Ruby just had her first bath

The whole thing was a great deal less stressful than I expected it to be. She rolled in something horrible on our walk a little while ago, and I tried just washing the affected areas but she still stank. Julie has warned me that I needed to put her into the bathtub and give her a real bath, just to get her used to it, while she was still young enough to think it was fun.

I was prepared to concede that she might be right. That it would be a bummer to find out she hates baths when she's filthy and I'm on my way out the door. But it's like me to put things off.

I needn't have worried; she liked it just fine! I brought her into the bathroom & closed the door, sudsed her all up briskly with a warm washcloth and then picked her up and put her into the tub. I had put an old towel on the bottom of the tub so she wouldn't slide around, and once I shut the tub enclosure door (and, well, I got in there with her -- no photos, it's Christmas), she was completely calm and happy about the whole thing.

Ruby: "Wow! I'm in the tub! This is fun! I love it in here! Mom, look: a washcloth! I'm taking it! It's mine!"

Me: "Awww, who's a good puppy? Give me your other foot. What a sugar bear." etc., ad naus.

And I sudsed her up a little more, turned the handheld shower thingy on and rinsed her off and we were good to go. No panic, no attempts to escape, and a whole lot of tail-wagging when I dried her off. I did underestimate the number of towels it would take to get us both dried off, but that was a small problem, easily remedied. Plus the bathroom floor is clean now, too. The whole event took about six minutes.

Number of seconds it took for her to leap into my bed once I opened the bathroom door? About 4, but I had put a clean sheet over it in anticipation of that very thing. At least she smells good.

She's sleeping all curled up on the sofa now.

Search strings, and post # 142 in 2007

I just noticed that I did in fact exceed the total number of posts for 2005, my first year blogging. This was my goal, and I'm now happy. It's also, in case you are keeping track, post #384 or something like that. Traffic to alphabitch.org continues to be light, which is how I like it. I've only ever had to delete a couple of comments (mostly for irrelevant commercial shilling or really offensive and also highly irrelevant commentary). While I was adding things up, I took a look at some recent search strings that led folks here to this little corner of the virtual world:

• songs of the apocolypse: here's a playlist
• how much does a dash of worcestershire sauce mean in a recipe? I admit I have been guilty of not being more specific in my recipies, but 1 dash = 12 drops, according to the cooking page at the very fine website onlineconversion.com. Or two pinches. Or 0.00000258499 of a hogshead [US], whatever the hell that is.
• Christian biker chicks: Can't help you here. This is the post they went to, but I'm not sure it helped, as I am neither a Christian nor a biker chick.
• vintage lingerie pictures: I aim to please. Here you go. Of course, they are pictures of the lingerie only; I am not in them.
• regret it sooner or later: I'm not sure it was what this person in the UAE was looking for, but I did get kind of embarrassed when one of my friends mentioned a rather intimate blog post over dinner. "Regret" is putting it a little too strongly though.
• bodybuilderin alphabitch: um, this is weird. Someone from Germany. I don't think this post was what they were looking for, somehow. I used to do a lot more weightlifting, but not so much these days.
  
• concrete cut dog door: There is a dog door in my house, but it's cut into a wooden door in pretty much the usual way. Sorry, can't help you.
  
• Jennifer Warnes breasts: go away. There is nothing here about Ms. Warnes' breasts. She has re-released her fine recording "Famous Blue Raincoat," however, which I cannot recommend highly enough. It's all Leonard Cohen songs, except for 'Song of Bernadette,' which she co-wrote with Mr. Cohen. And did I mention it's excellent?
  

There were also the usual multiple searches for what I guess you could call my greatest hits:

• squid octopus difference: I don't know, precisely, but they are different. And I do know that some people think that finding a squid in your driveway makes more sense than finding an octopus in your driveway. In Wisconsin. While removing snow.
• duct tape leg shaving: I am probably going to be famous for this one, if I am ever famous for anything. Perhaps I will regret ever posting this. If you do try it at home, make sure that you use really high-quality, sticky duct tape, and also wait a good long time so that there is enough leg hair for the duct tape to get a grip. Doesn't work so well on stubble. And don't try it if you've never waxed your legs, because it will probably hurt a lot. Experienced leg-waxers, however, will find that it's quite effective -- if you don't use that cheap-ass 'duck tape' crap. And you don't pull the strip off, you roll it very firmly against the direction of hair growth.
  
• tatertot hotdish best recipe: A very good recipe, if I do say so myself. But don't use that crappy paddy-grown wild rice. You're much better off with ground beef or brown rice. But the really good wild rice? Totally excellent. And Tater Tots® are just plain good, I don't care what anyone says.
  
• can dogs eat blueberries? Yes! And they love them, fresh or frozen! Do NOT, however, feed your dogs grapes or raisins. It could kill them, for real. Raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries are fine, though. I've been feeding them to my dogs for years, and they seem to suffer no ill effects.
  

So maybe I'll keep blogging for another year.

Mandy did prevail, in case you were wondering

Daisy commented on yesterday's post that "I swear, it looks like they are talking! I WANT THE CHAIR! OH YEAH, WELL YOU CAN'T HAVE IT!" She was exactly right; Ruby eventually gave up, having very firmly established possession of the other two chairs, the sofa, her own bed, and my bed. It was an epic battle, but Mandy, as you can see, was pretty happy with the purple chair and her crate.

Merry Christmas, if you're into that kind of thing.

Mandy comes for another visit

She's being fairly assertive about the chair today, Mandy is, and they are both being very good dogs. I don't have the camera at home with me today, so we'll have to look at this photo from the last time Mandy was here. It's pretty much what they are doing right now.

We've got some dog biscuits in the oven and are having a pretty swell Saturday night. Maybe we'll watch a movie or something.

The color of Tang®

If you are looking for a color to paint your kitchen -- or even, say, the kitchen in the apartment over your garage -- don't pick the color of Tang®. It's really ugly, plus unappetizing. And you can see it through two coats of primer and one coat of paint. And now there's a song stuck in my head, even though I was painting a kitchen, not a living room. I can't find a link to the song or a video of it, so here are the lyrics. It's a peppy little waltz, with guitar & accordion:

WHY AM I PAINTING THE LIVING ROOM?

Holes in the ozone the size of Brazil
Barges of trash in the chewable breeze
Pools of industrial wasteland pate'
Sulfur dioxide dissolving the trees
Pretty soon it will all end with a boom
Why am I painting the living room?

I have the whole day off
Cause it's a Saturday
There is a bluegrass band
Somewhere along the bay
Look at the lilacs bloom
Why am I painting the living room?

A pinhead evangelist pays for his sin
With a five dollar fine for a black collar crime
Kingpins of industry knowingly nod
Just like lake Erie they're 12% slime
They wink at the president too I assume
And here I am painting the living room

I hear the bluebird sing
Don't let the day go by
Look at the blossoms blow
Over the blue blue sky
All with a wild perfume
And here I am painting the living room

Why am I painting the living room? (repeat)

(Lou:)
Ah yes I can see how my tombstone will read
Here lies someone of exceptional worth
Though she did not do a lot for her kind
Or help hold together this crumbling earth
Here lies a woman they're saying of whom
Sure had a goodlooking living room...

©1988 L&P Berryman. Words by Peter, Music by Lou.

Julie was a lot more helpful yesterday than Ruby was today. In fact, the whole thing was Julie's idea. She even found some primer and paint in her basement and got the whole project rolling. Thanks, Julie!

I think that the next coat (coats?) of paint will have to wait until next weekend.

Dog biscuits: The Recipe

I made some more dog biscuit dough yesterday, and this time I measured everything, and kept track of what I did. So here it is, because I know Linus wants some. It's kind of complicated and putzy, but you love your dog, right?

I did this the old-fashioned way, meaning I dissolved the yeast in about half a cup of warm water (about 110 degrees F) with one sugar cube and then let it stand until it's all foamy & bubbly. When you do it this way, it's important that everything else is about room temperature (or a little warmer, if you're like me) so that when you add the yeast you don't kill it. The modern sort of bread machine influenced way to do it is to add the yeast to the (room temperature) dry ingredients and then have the liquid ingredients a little hotter when you add them (I guess about 120-130 degrees F). Never tried it, but if you feel more comfortable doing it that way, go right ahead.

