Plans

Am not really sure what will be going on this weekend, as of right now. Himself will work tomorrow and it's entirely possible that he will work Sunday, as well. He won't know until this evening at the earliest and tomorrow afternoon is more likely.

He did change the air ram on the truck so he is getting power back. He had been having a hard time getting up to 40 mph. The rigs must be in top shape, with everything working properly, to be able to haul loads of up to 88,000 pounds. It's always a good idea to keep things running right but it's especially vital at this time of year. During harvest, there is no time to be messing about with disabled trucks. He isn't the most patient person in that respect, either. His time OTR shows when he becomes frustrated with guys standing around gabbing at the scales or "putting" down the road, talking on their phones.

I may end up driving the rv to the nearest dump station myself. The thing scares me because it's big and heavy and the steering really needs to be tightened up. Himself has a lot more faith in my ability to drive it than I do, to tell the truth. The tanks need to be dumped and flushed, though, so if he works Sunday... well, it's the Old Lady behind the wheel. Duck and cover!

The next thing will be winterizing it. We had talked about taking it out one last time this weekend, which would have obviated the need for me to do stuff myself, but with nasty head colds we really aren't feeling much like camping anywhere. It's not like going 5 miles would be such a big deal but you know how it goes sometimes.

Last night's supper turned out really, really well. Roast chicken with vegetables and red wine and ratatouille. mmmmmmm Have some chicken left and some of the sauce, too, so I'm set for lunch. Since the chicken weighed around 4 pounds you'd think that there would be enough left on the bones that I could make chicken and noodles or something like that. Not gonna happen. There's barely enough left to pick for my lunch, let alone do something with it.

There is no ratatouille left at all. Not one piece of eggplant, not a whiff of tomato, not a hint of zucchini. Hooray! I got up at 2 am to make a bathroom stop and DS2 was back up here, eating the last little bit. That is a situation I can live with, no leftovers.

For one reason or another, the dog didn't get put in her crate last night. When I opened the door this morning she had pooped and piddled. She had also polished off her allotment of dog food and drank all her water. I suppose that explains the mess. She usually can make it through the night without soiling inside her crate so not being able to do it when she's out makes no sense to me. The only time she has problems is if she has had "people food" with a high fat content, like steak trimming or something. I have some dog blankets out on the deck that need to be washed after the last episode of troubles. Ugh.

I do need to go to the store this afternoon. Had been planning on taking a drive down to my southeast but will not have the time nor gas to do that. It's also more important to make sure we have the makings for lunches and meals than for me to go fiddling around, sightseeing. After paying taxes yesterday I don't have a lot of leeway as far as funds go so will get what I must and pass on the rest.

Two of the inhabitants here need to learn to eat leftovers, too. Their refusal to do so jacks the grocery bill up something fierce. I think they should be glad to have food on the table even if it isn't something they are crazy about. Was hearing complaints a couple of days ago from one of them after being forced to eat chunky peanut butter due to the fact that we were out of creamy. That, in my opinion, is such a HUGE non-issue. So what? It's food, damn it. Eat it and be glad you have it.

Another issue in the food department is the stupidity of not liking anything that doesn't come out of a box produced by Big Food. I simply refuse to buy stuff like those "helper" mixes and Blue Box mac and cheese. It's full of crap that isn't good for anyone. Also, please consult with me about what meal plans are for the week before you start eating stuff out of my staples cupboard. God only knows how many times I have looked in vain for a vital ingredient for a meal and it has been eaten by one person. Or, almost eaten as there are some leftovers in the fridge that won't get eaten because they're leftovers. There isn't enough there to do whatever it was that had been planned for that meal so... it's pirate ingredients from a totally different meal which messes up the whole plan for days at a time. The situation is wasteful, selfish and ridiculous. Get your had out of your ass and THINK!

Still looking for some kind of a job that will pay enough for me to take it. The ones available are 20 miles and more away, pay $7 an hour and that would barely cover gas to get there and back. The one that interested me the most is working in the office at a cop, measuring grain dryness and weight. That would be an enjoyable job even with the normal job-related idiocies that go on. It's a jeans and sweatshirt job, too, so wouldn't need to invest a lot on clothes.

Have been using up coffee beans that I have had for well over a year. Even as old as they are the coffee from the Fench press is still better than the store-bought pre-ground. Switching back and forth from Kona to Costa Rican terrazo. Good stuff. Gotta watch that Kona, though. It's darned strong and gives me the jimjams if I drink more than 2 cups. One day I totally miscalculated the amount of beans and didn't manage to make it through one whole cup before I got the shakes. LOL Coffee doesn't usually do that to me so you can imagine that it was really tough stuff.

