Musings

Hey, this was the closest I could come to the “name in lights” theme from our archive of personal photos….

Today’s theme: friends making splashes (aka excellent adventures!)….

First, last night. Rey was on Jeopardy. Came in second! From all I hear, when you’re up, the key wrinkle is more the button to ring in than anything else—the limiting factor certainly is not what you know.

And this morning: Nancy figured out that a White House PR person (“senior White House aide”) had plagiarized, and not at all subtly, and broke the story on her blog. 235 comments as of this post. And more plagiarism uncovered. So far, the White House response is disappointment. Elsewhere, comments are already up on the Washington Post page and I understand the issue has been mentioned in the Situation Room. And, of course, JCB has commented extensively, wisely, and with erudition….

KUDOS to Rey and Nancy!

Posted at 6:27 PM | 1 Comment »

Thanks JCB for the photo….

Several times we’ve enjoyed a sauteed green at Chinese restaurants. We don’t know what it’s called, and generally stumble around in a discussion with a well-meaning waitron, ending with happy nods all around, and a few minutes later we’re brought a steaming platter of these greens with a light oil and garlic sauce. Yum.

So, when I saw some pretty fresh fine looking raw ones displayed at Your DFM (dumb page; I refuse to link to it), I nabbed two bunches. The sign called them something like gailan broccoli in English and something else in something else.

I could feel a fine sand all over the leaves and stems, so carefully washed them—they’re draining here. Then I trimmed the bases and split the thick parts of the stems in quarters. I threw some garlic in the butter and then sauteed them. I think I used far less fat so they weren’t quite as tasty as the restaurant version, but, there ya go, that’s how it is the first time you cook something—and on your own, too!

Gross physiology suggests it’s in the Brassica family with broccoli and kolrabi, and sure enough, here it is, one of several forms of Brassica oleracea. Click on Gai Lan/Jie Lan for the best picture of what I’ve eaten, and you can buy seeds to boot!

I did all this googling for this blahg entry, and not, oddly, prior to my cooking adventure….

Posted at 5:07 PM | 1 Comment »

About 6:20 this morning the smoke detector chirped and the power went out. For about an hour. While the house slowly cooled. We’re in another cold spell.

Yet the pansies are still in bloom!

These days I’m loving the power of cropping in Photoshop….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Close-up

Cielo enojado, this afternoon

A huge front came through this morning, with two lines of heavy rain, the first shortly after 6 am. Guess what woke me up?

Then we had a mixed weather through the afternoon, including several short-lived appearances by the sun. By the time we finished a short walk to the library, (apparently) malevolent skies reigned again….

Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about the institutional reorganization of the highland Epiclassic and lowland Terminal Classic—two names for (approximately) the same period. Yes, in Mesoamerica….

…and down in Florida, the power’s out in many places, including Disney World….

Posted at 4:42 PM | Comments Off on Grey skies…

Nice prosecco from last week….

How can this be? Hope I’m not coming down with something, but my energy level feels more like Friday than Monday.

Posted at 9:31 PM | Comments Off on Really? Monday?

Mostly I avoid pondering where our elected representatives choose to allocate our federal tax dollars, but then I poke around in the Smithsonian web site and I feel a bit less cynical.

John White made a watercolor of this Roanoke leader in 1585, and this is an old photograph of it. Love the curled-up toes!

After checking a few more images, maybe this is just how White drew feet…. Perhaps he trained in shoe-drawing and not foot-drawing…. On the other hand (har), his fingers look a bit floppy, too….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Old photos

La Penserosa, 1856, by Hiram Powers, who apparently was the most widely known American sculptor in the mid-19th C. Newz to me! [At the High on Val-Day.]

How could I forget to mention that when out foraging the other day, at Star Provisions we saw among their lovely displays a chunk of imported Kobe beef for a mere $128 per pound. Plus sales tax. We left it languishing in the cooler.

Posted at 4:56 PM | Comments Off on Pondering x2

It’s Friday—well beyond humpday, on the verge of Fri-fest (long story)….

In weather news, we had rain off and on all last night and well into the morning. Our major reservoirs remain low by feet and feet (as of this morning, something like 10 for Allatoona and upwards of 20 for Lanier—the latter is Atlanta’s principal drinking water source), although it’ll be several days before the catchment area completely feeds all the runoff from the rains of the last 24 hrs into the reservoirs. Still, this slow spring rain, while good for plants, doesn’t impact reservoir levels very much.

Undeterred, the birds are coming through. We’ve had cardinals in the back yard, and I saw a flocks of busy grackles and robins in the front yard when I came back from errands.

Posted at 5:46 PM | Comments Off on News bits

Currently, Atlanta’s version of the national (multinational, but not global?) economic slowdown can be difficult to discern. Here’s the old White Provision Company (mmm, meatpacking, aka slaughterhouse*), originally built in 1910 and now listed on the National Register, being transformed into mixed use: commercial space and housing units.

The building is not far from GA Tech, and college/university towns/neighborhoods seem somewhat insulated from this downturn.

Note, too, the rain (the iPhone camera’s really better than this example—crappy light). VGood! Yea! We’re especially happy that it swept in Leslie à la Mary Poppins (not really) via Amtrak’s Crescent route (here on the Amtrak site, and here on Wikipedia).

* And also, if you believe the White Provision building web site, the building hosted Brad Pitt and David Duchovny et al. for location shooting for Kalifornia (1993).

Posted at 6:33 PM | Comments Off on Repurposing

Getting this dead dogwood* safely onto the ground was a weekend project by The Logger. Dogwood trees have pretty hard wood, like fruit trees, and pretty, too!

Ah, you ask about the glittering and decorative “Welcome to Ohio” sign—that was a b-day gift years ago to The Logger back when he was merely A Yardman. It’s from a movie set. The give-away: unlike a real sign, there’s no prominent mention of a Governor….

* Like many dogwoods around here, I think this one was infected with anthracnose—click here or here for pathology text and pictures…yum!

Posted at 5:36 PM | Comments Off on Logging operation