Saturday, December 04, 2010

WikiLeaks Continues...NO MORE LIES!

http://www.wikileaks.ch/
http://www.wikileaks.nl

Currently being hosted in many countries, thank you!

NO MORE LIES! Support WikiLeaks!

Friday, December 03, 2010

WikiLeaks Almost Leaks...Almost

I'm a combination of furious, disgusted and sad to observe the reactions of my government as the antics of our diplomatic and warrior past are laid bare for the world to see. I'm not so surprised we did all the things we did, or said all the things we said but that none of this has come to light through our so enlightening media or, for that matter, our ever chatty politicians. No, none of it, like it didn't happen. War is war, we pay for it with money, goods and the very lives of our soldiers. To be so very in the dark about our role as the world's policeman, judge and executioner is a product of our lack of education and lack of wonder at our own history and hijinks. WikiLeaks has done us a favor, a long awaited wake up call to all those who care about how the US of A is perceived around the world and how we, in turn perceive our enemies and allies. It is also apparent that the US is doing it's level, illegal best to make WikiLeaks unavailable thru hacking, denial of service attacks and out and out blocking of access. Yes, blocking of access...where you might ask has this been happening? The LIBRARY of CONGRESS has blocked such access to their visitors as well as their staff. Do we do such awful things we aren't even allowed to know what we do in the name of Freedom and Democracy? What a shame to be no better than China in covering up information distributed through the internet. When will we turn off Google and Bing? I'm aghast, and we are sheep once again. I'm ashamed of ou8r government, truely ashamed. Try to access WikiLeaks and see how far you get. Here's a group of URL's...

http://www.wikileaks.org

http://warlogs.owni.fr/

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/

If you think the fact that you cannot access any of these sites is some burp in the internet you do not know the truth about government censorship, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA and a few dozen other clandestine organizations that do this kind of nefarious work. Study up, your freedoms, and mine too are under attack and if we cannot stand the things that we do as a nation then shame on each and every one of us as well. Support Our Troops! Bring Them Home Alive Today! Enough is Enough!
_____
On another front...a telephone call came this morning from the Tree company that is going to remove the #$$#! palm tree from our yard. First they said it would happen tomorrow (Saturday) then on a follow on call...rescheduled to Tuesday at noon. Great news! Good riddance!
____
Additionally, my son is staying with us and has been since the 2nd of November. He and his wife of 12 years are in the process of getting a divorce. While he could certainly stay in Petaluma he likes our hands-off stance toward inter-familial politics. I hate divorces but recognize there is no reason to torture yourself with a bad marriage. Yes HE has kids but that won't be affected, he is still all of the father he is and was. Enough for now.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Thanksgiving come and gone...

We travelled down the 99 Highway through the valley towns to Le Grande in about 3 hrs, then took another 35 minutes to run the rough road up into the beautiful hills of East of Merced to the ranch. Thanksgiving 2010 was held in the 150 year old stone farmhouse and headquarters of The Van Ness Ranch. I have uploaded a 3 part 36 minutes in total video of the trip up that @###@! road. It is passable, that I can say, but not without horrendous ruts and potholes big enough to swallow a car. One dodges as a matter of course so it is an exhausting exercize to say the least! Kelly's cousin actually COMMUTES to her job in Le Grand...more to come...Mike's Home! More about THAT in a while! Here's the video...

Part 1 of 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsKQGbzeaf4

and another taken last night (Monday) at Chris's Club in Vallejo, CA. HOT!
More to come!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YvLceYN3Fk

Saturday, October 23, 2010

China?! Trade With China? Why?

The US and it's citizens have taken leave of their senses. We actually TRADE with China. Why? What hath Nixon wrought? They are STILL a COMMUNIST country! Still, and have been since the late 40's. See this:

http://www.uschina.org/statistics/tradetable.html

We avow great hatred of the Communist system of government but now we enhance their dominence of world trade with every doo-dad we buy in Wal-Mart, Target or every other @!##@@! big box store about. Ever in search for "real bargains" we have trampled each other trying to buy cheap Chinese goods. Our companies are relocating to China too! And selling their shoes etc to US! What the hell are we doing here? We need to stop it folks! If you are interested in being a country at all. No, it's NOT Obama and the Democrats that brought you this mess. No...it started with Mr. Nixon. Yes the goods started to flow shortly after his trip to China, read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Nixon_visit_to_China

So we have slowly, then not-so-slowly begun filling up the Chinese Financial system with our dollars. Billions and now TRILLIONS of dollars in trade to these Communists!
Are we nuts? What do we think, that they will LIKE us then and not bother to blow us to bits? They can instead of doing THAT...simply buy us bit by bit, day by day, toy by toy, galic buld by garlic bulb until we have no manufacturing, no farming, no
way to buy anything from anyone EXCEPT them! Yes, this IS the way it is going folks.
Your fine government has allowed and condoned this nearly irreversable trend for DECADES!
I'm aghast! We fight amongst ourselves Democrat against Republican or Ti Parti-ers when we ought to be paying close attention to every damned thing we buy folks...and don't buy Chinese goods anymore. Refuse whatever it is, and watch out at the grocery store too...Chinese vegies and meat are upon us and the USDA doesn't give a dman about imported food stuffs...that's right...they don't inspect anything imported. If the garlic had roots attached...it's probably US grown, if they've been trimmed away...watch out!
--- Total, Top 15 Countries 129.1 75.6%
1 China 35.3 20.7%
2 Canada 23.2 13.6%
3 Mexico 20.3 11.9%
4 Japan 10.8 6.3%
5 Federal Republic of Germany
7.5 4.4%
6 United Kingdom
4.5 2.6%
7 Korea, South
4.4 2.6%
8 Taiwan
3.3 1.9%
9 Venezuela
3.1 1.8%
10 France
3.0 1.8%

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Da Plane! Da Plane!

 
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Yesterday I arose from my fitful sleep to go as quietly as possible from the house and drive below the speed limit to Vacaville's Nut Tree Airport. They were having a fly-in/airshow/not-so-static display of WW2 aircraft and many others. They promised P-51 Mustangs in quantities not to be less than 13 or so and it's one of my favorites. I'm an airplane NUT, I'm plain nuts about airplanes and have been since I was but a wee babe in the jungles of Panama. I built, with copious help from my Dad, a balsawood airplane of small dimensions with a rubber band motor when I was 6 years old. It had done what it always does during the rainy season in Panama, rain, especially in the afternoon, and while my Dad was off doing his Army business I was hot to see the little machine fly. We lived on Fort Clayton in military housing, very pretty it was surrounded by jungle and flowers of all kinds but there were few places big enough (I thought) for my plane to take to the skies. So toddled off...ran through the jungle trail to a large clearing adjacent to the Panama Canal.
Once there I wound up the rubber motor to just short of double knots all the way...pretty strong stuff this balsa wood, and let her go into the face of the slight breeze blowing in from the sea. Off she went with a slight turn to the right, then reaching the height of the tallest trees she began to glide...downwind! I ran after the wayward (now) plane only to see it sail out over the edge of the concrete canal and disappear! The canal was NOT protected from people by fencing along that stretch, being actually a part of the large lake that forms the canal proper. There the plane sat all forlorn floating along with the breeze a couple of hundred feet from where I was. Oh, woe is me! I watched as it floated out of sight then walked forlornly back along the trail home to face the music. All I recall after that was a long session of building model airplanes both in Panama and the US once I arrived in Selma, California. Now I watch them fly out of Travis AFB a few miles away and at events like this one in Vacaville.

Yes, as I grew up in Selma I built more models, not only airplanes, but boats, cars and homemade rockets, oh those rockets. My best friend at the time was David S. who lived in a near mansion across the alleyway behind our house. He lived on "D" street, we lived on "E" street. He and I were always up to something, CO2 cartridge rockets and others that more resembled pipe bombs than anything else! We used good ol' gasoline in the CO2 ones and they jetted along a wire strung between trees in each of our backyards shooting a trail of burning gas as they went. Good to watch! Hard on the lawn(s). The pipes that we used were filled with a combo of shotgun powder from shotgun shells and match heads from "strike anywhere" matches, plus whatever flammable or explosive materials we could drum up. Railroad flares were always to be found half burned along the tracks near the high school so were a convenient source of "good stuff". These hardly ever had enough thrust to lift themselves off the ground as we had not discovered the venturi-effect yet so no nice nozzles to concentrate the gasses through, but they did burn like hell's very fire! We damned near burned down his parents garage one day as we finished "loading" one of the rockets for another attempt. I just remember getting the hell burned out of my right middle finger and having to explain the fire trucks at David's house to my parents. Not an easy task liar that I was. So back to model planes I went.

I bought a plastic control-line plane that had a Wen-Mac .049 cubic inch engine that refused all techniques of starting attempted. Mostly not knowing enough and not reading instructions comprised the wasted Saturday morning flying sessions. Eventually after a few weeks I understood what good a fresh battery for the glow plug was for and never looked back. Then onto Atwood Shrieks and other engines more interesting and powerful. I built little speed planes to run against a "clock" and did pretty well in local contests with them. They were my pride and joy. Then I tried Free Flight...large wingspan planes, light structures that flew straight up in a spiral until they topped out at some height and glided back to earth slowly I hoped. Sometimes the flights did not quite gain a trajectory that worked and found Terre Firma far too soon...crunch! All of this by the time I was 14 or 15 years old and began to get interested in girls. That was the end of this chapter for years to come!