Having the same struggles with one of the adolescent males that has been going on for well over a year. Teachers are thinking it's no use scheduling a conference when it's time in 2 weeks because, no matter what is said or done, he will pay absolutely no attention. It's a lose-lose situation for him, though. It frustrates all of us no end to have the responsibility for this kid and have our hands tied by his total lack of understanding. He hasn't learned anything about responsibility or accountability, is unreliable and whines when asked to do anything around here. When he does get herded into working by his father, he spends a lot of time trying to sneak off or texting friends on the phone. Then, when called back there is the inevitable, and regrettable, sniveling about one of the rest of us who "never does anything at all."* Classic attempt at misdirection but it doesn't fly anymore with anyone. He also sees no reason why he should do anything around here. That baffles us to the point of total incomprehension. You're living here, eating our food, we're paying the bills and you don't know WHY you should be helping? Is it any wonder that we have all stepped back, raised our hands and said, "You're on your own, kid. If you are so smart and grown up, go for it..."**

I didn't watch the VP debate last night. By the time it came on I was ready for bed, pretty much asleep on my feet. This business of getting up at 4:45 am is wearing me out and messing up schedules.

Waggywaggy has the leaks, again. She is dripping all over the place so, until I can find her doggy diapers, she's banished outside. Currently, she is out there barking. Woof.......woof........woof. She usually settles down and lays in the sun after a while. This doesn't happen all the time and it's impossible to tell when she will do this. She's totally unaware of it, too. Doc said we could try to get a sample to check for bacteria but how the dickens would I do that? I may try giving her a rimadyl just in case it's due to her lame butt. Now, where are those diapers.....

It has warmed up considerably but is still only 55 degrees. That is good for the drivers and guys out harvesting, though, even if the rest of us must wear sweatshirts.



* This is arrant bullshit as every last one of us works our butts off, day after day after day.
** He's wormed his way out of some really nasty situations in the last month using charm and "gawrsh, ma'am, ah jus dint know." That won't last forever, though. The longer the reckoning takes, the worse it will be. That wall is gonna hurt when you hit it. Just don't come to us expecting a bail-out because we won't do it.

ROFLMSAO

This is the kind of thing you don't find in U.S. newspapers...

from the Manchester Guardian.

Male Grooming memo

not kid-friendly, really, and possibly unsuitable for the office. Beware.

I think it's damned funny, in that rather backhanded British manner, though.

Fried

Yes, I am totally fried. Tired and thinking I am glad to be done for the day.

We started, as usual, around 7:30 this morning. Have cleaned, power-washed, cleaned, waxed, cleaned, washed... well, you get the idea.

I have cayenne peppers in the dehydrator right now. Tomorrow, first thing in the morning while the dew is still on, plan on going out and cutting the top half from the sage plants by the watercourse. They will go into the dryer next. Then there is the Greek oregano that is ready to be taken care of, plus the spearmint. Then there will be the purple sage and tri-color sage, the parsley, chives and thyme.

I didn't grow any rosemary this year since the Herd seems to have decided, for no reason that is obvious to me, that they don't like it anymore. Have totally given up on growing basil, too. I just can't seem to get it to go. There seem to be hordes of people around who have Monster Basil Plants growing out of every spot that isn't already inhabited by something else but I just can't get it to live. This is kind of a pain as I use a lot of basil. Thyme is no problem, nor is spearmint. The only problem those 2 present is keeping them from taking over the world.

3 of my 4 roma plants are producing lovely, large fruit but that 4th one has the blight, or something similar. It has produced fruit that is about the size of a shooter marble but does taste good. Not much use for canning but tasty to munch on. The other hybrid plants down on the terrace are loaded with fruit and some of them are starting to show some color. That's a good thing and I hope we have enough summer left to allow them to ripen fully. If the weather turns, I will have to bring whole plants in and hang them upside down in the laundry room or somewhere to allow the fruit to ripen. That is a messy and cumbersome operation so would rather not have to fool with it.

Since I only have about 1/3 of the amount of tomatoes that I would have under normal circumstances, I am seriously considering slicing them and just putting them in the food dryer. Dried tomatoes are great for a lot of things and can be reconstituted for marinara, paste, and sauces.

The hot banana pepper plants have done a nice job of producing fruit, too. Since I don't use many of those, I only have 2 plants but they have some nice yields. Those will go into the freezer since they don't dry well. The jalapenos are doing well but not producing like I expected. The peppers are very nice but there aren't many of them, maybe a dozen and a half total, right now. I still have some in the freezer from last summer so this won't be a real problem. Unless someone decides they are going on a jalapena jag and then we're in trouble.

That gross of onions are doing nicely, too. There were actually more than 144 of them but some died and some haven't grown. Went out this morning and thinned the ones in the long container. Last weened I thinned the ones in the pots and the remaining onions are now growing a lot larger and may produce some nice winter tastiness.

We planted several dozen onions down on the terraces but the rabbits ate the whole blasted lot of them, dammit. The radishes down there didn't get eaten but Himself never went down and thinned them so he doesn't have any radishes. He kept saying that he would "do it pretty soon" but he ended up distracted by other issues and never got to it. They were too close together and, since they had no room to grow, went to seed rather than making radishes. I figured, since I don't eat radishes, I would leave the thinning to the Radish-Lover and it didn't turn out well. Not my loss and I don't suppose not having radishes will make much difference for him, either.

I broke down a couple of weeks ago and used a chemical spray to kill that blasted crabgrass around the front of the house and down along the driveway. I really hate using that stuff but, even with weeding like crazy, it came up so fast and thick that we couldn't keep up with it. Now there are big brown and dead patches around the place that have to be plowed up and reseeded.

Also having a weed problem down around the watercourse and ponds. This spring was so wet that the things that could grow the best seemed to be the weeds. Some of our ferns came back but most of the stuff down there just died. That's a p.i.t.a. because we spent a lot of cash and a lot of sweat on preparing the ground and planting stuff. DS1 came up one day last summer and spent the whole day, scooting around on his butt, planting ferns. I am hoping that his labors will pay off next spring but who knows?

The river is so low that the kayakers who came by last weekend had to paddle right under the cliffs at the bottom of the yard. I miss having boaters, canoeists, and kayakers come by in the afternoon. The fishermen aren't even bothering to go out on the river. The only fish up here are carp and they might migrate further upstream. Still have soft-shell turtles coming out to sun themselves but the Canada geese, herons, and egrets are gone. It is also starting to smell. It doesn't smell nice. Dead fish, river bottom, mold... ick. The city says it has a "study" ongoing to figure out how to fixthe levee with the least expenditure of money and the best results but it may be years before we see any results. I estimate that the river level is about 10 feet down and, now it's late August and dry, it will go lower. This pretty much puts paid to the water trail project for the foreseeable future, too. That's a shame as it would have brought money to this town and shown folks that it isn't a total shithole place to live.*

We had planned on going to visit some friends at their acreage this afternoon but ended up not doing that. I had to take some allergy medicine, which I abhor and avoid like the plague, which had made me shaky and short of breath. We will most likely go out to see them tomorrow afternoon, as long as they are available then. It's kind of a weird situation, too. He has been our friend for many years but she avoided any contact with us until a couple of years ago. Not sure what changed her mind but we now can sit and talk for hours about all kinds of subjects. Both of us are having problems with adolescents, she with a girl, me with a boy. Gives all kinds of room for discussion. And then there are the men... LOL!

DS3 has retreated downstairs, DS2 is going to a friend's for the night, SS is, well... who knows where and Himself is at the bar. This leaves me free to do absolutely nothing. YeeeHA! Of course, since it isn't 6 p.m. I can't in good conscience put on my jammies but sure would like to do just that. Rats.

OK, since Himself is at the bar I suppose I should get my butt in gear and go have a drink with him and make sure he doesn't get out of hand. He has been behaving strangely of late. It isn't just him, it is a number of males. I have heard from several women that their husbands, boyfriends, or SOs, have been acting weird. Since there isn't a full moon I don't know what's going on but I sure wish I did. Maybe I could help. Maybe not. Don't think most males have the self-awareness to figure out that something is bothering them, what it is, and how to deal with it. Ah, yes, men...






* Granted, I want to get the hell out of here but not because I hate my house or whatever, just because there is nothing to do unless you like hunting, fishing, golf, or sitting at the bar getting stupid. I don't care much for any of those things and would like a variety of food options, museums, libraries that have books other than fiction or romances, and people who have a few thoughts about how things are and why.

