I Wanna Be in the Olympics When I Grow Up

This one was inspired by a wonderful post by my bloggerfriend, Heidi.

As kids, my siblings and I were completely fearless. We had no sense of our own limitations or potential mortality. I'm pretty sure it was a result of a mixture of heredity and environment.

Exhibit A:

My dad used to play this game called "Olympic Gymnast" with us kids when we were little. We'd lay on the ground and stick our feet straight up in the air. He'd grab us by our heels and flip us a** over teakettle across the room to land on our feet. When we stuck a landing we'd fling our hands in the air like... well, an Olympic Gymnast.

While waiting their turn, the other siblings acted as judges. You scored an automatic 10 if your feet brushed the ceiling and scraped off any of the texturing.

Surprisingly, all of us are still alive. Thinking back on it now, I don't know why he didn't just give us a pair of tweezers and point us in the direction of the nearest electrical socket.

It was the best game EVER.

Exhibit B:

I have a scar on my knee (one of many) that was the result of an attempt to slide down the tin roof of a barn onto the back of an innocent, unsuspecting equine. You know... Zorro style. I was ten years old, which would have made the two siblings who accompanied me on this particular wild west adventure 8 and 4 years old.

The only thing that prevented a second - and I'm sure spectacularly successful - attempt was the sudden fear that my parents were probably going to see the wound and ask what I'd been doing when I was supposed to be watching my siblings. Somehow the idea of announcing that I was watching my siblings because they were both up on the roof with me wouldn't be viewed as a satisfactory answer. That, and the fact that it wasn't our barn and it wasn't our horse probably wasn't going to help my case any.

Exhibit C:

The professional grade slingshots my dad gave us.

Exhibit D:

The blowdart gun (complete with actual darts) the siblings all chipped in to purchase at a neighborhood garage sale. The transaction took place in complete secret and we practiced our blowdart skills religiously on tin cans and stacked milk cartons filled with water. Eventually the novelty wore off and the blowdart gun fell by the wayside. Good thing, too, because it was only a matter of time before we turned those skills on our neighbors and arch-nemesis, the Freeburn kids. I'm pretty sure the blowdart gun is still hidden away in the hidey-hole in my parents attic.

Exhibit E:

The Family Trip From Hell: Hiking the Grand Canyon in August. I guess my parents were trying to weed out the weak members of the pack, because it was a Lord of the Flies experience. I've blocked out most of it, though a few of the choicer moments well up to the surface of my consciousness occasionally in fever dreams.

Ahhh... Good times, good times.

Paving Paradise... BOO! Organic Buying Club... YAY!

Not that you would be able to tell by my ever-increasing blobular form, but I'm a bit of a health nut. My latest obsession has resulted in a series of  freak outs about the pollutants, pesticides, growth-hormones, GMOs, etc. in our food and water supply. In these parts, it's difficult to find a local grocery store that carries a variety of organic food-stuffs and doesn't require an appendage and your first-born child as payment. I suppose I could drive to the city to the nearest reasonably priced health food store, but wouldn't traveling in the Jeep for an hour spewing unnecessary pollutants out the tailpipe and into the atmosphere sort of defeat the purpose?

Two steps forward, two steps back. Might as well just eat the steak from the two-headed calf at that point.

Enter the local Whole Life Buying Club.

For $50 every two weeks, our fearless leader (let's call her Jen) travels to the city and picks up our giant bags of organic produce from the local Urban Organics group. She brings the orders back to town and we converge on a central spot to retrieve our reusable grocery bags full of goodness. The list of available fruits and veggies changes with the season and you can, for an additional fee, add in an extra veggie or fruit "share".

This is my second pickup and I am once again extremely pleased with my haul.

The odd plum-shaped fruits between the pears and the red onions are called pluots.
And for some reason I got one beet. What does one do with a single beet??

This time Jen also added a bread order from a local bakery that specializes in organic, non-GMO products, and extra bunches of basil from a local grower ($1 a bunch!! What a bargain! Pesto for everyone!! YAY!). So in the picture, there are two loaves of bread and an extra handful of basil that wouldn't normally be in the regular $50 share but it's still a fantastic deal.

I busted into the bread this morning. It was a little slice of honey whole-wheat heaven. I also ate my first organic pluot. Yeah, that was my question, too; What the hell's a pluot? Whatever it was, it was delicious.