Thursday, October 07, 2010

Into The Fall

So hot then warm then cool, still to blustery, summer fell away like the leaves from the golden trees. The BEST time for weather in California is the golden red Fall. Ah the sweet scent of burning...what's that? PEAT?! Peat? Smells like...tar! Oh hell, it IS tar, they've waited all summer for it to get cool so they can tar the damned roofs downtown! Shit! The scent wafts through Old Town and chokes us all. Yuck!
____
Kelly's off to Vallejo to shop for some delicious finds and I will soon drive across town to the Swamphouse to continue the lacquering of the upstairs bedroom/sewing room floor and the laying of the tile backerboard for the tile floor in the downstairs bedroom/office. Now that's a long sentence in more than one way! The lacquering goes beyond the physical into the mental. it hurts...my arthritic wrists HATE it. The endless dip-drap-splash brush, brush out repeat...gads it's hard on the ol' hands and wrists. Grrrrrr. Coat after coat. 4 coats will do it but it's 3 inches at a time forever! Then the laying of the Hardibacker concrete board on the floor is little better. The tub of pre-mixed goop weighs 50 lbs at least and is a devil to open and close to boot. Grrrrrr then the board itself has to be gooped up with a slotted trowel and laid...then followed by 40 1 5/8" screws into the subflooring. Grrrrrrr.
____
And Ted is in Dubai! Went skiing indoors and says it's so hot outside he's lost interest! Well he's off to Paris in a few days...Paris in the Fall is nothing short of Heaven itself with REAL red wine! Ahhhhh

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Hotter 'n Hell

Well...maybe...it's plenty hot though, been about 100f for the last 4 days. There goes the PGE bill! I checked the Smartmeter site this morning to see the sticker-shock and while it's higher than our average it's only going to last til tomorrow it looks like. The ol' Suisun west wind is turned ON and that signals the beginning of cooler times to come. When it is quiet, we roast. Simple as that. The name Suisun means West Wind in some American Indian dialect. Our big house was situated so that the afternoon wind flowed thru it and thus kept the whole house cool and comfortable most of the time without using air-conditioning. Here in the new abode...that is simply not the case. We used Nansulate paint on the outer wall interiors and that has helped the ground floor to remain in the 70's when it's 100 degrees outdoors, without A/C! Yes, it's doing it's job alright. Well worth it though when the temp is in three digits. Upstairs in the office space it too has the Nansulate but the outer perimeter of the room, built iside the attic area is an oven, enclosed and heated by the sun to 120+ degrees most days in the summer, wind or not, good ol' solar power at work doing whatr it does best, heat things up. So I used one of the A/C units from the Swamphouse inside that space facing into the office room itself to turn on when it got as hot as it now is. I keep the thermostat at 75 degrees which is even cool feeling when it's so hot outdoors. Today Kelly asked me to raise it as she was actually chilled! So it's at 78 degrees now and it feels just fine to me. Without the A/C it would be above 90 degrees in here right now. As it is it's about 85 actually.

Picked most of the tomatoes two days ago and the rest wait for ripening and that will be soon in this heat. They are beautiful, bright red and sweet as could be.
Make great Sugo and Ragu. I just poach them for a few minutes in boiling water to soften the skins, then pass them thru a hand mill to separate the skins from the pulp. I then freeze it for use later in the winter when these lovely things are hard to find unless, of course, you don't have ill-feelings for tomatoes from far off places somewhat south of our border. Not me! I use either canned or my own frozen puree instead. Same with the basil. Worth it!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

First Rain

The first fall rain, 19 September about 8 am this morning as the front of a weak Pacific storm made it's way into California. Seems pretty normal to me but the Catalpa Tree is starting to turn colors and other trees about town are similarly donning their Fall manner of dress. Nice, I like fall colors and the coming of winter even in a sublimely gentle climate like California's. The big flat wet Pacific storms will follow and snow will fall 10 feet deep in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains in the course of the next 6 months or so.
___

The Political Season is upon us, it's also The Crazy Season. Wingnuts, mostly on the far right of the Republican Party are trying to wrest public opinion from the Teed Off Partie groupies who are nutty beyond belief. They are so stricken with Racism, hate and strife they need serious anger management classes...daily! I have long decided they are not fit to govern anybody, least of all Americans with any education or sensibility at all. They object to everything, anything, everybody who doesn't think exactly their way, there is no centrist Tea Partier. The Republican Party has been long hijacked by the far right and the religious wingnuts who join them. We shall see where this all leads. Not good folks. Not good.
____
Trying scallops with vanilla sauce again tonight, with candied orange baby carrots and boiled/roasted fingerling potatoes. The vanilla pan juice sauce didn't come together correctly last week when I made the same dish. Not enough vanilla flavor, I refuse to pay the 8 dollars a vanilla bean so I used Bourbon Vanilla extract, far cheaper but without the punch I wanted. I'll make a different style sauce tonight, probably a white sauce or béchamel and caramelize the scallops a bit more as well...
1 minute per side was just not enough, they were slightly undercooked, so two minutes in a 450 degree skillet this time. That should do it. Tell you later!
H

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Garage Sale at The Swamphouse

Up at 6am sharp...pants on, shirt on, keys, coffee and toast and newspaper readings done. Off to The Swamphouse across town to clear out the clutter (I would say ONCE AND FOR ALL but I know better) from the front hall. Audrey came along and was a very good helpmate and worker as well as the runner for our lunch (SUBWAY Sandwiches). Sold some stuff...about 150 bux worth of mixed items...mixed meaning identifiable and almost clean but worth less than 5 bux. Lots of books at 25 cents each/5 for a dollar went into other hands. Very nice. It was easier than I thought it would be to tell the truth, I had been somewhat apprehensive as today is The Anniversary of the World Trade Center destruction.

I have an idea about today to help ease the pain of it, make Septemebr 11th a National Holiday to celebrate Volunterism and Public Service. Celebrate our Fire Departments, Police Departments, Emergency Workers, Highway Patrol et al. and use it as a call for volunterism. It could be a great follow on to Labor Day as well which just got over with last Monday. Two Holidays in the beginning of September? Sure, why not? There's nothing else except the beginning of Monday Night Football to celebrate this month. Seems logical and a needed thing to buffer the awfulness of this date in the history of our country. Talk it up, maybe we can make it happen!

Thursday, September 09, 2010

New Stuff...September is here

Where to begin? I dunno...first is the discovery of our beautiful grandchild Kaylee's FB page. How fun, corss generalional communications, what a treat. They are so much more technologically able than us old farts that they communicate in this way like we used to with IMing and emails. Who even remembers snail mail? When was the last time you bought a stamp to mail a letter to someone dear and not so near? So she friended (a new verb) us and we are now on her list of friends.
____
Today I baked a loaf of bread without sugar as an ingredient. It's a first. Usually the 3 cups of bread flour have 2 Tablespoons of some sugar, molassus to assist the yeast in it's work. Today there was none of this. The result rose normally and browned nicely as well. The aroma was that of nuts and caramel. I'll let it set a few hours and try it and report back.

___
I asked last night at the Cast Iron Grill and Bar to get a kitchen tour today. The chef, Anthony set a date for today at 2pm and I was there with bells on! A beautiful slab of what was going to be corned beef was being prepared at the time so I kept out of the way and watched as Anthony drew his razor sharp (I mean it!) blade along the underside of the silverskin and peeled it away bit by bit. Then came another slab prepared the same way, then pierced to allow the seasoning to penetrate thoroughly. The it was wrapped in plastic and put aside to marinate for a while.
We discussed many elements of his kitchen as well as recipes and methods. He has worked in many restaurants after culinary school and worked as a sous chef with Bobby Flay in the past as well. He possessed a very kindly and knowledgeable attitude with this chef-wanna-be-but-will-never-be answering my cooking questions one after the other. It was a very impressive visit and as I left I said "You are our restaurant now!" and meant it.








Saturday, August 28, 2010

Renna's Meat Market

http://www.rennasmeatmarket.com/ The BEST in the WEST! Quick Delivery! What a wonderful array of meats Joey has, it's amazing and delicious! The absolutely tenderest steaks you can get your quick fire on! Ribe Eye steaks to die for! The sausage varieties are first quality and the very best tasting on the market! I'm ever so impressed. Try a ragu using Joey's hamburger, it NEVER tasted so good!
He's in Fresno, California, the Heart of the San Joaquin Valley, the bread basket of the United States. He'll ship anywhere in the world! Anywhere! Give him and the guys behind the counter at Renna's a try, you won't be disappointed!

Friday, August 20, 2010

Eggs from where?!

Good grief! 380 MILLION bad eggs...tainted with chicken shit..oops...salmonella bacteria. They want to investigate how they got that way. Hey, pay me I'll tell you! By laying eggs by the zillions below...the key word...BELOW chickens! Anyway, why oh why do we ship these things all over the US and ALASKA, yes...even ALASKA got some of these damned things. This is just an example of the problem of eating, consuming, buying goods that are from far off places. Whose Quality Control? The chicken did it's level best I bet to crank out another damned egg for the company, it was innocent but somehow, someway this lot of 380 MILLION eggs got shit sprayed on them. WASH ALL PRODUCE! WASH ALL CHICKEN MEATS! Now you can add eggs to those commands...WAS ALL EGGS! What else I wonder?

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Ribs

Ribs...mmmmmm good! I LIKE ribs in the summertime especially. Cooked and hot they are wonderful and cooked properly they are great cold too. Cooking ribs properly is an art and there are so many ways it boggles the mind to consider them. I used to BBQ them on a Webber grill and they were darned good, slow cooked, tender and flavorful. When I say "ribs" I mean PORK ribs (sorry to my Muslum friends), NOT Beef, deer, lion, bear or any other meateous material. Pork. Pig. Oink! Over the years I hardly varied, always cooked them on the grill over hoit coals, lid on for about an hour then off with the lid, added a particular kind of BB Sauce and after about 30 minutes had the ribs on a plate with potato salad or french fries and maybe a green salad. That was then, this is NOW:

1. One rack of ribs (16-20 ribs inclusive)
2. Score with a sharp knife between each rib and along the back silver skin thoroughly.
3. Rub liberally both sides with salt and pepper and cayeene pepper as well.
4. Cut the racks in half, 8 - 10 ribs each part.
5. Lay in the middle of a sheet of Aluminum Foil cut about 6" oversize in length.
6. Fold up and seal as best you can to allow no liquids to escape. Tight, tight, tight.
7. Place on a cookie sheet or broiler pan and slip it into the oven set at 300 degrees for 2 Hours.
8. Remove from oven, open up the aluminum foil and pour off the liquids that have accumulated into a stainless steel bowl. Place in Refrigerator.
9. Allow ribs to cool approx 30 minutes.
10. Remove liquids from Refrigerator and scrape off congealed fat from the liquid.
11. Add 1 cup for each cup of your favorite BBQ sauce.
12. Coat the ribs liberally on both sides with your combined sauce.
13. Place on top of Aluminum foil sheet or use old packets to protect the broiler pan.
14. Insert in 375 degree oven, recoat every 15 - 20 minutes...recoat three times (one Hour).
15. Remove, Cut into individual ribs and place on plate. Great with a cold beer!

