A COLOR PYRAMID

This looked like fun.

 

Name the six Red things closest to you.

 

1. Jewel case label for my double CD set of The Essential Harry Belafonte. Totally fantastic.
2. The background on the oriental style rug on the living room floor.
3. Red jewel case with some scanned photos on it.
4. Last of the foil wrapped Christmas kisses up in the hutch
5. Cloth binding on James Burns The Vineyard of Liberty.
6. A pair of double pointed knitting needles, a crochet hook and some left over yarn.

 

Name the five Blue things closest to you.

 

1. My trusty dark blue mug. Currently filled with lemon ginger tea. Stash lemon ginger tea.
2. The blue flowers in the stained glass lampshade up the antique secretary.
3. The shawl I’m working on for mom’s cousin. Half way there.
4. Front cover of a new craft book. Traditional Scandinavian Knitting. Yum.
5. And the light blue cover of Brother Juniper’s Bread Book.  Wonderful artisan style

 

Name the four Green things closest to you.

 

1. The chair I’m sitting in and the baggy sweatshirt that’s keeping me nice and warm.
2. Photo of a home made labyrinth from the home and garden section of last weeks paper.
3. A ball of green yarn in the work basket and a green crochet hook.
4. Mom’s shawl.

 

Name the three Yellow things closest to you.

 

1. The cover of Durant’s The Life of Greece.  The new film 300 looks interesting so I was doing a little reading on Greek history.
2. A bouquet yellow silk dahlias on the top of computer disk.
3. The background on my heron plate I got for Christmas.

 

Name the two Purple things closest to you.

 

1. The amethyst in the center of a Celtic cross pendant.
2. An afghan made with variegated yarn. Actually could have included this on every color.

 

Name the Black thingclosest to you.

 

           Bandits stripes. That's the afghan behind her.

 

 

 

SOME THINGS I DON'T WANT ON MY PLATE

From a private journal. Some items I really don't want to find on my menu.

1. Liver and onions. Dad loved these. They smell pretty good. The bacon that got cooked with it tasted ok. It's not the flavor so much, liver doesn't really taste that good but it's the texture, yuck.

2. Grapefruit. Mom likes it. Tastes bitter to me. Grapefruit livesavers are ok, but they don't taste anything like the real fruit does.

3. Anything with tentacles. Don't want to cope with anything that could hang onto the plate if it had half a chance.

4. Tea flavored with anything but milk, spices, lemon, and the like. Chocolate hazelnut tea. Huh?

5. Actually, I'm not that fond of coffee with more than one flavoring. The little bakery I used to work at would do a latte with chocolate, caramel and almond for example. To me, it was just sickly sweet.

6. Weird flavor combos for chips. I'm not eating that many chips these days anyway, but chili cheese fritos are about as exotic as it gets. Russ over at Inner and Outer Demons occasionally mentions odd chip and cracker combos that his guy brings home. Wish I could remember some of them.

7. Have to agree with Cin. Don't want to know anything about veal. Let it grow up and turn into a decent tenderloin.

8. Brussel sprounts. Sorry, I can't think of any way to make these things edible.

9. The parts of the chicken that you find in that little bag inside the chicken. I'll skip those thank you. The cats like them and are welcome to them.

10. Several things I do love. Garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, good cheese, fresh fruit and fresh bread. Preferably in the same meal.

 

DOPEY ON DAYQUILL

I've been lucky the last couple of years. Haven't had the flu. Barely had any colds. Just the I'm kinda tired and a little stuffy symptoms. Luck ran out last week. There's been a nasty little virus making the rounds at work. There's even been some schools up north closing down because they had so many people out.

Funny thing is, it doesn't start out that bad. At least not for me. Tired, a little stuffy, a little croaky. Got up Tuesday morning and my first real hint that things were so not good was looking a breakfast and thinking "I really don't want to eat this." Got some of it down and followed it with a half dose of Dayquill. This is the daytime stuff, not the the knock you out with cold medicine plus alcohol stuff. About ten minutes later I was holding down the recliner, going "IIIIIIIIIIIIII feeeeeeeeeeeeeeel loooooooooooopy." That was it. I was down for the count. Missed two days of work and went home early on Thursday. At least I was able to dig out my desk. Begged a ride from mom Thursday and Friday so I wouldn't have to make the three block walk in from the employee lot. She met me Friday afternoon with a set sneezes. Luckily Saturday was the worst day for her and I was cheerful enough to look after her for a change.

Have some things to catch up with but at least my brain is back up to about 3/4 speed. I really hate this.

TORTILLA UPDATE

Add about a half teaspoon of Mrs. Dash original recipe per cup of masa. Gives them a nice little bite. Very good wrapped around a couple of thin slices of Tillamook pepper jack cheese while the bread is still warm. Toss in a touch of refried beans and an apple on the side. Yummy. Have just touch of a cold this weekend. Definitely doubliing up on the vitamn C.

SEVERAL GOOD THINGS

It actually got above 60 on Thursday. It does this every year. We'll have just enough warm weather to coax the bulbs above ground. Then it will get cold again and the crocuses will look as though they wish there was a rewind button handy. Sorry guys once you are up there is no going back.

The crape myrtle we planted last fall may have come through after all. It looks like there is green wood at the base of the plant. Since we've never had one before I have absolutely no idea what they should look like in the winter. Except that it looks like heck. Actually we've had pretty good luck over the last three years. Most of what we've planted has flourished. If this one doesn't pull through, we'll fall back to native plants like the Nootka roses.

Crocuses are up. Not a lot of blooms. Not that I'd know for sure. I don't usually go wandering around the yard when I get home at night and it was raining hard when I got back from a morning run to the craft store. Almost time to fire up the cameras again.

