bkdelong

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Cake or Pie?

Certainly!

You! Cake or death?

Certainly not!

Have you let that poor sleeth out of the crown?

After Lithia’s farewell party was all cleaned up, we badgered Vae into telling
us where the Sleeth was imprisoned. Badgering Vae is not the safest of
occupations. Nor is it the easiest: an ounce too much pressure and she starts
crying, an ounce too little and she becomes belligerent. Yerenthax and I took
a quick trip out there, and confirmed the situation. Yerenthax chopped the
crown to bits with a very large and very burny axe. The Sleeth was much
happier after that.

I just sent the near-final files for the FC website off for slicing and styling. There are a couple little tweaks I want to make but they're purely cosmetic and can be done tomorrow.

I am pretty surprised at how nice the overall drawing came out. I haven't really done anything full of gradients in a while, and I put a little extra love into this one - it's got this slight taste of airbrush on illustration board to it, which is probably a medium I'd have ended up struggling to master if Illustrator hadn't come along. It feels like a furry version of something out of "Heavy Metal", kinda like if Richard Corben decided he was sick of drawing warts and wrinkles.



If all goes well, the site should go live on Friday. Until then all you get is this teaser.

I kinda want to do a short comic in full color like this now; it feels like it would be me achieving an apotheosis of everything I thought looked utterly amazing when I was eleven and tracing off of the weird-ass airbrushed art in the manual for the 2600 port of Pac-Man. I thought I'd never be able to do anything that looked that slick, but here I am tossing it off without breaking a sweat.

Since the Great Tree Massacre a year and a half ago, much more sunlight has been coming down to the areas around the driveway. That, combined with the remarkably mild winter and plenty of rain the past month, has resulted in a jungle of weeds sprung up where there once was space enough to put my mom's car when she left it with us for a month, and (even further back) where there was a path the kids took to/from middle school every day. Too much of a jungle: something's got to be done about it. Saturday I got out the old weedwhacker I'd used to trim the lawn terraces back in Malden and tried to attack the jungle: I gnawed away at a couple corners here and there and discovered that some weeks are much harder to whack than others; I think I used up more orange plastic whacking-line in 20 minutes on Saturday than I used in two-three years back in Malden. We're going to need bigger power tools.

Sunday I stuck to less powerful tools and more civilized parts of the grounds: cutting back the purple rhodos pretty drastically (seeing how well they recovered from last year's damage) (the white rhodos are still in bloom, so saving them for another weekend) and the frothy thing at the corner of the deck. The neighbors were having an incredibly raucous pool party through it all, but the kid who's been learning the trumpet has just played "Taps" and that seems to be signalling an end.

What happened? Power went out about 15 minutes ago, most of Davis is in the dark, Day and Dover and parts of Highland and Holland too. Anyone know anything?

I've got an old computer case (busted power supply) that I don't really want to just chuck to the curb (even though I know Somerville will take it)- does anyone have any recommendations for recycling? Thanks!

Lol, I'd guess I was living in MA, because I always wanted to return. I wouldn't be so sure I'd be alive by now, but if I was I'd be in MA. Writing. Yep, those two goals have come to pass, however they did so.

On the other hand, I wouldn't have guessed I'd be married or playing World of Warcraft (lol I didn't know what it was, I used to play Myst when I was a kid).

...Nor would I guess I'd be writing fanfic!

But I am. And it's pretty ok, I think.

And... chapter 16 of "Yarrow's Tale" is up. It's hedged around a couple canon rules, but the hedging is basically my own writing style attempting to mesh with that of the fabulous Ms. McCaffrey. I think I managed it.

Otherwise, the weather's cruddy IMHOP; I'd love another visit from Taranis! (lol I almost wrote "Tanaris", which would be really funny. A goblin invasion?

Greetings All!
Summer Radio Mystery Theatre has been cast! Come see all of our great performers on July 27th and 28th!