My oh my, the best ribs yet and no Weber to deal with. Give it a try and email me with your results and suggestions.
hnlute@gmail.com

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

67

Sixty-Seven, Hmmm...not a bad age as ages go. 2 years into Social Security for most of our fine older citizens and 5 for me as I chose to take my lower amount earlier. Why? Well darlings 'cause I thought I'd be long gone by now and wanted SOME of my money back anyhow. If I had the bucks I'd pay it all back and refile now instead, get more that way. Yes you CAN do that, it's rare but it can be done, look it up.
___

Yesterday morning I went out the front door to water the north side and lo and behold! A PALM TREE NOTICE was hung quite prominently on our door handle. Yes, a genuine PALM TREE NOTICE. It stated in sucinct terms that our very fine, 45 foot tall California Fan Palm, Washingtonia filifera, was without doubt about to take out half the electrical service in Suisun City and needed to be gone ASAP at no expense to ourselves! Jezzz a B-Day PRESENT from PG&E (our power company)! Fantastic! Just last week we had gotten an estimate from a Tree Surgeon to take the tree down. He said it's be $2500! Well that's 300 dollars less than the estimate we got 16 years ago, whoopee! So we called the phone number given and about 2 minutes later the nice PG&E Palm Tree Terminator arrived. We looked over the Tree-Of-Doom, determined that yes, indeed...it certainly WOULD take out anything it fell on and soon a paper was properly signed and sealed. "Two to three weeks" was the answer to "When will this take place?", Wow! I've waited 16 years for this I can certainly wait another two to three weeks! Happy B-Day to me!

____

So Big B-Day dinner today, daughter dearest Aud will attend I hope...the menu, all cooked by yours truely you understand is as follows:
Caprese (fresh tomato, mozzerella, basil...simple and delicious)
Eggplant Parmesan (fried eggplant rounds with sugo)
Coq Au Vin Bay Wolf Style (braised thighs and legs of chicken in red wine w/onions and mushrooms)
Vegetables (carrots, potatoes)
Chocolate Cake
Burp!
Yes sir! 67 years and going strong! Very cool indeed!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Why I Hate Microsoft...and I DO!

So many reasons; so few cusswords. Almost from Day One of the Windows era I have disliked then hated Microsoft. Opening the box to get out 40 3.5" diskettes for Windows 98 was hard; then there were 20 CD's with OS2 which was IBM but I blame Microsoft for! Nothing with Windows Anything was EVER easy either and if you made a mistake on anything you paid for it 10X over. Support was marginal in the beginning and downright hideous now. Intuitive? They don't know they meaning of the word.
I had to buy a group license for 3 machines for Win 7 because I wanted to be legal on the two I need it on...at 159 USD! The PRICE for One lousy copy of Windows 7 is absurd, that's why I opted for the license for 3. If I wanted a license for 4 I would have had to pay full price for at least ONE of them. It's enough to make you go into the world of cracks and Torrents for your Windows 7 "purchase". They just behave like a bad bully whose house you HAVE to go by just to leave your house.
And then there's the different 'versions" ie: Stunted, Almost an OS, Sort of OS, OS.
It just pisses me off to be so much out of control, they ARE the original Grinch That Stole Christmas and Scrouge mushed together. Got sued in Europe for the same shenanigans they do and get away with here in the US. FTC hardly takes a look at them these days though they used to. Rich company keeping Intel and AMD rich as well. It's a bitch.

Some moments of mirth have come our way lately, Audrey in Love is one of them...her boyfriend-the-drummer and the 5 pieces of chicken experience. You can make it up. Let's just say he has an appetite that is "Growing Boy" while being 39 years of age and 300 lbs of male human being. He is a hungry sort to say the least. She had 1 piece and He: 5. 2nds anyone? 3rds? "Yes", he says..."Please".

Then more: We have been and ARE among the notorious "Mystery Shoppers" of current lore...checking on the quality of the services you get at various retail establishments in our local area. It's NOT lucrative, pay is shit to be sure but often enough it is a fun experience that takes us out of the worksite (oops...house) and we explore what, for us, is largely unexplored. Today it was a restaurant, which one will remain unsaid, and was a very thorough examination of food, servers, managers, gardeners (yes!) and the space itself. Fun and worth the price of admission as the amount received was sufficient to pay for lunch-for-two. A free lunch followed by an hour of writing about it in trivial detail. Great fun! Tonight...well we do it again! Yes, again we go out to eat. We will report on it by iNet tomorrow and so it goes with our little lives in Suisun City. It's NOT France but we're making the most of our small miseries.

Bye for now kiddies! Burp!

Saturday, August 07, 2010

Cool August Nights...

Not HOT ones like everyone says are so typical here. Sorry...we are in the midst of a very cool summer season with our daily temps in the mid-low 80s. That's a problem too as it is the height of the tomatoe season for both the big industrial tomatoe farming enterprises and my own 10 foot square micro-farm. I picked tomatoes today that had been on the bloody plants for weeks and weeks, had reached their typical 3" size and stayed green for the whole time. Not good. They will NOT be the most flavorful and delicious of fruit that is for sure. Yes...Tomatoes are a FRUIT, like an apple is a fruit...and eggplant, zuchinni etc. all come from a flowery start. Others like beets, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, are root vegies. Then there are legumes, beans, lentils etc. and who knows what I haven't mentioned, too many to name. Anyway...the cold summer has done it's best at retarding the ripening if not the growth of every crop about the area, mine included, however small.

The Swamphouse south 40 is still being cut down, not daily as my #@$$#$#$! back can't seem to deal well with the weight of the saplings when they fall and must be cut by hand and placed in a stack. Awful dirty, hot and itchy work as I've said before but it has got to be done before we rent the place sometime soon I hope.

Kelly's trusty (well...almost) Prius has developed a strange problem...the drivers side door will not lock or unlock either from the button inside the door or her key fob. ?????. Mysterious. I checked fuses and came up empty handed. It locks from the key only or the lever on the inside handle but nothing automatic. Might be the actuator I suppose. Expensive to fix.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Audrey in Love

Change is upon us. Audrey is in love...head over heels as it is when you first meet a soulmate thriller guy. He has her, full on...HAS her heart, soul and being. She is NOT who she was a few weeks ago. No...she has fallen BIG TIME and it's thrilling and familiar to watch. She deserves IT. She wants IT. She needs it. A deep and dear friend, a person to give to, to take from, to exchange with, to give the day and night meaning. She found him.

The thicket at the Swamphouse is being attacked, not daily as I thought I would do...it turns out my back couldn't do what my mind wanted it to do. So I work along, today but maybe not tomorrow, the next day the same. Slowly it is uncoverred like it hasn't been in years. A real thicket it is too with not a few accidentally copst pear trees forming the most of it. The ancient cactus that I planted there shortly after it was ground to pieces in 1994 when the City of Suisun took down the old WW2 era apartments and IT. It has grown in stature over the years and is a character with cactus pears too! I love the thing though Kelly does not and our friend Marsha who knows everything about plants ever known...says it will spread and take over the place...it has been in my backyard for 16 years and just grown UP and UP and out but no new cactus has sprouted. Maybe one day but not up til today. I pruned away a couple of arms as they had grown overly much, so be it.

I tried installing a 500GB Sata HD in this machine and had no easy time of it, took days of retries and reinstalls of Windows 7 til I backed off yesterday and put the thing on Ollie the scientific machine as extra storage. Oh well. See you later.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Water...Water EVERYWHERE...I didn't do it!


More Farm Images

Water...Water Everywhere...I didn't do it!
Merde! Merde! Merde! (That's shit, shit, shit in French) Off in the morning yesterday to the Swamphouse to do more moving chores and cleaning as we have been doing for the last months. My neighbor Vern had called just before we left our new abode to tell me there was a giant puddle of water in the front of the house. Oh grrrr. So upon arriving at the house sure enough here's a running stream going down the street to the drain at the corner. After entering the house I could hear the roar of a waterfall in the distance. I openned the rear sliding door to find a torrent of the precious stuff crashing against the wall and valves of the automatic watering system. The problem was somewhere IN the exterior wall of the house and the stream was shooting out with much force and noise. Grrrrr. The main turn off valve at the house was right there so I turned and turned it until I finally got it almost off...almost. Not just a drip, drip, drip either...still a running leak. A pair of pliers did little to help. Grrrrr. So I went to the street and found the main water connection and the meter as well as the main valve and was able to shut it off entirely there. Good. So upon further examination I determined this was beyond my ability or interest to fix. It would be good money after bad if I took it on certaiunly, me being, by all measures the worst plumber in the United States if not the World. So off to call Joe The Plumber, whom has done ever so much incredible and inventive plumbing work for us over the years, mostly at the old houses in downtown Suisun but he has been to the Swamphouse upon occassion as well. I trust him, he's highly skilled and is fairly priced too...the best kind of Plumber to know. Hours went by and I finally decided that he was on vacation or ???? knew enough of us to avoid our problems at all cost...but no...he had just missed the message on his message machine. He called a few minutes ago and we set up a time for his examination and subsequent work...tomorrow at 7:30am. I get over there to meet and show him the waterfall then get out of his way.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Oh My Aching Back! Another Complaint...


