Back In The USA...Oh Joy...

Here we find ourselves among friends and neighbors who speak English!  To finally be understood again!  Dead cars parked where they were when we left with one difference,  1 1/2 dead batteries, the Ford truck's was still alive, it started; alas the Prius' battery was so much lead and acid and no juice whatsoever.  It took a charge, enough to run our Cordelia Road a bit and circle around to come in Suisun's front door on Main Street but the next morning it was flat as an unleavened pancake once again. Shit, shit, shit!  Went to Auto Zone and picked up a motorcycle battery for 47 bucks and installed it sorta, bad practice but it starts and runs as it should, no check engine lights and red triangles.

Kelly, dear wife is down...her back is fucked, lower lumbar pain.  Off to Kaiser Monday morning. new doc, cute little Asian princess, smart as a whip and actually listens, asks questions and pays attention to your responses.  I'm impressed with her.  Orders multiple tests which we get the results to in about 2 hours!  Things I've never heard of...and they point  to kidney and liver disease, no surprise there, we're Lutes and Adams's.   All those years of drink have done there best to kill us off.  We halted all booze for a year and a half and only recently had added wine back to our diet, albeit intermittently only.  Guilt.  But the lump that is Mucca-Kat at 17 Plus lbs. was the start of her misery about 2 weeks ago.  Then there was the damned fall inside the train that bruised her beyond belief, big purple bruises, lucky she didn't break some bones! 

Needless to say her back has not been the same since!  Anyway, the doc ordered some powerful NSAIDS and a legion of those kidney function tests.  We are studying the results.

Some photos from France trip 2019:

September the First!!

A Sunday, cloudy, coolish (different from warmish) and all is as well as can be expected. Plans, not many, if any at all except just one; cook the 1/2 roti veal tough-as-nails for however long it takes using the braising method. Braised then in a porridge of pureed pineapple and smoked chipotle peppers. It sounds right and the gods know that the braise will take hours, even though the 1/2 roti veal tough-as-nails will resist. After properly reduced to strings to be pulled apart and placed into tortillas for pulled veal enchiladas! A fine cooking exercise for a Sunday 1st day of September. Oh, this veal roti was assembled at our local grocery store C undoubtedly from the Charolais breed of cattle. Huge animals they have a reputation for....strength of their meat. Oft times the females when finished with their milking capability are turned into steaks, chops and very lean 5% fat hamburger.
Kelly has recovered from her journey home through the chunnel.  I'm glad she's back!  I need the companionship for sure and I'm happy she and Audrey had a good time exploring London.  They visited the British Museum and the V&A as well,  plus ate all the expected vittles, fish and chips, pork pie, bubble and squeak and more.  Audrey returned to the US on Friday.

Well, about the potential Portugal trip; I don't think we're going this year.  It's 10 days to explore the local environs, drive to lesser known villages, ogle the unknown countryside and repair the car.  Headlights on passenger side have died, I have to sort out the disassembly and the build types and obtain them from who knows.  I want to replace the circuitous belt too, with 120,000 miles on the old machine it's about time, it squeaks now and it shouldn't.  So much for Portugal. 

And the rain showers have begun.  Not a downpour, just a trickle for the herbs.  

August 2019 is here...

In F-r-a-n-c-e for the 27th time think I.  Nice as ever, the people that is.  The weather, no...the climate has changed over the last while, like 15 years or so.  Warmth of a higher magnitude that used to make up the period between June through September is now the rule.  Two canicules (French heat wave) this year, like 2005's but lasting over a week each time, heat waves that warm the house until three shower days become the norm.  The cats will not sleep with us, instead they lolly-gag about and spread themselves out full length on whatever spot they can find that is cooler than the rest of the house.  The 3rd floor is a never-never land the whole three to four months. Any temp above 85, along with humidity above 60% and we are through with activities outside.  Just touching becomes uncomfortable after a few seconds.  It's a pseudo-Phoenix summer.

Beyond that, our major project, the Courtyard Jungle, is progressing nicely as we now are paying a gardener-of-high-repute for his services attacking the mess.  His name is Sebastian, he speaks little English, but he works, works, works.  The results each day that he comes continue to amaze.  He is now attacking the former pigpen as we named it, totally over-grown with weeds, 1/3rd grown trees, ivy and dandilions.  He's about a 1/3rd of the way with it.  We now have 3 huge piles of debris that has to get outa here before he returns as he cannot put the material in any of the "too full" bags.  We pay him 20 Euros per hour of labor, fair to us.  We haven't planted any of the now ready plots as no plants will take well the current sunny, hot weather.  After mid-September perhaps.  

Kelly is off to celebrate Audrey's 50th B-Day, Yippee for her!  They'll have a ball together in the Big City.  Eat pork pies, bubble and squeek, drink a pint of Queen's Ale, yeah, it's London-town days for them.  I will stay home and Kat-sit, feed 'em, watch 'em as they watch me.  Who is sitting who?  Empty litter boxes too, me, not them.  They just fill them.

Here are a few pictures for you: