‘What is the use of a book’, thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversations?’

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Frog

Today I walked into our local library and signed up for a library card. The librarian asked me if I had ever had a library card with them. I said when I was about ten. I don’t think she believed me because she looked me up in the system. And, lo! I wasn’t in there. Yeah, I was ten in 1978. No one has that kind of archive.

The local branch isn’t very big but it is pretty and is laid out nicely. When I used the self-check and saw the return dates come up on the screen, I laughed to myself. I had forgotten what it is like to take out books from a regular library. I mean, it’s been awhile on my part (see the above paragraph). I’m used to taking books out of university libraries when you have either staff or graduate student privileges. In other words, you take them out for practically forever.

I’m most excited about the access to the e-library. I didn’t want to look like I was cruising for my fix so I did check out two physical books. I’ll probably do that on occasion in the future, because, as we all know, physical books are pretty awesome. E-books? Stellar. I didn’t think I’d be like that but it’s like sucking down a Slurpee and getting a brain freeze. It hurts so good and I can’t wait for the next brain freeze. I’ve had my iPad since May 11th and I’ve read four books so far. You can see why I needed to go with a free option. I told the better-half last night that I can’t transfer my $60/week lunch budget of my working life to a book-buying habit. The piddling amount of money I’m making now would not sustain this habit.

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The weekend

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Frog

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It’s not the first dip in the pool, but it is the first beautiful afternoon with a dip in the pool. As most of the east coast knows, we’ve been in a stormy state for the last week. Which basically means we’re wet, humid (two different things) and grumpy because we have to keep changing our shirts and keep applying ever more deodorant.

Today begins a long weekend and I hope to get a few projects taken care of before we have friends and family over for Memorial Day. I went nuts with the hose today and blasted off flaking paint. If nothing else gets done that needs to be taken care of before people show up.

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Really bad photos and a walk around the yard

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Frog

Yep, I took photos with my cell phone in some of the harshest light. Just for you. Because I’m too lazy to take the real camera outside and wait another hour for the sun to become softer.

The garden, appropriately marked:

I actually weeded, fertilized and watered yesterday. Really. Some of those weeds are still attached to their roots and others were severed with the stirrup hoe. They’ll die soon enough.

Our first tomato:

Those beans that I transplanted out of the compost appear to be bush beans and they are flowering:

Let’s look at the fruit, shall we?

Here are the blueberries from the plants that the better-half’s mother bought and had delivered to her house the same week she moved to assisted living. I mention this not to be mean (really), but to show that I’m not crazy when I say she has the ability to drive us insane at times. Anyway, these plants are actually producing fruit this year:

I ate this raspberry:

The blackberries will be here soon. We trimmed the heck out of the bramble this year and you can hardly tell. I think the blackberries liked the haircut:

Here are some baby grapes. I don’t know if these will be white or purple grapes. Last year they didn’t last long enough for us to see them ripen (we have both but I can’t remember which is which). I think if the grapes go south that I might grab some of these leaves for cooking:

As I came around the house, Jim meowed to me. When he realized I had the camera, he declined to show his face:

Simon can only be described as a grumpy old man who loves sitting in the shade of the maple tree:

Posted in Gardening, Generic Thoughts | 1 Comment

I broke the aioli

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Frog

Yesterday for dinner I roasted a chicken and decided it would be a great idea to serve it with some aioli (basically garlic mayo). I had all the ingredients and I’ve made it once before a thousand years ago. I used about 4 1/2 cloves of garlic which was the size of one of our homegrown heads. I say it was 4 1/2 cloves because one clove was pretty small, but Bittman says you can go as high as 8 cloves. The better-half said that’s what I should have done. It’s plenty garlicky as it is and I can truthfully say that I used a whole head of garlic.

I added the egg yolk and mustard to the blender and chopped the garlic. Everything was set and then like a MORON, I let the olive oil into the blender about 5,000 times too quickly and the sauce broke. Actually, I don’t know if it was ever emulsified appropriately to begin with. I remembered that another yolk would fix it and so threw one in. Yeah, the blender is too FREAKIN’ fast for aioli.

I searched the intertubes for an answer and found this. I put a new egg yolk into a bowl and got out a whisk. I slowly poured the broken aioli into the bowl and whisked efficiently. Which basically means that I paid attention this time and damn that sauce came right back together. It was delicious with the chicken last night and I can’t wait to make a sandwich with the leftovers and slather the bread with that aioli. There will be magic in the kitchen.

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Lucy decorates

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Frog

Lucy, our youngest cat, has a habit of bringing me things to play with when she’s decided that my life at the computer is too boring. She drags the item into the room and then chirps at me to let me know there’s something for me to see. Usually it’s the stick toy–a fuzzy ball and dangling felt fish on a stick, but today she brought me something else.

I present her bed:

The bed is normally in the kitchen. The kitchen is downstairs.

Lucy is a nut.

Posted in Thinking | 1 Comment

Yesterday

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Frog

So, this happened yesterday. No, we didn’t see the first lady. That was the other ceremony. This was the o’dark 30 one.