The Farm 07-19-2010

Maybe we reached a crossroads yesterday about noon...maybe. You see EVERYTHING we own has been moved by us with a bit of help here and there from our trusty, lovely, intelligent and STRONG daughter Audrey. Every single item in this house has been hauled here from across the great divide...Suisun's Turning Basin aka "Waterfront". Every single thing lifted, pulled, shoved, hoisted, ensnared in ropes and straps into the back of my trusty ol' 1997 Ford Ranger for the 1 mile ride to Morgan Street. My neck is sore, my lower back tight and in pain, my arms ache, my wrists creak and snap and my fingernails broken...all in the efforts necessary to move in. Worth all of it? Oh yes, we love the place, the location, the neighbors, the batty older man who holds whole conversations with an invisible companion who answers his every comment as well. It is an INTERESTING place to put down roots. I've never lived in a place that had so many folks riding around in motorized wheelchairs, even our bestest politico J drives hers down the middle of the street to sit in front of our place and chat about the happenings in our dapper little town. It's all so warm and cozy.

I've taken to being attacked by bugs unseen in the last few days. I have raised, itchy bumps all over my aging torso and I don't like it one bit. Being a Trustee on the Solano County Mosquito Abatement Board doesn't have No Bite cards so I am picked on without fear of reprisal...while I sleep. Grrrr.

Just back from the morning run to the Swamphouse...guess what, now a file cabinet, a small but extra heavy one that has drawers that will not stay put, they fly out at the damnedest of times. Crunch! There goes another finger and fingernail. Ouch! We hoisted it into my truck and I drove slowly home contemplating the next step...which is getting the thing upstairs into the office. Grrrr again.

Home and the cabinet is at the bottom of the stairs with Kelly going through it NOW...?!?!? so it will be lighter for The Big Lift to come in a bit. Outside I refill the birdfeeder, water the north side bushes and tree and peer around the corner at the sliver of land nicely planted by our now long-gone neighbor. It suffers from lack of care, water and everything else...pruning included. I guess I'm adopting it if I give a damn at all about the plants and the appearance of that west side of the house. Maybe they think it's mine anyway. Who knows?! They're rarely home to ask.

Well down to bring the infernal cabinet upstairs. Bye for now!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Like I said...Terrible Plumber!

So I washed the beets and turned on the garbage disposal to listen to it's fine grinding and munching sound then turned it off after 30 seconds or so and then...what's that?! Oh shit! A loud water drianing sound that continued and continued! Oh no...oh yes...something has given up the ghost UNDER the sink in a manner deciededly SIMILAR (not exactly though) the fine BP oil disaster now in it's 80th day in a Gulf near you. Up close the sound might be similar, might is the key word. And what is spilling is not nearly so oily. Just water, a LOT of water from the sinks above has found it's way out of the pipe connection where it dives under the house towards the street. Shit, shit, shit. (Merde, merde, merde in French), so I open the cupboard to see water gushing forth and soon I drag the rugs from other areas to this one and grab a towel from the stock of old towels kept for just this purpose (she knows!) and start to contain the spill...like the booms do in the Gulf of Mexico. I turn the water back on above and note the leak's location. Then I find the connection has come completely apart, rubber to plastic is slippery and it has failed due to gravity doing it's work when the pipe is full of water. So I reconnect it and the one aboe it that has broken loose as well, dry out the cabinet bottom, turn the water on for an inspection and deem it "fixed". I need to do SOMETHING though to fasten the pipe bnetter underneigh so it isn't pulling down on the connection itself. More work awaits.

The 10 X 10 graden of eden is doing it's best to bury us in zuchinni, there's always zuchinni...about 5 - 7 medium sized ones every day. The tiny orange and yellow tomatoes are at it too, delivering many every day as well. Eggplants are growing and there are 2 hanging eggplant fruits that need a few more days to mature before I make Pasta Norma for Kelly, one of her favorite dishes. The basil forest is producing nice amounts of top leaves and a few flowers in the heat as well. My next great find will be eating sized tomatoes from the big tomatoe plants, that'll be a few days coming but there are lots hanging on in the sunshine.

The World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain is tomorrow and I WANT Spain to destroy the giants fron the Netherlands. The english octopus says that Spain is going to win and octopuses arte never wrong about such things. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFvrAdyFUJ8

Saturday, July 03, 2010

The Fourth of July, Indepenence Day, Whoopee!

The 4th is a stupendous celebration throughout the United States. It commemorates our intention to become independent of our good ol' friend England in 1776. It goes off in a bang everywhere there are citizens of the US. We love it generally and only the grumps hold back. It's always been a favorite of mine coming at the height of the summer months amidst plentiful sunshine and warm (if not downright HOT!) weather. When my kids were little I held the biggest, baldest fireworks display ion our entire block and hardly ever set fire to anyone's house or cars. Incidents did happen from time to time with minor burns to hands and paint and once even a roof (my own!), otherwise it was just good fun thanks to my connections in Chinatown in San Francisco. You could buy any and everything you wanted for not a whole lot of money too. Then the work would begin to rig up whirly gigs and series of fuses so things went off almost certainly in sequence. Terrific for my kids and their friends on the block. I loved it. My favorite things were a firework called "Ground Bloom Flowers", some of these were small and spun like the wild things they were bouncing up and down totally out of control and lots of scary moments occurred when one ventured under a neighbor's car or truck or our own fireworks! Yes sir, great fun! The I found a dealer in The City that had these things in LARGER sizes weighing not mere ounces but a full pound or more! Whoopee! They were downright dangerous and had long leashes of 25 -50 feet which allowed them to bounce high and fast and fill the sky with sparks and fury. I LOVED these things!

Now I live with Kelly and Furry and our daughter Audrey (nearby) in Suisun and we have the biggest, baddest most amazing Independence Day in the whole county of Solano! Bands play, singers sing, flags fly, food is served and copious amounts of beer and wine are served. It is a scene! At the end of the day just as nightfall happens the fireworks begin and thousands of people come here to see them up close over our waterway and turning basin. Fantastic they are and they far outdo anything I did...ever! It is a great day indeed for our nation and for our citizens and visitors. Come one, come all to Suisun City tomorrow to enjoy the day and watch the fireworks show. Free Parking EVERYWHERE about town!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

All about not much...

Up and at the computer this morning to see how the BP oil spew is doing. SOS...same ol' shit! It could keep this up until the entire resorvoir is emptied. BP blew it big time, nobody else's fault but theirs. Sure regulation could have been sticter but oil wells do this trick now and again and kill their workers after passing every environmental, engineering and psychological evaluation known to man and we keep on drilling. Gotta have that oil else we are fresh out of an economy. We are just starting to think out of the oil drum...solar, wind, hydroelectric, nuclear...all deliver the goods when properly designed and exploited. But, speaking practicality now, oil is needed to run those devices, deliver them and maintain them too. There's no way out. And Mr. OBAMA culpable...what?! Oh please. He didn't drill the well, he didn't create the regulation system that allowed them to operate in the manner in which they did, it's all blame and bullshit. Blame OPEC if you want too, blame God for making the floor of the Gulf so damned difficult to drill in, blame yourself for driving that gas guzzler. You and I share any blame in this mess for our selfish habits. The Prez has enough on his plate.

Our lil' farm is putting out veggies at the rate of a few a day thanks to the sunny weather. Zuchinni are plentiful and chock full of flavor too. The tiny tomatoes all golden in color are sweet and delicious. The eggplant are hanging there growing about an inch a day and the bell peppers are doing really well too. No weeds either as the black ground cloth is holding them down nicely.

Hung two new screen doors in the back to help filter out the mosquitoes and flies that are so prevenent this time of year. We bought 2 of the 19.95 screendoors from Lowes in Vacaville, cheap as can be...must be Chinese! Anyway I added 4 metal corner braces for demensuional strength as well as a lip to the left side of the right-side door so it would hold both doors shut. They look really nice.

Tonight I've cooked a pork roast in a pepper sauce braise for carnitas and black beans and spanish rice. Invited daughter dearest Audrey to help dispose of the lot.

Tomorrow we'll go to the Swamphouse and work on the Master bedroom, painting and cleaning etc. Rental coming up!

Friday, June 11, 2010

Felony Child Endangerment?

Maybe that, maybe not...what DO you do with a typical headstrong, positive thinking, almost totally logical, immature but nearly completely THERE physical specimen of a female who knows how to sail, even alone or mostly so and desires with all her being to be the youngest person to have ever circumnavigated the planet by boat? Long sentence but it nearly wraps up the conundrum. Let 'er go? Help her go? Follow along behind? Get out of the way? She's ONLY 16 years of age, not the age of Majority in the US of A, that's 18 years. Say no? Can you hear the screaming? Can you hear the logical blabber? Kids die in car accidents. Yes and I regret that too.
They shouldn't drive at all until they are at least 18, but that's my stupid idea. It's cut down on the heartbreaks I think if it were so. But what about this Abby Sunderland kid? Skilled, oh yes, skilled...all the way from Marina Del Ray in Southern California down and around Cape Horn non-stop and was intended to BE totally non stop until technical difficulties caused her to go into port in Cape Town South Africa after crossing the Southern Atlantic Ocean ALONE in a 40 foot boat.
Damn folks, she has balls! Big ones too! Bigger than mine I'll tell you! The ocean is The Ocean, it is merciless and cruel and beautiful and very, very big. She wanted to do it, cross them all and come home to fame and fortune, book tours, more sailing, be an expert at a young age and show us all what the human spirit can accomplish. Where WERE her parents mentally in this exercise? Were they wondering of it at all? Did they have doubts? Did they read every account of blue water sailing and these sorts of adventures and think "oh, she'll be fine." Are they nuts?
Capsizing, more than one, de-masted in a 60 knot storm with huge waves for days at a time across the Southern Ocean as remote a place as you could find on the Earth. And what about the sponsors? The magazines that waited for the daily reports, the blogosphere that hung onto her every word? No one said, "stop, WHAT IS SHE GOING TO DO?" "Sail where?" "By Herself?!" All those boaters who followed her out of the bay at Marina Del Ray rooting her 16 year old self on, were they in their right minds too? The frenzy, the excitement, the thrills...all worth the life of this young heroine? Really? Someone or some company got her the 40 foot vessel she desired. Someone set it up with sails and supplies. They are all guilt by association with it and her near loss. Attempted Murderers or accomplices at least. Pandering their needs for money, fame and notice in the support of Abby's Folly. I'm sorry but that's the way it feels, the way it is. Now what? Will she get a new mast fitted and continue this attempt? It may happen folks, it very well may happen. Money is no object to these pimps, if they can find a fool to go on their errand they will do whatever is necessary. Now...is she and her parents their fools?

