Archive
still watchless
I’m up early, heard John get up with his dogs and Fido had to pee, if I would have realized it was 4:00 i might have tried continuing to sleep. I’ve gotta get a watch or a clock in my bedroom. Mostly I use the highway traffic to tell the time. First wave of “rush hour” means its time to get rolling. Its been a pretty good week. With the long weekend, short weeks go by quick. Tuesday I felt pressed by messages I couldn’t respond to, paperwork I couldn’t write, training I need to get going on. Wednesday I got some no shows and moved on the first two.
The training thing I think i am going to have to go in on a weekend and dispense with. I need a little space to think, read, and put together the final touches on my certification application to be at long last a [drum roll please] Certified Co-Occurring Disorders Professional – Diplomate as well as my re-certification for my [no drum roll required] Registered Associate Substance Abuse Counselor II.
Wednesdays are my late day so I have a rare weekday morning to do something besides work. I went downtown and checked on Tre and myself”s application for the Oddfellows. We were accepted and are moving on to the next phase this month or next. Tre is visiting an Ashram in Colorado so is inaccessible to nail down plans. I am most looking forward to some cross-generational socialization. I haven’t had much old dude rambling on as i’ve been used to since Dad died.
I also stopped by the Occupy Como site at “Freedom Square”. Met an earnest young man named Tripp who told me about the 1%, very cute really. [i apologize for the bold, i am up early writing in the dark and hit some wrong keys and its easier to live with then figure out how to turn off. i will just write about stuff that needs extra emphasis. while i am on a break from my mainstream of thought anyway i will mention the light/medium roast Yemeni/Guatemalan blend I am drinking this morning is quite frankly excellent.] The Como Occupation has been going on for better then a week with someone always there and sometimes a little crowd. I asked if there was any way i could help out and we settled on me picking up Tripp some loose tobacco.
Whenever I deal with youth activists I am always informed by my interactions with my old buddy Ivan. In my youth activist days Ivan was a Geometry professor [bubble specialist] who moved from Berkeley to toledo and found our scruffy activist ways the closest thing to home. He used to insist on buying the pitchers when we went out after meetings because we were poor students and he had a living wage. I try to do the same.
When i came back Tripp was engaged in a lively discussion with another Occupier about the Truth about 911. Yawn. I picked up a sign “You Are Awesome” and waved it for a while and jumped in when the conversation moved on to Blackwater and agreed to stop back by this weekend when I had to go to work. I hope to stop in this evening when i am downtown to check out a little of the Artrageous. Someone I know is having a showing i said i would try to stop by at.
While downtown I went into Coolstuff to see about that watch situation. If i am going to try to squeeze a little Walstreet protesting in i’ll need to be better organized. They had backward clocks which i considered for my timeless bedroom but can’t see it in the dark anyway. I looked at alarm clocks but no wind up ones. I only need an alarm a few times a year. Seems silly to draw juice the other 360 + days. No backwards watches and only a tiny stretchy watch that would not fit my giant wrist. I’ll keep looking. Maybe at Itchys.
The other big event has been Tiger baseball. Enjoyed mightily seeing my Tiges fell the mighty Yankees. Sportsmanship and management overcame money once again. Fister came through and I like how Leland had the confidence in him to take Verlander off the potential roster so he’s fresh for game 1 vs Texas. I hear Texas’s whole roster costs less then one of the highest paid Yankees. Yankees were warming up the bullpen in the first inning after 2 quick solo home runs and through everything but the kitchen sink on the mound including CC Sabathia’s first relief work in the majors. But they still lost. Hah.
Now i’m going to drink a little more coffee then take Fido out for a morning walk. Got back in the garden finally and planted my mum in a gap in the strawberries the hot dry spell created. Might be a mistake but I figure they come on slow and the strawberries will have done their thing before the mum gets big. I got a big bag of crocuses at Costco in toledo and am going to weave them into the herbs i think. Maybe up by the roses as I try to even out the rough patches in my mow route.
to many competing demands. Tre gave me some garlic which i want to get in the ground and john built me a cold frame i would like to get some lettuce and spinach and the like going in. need to get compost. oh well, one thing at a time. trying to be patient.
paragraph free zone
I saw a search query that brought someone to my site was what does multiconstruct mean? It took them to a post about baseball and camping and I noticed that a lack of paragraphing can be annoying. Glad people push past that, thank you faithful reader. Nonetheless, I will try to do better. A construct recognizes ways of looking at the world are a created thing. The structure by which we understand anything highlights and obscures aspects of phenomena. Being multiconstruct is embracing many, or even all, ways of looking at the world, like a flies eye it provides multiple view points to shed light and explain. You have to be able to live with a little contradiction is all.
