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Found at the farmer's market:
PEACHES!
green beans (mine got munched)
zucchini (never been able to grow it)
PEACHES!
fresh mozzarella
red onions
new potatoes
PEACHES!
sweet corn
organic "country" loaf of bread
NY strip steak (local, grass fed, free range, from a cow named Micah)
organic oatmeal-cranberry cookies
PEACHES!
Did I mention, PEACHES!?
Also, working for USDA has some nice benefits like the world's biggest cabbage. They grow cabbage on the farm to collect the moths/caterpillars and give away the harvest.
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Wow, guys, I am STILL so jetlagged that I can barely form sentences. We've been on vacations of less than two weeks overseas and managed, so I never expected to get smacked this hard. We did "everything right" -- didn't let ourselves take naps, took it easy Wednesday afternoon and Thursday. But I am still losing my train of thought in the middle of sentences. When I am asked to make a decision, my head hurts. It's kind of awe inspiring.
My brother says that it is probably a form of latent stress release, and he's probably right.
So the current plan is is a 5pm Sunday dinner at India Palace on Lafayette Road for those who would like to say hi while we're in Indianapolis. I'm going to try to get info out to those who don't check LJ as often, but coordinating even this far has been stretching my very limited brain, so I don't know how I'll be able to do even that. I will try.Current Mood:  sleepy |
Response to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) twolfette
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Jul. 17th, 2009 @ 10:39 am
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Remember, kids: eat them before they eat you!
ETA:: and in other odd news, a German artist may be prosecuted for making garden gnomes giving the Nazi salute (breaking a strict law against Nazi symbols and gestures). Says local prosecutor, "We're checking to see if garden gnomes fall into the same clear category as posters that show the swastika crossed out." Says me, anything that the Nazis would have killed you for making is probably ok. |
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Just wanted to let everyone know, that a new version of MemcacheD has been released. We will be rolling this out to the memcache nodes during the week of July 20th to 24th. This should have very little impact on the stability of the website; however users may see a slight increase in load times as the cache is re-populated with entries.
The software has been tested and verified to be working just fine with the application; so we perceive this to be a very minimal risk in regards to updating, and the stability of the website.
Thanks...
Current Mood: busy Current Music: NOFX - San Francisco Fat |
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There's oregano tea, lemon balm tea, and basil tea in my future as I harvest the flowers and cut back the leggy growth of the herbs.
The bumblebees love the purple flowers.
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We set down in Indianapolis at 4:30pm local time. We're both alive and relatively unscathed.
However, lost my entire knitting needle collection to airport security. If Heathrow Airport's hostility toward knitting is common knowledge, I just didn't think to ask. Those needles had gone through security in several US airports (where they are explicitly permitted in writing), Madrid, Pisa, Edinburgh, and Hanover. Losing them to a rude, incompetent security team who accused me of being negligent for not reporting them as sharp objects was not my finest hour. (For the record, my knitting needles are much less sharp than a ballpoint pen, and I didn't see those being confiscated.)
We also lost my ski jacket to being dumbasses. We will call Ohare lost and found on the off chance that it was recovered. However, that jacket was one of those buyer's remorse experiences where it fit perfectly in the store and has never fit properly since, so I am not going to freak out.
Oh, and we also lost our Dutch tulip bulbs to customs due to poor research on my part. The ones I bought were approved for export, but not to the United States. Sigh.
So, yeah, I've collected more grumpy travel anecdotes to milk for a while.
But the flight was beautiful, peaceful, and uneventful. And were are here with my parents, safe and sound and in good company.
I'm not sure what it feels like to be home yet. I'll get back to you on that :). And we're not exactly home anyway, just almost there.Current Mood:  accomplished |
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Palais de Popes, Avignon. 1918
Originally uploaded by thornburg.elizabeth
Just an update with some new photos. The Max Thornburg set and the RBT Unsorted (Russell B. Thornburg) set are the most recently changed. More to be added. I just really enjoy the hand coloring on this photo a lot. Watercolor, from the looks of it. I was struck by it when I first laid hands on it. I am unsure of who two of the men are in the photograph, but the man on the right is Max. |
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TRS-80 Radio Shack Computer Catalog from 1983
“You can choose a Model 16 with one or two 8" slim-line disk drives.”