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

What's The Use?

You know I love a good philosophical argument, a rousing political or religious one is wonderful too. Alas, in the current atmosphere in the United States I find it increasingly difficult to have these exchanges. Its no longer stimulating or fun, it has become serious, even between friends. I have long and dear friends who will always have that status with me, I respect and admire them for their viewpoints and willingness to share them with me. I believe they hold the self-same thoughts as I. I say that and yet some of the content of our exchanges anger me and my responses, them as well. We do not live in like worlds, we see it differently, unalike, convoluted from each other, different and distant. Still I respect the discourse itself yet feel I must back away during these times to protect us all from the loudness of our screams. The United States has never been an easy to understand place; it's politics, it's belief system, it's modernity, it's past. The anchor drags along the bottom as the ship drifts this way and that. This could be the time of the 2nd revolution in the US of A. I am far to old to join the active battle for the hearts and minds of the populace. The right has it's points, the liberal leaning Democratic left, always weak in the US, is suddenly ahead of the game while being pursued vigourously by the Republican and religous right. The current financial situation has polorized the public. Red or Blue, Right or Left, Secular or Not. Yet we are all citizens of this great country, a star among the nations of the earth, un-perfect but stiving to be so. This season of discord will pass, times ahead will reveal themselves to be better and more dynamic. These are the doldrums of our nationhood, the teenage years of angst and separation. We abound still, financial crisis or not, the world IS our oyster. Our culture is complex and yet accepting of those unalike and wanting. My optimism counters the pessimism of the times, I think I'm right and that we will accend to a greater place and time. My friends will remain my friends, to confound them, to confront and create angst in them is not my desire. Creating hope and confidence in the future is far more a goal, a toast to tomorrow for them. Maybe there's a chance for us all.

Oh and here is a groove from Mr. Willie Dixon, oh how he can play the Bass! Wow!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Another week in May...

It's been a week since I posted anything hereon...is that a word? Probably not, anyway I'm happy to report the DISHWASHER was taken away by a nice lady of the neighborhood who hates washing dishes and has never owned a dishwasher! How cool is that?! She came by the house a couple of days ago to report that she was the machine's new owner and that she wondered what might be needed, "perhaps a hose", to get the machine to an operational state. Apparently (caution...this IS SEXIST) a man is not handy in this particular household, nor is she...maybe. Time will tell I guess, maybe, with luck I'll hear about the dishwasher's adventure again soon. So every single item I had placed outside on the street has found a new home. Recycling at it's best!
___

Our home insurance was cancelled on THIS house early in the week...why? Oh well trees overhanging branches, roof tiles curled up, leaky roof gutter. Huh? So I went to work on each area of concern and today finally trimmed back the branches from the neighbor's trees that were overhanging our roof. Hmmmmmm, and today a NEW insurance company just took us on with no such complaints. Huh? Yes, I had completed all the tasks outline by the OTHER insurance company but now dear Kelly and Audrey have found, negotiated and completed our signing up with the new company. My sweat hadn't dried yet. Shit.
___

I went to work day before yesterday on the new Mantle after the one we got in Petaluma last week got such a negative review from our dinner guests (The Slugs) last Saturday. Shit again. Anyhow...yesterday I built out a new mantle in the overall style of the MISSION (Arts and Crafts) period...1900 - 1920 or so in the US.
I WAS proud of the result but oh boy did I get a negative response later in the day (Wednesday) when Audrey and Kelly commiserated on my creation. I was disappointed to say the very least. A night's sleep didn't help me much. So this morning Kelly and I had a chat about how out of whack my whole design was...now I was thoroughly bummed out. Too dark, not HEAVY enough of a look for the individual components, so many negatives that I felt the best answer was to demolish the effort and try, try again with a new design staff...Kelly and Audrey. I eventually calmed down and Kelly and I came to an opinion to continue to work on the mantle, add things temporarily and get more info from sites on the web and the many reference books we have on the Arts and Crafts building period in the US. Peace.

Muddy Waters and Friends...oh the Blues is SOOOOO good!

Friday, May 07, 2010

Gone With The Wind...another story

So here's the picture, you have the following LARGE and HEAVY and USED appliances and objects of the kind. What to do with them when you live in a small town (pop. 28,000 overall but Olde Town maybe 1000) and they are not so obvious that the local thieves can get to them on your back porch in the last 3 1/2 months. What EXACTLY are they you might ask...well there's a Hotpoint Electric Range, 4 years old or so in good condition and yes, it works. Also there's a portable KitchenAid Dishwasher that is about 20 years old that also works, a pellet stove about 15 years old in ok condition too, a range hood that works, a mirrored vanity/er ah medicine cabinet that is in good shape. All free for the taking. I thought this through and realized all I REALLY HAD to do was move them into prominence in the side yard, front porch or sidewalk and see what happened. I did so yesterday afternoon, a lot of grunting and dragging and groaning later all were in place, wiped clean as I would wipe them and I closed the gate behind me and low and behold. In 10 minutes flat a nice lady came by and relieved us the vanity. The rest remained through the night. This morning about 10 a man suddenly showed up, stoned maybe...certainly, wordy, intelligent and a bit over-the-top loaded but wanting the Hotpoint Range/Oven.
So it disappeared down the street on a red trolley affair. Kelly and I went to the South 40 to look over the garden plot, went then to the Swamphouse and got the Armoire from her bedroom. We soon had it strapped down in the bed of the trusty Ford pickup and returned slowly to Morgan Street. What do you know...the PELLET Stove has gone now too! Whoopee! Sight unseen these things are being recycled into willing and wanton hands.

Also, note that the photo at the top of the page now changes like it used to do in France, I FINALLY hooked up the Logitech webcam and downloaded YAWCAM to enable FTPing it's images to our server for your perusal dear readers. It is pointed due East towards the rising sun over the not so distant church spire and downtown Suisun.

UPDATE 5/8/2010:
Only the Range hood and the Dishwasher remain as of 4pm Saturday. Oh well, have to haul them off to Goodwill Industries I guess.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Cut You Deep and Wide...

Huh? So a letter, Dear sir or madam, we have summarily, without further warning CANCELLED your home insurance. Huh? What? Why? How? When? Shit. Reading on, this house! Our "new" abode! What?! Good gawd, what gives? Then the not-so-trivial details reveal themselves:
1. Paint is peeling, er ah, check!
2. The roof tiles are curled, uh...check!
3. The gutter leaks, hmmm, check!
They don't love us anymore. Shit! Merde!
My list is far longer than theirs but they cancelled the damned insurance over these THREE (3) infractions unknown by us before hand! Really! So Kelly called the nice Framer's Insurance Group folks whom we have been insured in this house for the last 16 years...yes...16 years to determine how we get it back. (Hint: Get to work Lute!)
So we have about a month, less today than when we got the letter last Thursday. So up to the roof with the extension ladder lifted from the weeds at the Swamphouse, now empty. Back and up I go to determine the cause of the gutter leak. Why did I choose that place to start? Well it's up there and so is the north facing roof that needs it's tiles Un-mossed and thusly...UN-Curled. Shit and Merde! Time to empty it of the accumulation of years of leaves and dirt and pull the weeds growing in the thick of it like a long skinny pasture-in-the-sky. Dirt flies! Weeds fly! Moss has embedded itself in the myriad of spaces between the roofing tabs...removed that too as that is the cause of the curling as I have determined. I don't want to crawl every inch of this section of the roof to remove it but I may! Damn! 4 hours of digging along and I'm about 1/2 way. Caulk the joint where two sections meet and clean out the drain to the ground and I'm done for the day.

Kelly started on the scrapping of the loose paint on the east (sunny) side. She says she still has about a gallon of the paint from when it was last painted. Good. I'll get to do the high part and she'll do the low. Great fun this house fixin' stuff.

So the South 40 plantings are coming along, some have sprouted and I've planted others to fill in the blank areas. It's good. So far it's been smooth going as no dogs, raccoons, birds have dug anything up, no moles, voles or gophers in evidence either. I water every other day unless it rains. It's fun to garden like this, not too much work or money for great reward.

Saturday, May 01, 2010

Another Week

The image on The South 40 post, the one right before this one shows the South 40 as it appears this morning May 1st,2010. Tomatoes (some of what I will eventually have planted) are in along with beets, yellow squash, artichokes, leeks and seeds of various others yet unsprouted. Lots of room left for the stuff from Oregon whenever it arrives. There's no drip system installed so all watering is done either by watering can and shared hose from the public tap. It rained Thursday a little so I skipped Friday and watered this morning hoping against hope that I don't over do it.

The sun shines well today and the usual breeze has not started (yet!) and we are going out to Winterhawk Winery to the music/wine tasting/pizza eating activity that we so happily attended last Saturday. It was a ball and well worth the time. Tomorrow we'll attend Dimitri's Lounge once again for our version of Sunday Service...the Blues! TV and his wonderful, long suffering 8-), wife have said they will be there so we will have to have a big table ready as B&M said they're coming too! Should be a blast!