Just back from the market, i said twice that this is my favorite time of year to market in Missouri. The fall stuff is in, the second season of spring crops that they grow in the fall here is here, and the summer stuff is still holding on. Righteous. Johnathon apples, i went with the 8 lb bag and got some egg plants, may do egg plant parmesan. skipped the butternut squash because i had a giant sweet potato.
I also saw lots of people I know and talked to none of them. Its hard for me to deal with the crowd, make all those buying decisions, navigate the crowd with my increasing bulk of packages, and deal with the vendors. Its too much so forgive me if I didn’t say “hi” at the market.
Its blog or mow. Finally getting on the lawn today. Started a bit before Harry came to go to the market. Its been a month but its still not to bad. supposed to be perfect high 60s partly sunny. I have some little okras coming on and the best set of maters all year so i am hoping we still have a good amount of time until the frost.
“punctuation has developed over thousands of years to make our lives easier, to just throw it away isn’t a good idea. no wonder you can type so fast.” “do you use apostraphes when you’re using contractions?” my title has elicited some comment. to reiterate, i mostly blog for fun and do a fair amount of professional writing where i have to paragraph and capitalize and grammar and stuff. blogging i try to get by with less. its easier. but i will try to make some accommodations to usability. “you should drop unnecessary letters too, that would save even more time, all the ones that are silent you should just drop them. and you might consider dropping any letters that are in the bottom row, that would speed up your typing. that’ll be the next phase.” excellent, john. excellent.
Another Friday Night…
Killing time before the Tigers game comes on. I have to work tomorrow so don’t know how deep I’ll be able to get into the game with it not coming on until 9:00. They have a chance to clinch the central division and its nice to end the season strong. I like our chances. Spent some time after dinner weeding the strawberries. They really took it on the chin in the heat wave (probably should have watered them more) and a lot of grass came up in the newly opened space. I especially wanted to get the fox tails, last thing I want is one of this bristles stuck up one of the dog’s nose. Cost my brother like a thousand bucks when it happened to Smokey. Also need to mow, but tired yesterday, and kind of wet today. Got some wild flowers blooming, wish i knew all their names, but the asters by the mail box are especially pretty. Saw more then a few of those in the Nantahalas along with fancy goldenrod, phlox, and a bunch of other stuff i couldn’t ID or can’t remember. There were a lot of these orange pitcher flowers by our second camp site. Even though it wasn’t a legit dispersed site in the National Forest (too close to both a paved road and a picnic area) I was glad we stayed a second night because a beautiful little hummingbird got comfortable enough with us to feed on the orange flowers. It worked its way through the little jungle of them for quite a while. There’s always something magical when they stop by and I am looking to get more flowers in, in front of my picture window and in the back to draw more in. I’ve upgraded to black sunflower seed instead of the cheap mixes and it has drawn a better class of birds. John got me a squirrel guard, a plastic dish that tilts when you put weight on it that has kept out the squirrels and of course the dogs help. Fido has them all running out to the feeder whenever someone opens the back door or yells squirrel. I trimmed up Fido some tonight, straightened up his mustache and got some long spots and some spots that were matted and worked out from his pre-vacation cut. They had been annoying me the whole trip and I was glad to get it done. I had left his little penis hair but it was getting to be better then 2 inches long and John was teasing me so I trimmed that too. He doesn’t care for the manscaping and I can’t blame him after what happened to his balls. I wanted to share more about my vacation but after being back a couple days it already feels far away and long ago. I didn’t take a computer and instead had this great idea of blogging in a book instead. The links are hard but its really revolutionary. I realized I don’t self-censor as much here as much as I thought as my writings for myself weren’t much different, although I would be lying if I said they were exactly the same. Over-sharer that I am I still hold a lot back for the general prevue. I may share some excerpts or use it as a draft maybe this weekend. I have to work a half day tomorrow so no market. I will probably go to Wilsons to get at least some local produce. I was