Also: The recipe below calls for 1 cup of cooked grain cereal. I used a cup of Ruby's special chow, which I made the other day by cooking oatmeal and rice in some leftover chicken soup with extra chicken broth. But if you have a cup of cooked rice left over, or oatmeal, or millet, or seven-grain cereal, or whatever, you can use that. If you have to cook something up just for this recipe, cook it in broth or stock; throw in some shredded vegetables (my dogs have seemed to especially like carrots and apples, but this is also a good way to get rid of any bits of leftover meat and/or vegetables), add some canned pumpkin at the end. You'll probably have more than a cup of it, but you can freeze it for the next time, or just add a small scoop of it on top of the dog's kibble every morning.

So here we go:

Dissolve 1 packet or 1 Tbsp. dry yeast in 1/2 cup warm water with 1 sugar cube. Set in a warm, still place for a while. I actually used a little more than a Tbsp, but less than you'd get in two packets.

While that's going on, combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl -- not the one you'll use in the mixer (if you're using a mixer). You'll need at least 8 cups, and some of it should be white flour. You may need a little more than 8 cups. Don't have a flour sifter? Me neither. I just put it through a wire mesh colander. You could also just stir it all up with a fork so that it's more or less evenly blended. Here's what I used this time, but last time I included bits of rye flour and millet flour and cornmeal and buckwheat flour and rolled oats and whatever else I had in the freezer taking up space.

• 4 cups all-purpose white flour
• 3-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup wheat germ

In the mixing bowl, combine the wet ingredients. If you're using a fancy mixer, you'll want to use the dough hook eventually, so you might as well start out with it. You can also just mix this up with a spoon or whisk or whatever. And again, make sure that they are room temperature or slightly warmer:

• 1 cup chicken stock* (of course I use homemade stock, which I have in the freezer, but you can use canned or boxed -- salt free! -- broth or stock
• 1 cup milk*
• 1 cup cooked grain/cereal (oatmeal, rice, 7-grain cereal, millet -- even leftover polenta)
• 1/4 cup shortening, butter, or lard
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp. garlic powder (NOT garlic salt)
• 1 grated apple (optional)
• 1 grated carrot (optional)
• 1/4 cup brewer's yeast (optional)

* You can use slightly more, like, say a can of broth and a can of evaporated milk, but you'll probably have to add more flour.

When that's all combined, and neither too hot nor too cold, add the yeast (remember the yeast? it should be all foamy and smelly by now), stir for a bit, and then add a couple of cups of the flour mixture. Keep adding the flour, 1/2 a cup at a time, until you've added about 6-1/2 cups. By this time, it will take a few minutes to incorporate each additional scoop of flour. Make sure that it's well blended in before adding the next scoop. Which, keep adding more until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl and starts to get smooth and elastic. You might need to knead in the last few scoops by hand. It should be a fairly stiff dough, not sticky at all. Keep kneading and every once in a while sort of pick it up and slam it onto the work surface and slap it a few times.

If you've baked bread by hand before, you'll know when it's ready to stop kneading and start the first rising. When you pinch it gently, it feels sort of like an earlobe, and it will keep the shape for a bit but start to spread back out right away. When you slap it, it feels kind of heavy and dense, but springy.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl and oil the surface of the dough. Cover with a clean towel or cloth napkin and leave in a warm, still place for at least an hour. I usually turn the oven on to low for about five minutes, and then turn it off while I am still kneading, then I put the dough in there to rise, with the light on. Remember to turn it off, though.

After an hour or so, check on it; it should be twice as large as it was when you put it in there. It's ready when you poke two fingers into it -- about to the first knuckle -- and the indentation stays. This part is fun: Punch the center of the dough and watch it collapse. Then knead it again, just for a few minutes. If it is at all sticky at this point, incorporate some more flour, 1/4 cup at a time, as you knead. If it seems too dry and floury, sprinkly a Tbsp. or so of olive oil on it as you knead.

At this point, I divided the dough into four equal pieces. I put three of them into plastic freezer bags and tossed them into the freezer.** I put the remaining piece into a smaller oiled bowl and put it into the fridge because I had to go do something for a few hours. You could also put it back in the warm place and let it rise again right away. It won't take as long to double in size this time, but when it does, punch it down and roll it out on a floury cutting board or other work surface. It should be about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch thick.

If you have a dog biscuit-shaped cookie cutter, use it to cut them out, and then quickly place them on a lightly greased cookie sheet. You can put them fairly close together. You can use any old cookie cutter, or just take a knife and cut them into little rectangles or whatever shape you want. They're kind of hard to break, so you might want to make them bite-sized from the start.

You'll notice that once they're on the cookie sheets they start to rise again. Brush the tops with olive oil, or with a mixture of egg white and water, or with milk. Then take a fork and poke holes in the surface of the biscuits, about an inch or so apart. Let them sit on the cookie sheets for about 15-20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

Bake them on the center rack for about 45 minutes, then reduce the heat to 250 and bake for another hour or so. Maybe more. They should be crunchy and dry but not very dark brown. Then turn the oven off and just leave them there until they are completely cool. Overnight is fine if it's late and you're bored with this project.

When completely cool, place in an airtight container or zippery freezer bags. They'll keep at least a week or so that way, but if it's going to be much longer than that, keep them in the fridge.

** To thaw them out, if you put them in the freezer, I usually take one out in the morning before I go to work and put it into the refrigerator. Then when I get home, I take it out and put it in an oiled bowl in a warm place and let it rise for a while, then knead a bit and roll it out and proceed as above with cutting out & baking.

My dog is a good dog

This morning Ruby performed the elusive 'down-stay' maneuver, staying put for twenty seconds. Twenty entire seconds! She's pretty good at 'sit-stay' and will go directly to 'down' on command, but she usually pops back up as soon as her elbows hit the floor.

In other news, I have learned to say 'off the fence,' and 'come here,' and 'sit' pretty much every single time Ruby jumps on the fence. Followed on randomly selected occasions with a treat. She is a very good teacher.

Environmental enrichment for dogs*

When I leave the house, I always leave a bunch of toys in Ruby's little space. And the radio playing. She gets confined to the hallway and bathroom; there's a window, but it's up high so that she can't look out and bark at the neighbor dogs or the mailman. There are several doors that get locked with hooks: to the basement, the living room, my bedroom, a linen closet, the stairwell going upstairs, and my sewing room. The only furniture in there is a small desk in the hallway. She has never chewed on it, though she did peel some paint off of the closet door and the door going upstairs. I leave a broom leaning against each of those doors, and she hasn't bothered them since.

The brooms kind of scare her. She is very careful not to knock them over.

A couple of the toys are the kind that you can put treats inside, and it's kind of a challenge for dogs to get them out again. I always do put a couple of treats in those for her. When she sees me gather up the toys and put the treats in them, she gets very happy, and goes into her room, sits on her bed, and waits.

Separation anxiety? Not a problem at all. She loves it when I go away.

Today when I got home, however, she had found something else with which to entertain herself: aloe vera/Vitamin E foot creme, which she loves. I have to put my socks on very fast or she tries to lick it right off my feet. And of course I have to remember to put the jar somewhere she can't reach it. Well, either I forgot to do that or there is no longer any such place in the bathroom, alas.

Fortunately the stuff is really cheap, and I bought two jars of it last time I was in the drugstore.


*[2009 update: OK, perhaps this post should be more accurately titled "Environmental enrichment for dogs: here is what happens when there is not enough for your dog to do." I'd hoped that it would be obvious that it was not meant to be an example of proper enrichment activities for dogs; I regret that this was not clear enough to those who take the time (still!) to write to me about it, and I do apologize if I was rude in my response to you. I understand that you were trying to help. So if anyone is inclined to email me more dog-rearing advice based on this two-year-old post, please note that a) she was six months old and not crate trained (nor had she ever even been in a house!) when she came to live with me, so no, crate-training is not essential to her well-being; b) puppies and young energetic dogs need to be confined for their own safety, not for the integrity of the furniture, so yes, it is a good idea to put her in a small, relatively featureless and den-like room; it's stressful enough for dogs in a new environment without having to guard the whole house and keep it safe from potential intruders like the mailman and the neighbor kids and so forth; and c) the brooms were not intended to 'terrorize' her in any way, just to impede her ability to chew on the woodwork and ingest paint chips. In any case, she's all grown up now and no longer confined to a small room when I leave. She has no lingering fear of brooms. My leaving does not stress her out in the least, as she looks forward to the routine of the treat ball before I go out the door. But thanks for your advice all the same. Also: I do not adhere to any single method or theory or set of rules for dog training or rearing. Every dog is different.]

