We’re getting a proper door on the food pantry (as opposed to the equipment pantry) and we have fairly well finished the finished half of the basement’s makeover—-the library has shelves, and the craftroom has, well, a lot of boxes it’s holding for the OTHER side of the basement remodel. But it’s progressing. The door for the pantry will go on maybe Friday. The sump for the upstairs marine tank is going to get its own little roomlet, part of the laundry, which will divide the other half of the basement in two big thirds and a skinny one. With a bathroom cut out of one of the big thirds, accessible from the laundry room.
Scott is creating a curtain wall at the entry that will shield the fish tank sump, and is creating a new stand for the sump that will enable us to roll the big reservoir under the sump, and use the other half of the sump for equipment storage and chemical storage. He will wall off the laundry unto itself. And the sump will contain a water source for the ro/di filter that supplies fresh topoff water to the sump, and electrical stuff for the sump. I am running water to make salt water to let us temporarily empty and clean the sump, while the new stand is going on, then refill with new saltwater. The saltwater-making operation will go into laundry room storage, and we will have four rooms out of the unfinished basement, including a tiled ‘wet’ bathroom, and a clothes storage (real long closet) and a general place to keep spare kitchen stuff and food spares or the freezer (that’s still under debate); and Christmas decor. The other end of the basement where the furnace is will store sale books and general ‘stuff’ that defies classification.
This end of the job will involve no decor except for the bathroom, and there I think we’re going for plain but efficient.
I am vastly relieved to see light at the end of a very long tunnel.
Bookshelves. Oh, I long for bookshelves. And to replace the awful couch. And a dining table. I still have not done this. Sigh. (I’m using a card table. Friends had promised I’d get their small dining table, which they planned to replace. It never showed up.) The couch will get replaced soon, though. Somehow.
Goober and I are doing OK. I’m still trying to get over having given away Smokey and still feeling rotten / guilty for having done so. I weirded myself out the night before last: I dreamed Smokey was on the bed (a different bed in what was almost my old house), but he looked slightly different too. I woke up thinking he was there, then remembered no, he wasn’t. Goober is doing much better than I am with it, though he’s gotten more vocal and wants attention more. This means he wasn’t getting enough and wasn’t seeking it out enough before, while Smokey was hogging the attention. It also means Goober is not above reveling in getting attention, the little so-and-so, but possibly also, that he is missing having a fellow cat around. They would gladly tag-team / double-team me to get something. So, well, it is what it is and I’m living with it. No major behavioral problems from Goober, only two minor things, one of which is improving (maybe) and the other was, well, not entirely his fault; cats do that no matter what. — I still hope Smokey has a good home by now. Poor guy. (It’s going to take me a long while to get past this.)
—–
I just saw a video in which, ouch, they really did not do even basic research. They had somehow gotten the idea that “you” developed because “thou” got pronounced with a Y when the letter thorn was replaced by dotless Y and by TH. Er, that is not at all what happened, which any language historian, any English teacher or major should know. They got it badly mixed up. They were also claiming the Anglo-Saxons were “basically just Germans,” with a few other things that were either glossing over the real history, or just plain incorrect, the kinds of things a freshman in high school would get counted off for, much less college level. This, from some supposedly professional video producer doing polished video clips on YouTube. An editor or language teacher or literature or history teacher wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry before marking off the paper for correction, to redo homework / research. I, uh, replied, rather dismayed and not giving the full story on the change of thorn to a y-like form, the appearance of dotted Y for the vowel, and then the replacement with TH by the Normans, into early modern times. And eek, ye gads, on the confusion of ye and thee, you and thou that the video makers did. Not correct. — Funny in a sad way. Heck, I answered that they hadn’t done their homework and should know better. — CJ, Jane, Lynn, and Spence and others who have taught or edited, oh, I’m sure you’ve encountered that or worse, and it’s both funny and sad and a little maddening.
So I am shaking my head and going on to doing something productive. (One hopes.)