BURNS & ALLEN: "Gracie Takes Up Crime-Solving"
Directed by Brad Smith

George Burns: Mike Sprague
Gracie Allen: Liz Adams
Bill Goodwin: Jared Hite
Meredith Wilson: Tom Russell
Mr. Postman: Richard Bartlett (evenings), Tom Champion (matinee)
Ensemble: Daniel Dolinov, Lori Salmeri
Foley Team: Katherine Bryant, Maren Reisch
Music: Joseph Horton


SUSPENSE! : "Sorry, Wrong Number"
Directed by Neil Marsh
Rehearsal Assistant: Ashlee Pezzino

Mrs. Stevenson: Sami Genstein
Operator: Katie Drexel
Boss: Daniel Dolinov
George: Chris Chiampa
Chief Operator: Leslie Drescher
Sgt. Martin: TBA
Western Union Agent: Andrew Harrington
Information: Lori Salmeri
Nurse: Liz Salazar
The Man in Black (Host): Tom Champion
Foley: Alissa Lerman


CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATRE: "The Hound of the Baskervilles"
Directed by Jess Viator
Rehearsal Assistant: Jeremy Holstein

Sherlock Holmes: Andrew Harrington
Dr. Watson: Chris Chiampa
Dr. James Mortimer: Tom Champion
Sir Henry Baskerville: TBA
Barrymore: Richard Bartlett (evenings), Tom Russell (matinee)
Eliza: Caitlin Mason
Jack Stapleton: Brendan Gannon
Beryl Stapleton: Nellie Farrington
Laura Lyons: Leslie Drescher
Clayton: TBA
Host: Liz Salazar
Foley Team: Julia Tenney, Karen Sarao


MYSTERY THEATRE STAFF & CREW
Producer, House Manager: Chris DeKalb
Stage Manager: Heather Tucker
Sound Designer: Neil Marsh
Asst. Sound Designer: Allison Schneider
Sound Tech: Chris Cebelnski
Graphic Designer: Neil Marsh
Publicity Team: Jacqueline Bennett, Ashlee Pezzino
Ad Sales Team: TBA

New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, Najmieh Batmanglij

I think new_man bought this when he was preparing the feast for Baron Jehan's investiture (there was a Persian course in honor of Queen Roxane). It's got beautiful pictures and information about Persian culture and culinary history.

I decided to make Albalu polow (Rice with Sour Cherries) because it's not yet sour cherry season, but we have a bunch in the freezer. The recipes called for roasting chickens, but they're just served alongside the rice. I thought that wasn't so interesting and made the variation with little meatballs that are mixed into the pilaf. The original called for lamb (no surprise), but I used ground turkey.

The result was really good -- sweet and savory and prettily pale pink. I didn't achieve the famed tah dig (crust) on the bottom, but it was only my first pilaf. I'm glad it was good, because it made a ton.

The directions are not written so well and the ingredients are somewhat off. The recipe says you can use jarred, fresh, frozen, or dried cherries, but only give amounts for dried and jarred. I guessed and used a pound of frozen. I should have used more -- the recipe needed a scant cup of cherry syrup and I ended up with less than half a cup. The ingredient list calls for 1 1/4 t. salt. The chickens use 1 t and the rice 2 T. This math does not work... You could use ghee or oil, according to the ingredients, but one part of the recipe specifically called for oil and another for butter. Lastly, cinnamon was one of the ingredients, but it was completely ignored.

I'm not willing to give up on the book completely -- the rice was good and not even that hard to make. I'll try something else. Eventually. I've still got a lot of cookbooks.

This weekend was load-in for Sherlock Holmes, and things went quite well for my first time doing this with a group other than Hold Thy Peace. I threw on my work clothes and reported for duty at the Natick Center for the Arts, which is a converted firehouse made into a very cool performance space. We spent Saturday and Sunday setting up the stage, building the set, and hanging the lights. I've picked up the ability to at least lend a hand to just about everything, but I was assigned to painting early on with the seventeen-year-old ASM and our Holmes's two young daughters. I think there may have been some of "let's not give the little girls the heavy lifting jobs" in that assignment, at which I roll my eyes, but I enjoyed the work and feel like I made a pretty solid contribution. Our assistant director Tom said, "I really admire your enthusiasm," to me, as I was jumping in to help wherever I could. That made me feel good, as I really do like tech week-- as I said to him, I want to do and make all these things that aren't feasible in my regular daily life, so tech week is my chance to build stuff or paint stuff and all other sorts of things of that nature. My best contribution here was that I was allowed to do the painting for the flats representing the interior of the gasworks. I was told to make the plain green look like aged, worn metal, so I took a sponge and dabbed it with black paint, then went over that with the other end of the sponge dipped in green paint. Then I smeared the whole thing together, and splattered some white flecks by Tom's suggestion. Somebody with more knowledge and experience will probably have to clean it up a bit, but as you can see from this picture, it doesn't look half-bad.

first things first.

