John and Jo # 5

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello everyone.
It's time for John and Joeagain.
I know you've been anxiouslyawaiting our next podcast.
And here we are.
Here we are.
Uh, Joe, you've got some thingsto talk about, uh, people who've
contacted us.
Yes.
We've had, uh.
Oh, well actually twograndchildren that contacted us,

(00:21):
uh, one of which wants to knowabout how John and I dated and
how we got together, and theother one said, don't edit.
He, he said, you guys are toogood.
You don't need to edit.
So, uh, so we'll keep that inmind.
Those are the comments we'vehad.
So, uh, but, uh, hang on,because after Joe tells us about

(00:44):
our love life, we're going totalk about our newest escapade,
which is, uh, gardening.
So, alright Joe, those of youwho've heard this story and many
of you had, now's the time to goget a cup of coffee and, uh,
relax for a few minutes because.
Joe's gonna talk, okay, Joe, butyou don't realize that we do.
Your grandchildren know how yougot together.

(01:05):
Uh, it's important to take, letthem know.
Uh, there she was.
Uh, her granddaughter was verycurious.
Well, John and I were 1200, 1500miles away from each other, and,
uh, we both worked for the samecompany.
John's wife died in December andthen my husband died in July.

(01:31):
So uh, he sent me a sympathycard with a little message in it
and I wrote back to him and toldhim how meaningful it was and we
became pen pals.
And then, you know, John and Iworked for the same company and
that that's how he knew that myhusband had died.

(01:52):
Um, but at any rate, and we, andwe did a lot of telephone calls
too.
It got very expensive because wedidn't have cell phones then it
was, I think we spent$500 each,each, each, uh, month on phone
calls, uh, to each other,because we always called each
other all the time.
So.
We were lonely.

(02:12):
Yeah, lonely.
And, uh, then John said, thishas gotta stop.
Right?
We can't afford this.
So I said, let's move toChicago, where the weather's
beautiful.
Now I lived in South Florida.
Can you imagine moving fromSouth Clark, Florida to, to, uh,
Chicago.
The winters are bitter up there,just bitter.

(02:35):
I will, I wore long underwearall the time.
And stayed in the upstairsbedroom because that was the
warmest room in the house.
Well, John was traveling andmany times he'd go to Boca and
call me and say, listen to thewaves, Jo, Joe.
Uh, doesn't that sound good?
And have you walked the dog?

(02:57):
Oh God.
In the snow.
In the snow, right.
So, and, and cleaned up after,as we usually do.
I had a tough life and shelearned to use the snowblower.
Uh, I said, it's not hard.
All you do is plug it in, pushthe start button, and then once

(03:17):
it starts, you roll it out andstart pushing snow.
And I said, just make sure whenI come home from Florida or
Texas or California, that thedriveway is cleared of ice and
snow, so I can just.
Slip right on in, and when Icall you from the airport, if
you want something, you bettertell me so I can stop and get

(03:38):
it.
'cause once I get home, notgoing out again.
Now that was not nice becausethe wind would blow in my face
and the snow was in my face andI thought, this is crazy.
I hired somebody to do it.
Yes, she did.
Which was probably smart, uh,because they would come three or

(03:59):
four o'clock in the morning andclean off the driveway so we
could, uh, get the car out to goto work.
So, uh, so I don't know, uh, ifthat answers our granddaughter's
question, if she has morequestions.
We had a long distance romance,but we survived.
Survived.
We got together many times and,um.
Uh, and here we are.

(04:20):
And in June we will be married36 years.
36 years.
So it can, uh, it can happen andit will last.
Okay, now what else we got totalk about?
We gotta look at our notes.
We take notes.
Those of you who say, gee, howdo you come up with all this
good stuff?
Well, we have notes and uh, oneof the things that we've talked

(04:43):
about before is my pasta making.
And I have become a, um, pastamaking king, so to speak.
Um, well that's questionable.
I want, I want to get all thestuff that the, uh, pasta
grannys use over in Italy.
You know, we talked, they'reover a hundred years old, that's

(05:04):
still, uh, baked pasta and, andget eggs from the chickens as
they chase'em around the yard.
Free range, free range chickens.
So I looked at one of ourfavorite, um, cooks.
There's a couple.
The girl came from Italy and herhusband from the United States,

(05:24):
they got married.
They have a cooking show, andthey had one episode where they
had all the equipment that theyuse.
So I said, I need everythingthey've got.
And Joe said, there's no wayyou're gonna have all that
stuff.
The cabinets are full.
Well, guess what?
We ordered a, uh, hyperhydroponic garden system.

(05:49):
I've never heard of it.
Can't pronounce it, didn't knowwhat it was.
But if they used it, John'sgoing to use it Now.
Why?
What are you putting in thatgarden?
Well, we need herbs for thepasta.
We need, uh, parsley, we needrosemary.
We need, uh, oregano, basil.
We need oregano.
You know, there's a lot ofstuff.

(06:10):
It, you top it with and you putin your sauce.
And, uh, you know, if you'regonna be a, a gourmet pasta
cook.
Oh, by the way, I've ordered apasta board that's coming.
Um, should get it next week.
So I'll be able to roll my doughout better than I'm doing it
now.
Now you have to be careful whenyou roll your dough out.

(06:30):
If you have granite, the doughwill be too cold.
So you need a board.
Uh, and the board that Johnordered has a lip on the front
of it so it doesn't slide rightwhen I'm kneading it, uh, and
push it, it doesn't slideforward.
So that, that makes a nice, uh,a nice thing.