Yet I do not sneer: I remember when this was, indeed, the berries.
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Butt-squash* is tasty. I picked some up at the store, since I was stocking it and had not encountered it before, and figured I should know what it tastes like before some customer asks me. I baked one this evening, sliced in half with one half seasoned with just oil, salt, and pepper, the other with oil and a spice blend that we had laying around (homemade emeril's essence).
It tastes a bit like the thick ends of asparagus, but with a nice firm texture instead of the stringiness. I think it would hold up very well in roast veg or a stew, or sauteed with a little lemon (the way I like asparagus). It also has a sturdy enough structure to support stuffing, although it's shallow compared to, say, a stuffed pepper.
Speaking of stuffed peppers, I think I shall make some for lunch tomorrow. Mmmm, anaheims.
*A literal translation of the Nahuatl "hitzayotli", whence the Spanish "chayote."**
**For those who want to know what it actually means, my best guess is "spreading gourd." At least, most sites list the Nahuatl name as chayotli. 'Ayotli' means gourd, and 'chay' seems to have a meaning along the lines of 'to spread or be broad' (the words I can find using the root relate to spreading, scattering, and capes). |
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The bags are all packed. The house is as clean as it gets. We put the plants back where we found them and hung the cat-scratchable hangings back on the walls. It's so empty and tidy here, but it still feels like a place we live. I guess it will feel as if we're just going on a minibreak when we leave, except we won't come back.
Goodbye Edwardian Row House. Your walls were too thin. We had to listen to arguments in the street and our neighbor's television. Only one person can walk through your halls at a time, which makes me wonder what house traffic patterns were like 100 years ago.
But really, you were a great place to live for not quite seven months. If we'd lived a different life, you are just the kind of place we would have wanted to call home.
And tonight we sleep in your bed for the last time.
Goodnight.Current Mood:  tired |
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For those who don't have a Facebook account, you can see pictures of the Handfasting at Sunflower River by clicking here. Will probably post a bunch more on LJ covering the B&B and general layout of the farm later.Current Mood:  awake |
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Well, we got most of the way packed last night. We have plenty of WEIGHT available to us, but we're still having trouble with luggage distribution. Basically, we have two bags that are too large and two that are too small, and we're having a devil of a time getting enough heavy stuff into the small ones and light stuff into the big ones so that they all weigh at or below 50 lbs. But I have confidence we will get there. Thank God we actually bought a luggage scale. When the weight limit for checked luggage was 70lbs, it was hard to go overweight. Now it's almost impossible to pack without weighing your bags.
Crypto and P came back from the Tower of London to pick up their bags and have dinner in the evening. That was a very nice way to conclude the visit, though SB and I had to return from the nice conversation to pack until late at night.
Tonight after 8pm we hand over the key.
The drama about our airline tickets had another chapter. As with many things, I am bloody sick of stressing about this. The story goes like this:
( The backstory of our return ticket drama )
- A month after all that drama, SB has never received a confirmation of his ticket, though I had (remember we're separate). He calls and is told that his ticket was just being held so that they could give him that business class upgrade. A whole bunch of business class slots were made available, and there's no problem for both of us to get one. SB reiterates for the umpteenth time, "Please don't upgrade one of us if you can't upgrade both." The rep says sure, it won't be a problem, and that he'll make a note on the file. SB received a ticket confirmation the same day. It is business class.