Science in action: attention, headaches, and smart bras

I think my brain is missing something. I don't think I have an 'irrelevance filter.' Apparently there's memory and there's something called 'working memory:'

"Working memory is important because it gives a mental workspace in which we can hold information whilst mentally engaged in other relevant tasks, which is crucial for learning.

"Its capacity is limited and seems to vary from person to person."

They think that this has something to do with ADD, etc., or at any rate they think it explains why some people are better at remembering things than others.

And as a longtime migraine sufferer, I also found this article interesting:

"Scientists have discovered differences in the sensory areas of the brains of people who develop migraines.

"They found a part of the cortex is thicker than in people who are free from the debilitating headaches.

"What is not clear is whether the difference causes, or is the result of migraine attacks."

Apparently this phenomenon of cortex thickening leads to hypersensitivity to pain and other stimuli. Kind of a chicken-and-egg thing at this point, though.

But on the useful new study front, yet another group of scientists -- this bunch in Australia -- has found a way to incorporate sensors into fabric in order to compensate for the uncomfortable motion of large breasts during exercise. Increased accuracy in monitoring the breast tissue is essential, they say, to design more supportive undergarments for the large-breasted gal.

"Brassiere designers will have the ability directly to assess the effects of changes to each brassiere component."

About damn time, is all I have to say about that. Although how would it feel to know that your own bra is staring at your tits while you run?

Who's training whom?

I think the homemade dog biscuits might have been a mistake. Oh, they turned out great, and there are a lot of them. Or, there were a lot of them. I've given away several dozens of them, but Ruby's certainly put a dent in the supply. She can tell when I have them in my pocket, on account of they are more deliciously fragrant than other dog biscuits. And there are still about 500 biscuits' worth of dough in the freezer, as I got tired of rolling it out and cutting them out. The recipe I used made a lot more biscuits than I expected, and in fact made a quantity too large for my new mixer to handle. I'll have to work on it a bit before I post it here.

On the up side, she has been very responsive to my training efforts lately. She will come when called most of the time, even when she is trying to track down a squirrel, or digging around near the potting shed where I'm pretty sure there are mice. She'll sit and stay for upwards of five seconds (which is a giant leap from previous attempts), and she'll even stay when I step away or turn my back briefly. And she's got the 'down' command pretty well, although 'down-stay' remains at around 50 percent.

But she's started to perform in hopes of a treat, without waiting for a command. She'll just show up at my side and sit. If I happen to walk near the fridge -- which is where the treats are, up on top where she can't reach them -- she trots over and sits. And when I don't respond in the way she'd like, she first wags her tail and looks adorable. When that fails, and I walk away, she tries to get my attention, first by getting in my way, then by barking. Or she'll go into the hallway where her bed is, and leap onto it and assume the 'down' position, which is what she has to do when I leave the house. 'On your bed,' is what I say to her, and I give her a treat. But I'm not gonna give her a damn treat every single time she gets into her bed.

She's also started stringing commands together in creative but plausible ways. 'Off the fence,' which has been pretty difficult but she's definitely improving, has come to mean, 'off the fence' + 'come over here' + 'sit' all at once. Her annoyance when I fail to reward her is kind of funny, but getting old fast.

And sometimes when I sit down at the computer in the morning, she comes right over and sticks her nose in my bathrobe pocket, just to make sure there are no treats. And if there are treats in there, she'll keep pestering me until I finally make her do a down-stay.

At which point, this morning, I gave her the treat already.

Yes, I'm responding very well to her training efforts.

Dreamy

I'm very tired and about to toddle off to bed. Ruby is in the kitchen barking to alert me to the presence on the counter of a freshly baked loaf of bread. I'm waiting for it to get cool enough to wrap up. I'm not sure why she doesn't just jump up and get it; it is within her reach.

She's a funny dog.

But as long as I'm sitting here, waiting around, I will tell you about another item I emailed to myself: this guy might be my dream date. He's done a bunch of high-quality modifications to standard car engines to increase gas mileage and decrease emissions, and to make them burn alternative fuels. The kind of stuff that Detroit says isn't possible. I've been hearing about him here and there for a while now, and was very happy when Fred Clark over at slacktivist (speaking of dream dates, I think Fred is pretty dreamy as well) linked to this story about Jonathan Goodwin.

I have mixed feelings about biofuels; whatever we choose as a source of fuel for transport, heat, or power generation, I think it's imperative that we learn to do with less of it. Whether it comes from a finite source with a pile of associated security and political issues, or from a food crop (or land which could otherwise grow one) at the expense of a hungry planet, burning stuff is an increasingly dumb idea.

And it's clear that a lot of folks here in the U. S. of A. are not willing to live in cold houses, in the dark, and not drive anywhere, so I think that gains in efficiency whereever possible are essential.

Plastic on the windows only goes so far in saving the world.

Bugwatching

I emailed myself this link recently, in case I wanted to post some spider pictures. I found it via Neurophilosophy.

This guy, Mike Libby, found a dead beetle one day and, intrigued by its beautiful exoskeleton, installed some watch parts in it. Why? I don't know, really. His artist statement type page says he explores "themes of science, nature, fantasy, history and autobiography; highlighting illogical and acute correspondences between the real and unreal."

The results aren't working watches or clocks, but rather really compelling little pieces of cybernetic sculpture.

He's got beetles, and butterflies, and dragonflies, and of course arachnids. He continues to work with found specimens occasionally, but he also obtains them from some kind of entomology supply house. In addition, you can send him a specimen you're particularly fond of and, if possible, he'll make it into a custom piece for you.

Technical difficulties, and a couple other things

If you're trying to email your request for the 2007 Christmas CD and I haven't already replied to you, please try again. A couple of folks apparently ran afoul of my SPAM filters somewhere along the line. You can email contact.alphagal -at- gmail -dot- com if the other address isn't working.

I really will get them out this week; it's been a bit busier than usual here at alphabitch HQ.

Also, Ruby's foot is healing nicely, finally. She's still on restrictions, but can go for walks and run around a little bit. Makes things much easier for me.

Had to happen sooner or later

Friday night I was at dinner with a bunch of people, and wouldn't you know it: the minute I sat down at the table someone mentioned the Area 51 incident. I knew someone would bring it up sooner or later, but I thought I'd at least have a chance to sit down, get a glass of wine, talk to everybody for a bit, but no.

I'm certainly aware that people -- people I know as well as total strangers -- will read what I write here, and I did feel a little shy about posting that particular item. It's just not the kind of thing I expected to have to talk about at the dinner table, in mixed company & all.

I guess I don't regret posting it, though. I got some comments and emails with excellent advice. I also had no clue how many women my age do this kind of thing on a regular basis. I'd heard it was all the rage among younger women, but I had no idea that perfectly ordinary middle-aged ladies like myself seem to think this is no different than shaving anywhere else.

Who knew?

As good as a prize

Or maybe even better. Sara, over at Moving Right Along, who sort of got me involved in this whole thing in the first place, and who is an all-around great gal, has made this handy "mission accomplished" badge to post. I guess I should add it to the previous post, or maybe I could put it on the sidebar somewhere. But I'm going to add another entire post, just so I can say I posted 38 times this month!!

Well, I guess that's it, then

Here it is, the last day of NaBloPoMo, and I still haven't gotten around to posting anything really serious or profound. But you know what? I suspect that I'm just not that kind of a blogger. I don't know why I thought I might do that. I guess that because I think about serious and profound things from time to time, and I occasionally talk about them with friends and with colleagues here at the rocket surgery plant, I thought I could write about these things, and post them here for youall to read. You know: stuff like the economy, farm subsidies, urban sprawl, the ethics of animal research, what it means to live in a rape culture -- I'd probably wanna throw in a little epidemiology now & then to lighten things up a bit.

Maybe next year.

But, as I mentioned the other day, I'm glad I participated in this little exercise, and more than a little relieved that I didn't bail out or -- especially -- forget. I actually am taking a break from work to post this last one so's I don't forget it. I'd feel particularly silly to forget to post on the last day. And anything could happen once I leave the office.

Plus there's the fabulous prize aspect. I know that there's a random drawing involved, but I'd like to point out for the record that this is my 37th post in November, and there are only 30 days in the month of November. Which is to say that I exceeded my NaBloPoMo obligation here, and also rather wildly exceeded all of my previous posting efforts.

