Richard’s Almanac: Learning — or not —from mistakes

It was “deja vu” all over again, as they say.

Redundancy jokes aside, last Sunday I felt as though I was repeating the past, and not in a good way.

I was getting ready to prepare something tasty for dinner. I had a fat pork chop in the freezer that I thought might work better for me if it was thinly sliced. So I spent some time getting a fine edge on my long carving knife.

The thick boneless chop was in a plastic bag in cold water to accelerate the defrosting. When I felt it was ready to be sliced–still slightly stiff with frost, I placed it on my cutting board and began to make my very thin slices. My plan was to hammer them after slicing to get them very tender.

All was going well until I reached the last slice. I thought it was too thick and wanted to slice it one more time. I placed it on its side and started my horizontal cut. And what do you think happened?

That’s right. The recently sharpened knife slipped on the icy meat and right into the index and middle fingers on my left hand.

I should know better. A few years back in this column I wrote about a similar carving mishap while cutting a tomato. That’s when I purchased the first aid kit that I now have. And I am glad I have it.

The biggest problem with a clean cut of this type is getting the bleeding to stop. Fortunately, I’m on any medication that encourages bleeding. I just had to apply pressure for a time until the flow stopped. Which it did in a reasonable amount of time.

The index finger wound was not as deep as the middle one.

But all the bleeding finally stopped. The cuts were cleaned and the bandages put in place.

I then went on with my food preparation. But I felt really stupid. I did not learn from a past mistake.

On another subject, readers might remember a few weeks back when I wrote about not missing the Library because it gave me an opportunity to read books I own but never got around to read.

“Traveler” by Ron McLarty was one of them. Shortly after the column ran, I received a note from Kate Skinner McLarty, Ron’s wife. She told me that Ron had died in February. She was pleased that I had read his book and went on to send me four more novels by him.

In addition to “Traveler,” he wrote  the New York Times bestseller “The Memory of Running,” “Art in America,”The Dropper” and “Mislaid.”

Ron was a veteran character actor who appeared in many films, on the Broadway stage and on television in such series as “Law & Order,” “Sex and the City,” and “Spenser for Hire.” I remember seeing him on “Law & Order.”

I am moving through his works and do recommend them.

Meanwhile, with a little more than a week until Christmas, I’m continuing with my decorations. I picked up a tree last weekend, but I must say that there are not many trees around. I guess that along with the COVID-19 surge came an East End population surge.

My grandkids will come over and help me decorate the tree.

Do you get a lot of weird phone calls? Unrecognizable numbers without names that seem to come at all hours of the day. I get them all the time and they’re all recordings talking about Medicare, car warrantees and solar power. I’ve learned to ignore them, but now they are using “749” exchanges —very clever —-so I automatically pick up.

So be careful and screen the calls. These nuisance calls never leave messages. And that’s good.