- Yesterday, we realized that *I* had never received that business class upgrade confirmation. We'd kind of let it slide because the last time everything was fine. However, a check online indicates that my ticket is still coach. This morning, SB called in AGAIN. The UK office tells him that there are no more business class seats available. SB expresses confusion -- my ticket was already paid for as business class; his ticket had to be upgraded for additional money. If they were going to upgrade one, why not upgrade mine? And what happened to his request that we only be upgraded together? AA puts him on hold. SB and I have a surge of fear, since we actually have read the real fine print that says my ticket is invalid. So we both half expect her to come back and tell us that they're sorry, but they can't honor my ticket, and the next available flight home is in December.
- Instead, the nice rep came back and said they'd released a business class slot for me. I now have a business class confirmation for the return flight. We have no idea if we're sitting together, but we are SO not tempting fate.
So, wow, we actually win! We're back exactly to the reservations we made when we departed, only with an order of magnitude more drama. I guess we had to pay something for the effortless way the cats got home.
And I am shocked by just how different the US and UK office experiences have been with the very same airline. I wish there were some way we could stick with AA and only do business with their UK office. We would pay more money to do business with AA UK. Not that AA US seems to want our money.Current Mood:  pleasantly surprised |
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A critter chowed down on my wax beans. Boo.
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so, focus on the bright side, right?
the bright side is that i don't have any more homework due this week, or next, or the one after...
the down-side is that it may be a year before i can claim the letters RN, if ever.
no, no, bright side! yes, bright thoughts: i get to sit the boards for the LPN as soon as my paperwork is all in. i should be employable within a month or two. that's a good thing, it really is (and if i keep repeating it i'm sure to believe)...
it's just so bloody frustrating to be told your best isn't good enough because there isn't enough time for you to learn to compensate for your limitations. i mean, if you were just ignorant or stupid, that could be worked around, but no... you have too much background frustration because too much is dependent upon your success and it's making you scared, too scared to succeed. so how do you succeed? you have to make it not matter whether you do or not... and when something is a great desire, it's hard to make-believe it doesn't matter. |
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I've been hearing this song in my head all day. Since I finally gave in and looked it up, I figured I'd share it.
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Grumpy
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Jul. 13th, 2009 @ 11:23 pm
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Dear writers of Torchwood,
Screw you.
Sincerely,
EchoCurrent Mood:  annoyed |
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So, Wednesday morning at 0:MiGod, we fly out to Indianapolis.
This has been a weekend filled with visiting and goodbyes. cryptosporidosi is visiting right now with her fiance. They are our most locationally complicated friends at the moment, being that he's Scottish, she's New Mexican, they currently live in Christchurch, New Zealand, and they're not entirely sure where they're going to be living a few years from now. (Try planning THAT wedding.) Our last week here coincidentally overlapped with their big trip to his home to (among other things) introduce her to the family. After some soul-searching, we decided that, hey, why don't they stay with us for a few days while we're in utter panic about moving home?
Actually, it's been incredibly lovely to have them here. I'm glad we decided to do it, as unwise as it sounded when we talked about it. Instead of making things crazier, their company has been soothing and comforting.
Saturday, we threw a going-away party, and people actually came. We went nuts on the food with a mixture of new discoveries and nostalgia: multicultural green chili enchiladas (rolled enchiladas made with middle eastern flatbread, chicken, green chili, and peyneri cheese), guacamole, Spanish anchovy-stuffed olives, and Victoria sponge cake. Along with Crypto and P, telynor, filceolaire, Telynor's son G, littlecinnamon, callylevy, and djbp all came. We have friends, and now we have to leave! That's pretty emotionally complicated.
I started to write things about HOW it is emotionally complicated, but nothing looked right, and I guess it ought to be obvious. We knew this trip was finite. We have a home and dear friends we are eager to return to. But now we leave a piece of ourselves behind here too. The world becomes smaller and yet somehow at the same time it becomes crushingly huge. I kept wanting to say, "We'll visit again soon!" But it's not clear when we'll have the money to go winging our way across the Atlantic Ocean. And though our house is always open (no really), Albuquerque isn't really on the way to very many places for those visiting from overseas. At least we have LiveJournal. There's always LiveJournal.