It hasn't been all that difficult, to be honest. I've had a couple of notable slumps, but I did manage to crank out 28 posts in April 2006; 25 posts each in October 2007 and July 2006; and 23 in March 2006.

For my next trick, I will attempt to post a greater number of posts in 2007 than in any previous year. Which I guess means that I need to add 12 more in December to exceed 139, which is how many items I posted in 2005. I think I can do it. I've already exceeded my 2006 efforts by 28 posts!

And so what if Mrs. Kennedy and her friends don't send me a prize? I'm not in this for money or prizes. Participation is its own reward, right? I have had so much fun doing this, in fact, that I'm going to give out prizes to you!

If you are one of the first eleven people to send an email containing your snailmail address* to me at xmasCD2007 -at- alphabitch -dot- org, I will send you a CD copy of my annual selection of festive holiday music. I'm not sure what's on it yet, as I'm still listening to all of the songs on the Christmas/holiday playlist, and trying to delete whatever I sent out last year. Plus I can see there are some recordings that I've acquired in the past year that need to be added to the mix.

I'm planning to mail them out early next week, so let me know if you want one. I think I still have a few copies of last year's if you want that too. It's got Joni Mitchell, the Be Good Tanyas, the Flaming Lips, Big Star, Bruce Cockburn, the McGarrigles, and Maddy Prior, among many others.

*Your address, if you send it to me, will not be used for any purpose other than sending you this one item; it will never be shared or sold or added to mailing lists for organizations you are likely to disagree with, or to subscribe you to publications you'd rather not get. Word of honor.

Ruby dismantles the sofa!

Ruby is used to at least two long walks a day, plus free run of the back yard whenever she wants. This "short leash walks only until laceration heals" thing is getting on her nerves. And mine. We go out in the back yard on the leash and she just stares at me. We go back in the house and she gets into something the minute I sit down.

If I'm doing laundry or chores that take me from one room to another, she follows me around happily. In the sewing room, she takes the fabric scraps out of the wastebasket. I put them back in, she takes them out again. Harmless enough. Nothing in there that will choke or injure her.

But last night I sat down at the computer and the next thing I knew, Ruby had a sofa cushion in her mouth, and she was shaking it. It's quite large. I was kind of torn: do I laugh? Do I yell at her? Neither. I got out the camera. But of course by the time I got the camera out, she had had enough fun and just stood there calmly, looking at her handiwork:


I sat back down, and she got the zooms again, but I couldn't get a good action shot of her picking up the sofa cushion. It wasn't the first time she's taken the cushions off the sofa, but it was the first time I'd seen her shake one of them like that. I left the flash effect in her eyes in this shot; she does look kind of possessed, no?


I know from previous experience with the sofa cushions that putting them back too soon is asking for trouble, so I left it there. She played with her toys quietly for half an hour or so. This particular sofa cushion is undamaged. The other one is scheduled for repairs. I'll use fabric from the matching pillows, which are, alas, damaged.

This just in. Or not.

I heard on the radio this morning that Americans are using less gasoline, that maybe rising costs at the pump are causing drivers to, like, drive less. Or drive more fuel-efficient vehicles. Or something.

You don't say! Higher prices might make consumers reconsider their spending priorities? Capitalism in action! The Unseen Hand of the market made manifest!

But actually, they went on to say that gasoline sales were not actually down so much as they hadn't continued their upward trend at quite the expected rate. So we're not using less gas; we're just not using more.

This shocking story was followed a little later by a fluff piece* about the demise of the roadside attraction. Apparently the venerable tradition of giant balls of string, enormous fiberglass animals, and painted toilet seat collections is in decline across the nation. No mention of a corresponding decline in the road trip itself, just some stuff about how the little home-based businesses are overtaken by development, their eccentric owners die or retire or get bored, or the attraction itself breaks or dies or loses its unique appeal.

Between that and the Babe the Blue Ox beheading in California, I just don't know what to think.

*I heard these stories on NPR's Morning Edition. Transcripts are not posted yet, so there's no link. [Update: Here's the roadside attraction story. The other must have been part of the newscast, as I am not finding a transcript. But I'm pretty sure I heard it and did not merely dream it.]

Everything's coming up roses

I have been looking all over my backyard, trying to find whatever it is that keeps cutting Ruby's foot. OK, it's cut her foot twice, but there's obviously something dangerous out there. I've been out there several times lately, getting rid of loose pieces of wire mesh, removing old nails sticking out of boards, and generally trying to tidy up back there, but I haven't found any obvious hazards since well before her last injury. Mostly because everything is still covered with ivy and leaves, and I can't see way down in there until the green dies back.

But this morning I found some old, overgrown bushes that I think might be rosebushes in several different parts of the yard. At least two of them had enormous and terrifying thorns, and the gnarled, twisted branches were growing low enough to get your foot caught in if you were a dog. I will try to get some pictures of them. The other ones had smaller thorns and all the branches were high enough off the ground. But all of them are located near excellent hiding spots for squirrels and chipmunks and mice.

It's not over til it's over

I got an email today from our fearless NaBloPoMo leader (the lovely and talented Eden Kennedy, whom I would like to thank at this time for bothering with this whole thing) cheering me on, and reminding me that there are only a few short days left in the whole blogging every day event. I have to say that it's gone by pretty fast. Yeah, there have been a few days I didn't want to bother, or almost forgot, or wrote something that bored somebody, but I do that anyway. At least those last two items. And I had a lot of big ideas I had for Really Interesting Posts on Really Fascinating Topics, but it's increasingly unlikely that I will get around to writing them, or at least posting them, this month.

I do think it's a good idea to try writing something every day, even if it's not for publication or even for blogging. Because it's just not the end of the world if you write something boring, or even if you write it badly. My theory about writing, and about all creative work, is that at least 90% of your output is going to be lousy, so you might as well get to work. You don't have to publish all of it. And you can always re-write it later.

Even when I'm not blogging, I write something, somewhere, almost every day. Sometimes it's just a note to myself, or an annotated grocery list, or a letter to someone that I never ever send. Never even intend to send. I shred a lot of what I write; I have certainly burned a fair amount of it. Sometimes I open up a new file on the computer, write my little heart out, and then when I close the file and it asks me do I want to save the file, I click "no" and close the file and it goes away.

It's not that I'm so critical that I think that what I write is terrible and has to go away, it's more that it has served its purpose, for the moment. And it's never really gone of course, just like the shredded paper is never gone, nor the burned journals. It's all still here in my head.

Plus, I also sometimes think of poor dear Franz Kafka, on his deathbed, telling his friend Max Brod to burn his notebooks, and what does the bastard do? He published them.

But on the other hand, there are also piles of notebooks I have that contain, taped to the pages, sonnets written on the back of envelopes, essays written on the backs of 'while you were out' notes, and even love letters scrawled on the 'personal directory and notes' pages torn out of the back of the yellow pages. Stuff that, if it's good, I've transcribed or revised elsewhere, but I've felt moved to preserve the moment in which I wrote it. Why? I'm not exactly sure, but I do have a sentimental side, y'know.

Blogging is different (for me, anyway) than journaling. And rocket surgeons like myself do write things for publication now and again, so I've certainly been there and done that. But I put stuff out here and it's, well, out here. Wherever "here" is. Sure, I can alter and delete posts, but there are archives somewhere. And anybody can read them, any old time. Sometimes I am a little unnerved when I remember that this blog has an actual audience that includes people I do not know. Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted when you stop by, and when you comment & alla that.

But I digress. All I'm saying is that writing something every day, for any reason, is a good idea. Try it sometime. And, after today, I am obliged to putting in only four more days of it, if I want to win the prize. Who knows what I'll do next month. But soon, sometime in January if I recall correctly, it will be the start of my fourth year on this little backroad in blogtopia [Jan. 30, 2005, was the first post on this blog - ed.].

Thanks for stopping by, yall.

Ruby does not like wasabi peas

I dropped a wasabi-coated roasted pea on the kitchen floor. Ruby chased it enthusiastically and got to it before I did. I tried to explain that dogs don't like wasabi very much at all. She ate it. And then she looked up at me with the most hilariously horrified look on her face. I took pity on her and gave her some supper a little early: some kibble and half of one of those awful Scotch Pies I made the other day.

She's had a rough coupla days.