Please  donate to my Komen fundraising efforts this year.  the Walk is coming up soon.

http://www.the3day.org/goto/annacure

Over the winter I let all of the herbs in the balcony garden bolt (go to seed), while the balcony became a seasonal wild bird feedery. The birdies kicked their seeds everywhere, including into the pots of dead stems that I was too lazy to empty until spring.

Around February, which was unseasonally warm, some leafy sprouts began coming up in what had been a mixed herb planter. I presummed they were birdseeds germinating, and planned to clear them out once gardening season began in ernest.

Two months later, the "birdseed" was lush and robust, with no care or even watering. It became clear by the shape of the leaves that this was not birdseed but something in the mint family, though not minty tasting enough to be any kind of kitchen mint.

The container next to them last year had been a huge bushel-sized catnip plant, which I had harvested and dried, leaving it to flower and seed. This new unplanned plant looked for all the world like healthy young catnip. I needed a feline test kitchen to know for sure, but Benjamin is straight-edge and doesn't touch the stuff. It was beowabbit's giant girl-kitty Chicken Finger (a true catnip lush) we turned to, who sniffed a sample with interest, and declared it a raw version of her favorite snuff, giving us our answer in hedonistic rolls in it. Last year's seeds had traveled the few feet or so to this new and bigger container.

Give it 6 weeks and I'll be taking orders for fresh or dried 'nip. It will be hedge-sized by mid-summer!

Was confused about my units the other day. 19 strawberries is more like half a pint than a pint.

Sunday, I got a bit under a full pint, and stopped actually counting numbers.

Sunday afternoon, ordered Chinese takeout. The delivery guy has been coming to our house for years now, and was very happy that "the straws" were back, and helped himself to a little extra tip. Sunday evening, housemates picked about a half pint for baking with.

This morning, despite the various extra harvests on Sunday, got well over a pint.

I'm calling it. Strawberry season is now officially open! This is more than we can eat by ourselves, so come on by and harvest at your pleasure. It may take a few hours for new ones to ripen, but not long :-)

[moment of silence]


[edited to change userpic to something that doesn't imply an immediate local death rather than a moment of silence for memorial day.]

Title: Call Me Maybe

Song Credits: It's the fun. version of the Carly Rae Jepsen song.

Fandom: X-Men First Class

Characters/Pairings: Erik/Charles

Genre: Shippy angst! Also some degree of crack, but really, a lot more angst. I know, it's a peppy song but there's still a lot of angst!

Rating: PG

Summary: As Charles is about to dive into the water where Erik is trying to stop Shaw, he has a flashforward (yes, it's also a slashforward) to everything he's about to experience. Will he dive in anyway, to help the man who will change his life in every way?

( Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy! )


SO many thanks to hllangel and jlh for the beta comments and hand-holding reassurances that while this is slightly cracky, it had to be done. So many thanks, too, to gyzym who shared the fun. cover last week, so it could eat my brain and mandate that I do this vidding thing.

I have loads and loads of kindling that is nice and dry and ready to burn. I have 6 tubs (approx. size 3 x 4 x 2 feet) filled to the brim with kindling (size 2 x 20 cm and 4 x 40 cm) of species: hemlock, black birch, sugar maple and red oak. I can drop it off at your doorstep this Wednesday afternoon.

I have too much to use myself and would be glad to bring it to whoever wanted a tub in Camberville.

If interested you can email me at mberbeco at gmail.com

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20120528

Ha! Awestruck Jägermonsters!