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It’s just too bad that girl’s a bum

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Frog

We have bamboo place mats that we use on a pretty constant basis. We like the look of them, but have HAD it with how they let condensation through to the table below. I’ve been saying for lo these many months that I’d figure out a way to fix them. Today was the day. I found a cheap vinyl tablecloth with flannel backing and bought a can of spray adhesive. Supplies were less than $13 bucks because the tablecloth was about 40% off. Or something. Math isn’t my strong suit. Whatever the amount, it was much cheaper than buying all new place mats and I have spray adhesive that I can use to redo the skittles game my sister and I have had since we were kids. That’s a story for another day.

Supplies:

I initially thought the tablecloth was pretty ugly, but taken in smaller doses, it’s not so bad:

It has a certain retro design to it, but it really doesn’t matter since we won’t see that side again. I put the vinyl side against the place mat and the flannel side should slide around on the dining room table like a dream.

I’m not sure why this last photo is so blurry and badly lit. Maybe I was high off the fumes of the spray adhesive:

Just a random thought here, but does anyone else hate the smell of new vinyl? I hate it with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns. Between the spray adhesive fumes and the vinyl smell, it’s a wonder I didn’t stumble out of the garage and face-plant into the back yard.

Update: We’ve been using the improved place mats and last night I noticed both of us stuck our napkins under our drinks. This was after we’d finished eating and we were planning on sitting there for awhile. We, of course, had our napkins in our laps for dinner, but we put them under our glasses as soon as it was chat time. The funny thing was we both had no reason to do it as the new backing was working as it should.

Posted in Generic Thoughts, House Proud | 1 Comment

With silver bells and cockle shells

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Frog

After my eye doctor appointment this morning, I stopped to buy plants for the garden. I know you probably don’t care about this, but I wanted a least one positive garden entry this season since it’s usually doom and gloom with the pestilence and the who knows what the heck. So, before I plant a thing, I’m feeling hopeful that this is going to be the season that pleases me most about vegetable gardening. Remind me of this when I’m bitching in August.

I picked out some heirloom and a pink girl variety of tomatoes. Hopefully, I won’t end up with Frankentomatoes because I’m putting a hybrid next to an heirloom. Assuming that the tomatoes do anything this year is a BIG assumption on my part. I also bought two eggplants. I had hoped for ichiban, but ended up with the regular ol’ globes. I also purchased some peppers–a few hot and a few not. Finally, I went a little nuts on herbs: parsley, tarragon, basil and thyme.

We have an onion that has sprouted in the pantry so that’s going out there for fun. I’m going to transplant some of the beans out of the compost pile and I have to move a bunch of chives that survived the winter. All of that is for later in the week when it warms up again. The all-day rain yesterday has really made the weeds go nuts in the garden spot. I think I can finally see some of the lettuce I planted out there several weeks ago. I find it a bit dodgy to weed when new plants are coming up because I worry that a weed and a baby lettuce look too much alike. But, I’m going to give it a whirl in a couple of days when things have dried out a little.

Tomorrow I’m painting the front porch. This week is full of ambition.

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I’m Done Except for that Ceremony

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Frog

Yesterday I defended myself to my committee and they approved me for graduation. It was kind of a funny meeting as my advisor told me the day before that in preparation everyone on my committee were all “what is it we’re supposed to do for her”. It seems there hasn’t been an EdS student in their midst (at least on campus) for something like 10 years. So, it wasn’t all in my imagination. They really were confused about how to handle me. I heard there’s another one floating around now but I’m not sure if she’s in the Instructional Design program or if she’s in one of the more traditional School of Ed programs that produce EdS folks (like educational leadership).

Anyway, I presented the project I’ve been working on all semester and will continue working on through the summer. Folks were pleased and we generated some good conversation. One of the professors on my committee is someone I’ve had as a teacher and she was very complimentary to me about my skills and it was a little embarrassing. I thanked her as well as I could. She remembered some incredible details about our conversations inside and outside of the classroom.

At the end of my presentation, I had to go out into the hallway while they discussed letting me pass–probably more like they had to pass around my exam card so they could all sign it. As I exited the room, I found a classmate waiting to go in to talk about her dissertation. She’s in the early stages of writing so her meeting was more of a check-in type thing. It was really good to see her since I had just referenced her in my meeting. I told her that I’d just been talking about her and how much I liked working with her. I think that surprised her, but it was true. I did enjoy my contact with all of the international students. That’s a very good part of the program. I wished her the best of luck and she congratulated me on finishing.

I’m a bit curious who I will see at graduation. Because the program is so mixed with graduate students and doctoral students, I have no idea who is graduating and who is continuing on. Since the School doesn’t do a formal ceremony, I’ll just have to look for people in the large Graduate School ceremony at o’dark thirty on a Friday morning in May.

Posted in Thinking | 3 Comments

Willie doesn’t disappoint

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Frog

Willie Nelson and his son, Lukas, singing a Pearl Jam song:

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