We managed to push out almost all of the goodbyes for just a little longer, though. Sunday, we did some sightseeing with Crypto and P, then took a long walk along the Thames and managed to just catch littlecinnamon and callylevy at St. Paul's Cathedral on the tail end of their street piano concert crawl. (http://www.streetpianos.com/) For those on my list who like folk or filk, you should really check them out. They're Playing Rapunzel, http://www.playingrapunzel.com/
So after the music fix and the real, final goodbye hugs, we walked across the Thames on the Millennium Foot Bridge to the reconstructed Globe Theater, where we watched Troilus and Cressida. (Good time. Neat venue. Mediocre performance. Traditional dress, except for the use of a semiautomatic in the final confrontation between Achilles and Hector -- WTF?) Afterward, we strolled another couple of blocks along the Thames and met up with telynor and filceolaire for dinner.
So we milked our goodbyes for all they were worth, and now they're over. And the time we took to play tourist with Crypto and P have been a fitting goodbye to the city. Now, it's really over -- there's just the last bit of packing, cleaning, tying of lose ends, stressing, and getting out of here.
At least Crypto is going to have to be back in Abq in August for her obligatory visa renewal, sadly without P, so we can keep this visit low pressure.
Home itself seems kind of alien to think about. I have this image of us walking through the front door of our house that is in the back of my head all the time now. Sometimes it's even in my dreams. We won't be doing that this week; we have 1.5 weeks scheduled with friends and family in Indianapolis and Louisville. And we've punted on a handful of issues there, like the fact that the battery for our one remaining car seems to be dead. But by the last weekend in July we will be back.
Wow. What an adventure it has been.Current Mood:  weird |
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Do not confuse perfection with excellence.
Do not confuse excellence with perfection.
Excellence is achievable. Perfection is not required.
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So, the point of a myth is to be a teaching story. A good myth explains how some phenomenon came about with words that are simple and easy to embrace and remember. An excellent myth is also entertaining and easily related to the listener's life. Yah, there's that whole problem that some really cunning people learned how to seize power by dictating which myths were true and which were bupkiss, and now we have religious tensions the world over because of it, but that's not a point I'm getting into now...
Anyhow, I've been talking with many confirmed agnostics and several militant atheists of late, and I've heard the same problem repeated many times. There isn't a really good way to teach young children a concept of morality or consistently explain why the world is the way it is. There's a lot of teaching tools for the school-aged child, but there aren't really a lot of non-religious explanation-type bedtime stories.
I was thinking about this the other day when committing myself to the genocide of sandburr and tumbleweed, and I came up with a decent explanation of the big-bang model of creation as well as evolution and diversity in reproductive styles. Problem is, now that I've concocted it I don't know what to do with it since I don't really have children to field-test it on... hrm... |
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A lot of TMI health news under the cut. Squickky.
Give me ten more crunches!!
( Good News )
Give me ten more crunches!
( Bad News )
Still taking tramadol and piroxicam and my vitamins (multi with Fe, B with folic, C, Ca with D) and probiotic.
I let Rh know that I am going to China next month. It changed his treatment plan. Ah, the joys of a compromised immune system!
Overall, though, I feel pretty good. I'm doing what I am able to do and making progress.
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Anyone out there have a little time and wants to read through Wanderer Book 1 for me. This is still in rough draft stage (so not a playtest document). The game is a sword and sorcery version of Traveller (sci fi game). If you are interest and can turn it around in a few days (or even later today) drop me an e-mail at ghashsnaga at gmail dot com. I'll put in the credits page for editing, proofing, etc. Also let me know if you are interested in playtesting as well!! Thanks.
If I get it all together by end of August I would like to submit this for a contest and possible demo it a con.
thanks,
ara
EDIT: It's only 36 half pages long so a little less then 18 pages total. |
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