Water Tattoo

I've been considering another tattoo. This summer everyone around me got their first or an addition, and though I have been keeping an eye out, I haven't found anything that's really spoken to me.

Considerable consideration needs to go into art that is to be permanently pointilled into one's dermis.

Then I saw the water tattoos by the artist Amanda Wachob. According to her website, the tattoos, known as "bloodlines", are done with distilled water instead of ink, thus rendering them impermanent. How cool is that?



 It would be a great idea for stars in the entertainment business to have their wedding rings inscribed on their fingers in this fashion. By the time the markings fade, the marriage is over anyway. No harm, no foul, no costly, painful, laser surgery removal.

As much as I admire the one done on the palm, I don't think I have a high enough pain threshold to get a tatt on that particular area.

Autumn is Coming! Autumn is Coming!

This was the first morning I felt the cool touch of autumn in the air.

Thank you, sweet baby Jebus.

For the last two months the average temperature during the day has been 103degrees. We haven't come close to getting the minimal rainfall due for this time of year. Crops have withered, ponds, lakes, and rivers have dried up. Today the cashier at the grocery store handed me my receipt and said, "Have a blessed day and pray for rain."

It has been too hot for me to even drink my coffee in the morning, resulting in severe caffeine withdrawals.

Shut up in the house for two months where I've done nothing but sit on the couch and sweat and scowl, I've become a terror to be around. This morning was the first day I've been happy to be alive since summer began. I look forward to the day I can return to drinking coffee.

So does everyone else.

Now you have a blessed day and don't forget to pray for rain.

Book Review - Dissolution by C.J. Sansom

I enjoyed Dissolution, though it was darker than some of the historical mysteries I've read. By the end, I was profoundly grateful to be living in the Year of Our Lord 2011. I appreciate luxuries like regular bathing, warm clothing in the winter, fresh food, and beer free of chicken poop.

So often you find it's the little things (poop-free beer) that matter.

Fans of Brother Cadfael and Sister Fidelma could probably appreciate this well-researched and well-written book, though Dissolution takes place later in the historical timeline of the U.K. than either of the others. 

Toward the end I guessed who-dun-it. Or I thought I had. The author hid some devious twists and turns in the last few pages that I didn't anticipate. He was very tricksy. I like that quality in my mystery authors.

I will be picking up the next book in the Shardlake series, because I want to know how the character progresses after his disillusionment. In the end he was left at a crossroads of conscious, and I'm a little nervous for him. When you're close to the thunder rolling 'round the throne, it's safer if you don't have a conscious at all.

This Week in the Lab - Pork and Pears

Yeah, sounds disgusting.

Pork and pears.

Blech.

Anyone who grew up watching episodes of the Brady Bunch has heard of "pork chops and appleschawsh", but I don't typically go for meat and fruit combos.

I'm not a fan of cooked fruit.

Unless it's in a pie.

Which is a totally different situation.

I'd never heard of combining pork and pears before I picked up a copy of The Best Simple Recipes from America's Test Kitchen, but they are AMERICA'S TEST KITCHEN, right? If anyone knows what they're doing in the kitchen (which in my house, is referred to as "The Laboratory"), it would be these people.

And it wasn't going to require a special trip to the grocery to pick anything up, because I already had all the ingredients.

SOLD!

For an ATK recipe, it was surprisingly simplistic.

The title of the book isn't false advertising.

Thick-cut pork chops...

a pear...

salt

pepper

little bit o' sugar

little bit o' oil

chicken broth

balsamic vinegar

buttah

sprinkle of bleu cheese

It was...

delicious.

I would rate this recipe TEN toques!

10 =

Now I'm feeling ambitious. Does anyone out there have a recipe they love that I could experiment with next week in the lab?

This Guy is Giving Hillbillies a Bad Name

I've decided to invent a new word.

Now that I have a blog, I can do that. It's in the rules.

Dis-hillbillity (dis-hil-bil-i-tee)

Scenario: A 25 year old man dressed in a black tank top and torn jeans sits on the porch of his mobile home drinking beer with his skinny-as-a-rat-tail, backward-hat-wearing friend while his pregnant wife pushes a lawnmower through waist-high grass in 100+ degree heat while trying to kick away a mongrel dog nipping at her ankles.*

Useage: "I cain't mow the lawn because three years ago I hurt mah back. Ima on the dis-hillbillity," he said as he took another swig from his bottle.

*Actually witnessed.