I over-spiced the hamburger meat, should’ve known better. Tonight, it will get a couple of tablespoons of sour cream and some grated cheese or Parmesan (or both) and some veggies, to counteract the overly seasoned taste. (Too salty, mainly.) On the other hand, I was happy with how some rotini pasta turned out, with meat drippings and a veggie bouillon cube. That went in with the hamburger, so I’ll have a fair one-dish meal tonight. Next time, no extra shakes of the spice mixes. Whew.
Note Also: Kroger’s online had some Hawaiian Mango Mochi ice cream flavor from a brand I’d never heard of before, pint sized. That may not be the exact name of the flavor. I was looking for mochi from Kroger’s and came up nil, only that and lots of mocha coffee and ice cream results. I was intrigued and will get the mango mochi Hawaiian ice cream, if it’s in stock, when I next order groceries. I went to Amazon to order mochi. I think I may need to teach myself how to make mochi at home, as the price seems a lot for pounding the heck out of cooked rice, sugar, water, and whatever flavorings go into mochi. However, after seeing videos, I am sure I am not any of those athletic, dedicated, and enthusiastic mochi makers, Japanese men and women all dressed up for festivals, demonstrating making mochi for the public. Dang, don’t miss with those big mallets, or those kids are going to hear some rather impressive Japanese vocabulary words! Haha!
See if you can get rice flour (AKA mochiko) at the store; I have a couple of very good recipes for butter mochi, the Japanese answer to brownies sans chocolate, which use rice flour.
Pretty sure I can get rice flour either from Kroger’s or Amazon. I think I’ve seen it at Kroger’s, either with the other flours and meals or with the Asian and international aisle. Sounds like I’d need to get butter and sugar. Send the recipes on, please. I’m game to try.
Whew, how much season salt did I shake in the hamburger? There was also Mrs. Dash, but man, I over-salted. I added half a package of grated cheese, the remainder, about 3 or 4 tbsp. of sour cream, and then a little can (4 oz.?) of tomato paste, plus about 4 oz. (that can full) of water, and stirred in with the hamburger and the rotini, somewhere around 3 or 4 cups total mixture. — And I still taste too much salt! (I haven’t been big on salt for years; both my grandmother’s diet and my mom’s and dad’s diets had to avoid it. So I am probably more sensitive.) I can’t tell if I’m full or just supersaturated with saline. Ahem, the dish is in the fridge to blend flavors overnight. Whew. This would be just fine if I hadn’t over-seasoned it. It isn’t quite Italian, but it’s pretending to be. (I think the Mrs. Dash was the table blend or the garlic and herb blend.) This would be a repeat, though, tastes good otherwise. — However, I really thought the pasta with the veggie bouillon and meat drippings was a fine base in itself. Some celery, bell peppers, and onions, some carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli, and that’d be a fine spring dish.
While prepping and eating supper, the neighborhood kids were out in force, playing. And wow, the energy level. That Alcubierre-White drive would have plenty. But twice, I had to stop for a second before my instincts caught up to the fact that the littler kids were screaming because they were having fun, and not the blood-curdling sound that came out twice. Yikes, one of those little kids has _very_ good lungs, too. Could be a future heavy metal singer with that attitude. Hah.
Other than that, it only sounded mildly barbarian or wild-animal zoo. But I can see why the parents needed to toss the kids out to play. Self-defense. They didn’t want to be eaten alive by little wild things. Hahaha. — Seriously, I can tell I am not used to having kids around. Parents and teachers would probably laugh and shrug at my reactions. — Anyway, there was a whole lot of letting off steam with playing, from the sound of it. I don’t think anyone was seriously hurt, and the two or three “screamingest” kids were probably enjoying themselves. (Lord, I hope so.) And the parents and older teens likely got a much-needed break. No idea if there were adults or older teens out there to keep it from going out of control, but I am sure anyone within the square, the nation area, could hear that. — Man, I don’t recall the playground being that battle-intensive when I was little. Guess when you’re in it, you have a different perspective. — I’m not really complaining. I am glad there are families with kids and they can have a safe place to play and make friends.
Bonus fun bit: Earlier, late afternoon, there were two boys outside, playing while I was doing whatever. Possibly older elementary, I’m not sure, I only heard them outside the door. — So one kid makes this almost growling noise, and the other kid copies, the same growling call, a bit higher. Hahaha. I cracked up laughing. Typical boyish behavior, just having a good time. No telling what they were pretending, but it must have been a fun adventure. This was not quite any particular wild animal growl, it was human enough. But haha, I thought it was great enough it gives me chuckles writing about it. Dunno who the two boys were or what they were pretending, or just having fun and making noise. But more power to ’em. Funny and harmless, and pretending is a fine skill, needed for imagining new things, for creating and for writing and acting, the grown-up versions of pretend. They’d run off by the time I quit laughing enough to think of opening the door and saying hi or they’re welcome. I don’t think they knew I was there to hear that. But if it was a prank, well, it was perfect.
People are lucky to have siblings and cousins and best friends. It’s good to remember kids are mostly OK and can be really great. And I would ten times rather have those kids yelling and playing outside than to hear the schlock on the nightly world/national news. I think we’d be safer with the wild critters or the wild kids than with most of the politicians and media talking heads these days.
That starship crew sentiment that, “You can’t take the sky from me,” sounds very good these days. I am not so much the carousing type, but oh, I could agree with any of those starship crews who prefer their freedom to being tied to any planet. — I think this may have been the same thing my paternal grandpa always felt when he got “itchy feet” and wanted to go to Texas or back to Virginia. That sense of restless need for something better, even willing to risk a lot, makes sense to me. I admit I’m largely a homebody. But I could like the starship life, ,not beholden to any strict government, free to do their own thing, within reason. I have always loved ship stories.
Hmm, so, I think I’m looking forward to the next Alliance Rising book. — CJ, if you feel the urge to write further in Alliance-Union or any of your other universes, or make up another one, well, have at it, I say.
Oh, and I’ve just seen, Amazon is now carrying all four seasons of Farscape on Amazon Prime, and they are supposed to ge the Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars movie also. But alas, no new news on the rumors of a Farscape movie or something in the works. Dunno if it’s still ongoing or has stalled out.
Bob’s Red Mill is an excellent, worker-owned “flour” company which has a plethora and more of speciality flours and other ingredients (generally in 1 lb or so amounts except for some of their wheat flours). I especially like their Scottish porridge oats.
The noise of kids playing outside does not bother me! At least they are getting fresh air and exercise. (I do see a lot of child free people whinge about such noise online in forums, though — I have none myself, but have no patience with such a mindset.)
I have some “Bob’s Red Mill” brown rice flour, found, IIRC, in the baking supplies at my Ralph’s (part of Kroger’s). My store also has teff flour (necessary for good injera, but pricy) and some other flours. Of course, they’ve been rearranging the contents, so I’m not sure which aisle it’s in now.
This is my favorite recipe for butter mochi, from the only local cookbook I liked so well I bought my own copy, Foods of Paradise by Rachel Laudan:
1 pound (3 cups) mochiko
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
2 12 ounce cans of coconut milk
5 eggs
4 oz. melted butter (1 stick, usually)
1 tsp. vanilla
Oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients in 1 large bowl, the wet in another. Pour the wet into the dry and mix thoroughly, then pour into a 9″ x 13″ pan. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until there is a nice brown rim to the mochi and it doesn’t jiggle when you move the pan.
Baked mochi has an interesting texture, chewy yet firm, like a Jello brownie. If unsure, this recipe is easy to split and you may want to do that, just round up to 3 eggs. It’s very rich!
My neighbor upstairs continues to have big, tromping feet when he or she gets up to go to work at around 4am. Oh well, it isn’t nearly as bad as it could be, for which I’m thankful. I was just reminded of this by more tromping feet from the apartment above me. Heheh. (I have no reason to be unhappy with them. They’ve seemed nice, but it’s never gone beyond hello’s, even to exchange names. I’ve tried.)
Mine tromps sometimes, but that’s one way I know they’re home. It got really quiet earlier this month when they were out of town for a couple of weeks.
Count your blessings that it’s just heavy footsteps walking about. In one apartment I had, I complained that it sounded like the people upstairs were chucking the furniture about. Come to find out, they were a young married couple and they liked to wrestle. Thankfully, I had a six-month lease.