The International Association of Culinary Professionals' website just published an incendiary (but nothing new, actually, and nothing unexpected) opinion article by Amy Reiley that charged food bloggers with "faking it": faking the recipe development, food journalism, and cooking expertise that the culinary industry is supposedly painstakingly cultivating.

I have some strong opinions about this charge, obviously; visit WBB if you want to see my full argument and discuss. In the meantime, love one another and make some eggs.

These eggs begin with aromatic minced shallots and garlic sautéed in butter. Mayonnaise lends a slight tanginess and a gorgeous texture after cooking, and the green onions sprinkled on top round out the delicate onion flavor. You'll love these for breakfast or even as a quick, simple dinner, which is how Mike and I enjoyed them. Don't shy away if you're not a mayo lover -- the mayo adds only a subtle flavor but so much creaminess.



( recipe + photo )


To read my argument against Reiley's assertion that food bloggers are "faking it," throw your two cents in, and see more photos, please head over to Willow Bird Baking!

x-posted to food_porn, cooking, picturing_food, and cookingupastorm

"Spoiler", a short film about life after the zombie apocalypse, when things have gone back to mostly-normal.

I could totally see this as the basis for a sort of horror-meets-police/medical-procedural.

things that happen while moving: coming up with scripts for celebrity telethons...
"kipple blindness is a real phenomenon. please give generously to those who cannot see the kipple and make their partners crazy with statements of 'whaaaaat? the room is EMPTY!' when it is obviously not." (melebeth contributed: The kipple blind need your help to see the clutter. Only you can prevent hoarding.")

(to be clear, i am the kipple-blind -- it makes eric cranky, but he has learned to live with it once he realized i wasn't doing it on purpose.)

tele-melebeth has been a great source of sanity and spirit-lifting during the packing.

(just now: "the weirder they are, the harder we fall." this is why i love her, on both and meta and literal level.)

A quick note or two:

 

The Memorial Day party is on, rain or shine - I don't expect a lot of rain, but if it showers we will retreat inside to the air conditioning and I will grill under the carport.

 

I've laid in a lot of hamburger and sausage, a few chips, a case each of Guinness and hard lemonade, and a very large chocolate cake.  More sides, drinks, desserts (and chairs) and so on would be welcome, but mostly I'd welcome your company.

 

The party starts at 2ish and runs until at least 7.  Hope to see you there!

 

Panteria. It's about the food!

 

Having a fabulous time!

hakamadare made blintzes for breakfast, and last night's homemade cheesecake (Steve's first!) was set for this afternoon's snack. It was amazingly tasty, particularly with my homemade applesauce from last fall.

This isn't the way I'd planned to celebrate Shavuot, but it is pretty damn nice, all the same. :)

Anyone know how easily mints hybridize? I know, I know, I should try to look it up... but if anyone happens to know, that would be super....

I have a whole bunch of plants from the Mint family, some of which I know _won't_ cross, but not sure about the others...Peppermint, Chocolate Mint, Catmint, and Lemon Balm.

The ones I don't worry about are the Lavendar, Rosemary, and Horehound.

I can't even begin to keep track of all L's been doing, but a few highlights are working on making parts of one of the south gardens and the lower garden bed usable (cutting, digging, tilling, weeding, etc.), mowing some of the lawn, replacing the laundry line, and more.

Because of all the rain last fall we didn't do all our usual winter prep, so the hay field made an aggressive move on the garden. Part of the results from that we're digging out and part of it Lyle's going to use for making a row of hot compost -- we're going to bake those grass roots!

Yesterday morning I mostly just did some weeding, watering, and rescuing germinated pea seeds that the rain had uncovered. Afternoon/evening saw bringing some of the Ginger plants down to the porch and re-potting some herbs into larger pots -- Angelica Arch., Lovage, Lemon Balm, and maybe something else.

This morning was weeding, watering, and planting: 6 Lacingto Kale, 6 Red Russian Kale, and 17 Storage Cabbages. I don't know the proper name for the cabbages, but basically they are winter keepers. Also potted up 7 Chamomile into 2 big pots.

Made a trip to the transfer station to drop off trash and recyclables and picked up some empty pots and planting trays (free!).