going to wait until Sunday and go to the art/vegetable market at bus station but I want to make barbecued beef and need some sides. Maybe I’ll do carnitas instead and go to the grocery store. its not a bad idea anyway the cupboards are, if not bare, have some room and the fridge is bare. I did make it to the market last Saturday in Franklin North Carolina. It was small but friendly and we got some local tomatoes (not as good as home), a jalapeno, pimento, green beans and okra which livened up our tuna and noodles and our canned chinese food (man that stuff has really gone done hill). We also got a little zucchini bread which was not as good as the ones i get locally (or make for that matter). that would be a good weekend activity, i’ve got a brown banana in the freezer. Franklin was a cool little town though. Caught breakfast twice at the City Diner. Had the Gypsy Omelet which was hash and swiss, pretty yummy and it was cheap. We drove past a place in a strip mall that didn’t have any customers on a weekend and found the City Diner with a lot full of pick up trucks. Pa Miller taught me that was the way to find good eats in the country, god rest his soul. There was also a cool indian mound with some history that it had been an important city of the Cherokee before they got f*cked and they kept the village center on the mound. It was an important battle(the battle of echoe) there where the Cherokee won one year quite handily but got beaten decisively a year later. Would have liked to check out more Cherokee stuff when we were out there, but we stuck to the woods. Looks like its time to call Harry and tell him can’t go to the market and watch a few innings before hitting the hay. Good night faithful reader and sweet dreams.
There and Back Again #2
Well I am home from the Appalachians and it was a really delightful trip. John took some pictures of course. For driving into the remnants of Hurricane Lee we really had OK weather. It rained pretty much nonstop for the first couple of days. We had a break in the rain and hiked the dogs at Locust Cliffs in the Hoosier National Forest on the way down. We considered camping there as we knew we would be driving into more rain but didn’t want to have to deal with wet gear so early in the trip. We stopped and slept in the truck for a bit in a truck stop in KY and drove on into the Great Smokey National Park Labor Day Morning. We got a room for a couple nights at Motel 6 in Sieverville and needing to kill some time before checking in we drove into the park. We had a nice hike at Laurel Falls and then headed back to the room figuring the traffic jam out of the park would have cleared up. It hadn’t and it was a long drive through the hell of Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sieverville. A collection of schlock and tasteless hillbilly nonsense like Branson on steroids. We had the pleasure of that drive several times as we commuted into the park to another really incredible hike and doing a driving trail where we saw a black bear mommy and cub chilling out and feeding in a gum tree. Driving out we hit the Appalachian Trail near Clingman’s Dome so I could add mile 157 for my AT total. After that the rain went intermittent and we moved down and did some camping in the Nantahala National Forest. Hiked in some old growth Poplar/Hemlock, hiked some and hiked some of the AT near Siler Bald that Amee and I had done. It was poignant being back especially being September 7, the 11th anniversary of Mom’s death and that stretch of the AT was where I had come to terms that Mom was going to die. I’ll probably write more about that and some other stuff but I wanted to put up some pictures and give the bare bones narration. We moved to a nicer site where we could have fire over on Bear Pen Mountain and did a couple of waterfall hikes, one named Laurel Falls actually. A couple days there and we drove back over the mountains and caught another nights camping in the Pisgah National Forest. No where near as nice and no hiking at camp but its just great to live outside. After a week of it it just becomes life. Then we drove back enjoying the beautiful scenery of Highway 40 and reminiscing of our childhood trips through the region. Caught a room in Padukah KY and drove home this afternoon. Pleasantly surprised at the yard which is the thing I missed the most. Weeded the strawberries some and enjoyed the wildflowers blooming in the front yard. Not as much as the Nantahala but more than than the Pisquah. I’ll post more on the trip soon.
what’s for dinner
pretty quiet sunday here at leslie lane. the tigers almost blew an 8 run lead to the indians but ended up holding on and getting the sweep. made bacon and eggs for breakfast and used my bacon cook time to call directv about my missing local channels. sending someone out on wednesday.
