Thursday, January 18, 2007

Madness Takes Its Toll


Riff Raff: [singing] It's astounding, time is fleeting, madness takes its toll.
..... a sung line from Rocky Horror Picture Show

This is one of my favorite and most used potholders .... a gift from that famous SK blogger, Brown Shoes.

I also see that the phrase "madness takes its toll" is being used in protests against the Bush wars (current and future) in the Middle East. I further note a couple very recent uses of "The Madness of King George" in regards to young master Bush. Not to be unkind to the Idiot Prince, but his speech to the People the other night fell about twenty yards short of his receivers. Somebody needs to tell him to step into it when he makes a pass. Get some serious weight up there on that front foot. Stop cringing.

I used to be of the opinion that Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, and Rocky Horror Picture Show were just three musical versions of one story. And if you closed your eyes, it was sometimes hard to say which you were hearing. I arrived at that opinion some twenty-five years ago and can no longer summon up what I thought was proof, but that was my story and I'm stickin' to it.

It has been cold today. It will not be as cold tomorrow. Will it?


Tuesday, January 16, 2007

SNOW AGAIN?

Snow on Rhododenrun Leaves ..... manipulated photo by FossilGuy

Another snow day! Imagine that! The neighbor and his two young sons are out rolling giant snowballs prepratory to erecting a snowman. And their Australian Ridgeback is out there keeping pace with their every move. I wonder if they own a sled? Maybe I should wander out and offer the loan of our sled. Guess I'll go do that.



Monday, January 15, 2007

TOO MUCH ON MY PLATE?


Sometimes your cup just runeth over. Or if not your cup, maybe your dishwasher ... and skilled mopping action points the way to survival. But as you grow older and older, the mop handle grows shorter and shorter and pretty soon you can't reach the floor with it. OR if you bend forward far enough to reach the floor, you pass some critical point of physics and fall victim to a number of Laws of Motion, etc.,. You crash to the floor. You become the mop. And not at all zen-like.

Okay. That's my 2007 gesture towards the Gods of Whining, Pewling, and Mewling. Is that a Trinity? A Triamverate?

And I forgot to piss and moan about the dreadful weather. There is sunshine in the treetops and ice on our street. Tomorrow Allie will go back to school (again), but snow is forecast and I expect him to be here all day (again) watching cartoons and delivering his endless chatter about events and creatures largely imaginary. Since last Thanksgiving, school has been largely imaginary.

Can we blame someone for this? George Bush? Whatever happened to "Leave No Child Behind?" Continuing strings of 'NO A.M. KINDERGARTEN' notices on the CKSD web-site are certainly leaving Aleister behind. I am reaching the point here where I want to begin my sentences with "When I was that age....".



Okay .... you toss these critters in olive oil (to coat) with maybe a few squirts of a good balsamic vinegar, spread in a single layer on trays lined with parchment paper, sprinkle generously with coarse salt, fresh ground black pepper, and various and sundry seasonings, then roast in a 400 degree oven for one hour.





And, to provide some complementary protein, toss in a chicken or two, stuffed AND adorned with rosemary.

A good, hearty, country-rustic dinner for entertaining friends during these dark & dreary months (which should be blamed on somebody ... George Bush?)

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Holiday Guests

Grandson Morgan and daughter Kelly arrived around 10:30 Christmas morning after a very early flight north from Sacramento. They were with us till early on the morn of New Year's Day. Kelly and I cooked a lot and staged one dinner party (on Friday night) where we were working together.

On Saturday, son David came down from Oak Harbor and stayed over till Sunday afternoon. For the first time in several decades, we made a 'family showing' at the Unitarian Fellowship on Sunday morning (with Kelly, Dave, Morgan and Aleister).

I do so enjoy my family!



My Bad!

Here are the illustrative images that were supposed to accompany the previous post. They are meant to give you an inkling of how busy I've been in these trying times. After many hours of blaming the 'New Blogger' for my inability to post pix earlier, I came back to the keyboard to try once again. This time I noticed a small unchecked box at the bottom of the photo posting page .... one of those "Do you agree with the terms..." thing-a-mabobs that you see now and then while installing new software. So I checked the box and now I'm back in the photo business.



PROGRESS

So I switched to the "New Blogger" this morning .... out of a desire to better myself AND as an attempt to stay within shouting distance of the rapidly advancing wave of electronic change.

I was also going to make excuses as to why I've not been writing much over the past few weeks. And, in that vein, I was going to publish a couple photos of myself in 'Busy Bee' aspect. However, Progress has overtaken me and the New Blogger has been flatly turning away any and all of my attempts to post these photos. For Christ's Sake! I'm a photographer, not a writer! I need my visual aids!

Photo one showed me in profile, standing in the street in front of our house, operating grandson Allie's Xmas remote-controlled Jeep. Photo two showed both Allie and myself (he appearing slightly fuzzy) as he attempted to flee from the Jeep - which I was attempting to run him down with. This is a 'game' that he invented and seemed to enjoy very much. He did a lot of running and a lot of shrieking. Anyway - these were supposed to show how busy I've been recently. But the pix have flown off to Electonic La-La Land instead of to this blog post. (And I'm wondering what will be the fate of this post once I hit the 'Publish' button?)

So I think I will just do that -- to make sure that even this is not in vain.

Friday, January 05, 2007

New Version?

It's been so long since I've posted anything here that the servers have zapped up their technology with a new form of blog and are now leaving a series of promotional barricades for me to leap over in order to get to my old reliable (I thought) page. It makes me feel sort of ....


Have any of you out there made the switch? And would you recommend it? What happens to your old blog and all its stored treasures, I wonder(?).

I would say that we've totally survived the Holiday Season ... EXCEPT that our tree and our outdoor decoration lights are still up. I got a couple of great gifts from Dr. Bookworm: a Ken Onion chef's knife (built like and as sharp as a samauri sword) and a Staub 'Cocotte' pot (ten pounds of enameled cast iron with tight-fitting lid so that I can do braised dishes). AND noapologies parents gave me one of their old food warmers that I've eyed jealously for years ... and then the special plug to it disappeared .... and a week later was inexplicably found in the pantry where it ought to have been all along. But not until I'd cried WOLF! loud and long. (Amongst other things, I gave Madame Bookworm DVD's of the first three seasons of the Sopranos.)


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