Had our first formal dinner at the Gypsy Kitchen as I call these events, last night with B&M and Audrey. I made Osso Buco using beef shanks cooked in a tomato, beef stock and white wine braising liquid which was then reduced after 4 hours of a low simmer, as the sauce. This over a bed of risotto with asperagus. A crisp Romaine lettuce salad with avacado and a dessert of Banana Sorbet. The appetizes were Sicilian Olives and Castelveltrano olives wrapped in prosciutto and broiled for 10 minutes. All came out well and was much appreciated. Lots of wine flowed as is the custom too. Next one in a week or so...

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The South 40



Yes, We now are sharecroppers...lot#21 at the Suisun City Public Gardens is ours. I landed lot 21 as it was right next door to Ms. P who is OUR resident (well...almost) plant expert. Her patch of flowering sweetpeas is the wall that separates our little patch (100 sq. ft) of parched desert-like and weed infested soil from hers.
I framed the 10 X 10 ft space in with 2 X 6 inch pressure-treated fir yesterday morning. Then I went to our old house across town and brought over a shovel without a handle, a rake in similar condition, a broken hoe, a plug planter device and our ancient rusted but still serviceable wheelbarrow with the rotted handles. So we are set, sort of. Then this morning I ventured out to the plot to find a large cadre of church folks (mostly men) cultivating, digging, spreading manure and having a generally boistrus time of being mini-farmers on about 10 plots the church had leased from the city of Suisun. I spent the next hour and a half pulling remaining weeds, and hauling sand/soil mix to my plot to prepare it for planting...maybe Monday. So what am I going to plant? Tomatoes are my number one crop, I use many tomatoes in my cooking and your own fresh, just picked are better than anything you can get at a conventional grocery store hereabouts. Most come from Mexico this time of year, hot house raised and green as grass so you have several days to wait until they age-ripen to a bright red. No...they aren't terrific...but I only buy Roma type as they sauce better anyway and aren't ever watery.
___
I'm back from the Plot, put down a layer of newspaper (helps retain water) and then 10 large wheelbarrow loads of compost. The bed is about 7" deep now with a clay base underneigh. Forecast is for rain on Tuesday so I'd like to get my first seeds in before hand. I orderred some Roma tomatoe plants, some eggplant and basil as seedlings from Territorial Seed Co. in Oregon. I've used their seeds before and have been quite pleased with their vitality. Should be here in a few days according to the web site.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Moved!

Last Thursday was THE DAY! Now we are here adjusting ourselves and various objects of necessity to our new home. Do I like it? Yes,given we don't cram all the stuff we have in the old place into this place. I don't miss anything now...until I need it! Hard to cook without spices, pots and pans, oils, vinegars etc. We now assault the old place daily and remove to our new home whatever objects it seems we can,t live without. Fur-Kat seems to love the new digs. She spent the first couple of days investigating every nook and cranny, then has spent long hours bedded down on the couch and chair in the Living Room. She ventures tentatively outdoors once or twice a day, tail all bushed up and rerady to run back inside at the slightest noise or movement. Life is good. The train noises are louder and the raccoon actvity is higher. Last night was a wet, windy stormy night punctuated with the loud chatter and clammor of the raccoon family on the roof above the bedrooms. After some 30 minutes of activity off they went backing chattering raccoon talk down the tree only 2 feet from the bedroom window. I rolled over and greeted the dark abyss of sleep again.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

A Brighter Light / A Shorter Tunnel

So we WILL be moving into 311 Thursday, THIS Thursday! Hooray! It's been 3 1/2 months since we began the renewal of the old girl, all 1700 sq. feet of her. The floors are done, the kitchen is nearly so, the back bathroom is complete now except for paint and one bedroom is ready as is the upstairs office. The cat, Furry, is ready too...she has been without us during the daytime this whole time too and is staying close lest we disappear again for a time longer or to a place further away.
She has been ill, throwing up, cat style, for the last couple of weeks as we get closer to having this house's contents across town...not in their familiar locations as she would like it. The BIG jobs left are the moving of our refrigerator, the breakfront, and our beds and some of our clothes. Paul, my brother-in-law, is coming over Thursday to give me a hand with the heavy things and whatever else we can cram into the back of the pickups. I have yet a lot of tools in the garage that will be moved afterwards as I don't need them right away and we will need some here to complete the tiling work here upstairs and down as well as other miscellany, new lights, removal of odd bookcases etc. though we may leave some for the new renters.
Ah life goes on.

We visited Dimitri's Lounge as has been our habit since they openned in January, great blues, good drinks and great people watching. Had us bouncing in our seats again and again, great musicians come in from all over the Bay area and Sacramento to play on Sunday evenings, such a great scene! We love Dimitri's! I sent Catfish Keith, (the travelling blues musician we met years ago) (1996 I think) in Scotland at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh Dimitri's web site so he could schedule an appearance on his next California Tour. Hope he can make it! One fabulous show he does! http://www.catfishkeith.com/ is his web site, go listen and pick up some of his fab CD's! And by the way, here's some REAL Blues for you to study. Take care!

Mr. R. L. Burnside's delicious version of "Long Way From Home" 1984 Session

Monday, March 29, 2010

Tea Baggers and Hutarees

Jezz, don't we have enough problems without going to these extremes? The Tea Baggers are soooo out of it, tearing apart the poor woe-be-gone Republicans at every chance and fronting the good Moose Killer to do their pleading or is it bleating?
Gads, it would be funny if it wasn't so stupid. The baggers, themselves mostly dis-enfranchised Republicans or Libertarians gather here and there and create a mini-media stir at the time but what's the DIRECTION they are going? They say they don't want to be a 3rd Party in the US, they say they are anti-Big Government but most all of the organizations they seem to affiliate themselves with are run by the Big Corporations and/or all the rich eletes or ex-Bushies. It takes BIG money to front a political movement afterall and some direction even if it is all old hat crapola from the last Republican presidency. My neighbor is a bagger, listens to all the hot air that spews for from Rush and FoxNews that he can, he sounds off as though he has recorded their mad anthems and HAS to play them all back to me when he sees me.
It's boring, it's someone else's stuff and I don't give a damn, I have a rental to fix and move into and a house here to do up for it's new renters whomever they are.


Then these militia guys...they took up space on cnn.com this morning as they were busted by various organizations for plotting and conspiracy, 9 of 'em were handcuffed and led off to who knows where to suffer the consequences of their stupidities. They had a web page...http://hutaree.com (i know...what's a Hutaree? I'll get to that in a moment.) Go look at it...check out the advertisers and the links...bet those guys are next, wouldn't you? Guns, explosives, training, even a youtube video is posted! Good grief, hand the Feds the evidence for chissakes! AND, of course, they are a Religious Fundamental outfit, just chock full of pastors and PhDs, Lawyers and other genius types I imagine. Anyway, they had a PLAN, and the plan was severely compromised by the ATF and god knows what other police-type agencies as part of the plan was the killing of a cop and then the slaughter of the persons who came to that cop's funeral. Never mind...they are gone away to spend some time behind fine iron bars in a federal pen somewhere, yes they MAY play golf!
or Tennis. An inside job if ever there was one, the grand jury indictment sure has a bunch of first person inferences that prove that point. Yep, really bright revolutionaries there. Like the communist party in the US during the 50's...half the audiences in their assemblies were FBI agents. HALF. Who needs Al Qaeda when we have our own home grown crazies? Remember Oaklahoma City? Yeah. Oh...HUTAREE...supposedly translate from the???? to "Christian warrior." And in keeping with that name, the material it has posted online reflects an outlook of violent religious confrontation. The Hutaree believe that acts of violence can bring about the final judgment prophesied in the Christian Bible, oh brother. Here's a video on youtube...there are others as well. http://www.youtube.com/user/hutaree

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Progress Is Our Most Important...Product?!

Maybe not, having time off to think about what we are trying to do or accomplish is important too. We have lots more work to be done at the Morgan Street house, more painting, more tiling, more details AND we have work to do in The Swamphouse too! The carpet in the office downstairs and in the upstairs bedroom (mine now as I'm in exile from The Marriage Bed by mutual agreement) too. Then tow new floors get put in place, a wood one like the other upstairs bedroom and here in The Office a continuation of the terracotta tile that is everywhere else downstairs. These are NOT small projects and will take at least another month to complete AFTER we are done with the Morgan Street house. France this year? I really don't think so, it wouldn't make much sense (financial or otherwise) to go and stay only a short time as we refuse to spend the winter there at all anymore...to !#$#$#@! cold, brrrrrr.
So we will just continue onward and upward on the two houses and rent this one when we are done and enjoy that one afterwards.

My son Michael, my grandson Jordan and I went to see the King Tut exhibit at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park yesterday afternoon. We had a great time gawking at all the treasures, reading all the liner notes and being jostled by the madding crowd. We spent a bit of time looking thru the souvenir shop for something for Jordan to remember this good day by. Satisfied by a hieroglyphic chart after looking through the wide array of gizmos and goo-gahs we ambled off towards the car and our dinner at Gino's Pizzeria on California Street. It was crowded and noisy with diners at this dinner hour as is typical of most restaurants in SF on a Friday evening. We orderred 2 beers and a Sprite and were seated at the counter in anticipation of the repast to come. A delicious and very fresh salad came first which we all shared eagerly, then the beautiful individual pizzas, a sausage and mushroom for Michael, a pepperoni for Jordan and a pepperoni, olives and anchovy one for yours truely, they were wonderful! A nice thin crust, blistered throughout with just the right amount of sauce and mozzerella, they were excellent! We wandered back to the car and drove north through the city to the Golden Gate Bridge, tony Marin County and to Petaluma where they dropped me off at the truck which was loaded with a three panel door purchased earlier in the day. I drove home feeling satisfied that we'd had a great time and shared time with each other, it's a too rare event that I'd like to do far more often. We aren't getting any younger!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Moving Forward...then Back Again...