Yesterday is over; tomorrow is another day

I'm planning to have a good day today, because yesterday was really really lousy. It started out fine. Ruby's friend Kalei had spent the night, and they were having a great time. Running around in the backyard, taking naps in the sun, sleeping on the couch. I was determined to change the furnace filter, because when I turned the heat on the other day I realized I couldn't remember when I'd last done it, so I turned it off again and of course it got cold. I tried to open the furnace and check for the size, and couldn't remember how to open the damn thing up. The one in my old house had a snap-off front and it was easy to open that, but the bracket was kind of tricky and you had to lie on the dirt floor in the crawl space to reach it. This house has a great basement anyway, with real floors. So I looked up the specs online and bought what I thought was the right size filter.

I went down the basement, with my toolbox, and found that you not only had to unscrew the panel, you also had to remove another panel to get the relevant one to move. It was fairly simple once I figured it out. The bolts were not on the spec sheet, but at least one of them was clearly added later. Maybe they all were. I got the old filter out, and it was one of the fancy high-end reusable ones, which was good because it was also four inches smaller than the one I'd bought.

So I brought it outside and started to clean it out. It was pretty seriously filthy. I decided I needed hot water, so I brought it inside and blasted it with the shower thingy. With which I immediately splashed and sprayed my fleece bathrobe and got soaking wet. Very soon it became clear that the tub drain was obstructed, so I turned the water off and let it drain a while, then decided I needed to add some drain cleaner to give it a hand. As I'm doing this, I hear wild barking and dogs running in a huge circle: hallway, kitchen, dining room, living room, hallway, kitchen, dining room, living room -- up on sofa, down, then run the other direction. There is a dog toy involved.

And then I notice that the floor is covered in blood. There is blood everywhere, and I have no idea which dog is bleeding; they've both got blood on their paws just from walking through it. And they won't stop running. Neither of them seemed upset or angry at the other, and neither of them was limping or seemed impaired in the slightest. I finally shut both of the hallway doors and cornered them in the bathroom.

It was Ruby's ankle. A fairly small cut, but maybe it needed stitches? I didn't see anything still in it, no broken glass, etc. Had Kalei bitten her during the scuffle? I got the bleeding to mostly stop, and the dogs to collectively calm down. I called a friend to come and get Kalei, because every time I turned my back and tried to wipe up some of the blood, they started running around in circles again.

The place looked like a crime scene. All I needed was some yellow tape.

After Kalei left, I got the wound cleaned up. I was still kind of on the fence about whether to take her in, but my friend seemed to think I was overreacting. Ruby was asleep on the sofa. Not fussing with the cut or anything, but the furnace was still not reassembled and it was getting colder fast.

I gave up trying to clean the filter without a pressure washer. I thought about it briefly and wondered how difficult it would be to cut a furnace filter. Not that difficult, it turns out, so I cut four inches off the edge, and went downstairs and popped it into the proper spot, facing the proper direction. Sort of. I couldn't quite get that one corner to pop in the holder. The old one had 16x25x1 inch stamped on the frame and it had fit perfectly. And I'd cut exactly four inches off the 20x25x1 inch filter I'd purchased. I couldn't quite see or reach that farthest-away corner, and kept thinking maybe it was just caught on the bracket or something. And part of the problem is that the furnace is perched on a weird little concrete platform-type part of the floor, which slopes away from it precipitously and in more than one direction, so I couldn't quite get down on my knees and still reach at the right angle.

I tried to reach with a screwdriver, a long piece of wood, a hammer. I was cursing loudly and banging around, and poor Ruby got a bit restless and came downstairs to see if she could help. And before I knew it was out the dog door and chasing something in the back yard.

I rounded her up and got her back into the house and of course her foot was bleeding all over again, and she was all excited and trying to outrun me. I caught her and soaked her foot and cleaned it up again. I also put a sock on it, which she didn't seem to mind too much.

By then I needed a time-out. I sat with her on the couch for a while and listened to the news. Then cleaned blood off the floors again, and I got the bright idea to measure the old filter with a tape measure. Because it had fit in that bracket pretty snugly, and I thought maybe I'd mis-read the dimensions printed on it.

It was 15-5/8 inches x 25-3/8 inches x 7/8 inches. I went downstairs, cut another 3/8 of an inch off the longer side of the filter, replaced the cardboard frame along that edge, popped it right into the bracket, reassembled the front panels, and came upstairs and cranked the thermostat all the way up to 62. And then later I went back and turned it up to 66 and made myself some cocoa.

Ruby is fine. The furnace sounds vastly happier. The bathtub drain is clear. And this morning? I scrubbed all the floors. Soon, I am going to go grocery shopping just so I can use my nifty new mixer (see yesterday's post).

And I didn't have to get married to get it

My mother has been going on and on about what she was planning to get me for Christmas for months now. I had my suspicions about it, that was probably some kind of kitchen gear, because she brought it up in every conversation about recipes. But I didn't really want to think too hard about it, because she was having so much fun and I didn't want to wreck it. And then there was all this drama about how on earth she was going to mail this item to me, how to get it to the post office.

She has a history of mailing bizarre things, and I've had to go to the post office before to pick up cardboard boxes full of pickle-flavored packing peanuts and broken glass. And some very large rocks that she thought I would enjoy using as bookends. Last time it happened, the post office manager called me to come and get a package that had been damaged, and did I know anyone at [my mother's address], and I said yeah that was my mom and how I hoped she hadn't sent pickles again. And she said: "Pickles! That's it! I was about to call the HazMat team to clean it up, but it smelled so familiar; I thought I'd check with you before I shut the place down, see if you were expecting a package."

It was a serious bummer, as her pickles are about the best anywhere.

So it makes me nervous when she talks about mailing things.

Apparently she'd been fretting about this difficulty to everyone who would listen. Someone suggested that she just have the store ship it to me, but she didn't want to pay the shipping charge. I suggested a gift certificate, but she said I'd probably just spend it on laundry detergent and bath towels or something, and she really really wanted me to have this item. I guess her neighbor finally got tired of hearing her fret, and took her to the library and helped her purchase it online. Free shipping & everything! Mom was stunned by the simplicity and elegance of this transaction.

"Have you ever bought anything over the internet before?" she asked me. "It's really easy."

But anyway, she went ahead and mailed it early, and told me to open it right away because she wanted me to have it in plenty of time for my holiday baking needs. It's a shiny black and chrome KitchenAid (r) mixer.

I could not be more thrilled. I've been wanting one for years, but it's one of those things that I just couldn't come up with a good reason to go buy it. Let alone come up with the big bucks they cost. I had sort of resigned myself to the idea that my decision to remain unmarried would mean that I would never ever get one.

Plus, if I get bored with the shiny blackness of it, I can get decals to decorate it, according to Biker News Online. Behold:


You can buy the decals on eBay. Right over the internet. It's that easy.

That's not a picture of my new mixer. That picture is from Biker News Online.

How not to have a relaxing afternoon

I hope youall had a pleasant holiday. I certainly did, except for the part about scorching the potato kale dish, same as I did last year. It's a tradition now, I guess. Except next year I am not going to cook it in the pressure cooker. Nor even on the stovetop at all. I'm going to put it in a casserole dish and bake it, even though it takes much longer, and you never get the perfect texture, the way you do with the pressure cooker.

I was able to salvage it, both last year and yesterday, by pouring it all into a soup pot and cooking it for a long time. Although last year it was way worse, and I had to add more kale and more potatoes. It's a total mess, and you leave behind the crust of scorched stuff and spend the next two weeks soaking and slowly scrubbing out your pressure cooker, bit by stubborn bit.

It's weird, though, because I've made this dish, or something very much like it, at least three or four times since last year's debacle, and it's worked just fine. But I think my pressure cooker can sense fear or something, because I was very nervous and watched the cooker and listened and lifted it up a bit to make sure it was still sloshing around in there. And I had spilled something on the burner that smelled burnt, so I was unsure about whether I was smelling that or the contents of the pan. Plus of course I was in a hurry to get done cooking, walk the dog, get dressed, and go to my friend's house so I could relax and be all festive.

It was almost a relief when I finally realized it was in fact scorched and I had to release the pressure and open the thing RIGHT AWAY. The kitchen still stinks, and the pan has started its long soak.

The original recipe, from "Cooking Under Pressure" by Lorna J. Sass (out of print, alas), is more or less as follows:

Kale And Potatoes

• 1 lb. kale
• 1-1/2 lbs. potatoes
• 3 Tbsp butter or oil
• 1 medium leek (1 cup)
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1 large onion
• 4 scallions
• 3/4 cup water
• salt
• fresh parsely (optional)
  

Melt butter, then saute leeks, garlic, onions, and scallions. Add water. Alternate layers of kale, potatoes, kale, potatoes. Cook under high pressure for 5 minutes. Add fresh parsley before serving.