Had a huge flight of Canada geese go over the house Friday morning as I was setting off for the morning commute. They were heading northwest so they may have been heading for the grass fields north of town. Sounded like they were catching up with the local gossip as they flew.

New toy arrived last week. A nice, shiny tortilla press. It works very nicely thank you. Once I got the hang of it. Took a couple of tries, but at least the kitchen didn't look like hand to hand combat took place before dinner. They aren't that big, but three fit in the over size electric skillet. This puppy is big enough to bake a sheet cake if that's what floats your boat. In theory anyway. Non stick surface so they are virtually fat free. The tortillas that is.

I get a kick out of making bread. It's something people have been doing for generations. I don't know, I guess there's a feeling of kinship with all those who've done it before me. It's so basic. Man may not live by bread alone, but he doesn't get very far without it. And it seems like everybody, and I do mean everybody, has some kind of flat bread that you either wrap around the food or use as an edible spoon to get the goodies from the plate to you. Messy but effective.

And last, but certainly not the least. A Hubble shot from my favorite astronomy site. Galaxies of every shape and size from cluster S0740 approximately 450 million light years away. The glowing elliptical may contain up to 100 billion stars. But, my favorite is the gem of a spiral galaxy in the lower left corner. Mommy can I design galaxies when I grow up?

RESOLUTIONS

Since the elected hired help (including our somewhat schizo Republican senator from merry old Oregon) back in the Emerald City can't seem to cowboy up after all I offer Jack Ohman's take on "non-binding resolutions."

Not much I can add, it there? Actually, the only thing that would make it better are a couple of Iraqi graveyards complete with mourners and militants. What was that song that got the Smothers Brothers yanked back during the Viet Nam War? We're neck deep in the Big Muddy.......? Works for both sides.

READY TO SPIT

Haven’t been posting much the last week or so. I’ve been trying to finish a couple of knitting projects. I can surf the net and knit, (at least as long as the pattern is very simple) but I can’t type and knit. At least not of either to make a difference. LOL And I really want to get this piece done.

 

I forget the name of the page in Newsweek where I first came across this story. It's the one with all the goofy editorial cartoons and "I know you won't believe it but it really happened" snippets. My first reaction was "what the *(&))!" and then I got madder, if that was possible. I guess it was. Few things make me actually see red. Pure, unmitigated, stupidity ranks near the top. Actually pulled something in my shoulder throwing the poor magazine across the room. Talk about killing the messenger.

 

Ever come across something that makes you so mad you could just spit?  Or end up using a couple of broad words in front of your mother? Read these first.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/30/jailed.rapevictim.ap/index.html

 

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/30/Tampabay/Police_jail_rape_vict.shtml

 

 

What is it with these people? She’s a pre-med student. They have her address. I doubt if she was going anywhere. The medical supervisor is now claiming that she couldn’t give the medication without specific orders and religion wasn’t discussed. What’s wrong, your dialing finger broken? Battery die in your cell phone? There’s nobody to call to get an ok for the medication? If the victims’ claims are true, what, there wasn’t someone you could call to dispense the medication in your place? And by the way the supervisor is an employee of a private firm contracted to provide medical services at the jail.

 

What happens if her story about the rape is true and the delay in the investigation leaves this guy on the street to attack someone else? If there is another victim after this she should consider suing the socks off the City of Tampa and anyone else involved in this fiasco. I know this conscience clause crap has been happening in different parts of the country and it makes me had as hell. If you don’t want to be put in the position of violating your personal beliefs then take a job where it won’t come up.

 

Personally, I believe the only group that can make a claim like this stand up are the Jains. They believe ALL life is sacred and go very far out of their way to try and do as little harm to even the smallest life forms as possible.

 

As for the rest, I assume that you make it to every anti war rally and anti capital punishment rally you can get to. Yeah, right and there’s a slightly used bridge in Brooklyn and some swampland up the road on the market. Cheap.

 

To its credit the city has already changed procedures to avoid something like this in the future. Trouble is, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Has some form of critical mass been reached? When did following the rules become more important than compassion? Or has it always been this way for some and we just didn’t see it because it couldn’t possibly happen to us, could it?

WEEKEND

Finally, the weather is above freezing at night. I don't run my car very much in the morning to warm things up, but not having to do it all will be nice. That and taking time to scrape things off. I can't really complain, at least it never got below zero around here. My sympathy to the folks east of the rockies. I can't even imagine weather that cold.

Kitchen looked like the aftermath of a small war after we got dinner ready last night. Our first attempt at home made tortillas. Hard to believe it took so many utensils for eight tortilas. They deliscious. Nowhere near round, but they tasted great. First order of business after dinner was a short session on Amazon in search of a tortilla press. It should be here by the end of the week. They may not be perfectly round, but at least they won't look like triangles. (I hope) They were really good, honest. Great with a few bean and chicken and a great big freen salad. Yay for milder weather. Salads may be good for you, but they taste better when the sun is shining. LOL

Did some furniture moving today. Sewing machine back downstairs. Bookcase back upstairs. We're both a little stiff but the details can be taken care of during the week. Good friend had to say goodby to one of her four footed friends this week. I remember when Sprite was winning their hearts. He actually started out with a neighbor. But being a cat of excellent taste, he decided where HE wanted to live. It's hard to say goodby. But, as long as we remember them, they will still live with us in a way.

ANOTHER VOICE

Another great Jack Ohman cartoon. But, I have to admit I think it's kind of insultiing. To the pigs of the world, not the veep. I don't think it's possible to insult Mr. Cheny, he does a good enough job on his own.