Like a dance this moving business is. We are both up to our ears in each of the many projects required to get us settled less than a mile from here and progress (what's that?) IS being made...sort of. Like any project of human beings it had a beginning (now long gone), a middle (stretched out and bloated like a beached whale) and someday, somehow, some way...an end (when we actually don't go home at 4 pm and take naps to recover). My bathroom project...remember that? Is tiling the better part of 90% of the room in white 3X6 inch "subway" tiles. I'm about 25% finished at this point with the laying of the tiles. I removed the old base cabinet and bathroom sink yesterday in preparation to doing the tiling there but discovered that the new cabinet (actually an olde dresser) has issues with the existing drain pipe coming up from the floor so it won't fit close to the wall like it should. Drat. Soooo something HAS to be done to the drain to relocate it nearer the wall, make it smaller (not that!) or...who knows. I get to sort that out someday real-soon-now though. After laying 120 tile or so along the boundary between the shower itself and the rest of the room I quit to let the thinset mortar grab and went off to work on the kitchen ever again. This time I put the top on the oven cabinet and a shelf above the microwave and tried to sort out just how I'm going to wire in the new LED under cabinet lights. Ever so much fun. Kelly had abandoned me earlier as her painting chore had taken it's toll on her long anguished neck and some rest was needed.

I finally gave up the ghost on the place about 3:45 and wandered on home thinking about Hunter's Chicken...better known as Chicken Cacciatore which I made last afternoon as our dinner. It's one of my favorite comfort foods and besides I had already sautéed the chicken and it was ready for further stewing in the refrigerator. These days I'm leery of battery chickens, all laid out their with their pads of blood and fluid soaked packaging...I had a package of 6 drumsticks and thighs refrigerated for the last 2 days only and was anxious to get them clean and preped for use sometime this week. Thus I removed them from the wrappers, discarded all of the fluid soaked packaging, washed them under cold water, dried them off then salted them liberally. Next I cut the drumstick from the piece and trimmed the amazing extra fat layers from the thigh portion, Tyson's battery birds may not live long (5-6 weeks at most I suspect) but they gain weight from all that corn they eat and the weight is not all protein, it's yellow bird fat. Yuk. The French hens we get as battery birds are no where near as fatty and unmuscled as these poor things. Dark meat? What's that?! These things probably don't even walk around, they just eat standing in one spot til their last meal, then the jig is up! It makes for a rather disgusting view of animal raising but that's what the evidence shows. I used to LIKE dark meat, hard to come by nowadays. Anyway I poured about 1/2 cup of corn oil in the gallon lidded iron pot and heated it to just below smoking...about 375 degrees, then fried 4 pieces at a time for about 15 minutes total time. This should keep the bacteria count down while I dream up three meals for the resulting 12 pieces of chicken. One of them is the Hunter's Chicken for tonight.

Here's my recipe, many good ones exist for this classic Italian dish, Food Network.com has many for you to choose from if you don't like mine.

Makes a hearty single plate dinner for 4:

4 chicken drumsticks
4 chicken thighs
1 cup oil, canola, corn, sunflower etc.
1 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

Heat the oil to just below the smoking point in a heavy skillet or pot.

Salt and pepper the pieces evenly.

Sauté (fry) the chicken a few pieces at a time for about 15 minutes turning twice.

Remove to paper towels to drain and cool. Now to the braising liquid preparation.

Braising Liquid/Sauce:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium white onions, diced.
1 stalk celery sliced lengthwise then into 1/8th inch slices crosswise.
1 medium carrot cut length wise and sliced crosswise 1/8th in slices.
6-8 Roma tomatoes 1/2" dice.
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup chicken, vegetable stock
1 cup dry white wine
pinch of red pepper flakes
4 cloves garlic, diced fine

Pasta:
1 lb dried Fettuccini
2 tablespoons butter.


Sauté onions til lightly browned and transparent, 5-7 minutes.
Add celery, carrot, oregano, sauté another 3-5 minutes.
Add garlic, sauté another 1 minute
Add Tomatoes and salt, sauté another 2 minutes.
Add Chicken/Vegie stock, Dry white wine, pepper and red chili flakes.
Bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to low and add chicken being sure chicken is about 1/2 covered with
the liquid...do not immerse the chicken. Braise covered for 2 hours.

When about 40 minutes to go...
Boil 4 qts water (30 minutes??) with handful of coarse salt, add Fettuccini and cook per mfr's recommendation for "al dente" cooking. Drain, add butter and toss.

To plate:

Add Fettuccini to plate about 4 oz per person (4 servings)
place 2 pieces of chicken on top of the Fettuccini.
Ladle braising liquid over the chicken.
Add grated pecorino or parmigiano reggiano to finish the dish.

Til next time!

Site of The Day: http://atlasobscura.com/

Monday, March 15, 2010

The Wonders of Tiling

3 X 6 inch (yes the US is STILL doing English system measurements...even the English have adopted Metric but oh...no...we couldn't do THAT! So 3 X 6 INCH white, what we call SUBWAY TILE, is being installed by yours truely in the back bathroom of 311 Morgan our new home-to-be. I LIKE tile better than most wall coverings for bathrooms and kitchens as it's waterproof nature and timeless LOOK appeal to my sensibilities. Even the bloody ROMANS did tile, and the GREEKS as well! All over the middle east are amazing displays of beautifully artistic tile fountains, courtyards, building interiors...amazing stuff and beautiful to see and with great longlasting utility. Thus our choice for the bathroom(s) of the Morgan street, Suisun Street and Marina Blvd houses.





As rentals they have lived quite well with the tile work we did 15 years ago excepting the front bathroom of Morgan Street...dang it! The rot has allowed the tub to drop over an INCH into the subfloor area...which means that before we can USE the bathtub/shower in the front bathroom the tub has to be removed and the sub floor inspected and repaired/replaced. Nasty work. I will do it.

Monday, March 08, 2010

Once Upon A Time...I Was A Teacher. Part 2

The rest of the week....Friday came and went with my cleaning out my desk at 76 O'Farrell Street in San Francisco and wandering off to a nearby newstand for a detailed map of Union City, California and the environs. Map in hand I headed home to enjoy a quiet weekend with my family.
I had been instructed to be AT the Union City "school" BY 8 am as that's what time the students-to-be, MY students (!) would begin arriving. Frankly they knew more about what was actually going to happen than I did at that time. I was going to be met by the landlord for the rented space with keys and instructions galore. In reality, an envelope was taped to the door with a scrawl "CDC" written on the front. It contained the key toi the front door. That was IT. Standing around the perimeter were upward of 20 middle aged persons smoking, chatting and paying very little attention to my efforts at openning the reluctant door. Finally after many tries the key slid into place and we were in! An empty room except for several folding tables and 25 folding chairs which were quickly set up and the group found their seats and stared me down. I gathered my thoughts and began to describe what was to be their training for the next 6 months...the length of the contract at that time. All of this information was given by my boss and I had been told to deliver this info as soon as they were in the door of the new Fair Break Training Center.
This done, I feilded questions based on that information and I quickly learned that
they were smart, charming, skilled at various tasks related to the production of automobilesd at the now defunct General Motors plant nearby. They were about evenly divided 50/50 men and women. I had them fillout paperwork I had gotten from headquarters on Friday, they were now my Official Student Body, eventually I had 24 sign on to the training.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Once Upon A Time...I Was A Teacher.

Yes, the last REAL work I did where someone (taxpayers at the end of it all) paid me a paycheck periodically was that of a High School (Grades 11 and 12 mostly) Teacher.
I know, it's shocking. I'm shocked! It changed my whole life, the IT being Teaching itself. I wasn't very good at it as conventional thinking would tell, but I LIKED it, it felt good, honest and necessary. It was all rather accidental to tell the truth. Yes I DID plan on becoming a teacher one day but my indirection had led me on other paths along the way...teaching...that is teaching of public school children was not one of them.

The story all began in early 1982. I was bored to death with fixing peoples computers or TRYING to manage those that did that and trying to get ahead in that strange world. I let it be known to my boss and his boss and his bosses boss within Control Data Corporation (long defunct American Corporation) that I was "looking around" for something ELSE to do with myself. I interviewed with other companies too but the jobs that always came my way were just MORE of the same, fixing large commercial computer systems or managing those that did it. No, I wasn't going to settle, I needed real Barack Obama-like change. Change with a capital C. My dear wife at the time knew of my predicament and tried to be supportive as she could while she began a job (later to be her career) in the Juvenile justice system as a counselor at a local juvenile facility. She loved kids and young people and had been such a great mom to my children when they were young that I heartily supported her through school and in her choice of jobs. What that has to do with me and my travails I'm not sure but it is an ad for persistence. It was a good time for me to find another career, I guess that's the point as there were now two incomes to keep our heads above water with. Months went by while I searched and talked and netyworked my way through the maze of corporate personnel to have them assist me in my search within the company. I had already polished my resume which I always had done in the past but now I made it sound differently. A career change was what I was looking for and I had to use the skills that I previously had to advance myself.
One particular bleak day at work I received a phone call from Corporate Personnel in Minneapolis with what sounded like an interesting offer, would I like to teach electronics (er ah ROBOTICS!) for a division of the company named Education Services?
They said someone would call and arrange an interview with me. I was stoked! Maybe there was a chance this whole effort would work out after all. Several days went by with no further calls from headquarters. The weekend came and went, my spirits began to drop. Monday came and went, Tuesday did the same. Wednesday morning as I drank my morning coffee I received a call, "yes, this is he", and I started listening intently. The voice (a male one) at the other end was describing a contractual arrangement to me in detail. It sounded interesting and I made myself sound very enthusiastic, which is not very hard for me as my dear family will attest. We hung up with him saying he'd call again with the "exact timing" of the beginning of the contract, in the meantime he gave me instructions re: personnel and what to tell them and my current boss. I was on my way! Little did I know how FAST the transfer would actually be. Thursday morning came and went with many questions by my current boss re: my impending exit. Late in the afternoon I recieved another call from my new boss, congratulating me on my new job and as I had asked for more details...I was told that classes started on MONDAY! "You'll need to wing-it" I heard him say, meaning there was nothing "in place" at the school's location, no books, no computers (Plato Terminals...I'll explain later), no paper, pens, desks, whiteboard, nothing in the way of curriculum. I was instructed to intake the students, introductions, paperwork for the contract etc. Mainly busy work 'til we could get a school together. It sounded GREAT! A real adventure for one and all.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