She does recommend using a heat diffuser to prevent a crust from forming on the bottom. Which I guess I'd forgotten about. I can't find mine anywhere. Seems like they're more useful on gas stoves anyway, if I remember correctly.

But I've been making this stuff, without incident, for years, without a heat diffuser. I've never had a problem with scorching it before. It's so yummy, and a great dish to serve to people who aren't quite sure what kale is. It's almost always popular -- even my dad liked it and he hates any green cooked vegetables at all. And my friends liked it so much last year (even partly scorched) that they specifically asked me to make it again this year.

Over the years, I've changed the recipe a bit. For one thing, I got a bigger pressure cooker than I used to have, and a few years ago I started eating meat again (after 20 years as a vegetarian). I had no idea bacon was so yummy. I hated it when I was a kid.

I keep chopped up bacon in the freezer to use when I need a little bit of fat to cook kale or spinach or collards in. Just grab a handful, toss them in the pan, and you're good to go.

I don't know why bacon always has one end that's practically all fat. And the way most of it is packaged and displayed, you can't see it when you're selecting which package of bacon to buy -- even the really thick cut, organic, nitrite-free kind of bacon seems to have this feature. It's like with bags of onions & potatoes, how there's on rotten one in every single bag. It's as if there's someone at the packing plant whose job it is to put one cruddy looking item in each 5 lb. bag.

But it grosses me out, that super-fatty end of the slab of bacon slices, so I cut about a third off & chop it up & put it in a freezer bag. Also, the skillet I usually cook bacon in is pretty small, and the shorter pieces fit in it better. Yeah, I could buy a larger skillet, I know. But this suits me just fine.

So here is my latest version of the recipe:

• 2-3 slices bacon, cut into bits (or 3-4 Tbsp olive oil)
• 1 large sweet onion, diced
• 2 leeks, finely chopped
• 2 shallots, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock, or water
• 2 bunches kale, thick parts of stems removed, and chopped up
• 3-4 lbs. little red potatoes, halved and cut into fairly thin slices
• 1 lb andouille sausage, cooked & sliced (optional)
  

Stir in the following before serving, to taste, if desired:

• splash of cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar
• chopped scallions
• fresh dill
• tamari or salt to taste
• Texas Pete (r) hot sauce, which is more or less like Tabasco Sauce. But any kind of hot sauce is good, if you like that kind of thing.
  

Cook the bacon over fairly low heat until just before it starts getting crispy. Turn heat up slightly and add the onions. When they are about half done, add the leeks; then when alla that's almost done, add the shallots and garlic. Add the broth or water, then layer the kale and potatoes over it. I usually cook it in the pressure cooker for 6-7 minutes. Lower the pressure, open the pot, drain excess liquid, if any, and add the andouille sausage, if you are using it; the sausage doesn't do so well under high pressure. Or you can cook it all, including the sausage, in a very large saucepan or smallish soup pot. Takes an hour or so; don't use too high a heat or it will scorch. Stir it once in a while. You can also pile it all into a casserole (use only 1 to 2 cups broth or water) and bake it at 350 to 375 (F) for 45-60 minutes or so.

In fact, I highly recommend that you do NOT use the pressure cooker. I've only ever scorched it twice, but there is nothing worse than the stink of burnt onions & garlic.

The texture of the potatoes should be sort of mushy; you can leave the extra liquid in, or even add more broth than that & call it soup if you are in the mood for soup. Or it can be more in the chunky mashed potato consistency range.

Thank you

That is all: thanks. To everybody. For everything.

Negotiations

Mandy and Ruby got along OK, all in all, but they did have to establish some boundaries. Here they are working out joint occupation of the sofa.

I hope Mandy comes again soon; they seemed to have a great time. Ruby didn't seem to mind sharing the furniture, the toys, and had fun trying to determine who was the boss of whom (I think it's still an open question), but she did not like it one bit when I spent any time at all petting Mandy. All three of us sitting down together quietly was not an option, unless I stayed across the room from the two of them. It was pretty funny, as Ruby has been fine with me petting other dogs before, even right in her very own house or yard. Of course, none of them has ever tried to spend the night before.

I was glad Mandy had a crate to sleep in.

I'd been thinking maybe Ruby needed a sibling, but last night probably cured me of that delusion for a while.

Dogs on furniture: the sofa edition

Here they are on the sofa; you can see their faces a little better in this one, as I used the flash. I love how similar their muzzle markings are, yet how completely different their faces are. Mandy's sandy blonde coat is velvety soft.

Ruby & Mandy

It was very difficult to photograph these two -- they squirm constantly, and it was just a little too light out to use the flash. Shoulda used it anyway, but there you are. You can't really see that Mandy is just about 75-80% as big as Ruby. Mandy's a little more delicate-featured and dainty, with a smaller head. Her ears are not as expressive as Ruby's, but she does have her charms, Miss Mandy does.

This morning

Here is Ruby with her new friend Mandy, out for their second wild run and rassling match of the morning. It was dark the first time we went out. It was a little bit foggy, and their hot doggy breath was visible in the early light.

More of Ruby's ears

Because I know you can't get enough of them either. Tonight she's having a sleepover party with her friend Mandy. I don't know if I'll have time to post anything or not. I hope so.

Ruby's encounter with the law

Sometimes the dog park is a bummer. We walked in yesterday and there was all kinds of mayhem. That dog whisperer dude on TV would have said there was a lot of "unstable energy." My pals Artie and Snuffy went off and played ball, oblivious to other goings-on. Ruby got in a couple of minor scuffles right off the bat (two of them with dogs she knew, none of them escalating into anything, but there was a weird lady who started kicking Ruby and trying to get her to leave Tigger alone, and telling me my dog was out of line. I tried to explain that she and Tigger knew each other well and played like that all the time.

She told me to control my dog, and kicked at her again. Then another dog charged Ruby, and that dog's owner was nowhere around so I pulled Ruby away and kept her and Tigger occupied a while until these three unruly, poorly controlled (but quite sweet) Dobermans left. Things calmed down a bit, pack behavior-wise, but then another lady, who (I think) had been talking to the weird lady who'd already kicked Ruby, appeared out of nowhere, about four feet away from me, holding a snarling, angry poodle aloft.

Ruby got very excited and tried to jump up (is it a squirrel? a treat? why is she waving it around like that??), scaring the poor woman (who was not exactly frail and elderly, but she wasn't young & spry either) and making the poodle angrier. Very bad case of fear aggression in the poodle. The lady kicked Ruby a couple of times in the few seconds it took me to grab her and put her on the leash. I apologized to her and left the park immediately.

I'm not one to argue with people about whose dog was at fault, or whether the owner's behavior was perhaps the problem, but I don't like it when people kick my dog. And yeah, she's boisterous. She was not going to give up on the squirrel poodle as long as it was being waved in her face.

On my way out, I ran into a friend (a dog rescue person, who is very experienced with dogs) in the parking lot. She hadn't seen what had happened, but had had words with the poodle lady already, apparently. My friend was leaving on account of the chaos, and we talked a little about how sometimes the vibe is just bad and it's better for the dogs if you just leave.

As we chatted, the poodle lady walked up and started screaming at me that my dog needed to be put down and how I should be arrested if I couldn't control my dog and how somebody coulda been hurt and her poor little precious poodle blah blah blah and how she was going to call the police as soon as she got home and I should get the hell out of the park if I knew what was good for me. They impound dogs like mine.

Or something. I couldn't follow her arguments, and I'm not sure she was making any sense.

I pointed out to her that there was a squad car at the other end of the park, and she could save time by just going over there and reporting me. I told her I wasn't leaving right away, as my friend was still in the park with his dogs, and that I'd be happy to talk with the police about my bad dog.

I just wanted her to go away, but of course she marched over to the cop car and reported me. So then the two cops came walking towards us, smiling. My friend stopped and talked to them briefly on her way out. Then Ruby and I walked over to meet them, and Ruby obligingly sat when told and was utterly charming.

We chatted for a bit, and they told me that a couple of people had complained to them about the lady and the poodle, but that there was only the one complaint about Ruby. And me. No charges were being filed, however. They patted Ruby on the head and went off to fight some crimes or something.