We picked up some young yellow onions at the hardware store and then retrieved some more Chamomile I'd potted up at Goldthread and then forgot and left them there. Afternoon saw planting 8 Ginger from 6 of the pots into the Ginger bed that Lyle set up so nicely -- very easy to work in :) Also re-potted one of the Elderberry bushes, the mystery bush, a High Top Blueberry bush, and maybe something else... and dug holes to set three of the potted plants into the ground.

Had to water more plants of course -- I picked up quite a few different things this spring and they don't keep the water in the small pots very long in this weather.

Up and outside early in the morning again to do more weeding and plant more stuff. Probably the Chinese Cabbage, something else I bought (no idea at the moment), and some of the onions. I'd like to say all of them but they're multiples packed into 6-packs and I don't know if/how they're going to divide up until I get them out of the pots. I may have to stall on planting the squashes and cukes by re-potting them into larger pots for another week.

The Cranberry Vermont beans are looking good but I only have one row of them -- hopefully we can plant more over the next week, as well as the meal corn (Abenaki Flint), broad beans, and anything else I can fit.

eestiplika, veek, baby NAZ, and I were hanging out today, mostly on the back porch, which was pretty much unadulturated awesome in the perfect weather. At one point, though, after the Memorial Day parade had made its way (its long, long, looooong way) past, we decided to venture into Davis for quesadillas.

Since the parade had just happened, traffic was all a little weird, and there were a lot of people out and about.

We were standing at the corner, waiting for our turn to cross the street, and a group of people came across the street toward where we were standing, and a guy kind of shoved his way past us, exlaiming, "We have a BABY here!" while pushing past veek, who was wearing baby NAZ at the time.

It was truly priceless.

I need to find some place in/near Camberville where I can use a computer, internet and printer. In the old days we had cyber cafes, now we have....??

My fiancé suggested that the Somerville library may have computer and printer access. Anyone know? Any other suggestions? Willing to pay as necessary for time of course.

I got to go to Kemp park with Crime Fighter this afternoon. That place is amaaaaaaazing. We hung out with primal_pastry,red_canna and their kids. RC's middle boy, P, was very sweet and played with Crime Fighter in the water. The baby was all: "OMG, this water thing is so. cool. Everyone should try it. Also, possibly sample the maple seeds and the wood chips and the sand. YUM." And asleep before we crossed the green to the T stop. 

I also found a hat at Helena's- one I'd seen when going by on the bus- it's pretty close to what I have been wanting to wear instead of my Union baseball cap:

I noted with interest the post earlier in the weekend about Somerville soil results. Does anyone know the relative metal content of the soil in the community garden along the bike path? I do not have a plot there but have often wondered how this is handled, if at some point in the past it was dug out and replaced. 

The next show in our continuing series Bare Bones: Staged Readings at Theatre@First will be:

Some Girl(s)
written by Neil LaBute
directed by Santiago Rivas

Ever survived a bad break-up? Whose fault was it? Does it matter? For one man with a rising career in writing and a young, blonde fiancèe, painful memories resurface as he confronts four of his exes in search of what went wrong. In Some Girl(s), Neil LaBute casts a truthful, hilarious light on a typical young American male as he wanders through his own heart of darkness. Can closure ever be found — or is that even the point?

Auditions: Tuesday, June 12th at Unity Somerville
Performance: ONE NIGHT ONLY! 8pm on Thursday, July 19th at Unity Somerville

For more information and to sign up for auditions, please visit our website.

Today's the LAST DAY of the Rita Kickstarter. Only 30-50 more pledges for me to be able to print it with spot gloss.

If you've already pledged, then thank you! And if don't care to buy a copy, that's cool too - but one last wave of mentions of it should go a long way towards the secondary goal!

Either way, thanks for all your support. n.n

Today at church the sermon was given by a member of our congregation, Lori Kenschaft. I could have written her opening words myself, about the ambivalence she has always felt about Memorial Day--on the one hand a glorification of war, on the other hand nothing more than the start of summer--but she went on to discuss how she has reclaimed it for herself by exploring its history as an African-American holiday.