Adventures in Food

I am a "hobby"cook. I enjoy it very much and things usually come out just like they should. Trying new recipes and different cuisines is an adventure and I never find it boring. Wish I could say the same for Himself.
I am a member of a site that has cooking contests and events several times a year. I entered one some years back, filled with anticipation and excitement at the prospect of learning new techniques and trying new cuisines. I didn't realize that the Alpha Male is averse to trying new cuisines and cares not a whit about new techniques. My chagrin at discovering he doesn't like nuts of any kind in anything was nearly boundless. My disappointment when he turned away from a lovely chicken veronique because it was dressed with grapes... ah! After countless attempts to cajole the unwilling would-be-taster it dawned on me that it wasn't any of the dishes I presented.
He just doesn't like anything at all different. I came to the conclusion that if his mother didn't cook it, he didn't want it. The greasier, saltier, more overdone, sugary or just plain bland a dish is, the better he likes it.
I truly believe he could subsist on nothing but deep-fried tenderloins, chili and sandwich meat.
Actually, he will eat damned near anything if it's been battered and deep-fried. In lard.
I don't have a problem with lard, and do like a nice tenderloin every now and again. I just can't bring myself to eat that all the time. I am tired of chili. Sandwich meat grosses me out. Gravy with an inch of fat on the top is disgusting. Sweet desserts aren't necessary. Dried out pork chops from cooking too long chew about like shoe leather.
He won't eat anything at all Greek. He likes that seasoning mix from the market but authentic Greek? No.
No Italian other than pasta with standard tomato/meat sauce.
Catalonian? North African? East Indian? French? Asian? Lord love a duck, you'd think I was trying to kill him with that "stuff."
Made a beautiful cassoulet for Christmas 2006. Everyone loved it. With one exception. Guess who? It's nothing more than a casserole with a lovely crumb crust.... that's it! Good thing there was a small ham, too.
An attempt at a daubé went well until one of the kids told him it was called "daubé." Here he was chowing down on what he thought was good old like-ma-made beef stew and it turns out to be some hideous concoction called a "daubé!" You'd think I had just become the worst sort of traitor... a food traitor.
There are a lot of recipes that everyone else in the family, and guests, just adore. Smoky Iberian Chicken is a good example. I made that one up out of whole cloth after having it at a snazzy restaurant in St. Paul. It came with roasted asparagus (yummy) and a great white wine-based sauce. He wouldn't taste it at the restaurant and sure as hell isn't going to eat my version at home.
Another one is Roasted Vegetable soup with blackeyed peas. Turns out, he won't eat blackeyed peas even though he's been eating chickpeas in things for years. (Funny thing, that. I had the idea they were the same thing?) Even if I present him with the soup, sans those awful round thingies, he won't touch it now. I may have hidden a chickpea or two in there somewhere. Kind of like a culinary princess and the pea.
He is easy to feed when we go out to eat. Just give him a big rare steak. That's all he eats. Unless we go somewhere like a seafood joint. Then he will eat king crab legs or shrimp. God forbid he should touch tilapia, mahimahi or salmon. Might die, right there on the spot, hapless victim of weirdly named food. Except for the salmon. He just hates salmon as a matter of conscience.
Tuna is fine as long as it is in oil in a can. Tuna steaks are anathema. I have a picture in my mind of him standing at the table, arms outstretched toward the fish, index fingers crossed, crying "Back! Back, vile piscine! Return hence to the briny waters of the deep," like some wild-eyed actor from an old B-movie horror flick. I don't think that tuna steak is going anywhere but in my tummy.
It has occurred to me that, as far as eating habits go, he is very much like my Dad. Mom wasn't much of a cook but I think she didn't have much chance of learning to be one. Dad wanted what Grandmother made.* So my mother, old-fashioned wife that she was, set all her recipe boxes and clippings aside and cooked dry pork chops, roast beef and, every Sunday, fried chicken. Every Sunday. No kidding. She was probably the best fried chicken cooker in the world.
Jello was also a perpetual resident of the refrigerator. Lime jello with grapefruit, lime jello with grated carrots and sliced green eyeballs, oops, no... olives. Lime jello with cottage cheese. Every now and again the jello would turn color, unaccountably, and become orange. It then contained mandarin orange slices. Or grated carrots. Or chopped celery. It all tasted just the same to me, yucky, but Dad liked it so that's what we ate.
We also were graced with things like beef tongue, beef heart, scrapple, head cheese, tripe, fried calf brains, all that awful offal. I ate all of it because if I didn't it was growling stomach time and nothing until breakfast.** Dad loved the whole lot. Every bit. I don't know what Mom thought.
We had avocados every once in a while. I think it was a heartfelt effort by my mother to do something different, if only just a little different. Spaghetti was nothing that would be recognized by any Italian as pasta. Put the ground beef and all the other sauce elements in a big pan, add extra water, break up the pasta, stir it in and cover. Simmer for a coon's age and serve. The garlic bread was always tasty, though.
A school chum gifted me with a container of rice and sweet/sour pork at one point. I just adored it, had never tasted anything like it and wanted more. Mom put the kibosh on that. Maybe Dad would have liked it.
One very odd thing about my Dad's food likes... he adored any kind of East Indian curry. Any at all. He didn't care one whit what it was, if it was a curry, he'd probably eat it. I know he didn't learn to like that in law school at university. Must have picked it up in India. Mom didn't have access to the ingredients to make a good curry, though, so Dad went without for many years.
I am proud to state that all my kids eat pretty much anything. SS is getting better at it, too. I don't know that I did anything in particular that enabled their lack of pickiness, though. Would be nice to claim credit for that but I can't. I count myself fortunate to be one of the parents who don't fix 4 different meals for the kids because they won't eat so many different things. DIL is getting better, too. EMS is introducing her to seafood and the many uses of onions. Good girl!
SS's reaction to the vegetarian lasagna was somewhat disconcerting, though. He spread it all out on his plate, looking for hidden meat. Listen, kid, if I tell you there is no meat in that, there is no meat in it. OK? Kind of like his Dad and hidden chickpeas.


