Monday lessons

Hi, it's me again. Lessons for Monday, Aug 24,09. Gus is the happiest dog on the planet. He sleeps on the back porch, it is now a "sun room" but we still think of it as the back porch. When I get up and go see him in the morning he jumps for joy that I'm with him again and then runs all over the house like he's been gone for way too long. I just love this dog. I learned that I can slice tomatoes at least 1/2 thick and dry them overnight on the dehydrator and they still stick to the grid. A dozen tomatoes dried don't even fill a quart size freezer bag. I don't know how long the stash I have preserved will last through the winter but I have discovered that dehydrating them is a lot less work than canning them. Katy was taking some out of her freezer yesterday that she had frozen whole. I guess that is ok, I've never tried it. I don't have enough freezer space to do that but I guess what she was doing was short time freezing. I thought about this earlier and thought about asking her what she was going to do with them when she was taking them out but forgot to do so when I talked to her at lunch time today. That sounds confusing but it makes sense on this side of my skull. I found out that people have no idea what other people have to live with. A lady came into the library today to use one of the public computers and indicated that hers was broken and wouldn't be fixed until Friday. She said it was awful inconvenient to have to come to the library to use our computers. When I gave her her reservation, it showed that she had to wait 15 minutes before one was available. She looked over and no one was sitting at #6 and one other empty one and asked what about those?. I told her that there was a reservation on those and that if they were available, the computer would have put her on one of them. She asked about what happened if the person it was reserved for didn't show up and I told her the reservation would be cancelled if they didn't log in within 5 minutes of the reservation time. I told her that she could watch and come up and try and get one if they didn't show up. She took her slip and went and sat down to wait at one of the study tables in front of the desk. Just about the time she sat down, a regular came in and asked what the wait was for a computer. I told him that the last reservation I gave out was for 15 minutes out. He asked that I check and see what it was for him. I did and lo and behold, it gave him the computer that the lady had just seen empty. I guess the reservation had just expired. I gave it to him and he went and sat down and signed in. The first lady came back to me and indignantly told me that something was wrong, she had been there long before that guy and he got a computer before her. I told her that that was the software and that it wasn't perfect but that is what it did. What ever was available at the time the reservation was made was what got reserved. She said the software was bad and that we needed to find something better. I told her we would look into it and she snottily answered "I'll bet you will". Like software is going to change the number and time of her reservation on the slip of paper in her hand just because she was there first. Software doesn't care! It's a computer!!!!! ANYWAY. She fails to recognize that what is a minor inconvenience for her because her home computer is broken is what the rest of the patrons, and most of the people she was competing for time with today, are people who have no computers at home and rely on the library's computers every day. They get it. Ah, working with the public. What fun. I made a good supper with some pork tenderloins and gourmet mushrooms in a jar that Katy and I found in Big Lots the last time we went shopping there. Holy cow. Those are some good mushrooms for 50 cents a jar. I'll never stumble across those again I'm sure. Ron and I got the last of the corn off the stalks when I pulled in from work. 5 ears and they should have been picked a couple of weeks ago. Had we been horses, that would have been the best corn ever. As it was, it was tough but, by golly, it was corn we raised ourselves. Looking around after picking the corn we found out that we have 3 more good sized cantaloupe out there that are almost ripe. I might have to take those to work since we will be on vacation when they are prime and Katy has said that she doesn't care fro Cantaloupe. Grandaddy always said he didn't grow watermelons or cantaloupe because they didn't grow well here, they needed a sandy soil. They do so Grandaddy! Maybe he didn't want to waste the space in the garden. Or maybe he was right, they didn't grow well here until they invented the new cultivars for this part of the country. Who knows? Its a new day. Gran and Grandaddy used to sit on the front porch and Gran would shell peas or lima beans or break green beans. Grandaddy would smoke his pipe and watch the cars and check the license plates pn the cars passing by on Third Street for out of state tags. Now we sit on the "back porch" sunroom and Ron has his laptop going with a slurp/slurp/trickle sound going on and I'm over here pecking away. Gus's bed is full of shoes so he's having to lay on the floor. Life is good.