Been up for a while...

Shiloh sure does enjoy waking up early. (I mean, given her behavior since arriving, her early wakeup can't possibly have anything to do with wanting to relieve herself outside, but I digress...)

Yesterday, we were walking down the road that runs past the back of my parents' house, and eventually came out upon this scene:


Besides the two of us, there was nothing to disturb the peace: no cars, no engines, nothing.

A flock of geese flew over a few minutes later, honking for all they were worth, and so loudly, that there was plenty of time to get comfortable and get a "bead" on what direction they were coming from.

Cheers...

It's mushroom-pickin' time!

Quite a number of the mushrooms on the property look like Russulas, which I can generally recognize, but which I've never tried to eat. There is also, however, a patch of orange mushrooms out back whose top surface is velvety, whose gills are distant, and which when bruised release a white, milky fluid that does not change color or stain any part of the mushroom.

 
A few minutes on the 'net revealed that these mushrooms are almost certainly Lactarius hygrophoroides, also known as Milky caps, and that they are edible. (A big plus was not being able to uncover - and my search-engine-fu is pretty well tuned - any poisonous lookalikes for this fungus.)

So, I picked a few of the freshest specimens from the patch (which has not seen a lawn chemical in decades) and fried them up for breakfast, along with a couple of eggs.

It's been about an hour, and it's not as if I'm expecting any adverse reaction, but all is okay. The texture of the fried mushrooms was nice, but I can't say they were particularly flavorful. They were certainly not bitter or peppery in any way (had they been, it would've invalidated my identification).

* * *I plan to stop by the hospital around 1 pm, the way I did yesterday. That way, I don't interfere with any of the morning routine or what passes for lunch at that institution.

I sure could use some more shuteye, though. (Shiloh's catching up as I type this!)

Cheers...

Not too hot, but not cool enough, either...

I have come to the conclusion that doctors love to do the mushroom thing with their patients, i.e., feed em bull and keep 'em in the dark. After all, nobody can yell at you for providing misinformation if you provide no information at all.

The old man looked a little worse today than yesterday, with a new apparatus taped to his shoulder. He tells me he's being treated for some kind of infection. (Meanwhile, in my mind I'm reviewing the meaning of the word iatrogenic.)

Dinner was more mushrooms with tuna steak. Further deponent saieth not, as there is nothing more to say, aside from the fact that there's another tuna steak in the fridge.

While looking for a book of mine in the basement, I ran across a baggie filled with letters written to my mother from what appears to be a pen pal from France. It's not exactly earth-shattering reading, but interesting enough, as it provides insight into my mother's life when she was in her late teens and early 20s. (For one thing, it tells me she carried on a correspondence in French at that time, something that - I am not very happy to report - I would not have been capable of doing with any facility at the same age despite multiple years of French instruction.)

In one letter written in August of 1933, my mom's correspondent - a girl named Thérèse who lived in Bourges - replies to a question my mother had apparently asked about Hitler:

Vous me demandez ce que je pense de Hitler et bien je n'en pense rien de bon! Je crois qu'il veut reconstruire une grande Allemagne l'avant guerre. Il veut peut-être préparer une autre guerre. Il veut epurer la race. Ainsi il a chassé une grande partie des juifs. Comme soldats il ne veut que des hommes forts et intelligents qui en cas de conflits puissent agir activement. Hitler s'attire la méfiance de d'Europe.

You ask me what I think of Hitler and, well, I haven't anything good to say! I believe he wants to rebuild a large pre-war Germany. He perhaps wants to prepare for another war. He wants to purify the race. For example, he's driven out a large portion of the Jews. As soldiers he wants only strong and intelligent men who can act decisively in the event of a conflict. Hitler is attracting the mistrust of Europe.

I will continue to read these letters. They form, for me, a window into the past; one with a personal accent.

Cheers...