Memorial Day was first celebrated on May 1, 1865, by tens of thousands of people--mostly recently freed former slaves, including 3000 black children recently enrolled in new schools--honoring specifically the prisoners of war who had died at a camp in Charleston, SC and more generally all the Union soldiers who had fought and died in the Civil War that was just ending.

Lori talked about the ways that extending the respect and honor of Memorial Day first to those who fought on both sides of the Civil War may have helped the country to restore a sense of unity, but pushed under the rug important differences and contributed to the idea of war as honorable no matter what the reasons for fighting. She talked about the terrible difficulties of black Americans over the next eighty years and connected that to the present day with a few words about the racial injustices of the War on Drugs and the shameful statistics of our prison system.

And then she read from the writings of a black UU minister, Rev. Mark D. Morrison-Reed. He wrote about the differences between the Jewish remembrance of their time of slavery--the suffering acknowledged and liberation celebrated in ritual each year--and the lack of a central moment of remembrance of the history of slavery and oppression for Africans and their African-American descendents, and for the terrible spiritual burden that all Americans continue to bear from that time.

Patriotism is a difficult subject for liberals these days, myself among them. The proudly held right to criticize and protest the excesses and injustices of our country, the ways that we fail to live up to our ideals and to treat our own citizens with dignity and humanity, the importance of remembering not only our glorious moments, but also the shameful ones that have deeper lessons for our future--all of those can make it hard to be simply proud. And yet I am very proud to be an American, to have as my birthright a part in this grand experiment, and to shoulder my part of our history, personal and collective, bright and dark.

I am grateful to Lori for giving me new things to think about this Memorial Day, new ways of connecting this holiday to past, present and future. I hope that all of you have a great weekend, full of friends and family, fresh air and cool drinks. And I hope that each of you takes a moment to think about where we are as a country, where we have been, where we are headed, what you honor and what you feel the need to challenge.

As our postlude, the wonderful Ken Seitz performed our National Anthem. It is our custom to sit during this closing of our time of worship (a word that comes from the concept of worth, of those things that we value highly), but raised by a devout patriot and veteran, I rose to my feet. I was not the first to rise and quickly the entire congregation stood together, honoring our country. I felt proud.

This entry was originally posted at http://lillibet.dreamwidth.org/604333.html. You can comment either place! There are comments over there now.

Hey all,

Due to a family emergency we cannot go the the Radiohead show on 5/29 at the Comcast Center.
We do not want these tickets to go to waste so we are entertaining ANY offer. Electronic tickets can be emailed or picked up in Somerville. See Craigslist posting below and feel free to call/text with any questions.

Thank you!


http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/tix/3040904785.html

Kha threw open the door to the back room, their face wild-eyed and eyes darting. Their gaze lighted upon a coworker and Kha's face flooded with desperate relief. The coworker, having been distracted from his task of collapsing boxes, did not appear to relish the notion of being the new employee's savior.

"To'mas," Kha pleaded in a loud whisper. "Please help. They're actually screaming at each other. Steve and what's his face."

"Steve and Zap are fighting again?" The half-elf's shoulders sagged. "Where's Alan?"

Kha made a helpless noise and shrugged.

( Read more... )

Mirrored from Sythyry.

How are your parlours decorated?

Most of my parlors are decorated by the crystallization process. (The first
and second times I did the process, I didn’t manage to incorporate furniture,
and in Kismirth, I kept both furniture and decoration to a minimum.) On the
whole this means carved wooden walls or plain walls behind draperies or
tapestries. The furniture is furniture. Sometimes it talks.

Will any of the rest of you be here in Brattleboro for the Dawn Dance (tomorrow/today)/Monday?

hi everyone. I'm having a yard sale tomorrow (Sunday, May 27th) starting at 2PM and going till 8PM. I have a ton of stuff, including, but not limited to:

clothes and shoes (dresses, tshirts, pants, heels, boots)
art supplies
knick knacks
a keyboard
lamps
some fancy perfume
an night stand
a giant magnifying glass
a wooden fertility god idol
a large orange paper umbrella
some cool shells
blank notebooks and stationery
an assortment of DVDs from the late nineties
a bookcase
a fishing pole
pillows
a digital camera
flasks
european power converters
kitchen things
a glue stick
an ipod
a guitar

and much more! come check it out. everything is by donation.

address is 48 Hancock St, Somerville, on the corner of Hancock and Summer.

tallyho!