mulched the roses and its just nice to see things starting to flower and getting to ready to flower as the summer starts to wind down. i was going to cover my compost i mulched with with a couple of inches of pine needles but want to wait until i get some lime to add. i think my soil is sour.
i dozed off in the easy chair so was up early. had a late night with Planet of the Apes which i enjoyed very much and it was nice to make it back to the drive in. the game was a long one and caught a little nap in the middle innings.
decided to grill out, mostly stuff from the market. baked white potatoes, grilled burgers drenched in traverse city cherry hot sauce and barbecue sauce, and sweet corn left over from yesterday that i rubbed in olive oil and Bob’s Steak Seasoning (because it has a lot of salt). it was good. did a mesquite fire and let it fire up and rolled the corn around till some kernels darkened slid em to the side and closed the vents and let it smoke.
also made a peach salsa with a peach, a grilled peach, grilled green pepper and grilled jalapeno. i let em darken over the fire and scraped off the skins (the peppers). the peach i cut in half and peeled grilled maybe a minute on a side. also did half an onion, a splash of malt vinegar & 3 cloves garlic (mine) pressed as well as a pint or so black grape tomatoes. it was pretty fucking awesome.
my last dish was wilted lettuce. took my bacon pan from breakfast and chopped up 3 pieces of leftover bacon, apple cider vinegar & some minnesota honey. poured it over the washed lettuce leaves covered for a minute and served.
it was a casual summer feast paired with the last of the chamomile mead that was gifted to me. yummy. thinking about taking a dog on a stroll. probably that fido, he has been extra cute today, wanting his belly rubbed and laying at my feet.
birthday float
john and i had a long night but the birthday moonlit float of the gasconade went splendidly. Its a beautiful drive from Columbia to the Linn area where we put in. trevor had suggested the gasconade with a put in at where it crosses highway 50 at the 219. We decided, wisely in hindsight, to use it as our take out, correctly surmising that we would need an extremely clear land mark for a pull out to have any chance of seeing it. We drove around quite a bit following roads and driveways trying to find a nonexistent river access point.
We ended up just parking the truck on highway 50 near the take out area after scouting around on foot. We realized it would be a haul pulling out the boat so for day floats it would make an easier launch point then take out point.
We then drove to Linn at the 203 and easily found the boat ramp. we packed up the boat and got on the water at dusk. there were a couple of boats but we didn’t pass any as we set off. the nice part of a night float is it thins out the boats with engines. caught a little of the sunset and the moon was up nice and it soon settled in to as dark as it was going to get. you could probably have read a large print book by the light of the moon.
The river was strange not knowing what’s ahead until its upon you. shallow at times and a fair number of trees and other obstructions coming up out of nowhere. the gasconade is braided through there and it would be hard to tell shadows from islands. mostly the current could guide you until it took you under a low hanging tree. some of the rocky bluffs would look like channels and even though it was mostly a calm and gentle float there was a hint of excitement on occasion when obstacles appeared out of nowhere.
we left the dogs at home but regretted not bringing one or two as it was fairly easy. we used the outriggers which was a good move though we never needed them. there was one area where going around an island we were in a narrow and swift channel with a maze of downed trees to navigate through that the outriggers barely cleared. john broke out the light and i paddled us through. our short boat with a big keel makes it very maneuverable and that was probably the highlight of the trip.
It was peaceful, though we passed two parties and a few people camped on gravel bars. there were fireworks, occasional sounds of the city, some car noise on occasion but a lot of peace and some pretty bluffs. not a lot of wildlife to be seen but we scared up a big heron and the swallows or whatever insect eating birds would buzz us on occasion. Big splashes from the suspected asian carp rounded out our interaction with wildlife. bugs were thin.
the perseids were light but i got a couple of flashes, nothing worth wishing on. john saw a nice one but declined to wish being a rational sort. we were quiet some and talked some and it was peaceful. i definitely want to do it again and want to see the gasconade by daylight.
this is my 5th float of the year, with one more planned and likely at least one more, so not a bad year for floating considering the swollen nature of the big muddy. thanks to john for the lovely sandwiches and working out the logistics. many thanks for all the b-day wishes, i am blessed.
got in after 4:00 but feel pretty good. got some bean soup on the stove with sarah’s easter ham bone, market white potatoes, onions, yellow pepper & a hot pepper with rosemary, oregano, lots of garlic, time & a little sage from the garden. also started my day with my first egg and tomato sandwich of the year. got a nice heirloom tomato and very yummy. put a little fresh dill & fresh ground pepper in my market eggs. hope to lime some more pickles, watch the Tiges catch up to the Orioles (down 3-1 in the 4th) and may mow the backyard. laundry of course.
thanks again faithful reader and continue to make comments. if you’re ambitious register and make them on wordpress so they last. facebook has its charms but it is transitory, your comments do not have to be.
weekend cooking
Enjoyed the rain yesterday and feel better for all my plant friends. It was also nice to have a break from the 90s and humid that feels like it has gone on nonstop for better then a month. i took advantage to put down my milky spore. We’ll see if it works. the traps turned out to be a bust in the mole war. when i pushed down the humped earth to see if the run was active they just went deeper. i had a trap on a run which was fruitless and had no better luck trapping the air hole. they would come up right by the activator plate and not set it off.
Other then that i mostly cooked yesterday. I made a cucumber salad with cukes, green peppers, banana peppers, onion, all from the market with basil & oregano from the garden. I did a dressing with sour cream, red wine vinegar and local honey and a little fresh ground black pepper and it was done. It got a nice flavor with just a few hours in the fridge. I soaked some sweet corn in the husks cutting off the ends. I made a packet with the last of the cabbage (what little i salvaged from the moths) [which i am hoping the milky spore will help with those fellows too] and thin sliced zucchini. I put some garlic, tarragon, onion, a little bacon grease slathered on the foil and some seasoning salt oh and one of my crappy tomatoes from the garden.
For the main course i rubbed in some turmeric, onion powder, & garlic granules with some Traverse City cherry hot sauce on some pork cube steaks & let that sit for awhile . i grilled it all on a mesquite chunk fire. for the steaks i seared both sides on a hot fire and then turned off the vents and let them smoke for a few minutes. everything came out pretty good.
at the market i had gotten some canadian bacon and john had suggested egg mcmuffins. i have new respect for mcdonalds. mine were much much better but what a pain in the ass. I made a round egg mold out of a tin can but the egg stuck to the sides, even when i greased the edges. i found the best round egg was just to bust it in the pan and scrape up the egg into a round shape when it cooked a bit. i broke the yokes and covered them with sharp cheddar. i just heated the canadian bacon with a little water. also sliced up thinly an heirloom tomato and broke out the local horseradish mustard and it was pretty yummy. i served it up with some cantaloupe, blackberries, raspberries & blueberries and some hash-browns (microwaved red potatoes and grated them up and fried them with butter and seasoning salt) .
all in all a killer breakfast with home roasted guatemalan, light like i like it. it was a nice prelude to seeing cowboys and aliens with dan and harry. pretty decent i thought and wrapping up the afternoon with some tiger baseball. verlander’s no hitter blown away in the eighth but they’re still up by one run and i am cautiously optimistic. have to roll into work and play a little catch up and that’s the weekend. feel more up to the daily grind then i did last week. and a 4 day week at that as i head up for the family reunion friday morning.
early on the late day
got up early on my late day and mowed the back yard. lot of picking up to do but the dog waste compost system is doing well. no real odor and stuff seems to be breaking down. taking a little breather in the ac and drinking some water before i get back out there and water. i am going to use the rain barrels since i have the time and don’t want my tomatoes to taste like chlorine from the constant diet of city water. they seem to be doing ok, my big squash that wasn’t producing was completely wilty so i pulled it out and one of my poke weed was down so i pulled that out as well. my other volunteer squash turned out to be acorn. i’ve got another one growing by the okra, which is coming along nicely by the way. i think it likes going in late when the soil is nice and warm. my volunteer tomato plant is budding so i’m curious to see what comes off that. felt good to get out and do something. the heat wave has really curtailed my efforts. yesterday it was work and watch the tiger game, call it a day. not much of a life that. i only have an hour before its get ready for work time. don’t like to push myself too much as working until 8:00 makes for a long day. well my waters gone and the plants are thirsty and the day promises to be hot and long. better get back on it. peace to you constant reader.