Neither of us was arrested or impounded.

I almost forgot

I was about to go to bed without posting anything. Now the stress is on; we're more than halfway through this NaBloPoMo thing, and I'd really hate to mess it up. So here's a picture of Ruby in the back yard, taken the other day.

Good night.

Some things just don't work out like you'd hoped

Take Scotch Pies, for example. There are still six of them in the fridge; help yourselves. Maybe other people make them better, but these are not very good. I was so hopeful; they seemed like perfect cold-weather food, and easy to pack for lunch, etc. Crust, yummy filling, you can hold it in your hand: what could go go wrong? I mean, calzones, burritos, pasties -- all good, right? And, less portable, you've got pot pies, ravioli, pierogies, all kinds of yummy things stuffed into crust or pasta or some such.

The crust, mostly, is what can go wrong. I know it wasn't supposed to be light & flaky like a puff pastry, but this was tough & chewy.

I read about Scotch Pies on the BBC last week; there was a contest, with a record number of entries, and I was intrigued. I had never heard of such a thing as Scotch Pies, so I looked up some recipes, and it sounded easy as, well, pie. And I gathered that, traditionally, they are filled with a cooked ground lamb & gravy mixture, but can hold pretty much anything from meat & vegetables to leftover vindaloo to Italian sausage & pasta, which seems weird to me too, but it had to do with a soccer game (which Scotland lost anyway). Scotch Pies are frequently served at football matches, it turns out, and are sometimes even fried.

They are not exactly haute cuisine, it seems. But I liked the idea; I frequently make leftovers -- especially curry! -- into regular old pot pies, with either a biscuit crust or regular pie crust. Which is what I'll do with the rest of the filling I made for these.

But I made the first batch of filling the other night, and didn't have time to bother with the crust. It was too late when I started cooking, and I wasn't even hungry by the time I had the filling ready to go. Ruby quite liked it, and I tried a little dish of it; it was in fact yummy. We had some for breakfast the next morning as well. I fact, we'd eaten about half of it by the time I got round to trying the crust.

But finally last night I went for it on the crust, after making a second batch of a slightly different filling, just in case I ran out.

I followed a recipe I found online for a kind of pastry I'd never made before: hot pastry, which is regared as essential for Scotch Pies, as it holds its shape best. Apparently. All the recipes I found are more or less similar: flour, lard and/or butter, hot water, and salt. You melt the lard or butter in the hot water, pour it into the salted flour, and proceed as usual. Being careful not to let it cool to much, nor to overwork it.

Of course the recipes all had wacky English measurements, but I carefully converted everything, and then weighed it to make sure. I didn't use lard. It mighta been better if I had. It mighta also been better if I'd used more flour. Dunno. I definitely overworked it. And it probably got too cool. And it was difficult to get the sides high enough, so they ended up too short, resulting in a suboptimal crust-to-filling ratio, which was especially disappointing given how yummy the filling was and how chewy and lousy-tasting the crust was.

So here's the first filling recipe:

2 pieces bacon, cut up into tiny bits
2 cups random vegetables, cut into tiny bits (in this case I used a 2 cup container from the freezer which had carrots, celery, onion, parsnips, and shiitake mushrooms all mixed together)
3/4 lb. ground lamb (or lamb cut up into tiny bits the size of peas or smaller)
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 c. flour (more or less)
1-2 cups vegetable stock and/or water
dash of Worcestershire Sauce, which I would recommend leaving out, but I used it
tsp or so of balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

So you put the bacon in the pan, and when it's mostly cooked, add the chopped vegetables and cook until fairly close to done. Add the lamb (you could use a whole pound, and when it's cooked, stir in the garlic and the peas (which I microwaved a few minutes and then drained). At this point you could add leftover gravy and skip the rest, but I didn't have any, so I added 1/4 cup of flour and stirred it into the meat mixture; it makes a thick paste and you have to keep stirring for a few minutes, and then add your liquid. A cup is probably enough, but it will depend on how much moisture the vegetables released, etc. Then add your Worcestershire Sauce, vinegar, and salt & pepper to taste. If you don't have balsamic vinegar handy, use tamari or soy sauce (and omit or cut down the salt).

The second filling was pretty much the same except I used ground beef (I used ground sirloin - if you use something less lean you might want to drain off some of the fat, leaving about 1/4 cup, which includes the bacon fat from cooking the onions, etc., to make the gravy work) instead of ground lamb, onion & potatoes instead of all the other vegetables, and didn't use Worcestershire sauce. I cut the potatoes into little cubes about the size of peas, and put them, the peas, and a cup & a half or so of vegetable stock + water in the microwave for about four minutes and added them after I added the flour.

Put this into your favorite pastry shell, cover with a top crust, make some decorative holes in the top for the steam to escape, and bake for 45-50 minutes at 350F. Or go ahead and make the oil crust, fuss with it to make individual pies. Use pre-made refrigerated crescent roll dough, or frozen puff pastry if that's what you like.

Life imitates blog post. Or something.

Michelle, over at Well Hell Michelle actually tried my duct-tape leg-hair removal technique. It didn't go so well for her, alas, and I feel kind of bad about that. But she thinks that maybe she used some inferior quality duct tape, and I don't think I emphasized quite enough in my original post that it's important to use the extra-sticky high quality stuff: either gaffer's tape, or the kind they use on actual sheet metal-y duct work.

It was either inferior duct tape or that she has super-strong leg hair. She's considering trying it again, in the name of science. Or something.

The deforestation of Area 51

TMI Warning. I'm not sure I can write this post without saying outright what I've gone & done, but I'm going to try, in order to elude the most annoying search-engine action. Dunno if it'll work.

Plus, it's kind of embarrassing. It's not terribly shocking, just not the sort of thing your average middle-aged quasi-hippie feminist goes and does on a whim. I apologize if this is too much information; I just think it's pretty hilarious, and I hope that maybe someone out there will learn from my mistake: don't do this!

There will be no photos; don't even ask.

I didn't set out to do it, not quite this completely. And I do, in fact, have some fairly serious regrets. It's a sensitive place, Area 51.

Here's how it happened:

I'm not exactly a slave to fashion, but I did recently acquire some new pants. Several pairs, in fact, to replace the old ones, which had worn out. Fashion, apparently, has changed since I last bought pants. The old ones all had waistbands that were at my actual waist. The new ones are not exactly hip-huggers or low-cut or anything even remotely sexy, but they don't go all the way up to my actual waist. And I got kind of tired of the layer underneath showing above my waistband.

Did I do the sensible thing and go buy new under-garments? No, because I had a whole pile of perfectly good ones in the back of the drawer that I haven't worn in ages, since I got all those high waisted pants.

But elastic, over time, kind of wears out, and catches on things. You know what kind of things I'm talking about here, I think. So the other day, in the shower, I decided to trim a bit around the edges, as it were, of my own personal Area 51. Nothing dramatic. But it was uneven, just a little. Which I found annoying as hell.

It was like wearing two socks of the same color, but one of them is thinner than the other one, or a different texture. No one else will notice, but you'll feel it all day. Or you will if you have two feet and you can feel your socks and you're bothering to pay attention. This will drive you nuts, if you're anything like me.

So anyway, yesterday I attempted to remedy the uneven-ness, and I guess you could say I went too far. I just kept making it worse. At a certain point, I thought, 'aw the hell with it -- just keep going!' It was moderately amusing, and not as difficult as I expected it to be. I did not injure myself. Apparently all the kids are doing this sort of thing nowadays.

My amusement lasted for about an hour and a half, and then the itching set in. Every kind of lotion or powder that I tried either stung or itched or burned. I finally found some unscented grapeseed oil in the fridge, which seems to help a little (warm it up first! And no, I have no idea why it was in the fridge; the only thing I ever use it for is bath oil or massage oil).

Littering ... and creating a nuisance

Police in the village of Caerelon, near Newport, Wales, are looking for a man they think is behind a series of "bizarre littering sprees."

The man, last seen dropping shredded paper earlier this month, is described as a white guy in his mid to late 30s. He is said to shred "many, many pieces of paper" and then walk around town leaving it in multiple locations. He's done this at least ten times in the last two years.

It's not doing any real damage, according to Pc. Akbar Ali, the neighborhood officer for the village, "but it does cause a lot of grief for people and it has to be cleaned up."