(06:51):
And it's less cleanup too.
So that works out pretty good.
Uh, this back to this gardeningthing, if any of you wanna do
it, I suggest you look at acouple of YouTubes before you
buy one because.
This thing took a, uh, somewhatof a ma MIT graduate, uh, to
assemble and, uh, understandingdirections.

(07:14):
And, uh, we got it started lastnight, laying stuff out.
Um, from the box, Joe decided toput the, uh, seeds in.
What do we have?
13.
13 containers?
13 containers.
Of, uh, we have 13 differentseeds, 13 different seeds,

(07:36):
right?
Some of those seeds aremicroscopic.
You can't even see'em much lessPick'em up with a pair of
tweezers, which you have to doto insert in a sponge, which
goes into a funnel, which goesinto the garden, which is full
of five liters of water.
So.
Well, uh, I hope this works outwell.

(07:59):
Uh, this is not our firstattempt at gardening.
No.
We had a attempt when we livedin Sun City, uh, over in South
Carolina.
We had a, what was it, 20 by 20foot garden.
Mm-hmm.
It was Big Garden.
Big garden.
And we were, they had 60 plots.
We were plot number six 60 atthe very end.

(08:22):
So what this meant.
Everybody took their trash anddumped it behind our garden.
Plug burned behind.
Number 60, right?
So when the garden police came,which they did regularly to make
sure we were neat, right?
Neat garden, you know, thegarden was growing, the tools
were where they were supposed todo water holes.

(08:44):
What we got cited because we haddebris in our garden.
Outside of our garden.
Outside of our garden, but itlooks like we did it.
Mm-hmm.
So, Joe and her, uh, you know,knowing what to do all the time,
she says, we'll just load it up,take it to the dump, where I've
got a friend who will accept itbecause Joe made friends with

(09:08):
the dump lady at Christmas time.
So, uh, by giving her a box ofcandy so we could dump anything.
So we load up this wood and wireand debris in our trunk.
Go to the dump and the dump ladysays, I don't take this.
That's right.
I said, well, Joe gave you a boxof candy.
She said, no, no, don't take it.

(09:31):
I said, where can't we take it?
And she gave some directions.
You know, we're over in SouthCarolina, South Carolina, and
there's a lot of dirt roads anda lot of semi dirt roads.
And uh, I didn't understand herdirections.
I ended up at a gas station.
I went inside and I asked about,uh, where this location was, and

(09:53):
the guy said, I don't know whereit is, but we got a box of
puppies here.
And he said, don't you want apuppy?
And I said, no.
Uh, we don't want a puppy.
We want to dump this, uh, trash.
So we started driving down theroad and we found a building
site.
Yes.

(10:14):
I told Joe they had a dumpster.
They had a dumpster.
I said, Joe, go up there and askhim.
If we could use the dumpster.
Well, Joe went up there, butthey didn't speak English right?
Joe didn't speak Spanish, butthat assumed to me it was okay.
So I told Joe, I said, Joe, youdump it in.
Of course, I, I'll look out for,you know, anybody that comes

(10:37):
after us.
And, uh, if anybody's gonna bearrested, it's gonna be me.
It's gonna be Joe, becausesurely they would give her nice
quarters and probably a nicemeal.
Uh, before I bailed her out atmy age.
So we dumped it all and off wewent.
That was our experience.
However, in doing that garden,um, we were told to use 10 10

(11:00):
fertilizer.
Well, John, did you use that?
I did.
And I said, if a little is good,a lot is better.
And what happened?
So.
Yeah, everything died in ourgarden.
I went out, so we had to pulleverything out.
Rototill again, went out oneday.
There was nothing there butbrown weeds.

(11:23):
Oh my.
So we re regar it, rebuilt it,and we had a beautiful garden
with a cucumbers, tomatoes,corn, uh, peppers, string beans,
string beans.
We had everything.
And uh, we would go every.
Day in harvest our crop, right?
Joe would wash it in thelaundry, uh, tub, tub and

(11:46):
attempt to give it away.
I thought the neighbors wouldlike to have fresh vegetables,
but uh, when Joe came with awagon of fruit or vegetables,
they closed the garage doors andclosed the windows wouldn't come
to the door.
So, so we had an abundance of acrop.
Needless to say, we did notgarden.
The next year.

(12:07):
But we did have our tools and westill have them.
Some of'em are say number 60, weknow what that means.
So that means a lot.
Number 60.
So, so now we're doing a inside,inside gardening.
Well, we can't garden outside.
We live in a condo.
Condo and we got HOA.
We do have open field next to usand I would like to, uh.

(12:32):
Put some free range chickens outthere.
Uh, we've mentioned that beforeand everybody said I can't do
it, but including your wife, ifaccidentally chickens showed up,
nobody knows who they were.
Uh, and don't bring a, don'tbring us these Easter chickens.
And they hung out around our,uh, side door and we

(12:53):
inadvertently felt sorry for himand fed him, you know.
Uh, we might have some eggs.
No, that's not gonna happen,John.
So, and we, we went, we won'tget a rooster.
You know, we told you that storybefore.
So, uh, alright.
What else?
Are we near completion of this,uh, episode?
Episode?
Yeah, I think so.

(13:13):
I think so.
Uh, we won't bore you anymore,so.
We'll be on.
Again, hope you listen to us.
We do appreciate the listeners.
We certainly do.
We've got, uh, we use Buzzsproutto, uh, distribute our, uh,
podcast out on to the differentdirectories, you know, like
Apple and Spotify.
And we were notified last week,we had over a hundred followers

(13:39):
and, uh, I'm sure.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening.
And, uh, we'll stay audios untilnext time.
And goodbye.
Goodbye.