hot & wet
the heat continues here in the show me state. there is a heat advisory until friday at 7:00 pm. we were lucky the last couple of years so i am trying to bear it with good grace. no, that’s not strong enough. i am trying to enjoy it for what it is. been just running the air 24/7. we keep it on 79 here on leslie lane and with lows close to that and humidity there’s no real point. usually i like to let the dogs come and go in the morning at least, but this am i tried it for about 2 minutes and a bitter hot wind was flowing in so i closed her back up.
did spend a little time outside this morning. watered everything in the back. used city water because i didn’t want to fritter away the shade hooking up the hose to the water barrels. i want to do it in the morning because the water can get hot. trevor just got a wooden barrel for his house. i want to upgrade when these go to pot.
friday we went on a bit of a float trip. drove out to overton bottoms with jared and met up with eric and a buddy of his and trevor and a buddy of his although didn’t end up seeing them much. fido came along had a real good time. ended up smelling like a swamp. dove off the canoe twice and did some swimming. we canoed down but couldn’t get through to the river. canoeing through the woods is a rare experience.
yesterday canned pickles with sarah, went to the market and drank coffee with harry. saw the pitiful state of memorial hill and weeded it while the grill got going. roasted a local chicken over a can of ginger ale with some garlic thrown in. smoked it up with apple wood and fresh sage & brined it in balsamic, sugar and salt. roasted some sweet corn & polished off the cabbage/pasta salad.
for our outdoor adventure john and the dogs and i hiked up bear creek. went right the creek bed which gives it more of an outdoor feel dropping out of the sounds of the city and the dogs could be off leash some. fido got confident and started to wander so i leashed him up.
made for a long day so i went to bed early and slept late. had a long involved dream again largely work related. a client from the agency shot me in the shoulder with an electrical gun. hurt like hell but i was stoic about it and told him not to worry about it that i had bated him. i had said “go ahead and shoot me” or something of the sort, new it was the wrong thing to say at the time but dreams. the overall feeling was a stunned bemusement so that appears to be progress. usually my overall feeling is being overwhelmed or annoyed/frustrated. haven’t had a panic work nightmare for many years and several jobs.
this morning made french toast with black bear bakery wheat bread. i had sliced thick as it was crumbly and let air out but the slices were to thick and the batter didn’t seep all the way in so it was a little on the hardy side. french toast is not supposed to taste like its good for you. had a nice flavor though i fresh grated vanilla bean, nutmeg, cinnamon stick & star anise into the batter.
mowed the front lawn before it got unbearably hot. drinking my second round of coffee before gearing up for the next project. i’m going to make some zucchini soup i got out of the tribune. maybe i’ll be early enough on it to serve it with supper. going to do something with the left over chicken probably throw in my annie’s mac & cheese with some grape tomatoes and fried cabbage (if the moths left me any. my cabbage has been almost a total loss. handpicking was inadequate for the task so i am looking for a more aggressive organic solution or i may have to look at poisons or give up on home grown cabbage).
bread & butter pickles
had fun canning pickles with sarah today. our second year. only took us 3 1/2 hours for a batch and a half of dills & a bit more than double batch of bread & butters. i had a request for the recipe and so i thought i would provide both sarah’s mom’s recipe & the recipe i used off the internet. turns out they are identical except for how much sugar and cinnamon they take and sarah leaves out the celery seed. so the brine takes: 1/2 cup kosher salt, 2 1/2 cup white vinegar, 2 cup apple cider vinegar (i use bragg’s unfiltered mostly),2 1/2 to 4 1/2 cups sugar (i used agave nectar last year to good effect), 2 tbsp mustard seed, 2 tsp crushed red pepper, 1 1/2 tsp celery seed, 1-2 cinnamon sticks (i broke mine up), 12 all spice berries, 2 pinch ground (i fresh ground 2 berries last year & a touch of star anise), 12 cloves, pinch of ground cloves (fresh ground 2 cloves last year), & 1 tsp turmeric (i substituted yellow curry last year). for the pickles you use twice as much cucumbers as sweet onion and green pepper slices. last year i also used red peppers (i think pimento), banana peppers,& poblanos. last year my cukes (thanks betty) were a couple of weeks ago so i limed them according to the instructions on the pickling lime package. this year and the first batch were probably less than 24 hours off the vine before going in the jars and stayed crisp all year.
Multiconstruct 
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