*As an aside, my paternal grandmama could probably have been an Honorable Mention for Worst Cook in Human History. Her forte was streaky bacon, fried up until it was past crisp. My mother stayed with her while Dad was off gallivanting around Calcutta, Egypt and Australia during WWII and Mom ate so much of that damned bacon that she never willingly ate it the rest of her life.

** I didn't know what it was, either. Ignorance of youth.

One, two, three, kick

OK, so I'm in a nasty mood this morning. Have had a sinus infection for a week and haven't been sleeping well. Have avoided going to the doc but now my left ear feels like someone is sticking a skewer through my eardrum. I don't know what the means but it probably isn't good.
Had breakfast, showered, washed clothes and laid down for a while. Himself pokes his head around the bedroom door and says, "Oh, you've gone back to bed. Humph." Give me a break, man...
I wonder how many other women have noticed that men have one set of rules for the world in general and a totally different set of rules for themselves. Maybe not every man, but I don't know any that don't follow their own cosmic guidelines. Maybe I should do an informal poll? Ask all my friends and female acquaintances if they think the my rules/your rules hold true for their males.

Started this yesterday but, with the usual Sunday lunacy, didn't get to finish.

Looks like we may have a nasty weather day tomorrow. Just in case, I will do some running so I don't have to go out of town. Himself fixed my Roo yesterday. That is a Very Good Thing. The brakes were doing weird things and he discovered that the caliper bracket on one was shot. The push pins had frozen in place and weren't releasing properly so the car was making shakyshaky movements. That wouldn't be such a big deal on dry roads but all the roads here are snow and ice covered. ABS is bad enough but when it isn't working right, it's a chancy situation.

So I am supplementing my daily ration of foodstuff with Triscuit® Rosemary and Olive Oil with a hunk of feta on each. This because, although I love feta and am always glad to eat it, I totally forgot to get the boursin at the store. I also lost my senses temporarily and picked up a bottle of Raspberry and sun-dried tomato vinaigrette, which looks really good but what am I supposed to do with it? No lettuce, doesn't stick to vegetables... maybe I could go all out and just swig it right out of the bottle.

It's evident to me that I spend way too much time at the market. Everyone there knows my first name, family history, and if pressed, could probably list what I ate for supper on any given day. I found myself in a conversation with the lady who works the drive-up about our concerns for kids riding buses for hours in the morning and afternoon. Then we diverted to college and kids going off thereto. We'd still be gabbing if someone hadn't pulled up behind me. Maybe I should consider another hobby.

After being cut off while on hold trying to get a doctor's appointment, I gave up and drove the truckmobile down. Our long-time doc is quitting at the end of March to go to Central America as a medical missionary. I suppose the fact that all the records files were off the shelves being sorted and annotated for the new doctor could explain the phone troubles. I did manage to get an appointment for tomorrow at 10 a.m. Right now that is looking very good because, once again, my face feels like it is about to fall off.