Apparently upcoming issues of Archie Comics are going to reframe "Betty vs. Veronica" as a choice between the 99% and the 1%. In others, Sabrina is going to magically switch everyone's gender.

I bemusedly approve.

My boyfriend said one of his professors once told him that her son developed "problems" due to constantly playing in the dirt when he was little, and that tests found there was high lead concentration in the soil of Somerville.

I have scoured the net and cannot find anything to support this. Is there any reason why I shouldn't eat something growing from the soil in our backyards?

I was puttering around in my balcony garden, admiring the rapid growth of my four cucumber plants which will one day yield pickling fodder, when the phrase "bourbon pickles" randomly popped into my head. I'd never heard of such a thing, so I had to google it.

Well, whataya know! I guess there's nothing new under the sun. It seems bourbon lends itself better to pickling fruit than vegetables, particularly peaches and fresh apricots, according to the recipes I found. Very sweet and spicy with brown sugar syrup, ginger, cinnamon, clove and such. Now there's something I've never tried. I can't grow my own peaches and apricots due to lack of a place to put a tree, but that's what the farmer's market is for. I'll try it this summer!

People sometimes wonder why little kids like dinosaurs. Lots of other people know why kids like dinosaurs: they're big and scary and powerful, and a little weird. I think that's why older kids and adults like superhero/action movies: the characters are big and scary and powerful, and a little weird. As a not-very-dangerous middle aged person, I find that transiently compelling. I wonder if fit young men who know how to be dangerous find it as compelling?

Despite not knowing all the characters, and not knowing most of their backstory, the kids and I enjoyed The Avengers a lot. There was at least one place where half the adults laughed and none of the kids got it - a reference to a character from another work of fiction. Lots of other good dialog and special effects. Had fun trying to figure out which real-world creatures the Big Critters were sourced from. Thought at first it was a coelecanth, but decided later that it was mostly more mundane than that.

In other news of the holiday-weekend-in-progress, Elizabeth slept in the tent last night and enjoyed it; she reappeared in the house around 7am. After the movie and before Friendly's, we went to Lowes to pick up an extra hammer and some eye protection, because tomorrow we're doing a daytrip to Ruggles Mine in NH, where you get to whack at rocks hoping for various minerals. I already have a splendid sample of mica, so I'll have to look for something else. Arthur, of course, is hoping that he finds uranium, which is one of the possibles there. We're not bringing Metageek because he's being snowed on while hiking at Yellowstone, and he wasn't very interested in whacking at rocks anyway. We'll bring him some nice warm uranium.

This entry was originally posted at http://cvirtue.dreamwidth.org/108220.html. There are comments at DW. You can comment here at LJ, too.

A major caveat before the link: While this image itself is SFW, most of the ones on the site are not--and for that matter, many of this artist' other pictures are also NSFW, so unless you're viewing at home, be careful following any links on the page.

That said, a lovely steampunk vixen: http://www.e621.net/post/show/216787/canine-female-fox-hat-kacey-scepter-solo-steampunk

Edit: Thanks to bladespark for pointing out that the original source of the picture is actually http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8054831/ , which is the link that should properly be used to view it--though the warning about the work-safeness of the artist's other artwork still stands, despite FA's use of adult-tags.

KiLin and I got here in good time, checked out the kitchen, ate lunch leftovers, and I'm about to take a nap.

 

Very, very nice site!

Bike Boom is no longer in an alley behind a dumpster next to Snappy Sushi.

The used bike and repair shop moved this morning to 389 Highland Avenue, the former home of Your Move Games (and, later, of Bone Appetit pet food store and Buzzy's head shop).

ETA: You can get a $35 tune-up through Google Offers (buy voucher before 9:30 pm Sunday 5/27) or CBS Local Offers (buy voucher by midnight Sunday 6/3)