Via the BBC Online

Just in case I forget

I'm going to post this just in case I don't get around to finishing that other post I started this morning. I know you come here for the Ruby pictures anyway, not my rambly posts.

Although you'll want the Scotch Pie recipe, I think. I just didn't get a chance last night to make the crust. And I might not feel like cooking anything tonight. The lamb and carrot and parsnip filling is yummy (I know it's not exactly traditional, but whaddya want? Scotch Pie is not exactly food of my people).

I'll tell you all about it later.

Happy Birthday

Tonya Harding is 37 today.

Update: I was looking for the lyrics to this song about Tonya Harding this morning, and I couldn't find them anywhere, so I had to listen to it about thirty times and transcribe it for you. It's by Loudon Wainwright III, and it appears on his 1999 release "Social Studies" as well as the 2003 live collection "So Damn Happy." I apologize for any transcription errors; I'm not very good at this kind of thing:

You knew she was in trouble when you saw her bodyguard/ when you saw those two together, you knew it wasn't hard/ to see that she was different, not just one of the girls/ with their gliding and their sliding and their pirouettes & twirls

then it turned out that she smoked and drank and posed practically nude/ and she didn't smile alla the time, she got angry, & was crude/ she wasn't goody-two-skates like all the other girls/ with their grinning & their spinning & their winning little twirls

and her childhood was unhappy, and her mom was really weird/ her husband liked to hit her but it was poverty she feared/ she grew up in the trailer parks, not like most of the girls/ with their gliding and their sliding and their whirling little twirls

yes they all look like princesses, little barbies to the core/ but she was your parents worst nightmare: the slut who moved next door/ from the wrong side of the tracks, she liked the boys more than the girls/ with their gliding and their sliding and their girlish dainty twirls

and it seemed like she was lying about what she didn't know/ and then she started crying in the media sideshow/ and in practice she kept falling down more than the other girls/ with their gliding and their sliding and their picture perfect twirls

and they almost towed her truck away, ah the whole thing was a drag/ forget about cambpells soup, and reebok, wheaties & the flag/ yeah, there'll be books, she'll make some money -- that's what they're after, all these girls/ what they're selling, kiss and telling, in their twisted little twirls

so play the national anthem, stand up proud and tall/ oh we hope that ours don't stumble and that theirs slip and fall/ and remember olga korbut, what happens to these girls/ with their triple flips and axels and someraults and twirls

ice used to be a nice thing when you laced up figure skates/ now it's a thing to win a medal on for the united states/ but once there were no lutzes, axels, pirouettes or twirls/ just giddy slipping sliding laughing happy little girls.

Here's Loudon Wainwright singing the song:

Fascinating

It's kind of blurry, but here's Ruby doing one of her raised eyebrow squinty things. Maybe I'll think of something interesting to say to her or to youall while it's still Sunday and I'm still awake, but don't hold your breath. I still have to go to the grocery store. I'm gonna post this now though because I don't want to miss a day in this NaBloPoMo thing. It's Day 11 already. It's going to be over before I know it.

Chickens come home to roast, editor's nipples in a twist

I ran across the blog Cosmic Variance this morning via a link at Shakesville or somewhere. There's an especially amusing post over there about the phenomenon of "eggcorns," mis-used English words or phrases that are not merely incorrect or ridiculous (like, say, a malapropism) but also occasionally result in some surprisingly accurate ways of putting things. A lot of the time, they appear to occur because a particular element of the phrase has fallen out of use, or the etymology of the word or phrase is not obvious or well known. Or they sound like words that are more commonly used. Sometimes they're indistinguishable from typos.

A quote from the Cosmic Variance post:

"The database has nearly 600 instances of common expressions in English which, via a homonym or near-homonym substitute (in lame man’s terms, a word that sounds the same), result in really oddly apropos but totally novel (and hilarious) coinages.

"For example, you might think you have free reign to use English how you see fit, but for that you’d need to be a monarch rather than simply riding on horseback. I am not trying to ferment trouble here. On the contrary, once you’ve mastered a few of these you might just pass the SAT with flying collars."

Some of them can only be found in writing: "pour over," and "peaked your interest," for example, or "wetted your appetite." More than a few of them are jar-droppingly funny.

Ruby gets into the birdbath again!

The birdbath has a crack in it, and does not hold any water, at least not for very long. Plus it's crooked on its pedestal. It was there when I moved in, and I've been meaning to get rid of it for a while, but I kind of like it. Looks to me like it's been tipped over before, and I was kind of afraid at first that Ruby would tip it over, but it seems to be holding steady. I've been trying to photograph her doing that for the longest time, but she usually jumps out when I get up to get the camera. This morning I happened to have it around my neck for a change.

Ruby destroys another flowerpot!

I dont' know exactly where she keeps finding these plastic flowerpots, but my back yard seems to have an endless supply. They are buried under some vines, maybe, behind the potting shed where I can't get to them? I dunno, but I worry that she's going to choke on the little plastic bits, so I take them away from her. I bet that's at least the 21st one she's found. Most of them are around that size, but a few of them are so big that she can't quite lift them off the ground and has to drag them up onto the patio. And sometimes they're full of dirt when she brings them from wherever she finds them.

Ruby's ears!

Hollow victory

Not really much of a victory at all, though, for a group of people who are profoundly affected by workplace discrimination: transpeople.

The Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed, apparently. Without the language that included protection from workplace discrimination for an individual's "real or perceived gender," which was the only remaining language in the watered-down bill that could be said to almost explicitly protect people who are transsexual.

More at Pam's House Blend.

I have lots more to say about this because it really toasts my tits.

At the moment, however, I gotta go. Ruby just stole my breakfast off the counter and I have an appointment with the psychoneuroatriologist. Sleep disorder doc. Whatever he's called.

Things I don't do for a living but have always wanted to try

One of the things I like best about blogging is other bloggers. Oh sure, I read some of the big blogs; I like snarky and/or informed commentary about the news, but it's the smaller, quirkier blogs I like best. Reading about the lives of people I'd never know about otherwise, looking at pictures of their dogs, knitting projects, or the little sparkly things they put on their fake leg just for fun. I'm not going to single out any particular blog or post at the moment, because I'm very tired and I have to get up extra early tomorrow. But I try to add most of my regular stops to the blogroll over there [on the right], so have a look around. It's not all-inclusive, and some of the links may be obsolete -- I have a different set of bookmarks at work than at home, and usually only the ones at home make it to the blogroll. So just because it's not on that blogroll doesn't mean I don't read it.

Yeah yeah, I'm aware that there are portable bookmarking applications and suchlike, but I can't be bothered at the moment. I'll get around to it. And it's not like I read any of these every single day, much as I'd like to do so. Plus if my site counter thingy is anything like accurate, there's not a lot of you using my blogroll. Please let me know if I'm wrong, but it looks like most of the outgoing traffic from there is me.

Anyway, I was reading Sara's post from yesterday, wherein she named some of the bloggers she was following for the month, fellow NaBloPoMo participants all. Some of them I'd read before, some were new to me; all were good and interesting.

I have to clear one thing up, though. I know Sara only via blogging; we've never met in person. She has this really interesting knack, though, for reading my mind. I'm intentionally kind of vague about what rocket surgeons like myself actually do for a living, so I'm not expecting people to know or to guess what it is. Being a princess is not a requirement, but the tiara does help. I worry, though, that in my vagueness I am mis-representing myself. Because it's twice now that Sara has attributed a profession to me that is not in fact mine.

See, a while back she described me as a librarian, which I found terribly flattering. And in fact I've always secretly kind of wanted to be a librarian, but I have kind of a virulent mold/mildew allergy that keeps me out of the stacks in any respectable (i.e., not electronic) library; also my university's undergraduate library degree program closed during my first semester there, before I'd gotten round to declaring a major or anything. They subsequently replaced it with some kind of Information Science degree, but it was too late: I'd already gotten involved with Linguistics. And you know what a slippery slope that is.

And some of my best friends are in fact librarians; I like to think I sort of fit right in among them.

So I cleared that up in the comments, and whaddya know, yesterday she described me as a former professional baker. Which is another one of those dreamy things I've always wanted to be. I have cooked in a couple of restaurants, and have in fact baked yummy things as part of my job: scones, muffins, cheesecakes (which I detest), pies, fabulous lemon-herb tarts, pound cakes, etc. But I've never actually worked in a bakery, alas.

On the other hand, it's not too late. It's entirely possible, in fact, that I need a new career. The rocket surgery racket ain't all that great these days.