A Dim Light At The End Of A very Long, Dark Tunnel

Today was supposed to de dedicated to finishing the grouting of the countertops and backsplashes...supposed is the key word here. Instead I visited ACE Hardware in Suisun City for the 4th time yesterday...yes...4 times! AND...got the final (I thought) 1/2 inch compression pipe fittings for the installation of the dishwasher next to the big sink. I got as far as moving the dishwasher back out from the cabinet and attempting to install the pipe fitting it needed to hook up the intake water. Sure...not a fit this attempt 3/8th's inch compression was NOT the RIGHT one. So back to ACE and got a 1/2" pipe thread fitting and sure enough...wrong again! Then Bob of Bob and Marsha fame came by to see how we were progressing (me..NOT!) and he pronounced the fitting on the dishwasher as a 3/8ths pipe thread. So back to ACE once again (!) and exchanged the error pieces (hose was wrong too!) for the correct (according to Bob...and he was RIGHT!) So I took everything to the house and began the installation in earnest. After installing the CORRECT fitting and the CORRECT connecting hose I plumbed in the new coppy 1/2" T fitting and the old valve that I saved from the 15 yr old installation from this same kitchen. The dishwasher was pushed back into it's cabinet space and fastened to the countertop. Of course doing this unceremoniously removed by force the 4 face tiles in the 24" wide cabinet due to interferance with the top of the dishwasher. Shit! I'll put them back when I've determined this whole install is not leaking or failing in some other way. 'Til then it is IN without the tiles in place.

I was done at 311 for the day. Then I went next door to Audrey's house and repaired the fallen down clothing rod in her closet. Then home to watch "Street Thief" on Netflix online. Riveting!

Then we ate dinner...I made a Beef stew with carrots, camerlized mushrooms, veal stock, red wine, roasted potatoes. Delicious if I do say so myself. Then we were off to Dinitri's Lounge for the Sunday night Blues jam sessions that start at 6. What a show! Terrific bunch of musicians and a friendly, lively crowd all anxious to dance, dance, dance. It was great fun as always and made we want more! Dimitri's does a great job! Here's three videos to show you what I mean! You may need quicktime from Apple to play these, get it, it's free! http://www.apple.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVDUKkF4yLg

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Workin' In A Coal Mine...





Under 311 Morgan Street is a "crawl space", a 3 foot tall access to the underpinnings, the floor joists (all heart redwood), main beams (all heart redwood), the water pipes, drain lines, electrical wiring, and last but not least (in this case) the natural (city) gas line(s) and spider webs galore. My interest at this segment of the reconstruction of 311 is the water and gas lines to the new sinks and the cooktop (hob). Yesterday I attacked the water lines and by the end of the day had both the hot and cold lines in place to the new vegie sink on Hawaii (the island in the kitchen) as well as the drain lines to both. It was a real joy to finish this part of the project as I HATE (read: Abhor!) plumbing. I'm famously bad at it and would rather jump in a septic tank than undertake ANY plumbing task. I can create leaks where none were before by the simple act of LOOKING at a joint in the copper lines!
It's supernatural! I'm equally bad at each of the requisite tasks in plumbing too...designing the plumbing route, choosing the right pipes, corners, valves, etc.
Awful, I'm simply awful at it. I LOVE soldering and have taught it to hundreds of my previous students but that was wires and electronic components...these are PIPES and they have a strange ability to resist my finest soldering efforts. Anyway a miracle has occured...I made a total of 14 joints and as far as I can tell...I have NO LEAKS! A-fukin-mazing! AND though I am finished with the drain lines too..they leaked like a bamboo hut when I tested them late in the day. Today I went to work on the weaping drains and seemingly have abated the deluge for now. We shall see.
I hate plumbing.

Today's activities were those of grouting the Big Island...("Hawaii" as we call it), though there is no volcano, there COULD be a geyser! That finished we grouted the backsplash and the counter of the new Bread Center alongside the oven wall. It went well but at the end we were done with work for the day, too much for Kelly and I had a trip to the grocery store on my mind. So be it, we called it quits at 2:30 and came back to The Swamphouse. I tore off the grocery list I'd made up and headed off to purchase the vittles for the next few days and Kelly trundled off to take a nap.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Ovens, Ovens are Installed! Oh Joy!

The two oven stack has been installed, tried to put them in the truck bed myself and with Kelly's help but it wasn't enough, so went next door to Vern's house and asked if he'd lend a hand. That was all it took and they were in on their back in the truck and ready to take across town to be installed. Vern drove over and with his hand-truck we were able to get them into the house with a bit of grunting and groaning, they weigh about 350 lbs. The new built-in cabinet has been nearly completed except for mouldings so it was time to install. Kelly and I tried the old stack 2X4 pieces to make up the 12" height necessary to set the bottom of the stove at the correct height to match the countertop's 36" height. We abandoned THAT little task at about 8" off the floor as it was getting more and more unsteady as we got higher and higher. Soooo...off I went home to get my hydralic car jack for the task at hand instead. Back at the kitchen-of-doom I ran the jack under the oven stack and attempted to jack the bloody thing up...and failed. The jack's piston was stuck and refused to move, thus no jacking action from that device. So off I went to the local auto parts store to buy another one credit card in hand. I found a nicely boxed 2.5 ton lifting capacity one for 49.95 plus tax and away I went purchase in hand. Back at it, the jack performed admirably, we jacked it up and shortly had inserted it into the cabinet successfully. I added the side mouldings and turned the ovens on in turn to test them as that had not been done since we purchased them some months ago. All is well, I set the clock time on the stack and put the tools away, another day of fruitful labors in the Kitchen-Of-Doom was done.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Workin', Just Workin'

Day after day we have been AT the projects that will allow us to begin our new life in The Big House in Old Town Suisun City. She paints, scrapes and obtains the hardware, furniture and materials we need to complete the remodel of 311 Suisun Street. We've been at it now for the last 5 weeks and I feel we have done about half of what is required. The kitchen tile work which is quite extensive is about 2/3rd finished. The back portion adjacent to the oven stack has not yet begun but the east side, with it's sink and stove top is nearly complete. The island 4 X 4 1/2 feet is nearly done as well with only one side left to edge tile. I've been working on all of that tile as well as adding new countertop electrical outlets too. It's tough adding electrical to an already completed circuit as one has to cut into the drywall and position wires right against the stud framing. Kelly has been scraping away at the many layers of paint that obscure the redwood of the door frames and doors, not an easy task but she is determined and today she was joined by our daughter A who worked on the front door all afternoon. The whole is coming along, slowly but surely. We sleep well at night and sometimes come home about 4pm and crawl into the sack for a 2 hour nap before dinner. Such is life these days. Much work and only a bit of play.

Friday, February 05, 2010

Home Sweet Home(s)

Up at 7, drink coffee, read the daily rag and then about 9 or 10 if we are particularly slow that day, off across town to the Big House and our duty day.
She who paints...paints, he who lays tile in funny patterns, lays tile. She cuts his tile to the dimensions so marked in red grease pencil. He facilitates her painting by removing objects from the woodwork such as curtain hangers and various nail and other fasteners and turning heavy objects over, like doors. Those are his functions. Thus it goes, day after day into the interminable future. When will we go back to our dear France? Who knows, finishing there just opens us up to working here in the Swamphouse to make it rentable for some strangers we do not even know.
What, you may ask, has to be done to facilitate the Swamphouse becoming a rental?
Well, all the stuff that furnishes this place has to be either used in the Big House or sold, or given away or put into storage. Then the floor in the Office has to be taken up..it is carpet and waaay worn out and shoddy, and new Saltillo tile installed. New paint here, there and everywhere. Pool has to be cleaned and chemicals placed there in. The yards watering system has to be repaired from the annual winter's destruction. All extraneous "crap" removed from the side yard(s) including heavily overgrown trees and bushes. The garage has to be emptied of tools, lumber, paint and paint supplied, a huge electric kiln and tile roller and drying box to match. Much, much to be done...and all of that AFTER we move into the Big House. Yea gads. We will get it done eventually. But both of us are weary and though we champion each other on it is difficult to get up in the morning sometimes.
It's only us who are doing it too...Audrey works during the week and though she helps us on the weekends we need a dozen more like her to move this project along at a more brisk pace. Alas...it will be done!

Oh...and then there's the hallucinations. I almost forgot...
Don't ask...but Kelly and I have been treated with Prozac for many years now. I can only speak for me and my observations of myself and incidently of Kelly that it has been a net positive in our lives. My awful rages that I had for many years just vanished and Kelly became a more enjoyable and pleasant person to me, not that she wasn't BEFORE Prozac but with me throwing fits and tirades galore she eventually became under the influence of this wonderful drug. We suffered few if any noticeable side effects, some tiredness, some lack of motivation but largely life was and still is better for us both. Then recently as her prescription ran out she began to use my supply (same mild dosage) and I watched my prescription disappear pill by pill, day after day. Then she got a new prescription from her new doctor...twice the dosage it was, thus when I finally ran out she gave me HERS to take until I could get mine renewed. Shit. Soooo...I went on an every other day Prozac taking adventure that wound up with my waking up about 2 or 3 am in the morning to amazingly life-like hallucinations! Wowee! Who need illegal drugs?! But these events are quite realistic, flowers that look real rotating right in front of my eyes that I can feel and touch before they quickly disappear. Teddy bears that crawl on my bed and react to my grabbing at them. Huge shiny beetles with lighted antennae and small pixie-like creatures sitting on my bookcase watching. Yes,
these and more, all at night, all the night AFTER having taken the double dose of Prozac. All pleasant, no frightening apparitions or feelings of fear, some shock and amazement but for the most part pleasant and non worrisome. Such is life these days. Full of surprises, huh?