Happy ValenPresiBlossom Day.

Calender has been a bit crowded lately, so Happy February 17, 2010 !!!







In celebration and needing an excuse, husband had made late afternoon appointment in Coos Bay. Did I wanna go to Bennetti's after?" "Yeah, you drive". The sky was bright blue and clear, very little wind, 62 degrees. Perfect!

Left work at noon, all light hearted and junk. Sat happily in parking lot at NBMC and read my book.

We still had an hour to blow so drove to the car wash near Bennetti's, popped in five bucks and got the buggy scrubbed. I'm sure the tough little spiders who live in the mirror and make me brand new spiders webs were not washed away down the drain. Must not be related to Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Then pulled out,made a left and parked right in front of a local antiques and auction house. We were looking for a small shelf. So schlepped through the place and went up stairs where all the cheap...ah inexpensive goods are kept. Actually found a shelf and paid six bucks for it. Their house dog, Bentley, is a nice golden retriever announced our presence and deigned to let us pat his head.

Departed for Bennetti's, made left, made left, made left, parked, walked to Bennetti's, signed list, we were first and got a table near the fish tank, upstairs windows were already taken. The fish swam over, gazed at us soulfully and drifted away. I had the special, Halibut. Husband had the chicken picatta and decided he does not particularly care for capers. We had dessert. His was chocolate thunder, which consisted of a very nice checkerboard cake thing with like 15 different kinds of chocolate. I had Tiramisu, very nice little Lady Finger cake thing filled with sweet Italian cream in the center. Service was excellent.

We departed Coos Bay about 6:30 pm, drove home in near perfect twilight. The constellation of Orion hung right over head. Like I said, nice and clear. We don't often get a view of the stars, all that fog y'know. Must drive local astronomers nuts.

I wish Blogger had smell-o-vision!!!

I decided it was time to go into casserole mode, make something for a weeks worth of meals, if it lasts that long.

Roamed through the fridge and found 3/4 of a white onion, a bag of shredded cheeses (4 different kinds), chopped garlic, 3/4 stick of butter. From the pantry (various shelves) I found a can of large black olives, a can of golden Hominy, one bag of dried bread cubes suitable for dressing, container of almonds, from the freezer one largish brick of frozen turkey stock with lots of turkey and from the spice shelf, salt, pepper, oregano, paprika, red pepper flakes, whole nutmeg and celery seeds.

Chopped the onions and partially caramelized in butter, added the frozen turkey stock, salt, pepper and above mentioned spices.

Into my largest Tupperware bowl went the croutons, two eggs, one cup of shredded cheese, couple tablespoons of chopped garlic, can of halved black olives, can of hominy. Dipped a couple cups of hot stock to moisten the dry ingredients, when the eggs had tempered added the rest of the stock. Hmm, this looked very moist, soupy. What the heck else do I have in the cupboard, wait a minute, I spy some saltine crackers, so I crumbled up about two stacks of crackers. That absorbed the extra moisture nicely. Poured into the usual casserole dish and baked at 350 degrees for one hour. Cooked up nice and solidly. Husband sampled and approved. The brown looking things are the almonds. This is not a beautiful but it isn't bad for free styling from the kitchen. Must work on presentation. Iron Chef judges would not give me five points for this.

Alex McQueen died today in London.

He designed the lobster claw shoes shown above. See what you miss on Project Runway when they limit the accessories to BlueFly.com ?

I'm sure the models who have worn these shoes are now very accomplished acrobats.

New bridge crossing the Colorado at Hoover Dam

You really should click on the picture for a close up of the dizzying details. Gale sent this to me very recently.



This is the new bridge costing 160 millions dollars to build. The only way across on 93 was to follow all the semi's over the top of the Dam. Good Lord it was a long lookee see down.

The very last time I was across the dam in person was while I was working at WKMH in Emmett about 1987? or so. MaryAnn Hosier had just heard from her son that his girlfriend was involved in a car wreck in Nevada and was in Phoenix and would Mom go get her? I volunteered to help drive. We did the round trip in 48 hours.

That was trip that I FINALLY got to see the Grand Canyon. The river looks green from the rim. It was so early in the morning, there were no Park Rangers to take our money at the gate so we just keep booking.

Drove to Phoenix, picked up the girl friend, Drove to Las Vegas by way of the Hoover dam. It was pitch black darkness, there was thunder, lightning, rain, lots of rain. We tippy toed across the bridge and were almost immediately blinded by the light from Vegas even though we were several miles from there as of yet.

Got into town, found a room, it was a party room because there were two queen sized beds and a very large refrigerator. The girls asked me if I want to go to the restaurant and get a meal. No! I want to collapse on the bed!

Next morning we stopped briefly at a casino for one of those inexpensive meals and I decided to play a slot machine but was soon persuaded to leave because the cockroach crawling all over it wanted to play. No problem.

We left Vegas drove north to near where the car wreck was. We actually got out and helped the girl pick through some of the wreckage and she found her drivers licence and other helpful items. Then we headed home.

BULWER-LYTTON CONTEST 2010 !!!!

You too can submit an entry to the Bulwer-Lytton contest to the address below:

The deadline is April 15, 2010.
Submit your entry on a postcard, address on address side, entry on writing surface side.


Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
Department of English
San Jose State University
San Jose, CA 95192-0090

Deadline 4-15-10

One sentence. Category general. Keep it under 50 to 60 words, stay away from puns.

This is my submission only I am not going to actually submit it to San Jose as the website did not actually give an email address....soooooo......

The chef hunched over his bowl inhaling the smell of saccharomyces cerevisiae and was immediately reminded of his childhood breakfast which consisted occasionally of three sour dough pancakes discarding the first test pancake if the pan was not hot enough because the little sprinkle of water just sort of sat there and did not dance into exuberant steam immediately and topped with syrup not the fake maple syrup but the real genuine maple syrup the kind that comes in a glass bottle shaped like a maple leaf and can be used to hold wild flowers once it has been emptied and rinsed or as a candle holder.

Snowmageddon

I received these pictures by email today, Monica sent them to me. They are of her and her husbands house NEAR WASHINGTON DC that received 3 foot of snow. They are at home still digging out,so far the power is still on.


















She also said she dreamt of Barrow......

I am thankful I live on the West coast where we only have to worry about rain, tsunami, and blackberry bushes.

Relaxing Friday

This morning I made sour dough pancakes after firing up the starter last night. Yummy, four lovely pancakes. Must go shopping, need more eggs. I decided to leave the starter sit out 24 hours without a lid in hopes of some wild Coquille yeast landing on the starter and adding some local flavor. I'm sure there is Latin taxonomy for Coquille yeast. Must Google that.

Sue and I went out to lunch at Frazier's then walked to the Downtown Emporium where I purchased a new to me angel. It is on a long metal stick so that you may poke it in the ground. This angel is a sort of Red, White and Blue angel, very patriotic although you may have to imagine the Red part unless it is the rusted bits. During lunch I bitched about the 60% of our department who went missing for a total of 6 1/2 days this week!!! Tuesday was brutal! Then we walked to The Oddity Shop to peruse their used books. Most of them for two dollars each, Score!






And now for the puzzle portion of this blog. I finally got around to actually opening my Secret Santa present from work. It was three very large glass candle sticks or exotic drinking glasses like the kind that come loaded with ice, rum, Mai Tai mix, fresh fruit,a paper umbrella and straws for everyone. So I decided to put them on the mantle. The question is just how many candles and/or candle sticks ARE sitting on that mantle? I ax you...

And as I sit here I am listening to very loud borborygmus from my tummy. Do sour dough pancakes keep on working once inside? Ew