, and they were cheap enough, so I replaced it. I'm trying to be more careful with this one but the covers and the bindings are kind of fragile)

This is the one illustrated by Charley Harper (best known for his stylized wildlife illustrations - sort of a midcentury thing) and I think that's interesting. (I also have - I think it' Amy Vanderbilt's cookbook - where Andy Warhol did the illustrations).

It does show kind of a vanished world, some aspects of which I just remember. One of which, in the chapter on "pennywise meals," they talk about planning so that you buy "first quality" canned peas to serve as a vegetable, but that "third quality" are fine for soup and....I suspect no brand now admits to being lower quality, even the ones that are. (Also I think canned peas are less commonly used now, with frozen ones being more perfected? I am not a big fan of peas but if I were using them I'd get frozen)

Also, there is a drawing of someone coming out of a grocery store where the windows had prices and ads painted on them and....are there any grocery stores (other than maybe very old ones that have not been renovated in 40 years) that have big plate-glass windows any more? Pretty much everywhere I shop, there are no windows - yes, Pruett's has a large set of sliding glass doors, and many places have that with a vestibule, but....when I was a kid, for a while, the Acme (the big grocery store in town) had enormous plate-glass windows (and every year there was a competition; students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades drew plans for window paintings at Halloween, and the couple of winners got to paint their designs on the windows, it was a big thing). When I was in high school the Acme renovated and put big panels, with sort of a pebble texture, over the windows. And I wonder - were they concerned about storms? About theft? This would have been a fairly prosperous and low-crime location. But I realized that, when you see old photos of groceries, a lot of the time they do have those big windows - and not any more. (I guess the natural-foods store in Sherman has them, but the windows are at the little eating-area they have for their cafe.)

Another thing I remember that I think no longer exists is "pick-a-mix candy" - bulk bins of I think it was Brach's candies - the funny little taffies with different flavor fillings, and those weird Neapolitan coconut things, and the white nougats with bits of jelly in it (that if you weren't careful, you could pull out a filling on) and they had little pink and white striped bags you put the candy in, and they weighed it at the checkout and charged you. Bulk things are still a thing (Well, I *think* they are, maybe the pandemic ended that too) but I haven't seen the Pick-a-Mix candies in years. (I think Vermont Country Store sometimes sells the nougats, but they were not my favorite). 

And another largely-vanished thing: cereal box prizes. Once in a while you still see them, but not like when I was a kid in the 1970s, and now more often than not they're some kind of a code for an online game, which I admit I would have found disappointing as a kid (and likely, my parents would not have allowed me to go online, at least not until I was 13 or 16 or something)