Frog and Goat

We planted two cucumber plants and the better-half isn’t overly fond of cucumbers. Naturally the two cucumber plants are the most prolific cucumber plants in the history of cucumber plants. I took some to work in hopes that everyone would be thrilled to have watermelon-sized cucumbers. I got rid of most of them.

Today the better-half made a jerk marinade and put it over some chicken. We love jerk chicken–full of spice and a touch of heat. The heat comes courtesy of our first jalapeño pepper. Luckily that plant is away from the cucumber plants that threaten to take over the world.

To use up some of the monstrous cucumbers, I made a cucumber sauce for the chicken. We’ve never tried the sauce but wherever I found the recipe said it went well with jerk spices. I also made a Vietnamese cucumber soup to go with the chicken tonight. If the sauce and soup are horrible, it doesn’t really matter because there are 2 more cucumbers sitting on the counter and I haven’t even been out to the garden today to pick more.

Last night I was talking to my mother on the phone, she’s leaving for a week long trip to Guatemala tomorrow, and I noticed two rabbits running around the front yard. As I sat down to talk and watch, one of the rabbits pounded the other on the head. It took me no time at all to realize that some loving was about to happen. Sure enough, as soon as the female rabbit quit smacking the male on his head, she let him know foreplay was over. Of course, the amount of time it took him to do his thing seemed rather short and depressing. I guess the phrase about sex and rabbits is more about frequency instead of duration.

The better-half is spending some time with his mother this evening and I’ve been spending time with my computer. I have to write a personal statement as part of my grad school application. I looked around on the web for some examples but couldn’t find anything that remotely resembled what I have to do. I think I’m finally finished with it. I find it difficult to write 5-6 paragraphs about myself and why I’m a good candidate for graduate studies.

I received my Miller Analogies test results today and can’t quite believe how well I did. I did freakishly well. When I took the SATs (a gazillion times) and the GREs (twice), I couldn’t do well to save my life. Seriously, if the test results were to determine if I lived or died, I did poorly enough that the firing squad would have delivered my scores via arrows through my airy skull. I don’t think I’ve gotten smarter in the last dozen or so years, so I must be more determined this time. Gasp, could I be shedding some of my apathy? I hope not. I have to have something that distinguishes me as member of Gen-X.

On a totally different subject, how is it that Tracy Chapman’s debut album is still fabulous after all this time? It never sounds old or dated.

Know what’s cool? Sitting at the dinner table, at 8pm, after eating a wonderful tilapia, tomato (fresh!) and rice dish with a side of asparagus and saying, “hey, let’s go get in the pool.”

We installed the fence ourselves. We started the weekend of July 4th and didn’t get very far. It was wicked hot and we had company on a few of those days. We wrapped it up on the following weekend.

It turned out pretty well:

Apologies on the lack of posts this week. One thing leading to another meant that I didn’t have time to devote to the site outside of stamping out comment spam.

It is hot, hot, hot and as much as I like summer I’m ready for a cooling trend. Just once I’d like to walk outside and not become immediately drenched in sweat. A pretty picture indeed.

We’re scheduled to babysit The Niece from tonight until Sunday morning. I’m sure by Sunday afternoon I’ll need a nap. She told us the other day that she refuses naps. To each her own.

Anyone else under siege by comment spam lately? Is July National Comment Spam Month and no one told me?

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Over the fourth of July weekend, I went to all the trouble to make the custard portion of peach ice cream only to find out after the custard, ice and salt were added to the maker that the ice cream maker was dead. We received it as a wedding present and we’ve only used it maybe four times in ten years. I was more than pissed off. On the way to the garbage can bad things happened to the ice cream maker. If I had a gun, I would have shot it.

All violence aside, does anyone have a recommendation on ice cream makers? Now that we don’t have one, I really want to make ice cream.

Here we are on another Summer Work Hours, No One at the Office Friday. I have Dianna Ross, among others, pumping out of the desktop speakers as I am the only one currently working upstairs.

I have to write a newsletter article about a course I’m working on and I am completely uninspired to write the article. It has to be a page and all I want to say is “The course rocks. It is a shining star in eLearning”. But that would be boring and a little too arrogant.

In other news, last night I was prepping for the MAT that I’m taking this afternoon. One of the analogies included Greenwich, which is at 0 degrees longitude. Greenwich, where I’ve been and stood right on the 0 degrees longitude line. We have a picture in which I’m trying hard not to look like every other tourist. I missed the question because, apparently, I’m a big stupid idiot. I made a list of concepts, words, famous names that I hope to scan off and on today (expressly going against the advice of studying right before the test). The listing for Greenwich reads “Greenwich is at 0 degrees longitude, you moron”.

Even if Greenwich isn’t on today’s test, I’ll never make the mistake again. Also, did you know Avogadro has his own number? I didn’t until last night and, honestly, until I just googled him I didn’t even know who Avogadro was. High school chemistry was a long time ago and I’m pretty sure we didn’t talk about him. Hard as that is to believe.

Yesterday evening we were out in the garden discovering all of our crops! Crops! Crops! And, while we were out there we heard a turkey making noise just off a little bit in the woods. I figured the turkey was just talking to me since I was squawking about the size of the cucumbers. The better-half took the crops! into the house and I stalked the turkey. I’m not sure if there was more than one turkey strolling through the woods but since I am Natty Bumppo come to life I did get fairly close to one. Then I turned around and headed back to the house and hocked a huge loogey. I’m such a lady. Not more than a second later I realized the better-half was standing on the porch looking at me. I asked him if he had seen me spit and he said no.

At least I have an excuse. The sinus/allergy thing has gone nusto on me and only after coming home today at eleven and sleeping all afternoon does it appear that the clog in my head is beating a retreat. I should certainly hope so since it was an ugly, ugly night last night. I really would like to understand how there can be that much snot.

Well, this entry certainly went off into the weeds didn’t it?