The only other time I lived in a downstairs apartment, the people upstairs had a little boy who I referred to as “Thumper.” While he obviously could walk, he apparently didn’t like to. He trotted everywhere — thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
I 100% agree with the notion of a freezer. Even a little chest freezer, about $200, will make a huge difference in savings when you can buy that 20 #, $11 box of chicken legs and parcel them out for later consumption. Stock up on anything that’s on sale and can be frozen. Freeze excess leftovers.
My parents had a chest freezer that they got around 1958, used (and needing the insulation replaced, as it had been through a literal flood). It was still running (and keeping the contents at -10F) when my mother sold it in 1997. You really needed three hands to retrieve stuff from it – the third hand would be holding the lid open. It was a B F Goodrich product….
Things like fresh cauliflower and corn on the cob can be cleaned, dried, (as in getting the water off), portioned, and frozen for about six months. Corn on the cob in the depths of winter; frozen strawberries in the first heat of summer; oh, yum!
Ripe peaches, peeled, sliced or chunked, and packed in cartons with sugar, then frozen. Ripe berries (blackberries, raspberries) will freeze well also.
(Which reminds me that I have frozen rhubarb….)
oohhh — rhubarb pie!
Freezing is how I save mangoes for later consumption, although lacking a blender for smoothies, they mainly go into mango butter.
Rhubarb cobbler, rhubarb sauce (for vanilla ice cream), and the rhubarb sauce for rice from Persia (with meat or chicken: khoresh rivas). (They also turn rhubarb into a syrup for cold drinks: rhubarb-ade.) The sauce is unsweetened….
Oh man, y’all are making me hungry for fresh fruit! — You know, I don’t think I have ever bought or fixed rhubarb.
I’ve just seen a video where a young couple (late 20’s / early 30’s) give their two big dogs small watermelons for the first time. I knew they were going to be in trouble for two things. (1) They were going to do this inside their house. (2) They were saying the dogs were not supposed to eat the rinds. (I know that’s a general caution for humans, yet people make watermelon rind preserves, which are fine.)
Yep, these crazy hewmonz did not foresee their dogs would (of course) get the watermelons all over the place, though in just the area where each dog ate his melon. And, surprisingly, the dogs mostly avoided the rind.
Why two grown people, dog owners for some time, did not have common sense enough to feed them the watermelons outside by their nice pool, instead of inside, or cut the fruit off the rind, if they were that concerned, I don’t know. Hilarity ensued. The dogs had great fun with their new treat, discovering how to get to it. Ah, midway through, the couple picked up the melons and cut them in half. … I hope they washed that knife extra well before using it again. But I’m not sure about those two. (The hewmonz, not the dogs….) Hahaha, still pretty funny.
Mmm, I could so go for some fresh peaches. Not sure if the store will have any, but I will look. (I’m very disturbed. Kroger’s online ordering site did not return any hits for “peach cobbler.” What is this world coming to? Haha.)
But now I wish I had some watermelon. LOL. So this will go on the grocery list for an order next week. 🙂
OK, where did my hand blender and mixer go to in the Great Reshuffle? Must go through those boxes and get back the rest of the kitchen stuff from the apartment boxes. This would be my solution for smoothies.
I bought one of those aforementioned 20# boxes of chicken legs this weekend. They come prepackaged in 2 plastic baggies of 10#, so one of those was unfrozen enough to pull apart the pieces. Some were refrozen in a smaller bag, some are tonight’s dinner, and I boiled up the rest and took the cooked chicken off the bone for other recipes. Chicken and rice slow-cooked in a big lidded skillet with the broth from the other chicken to simmer the rice.
I have a crockpot cookbook with a recipe for “usable chicken” (what the recipe is called!) that would be about the same thing.
I bought some huge muffin tins and make my meatloaf in them. They are a nice one portion size and freeze well.
“Huge muffin tins?” Like the size of large muffin tops, something like 150% to 200% the size of a regular muffin? Hmm, I have never looked for those. But that would be a cool idea for lots of single-serving, freezable things, mini-casseroles, had not thought of doing meatloaf like that. Hmm, meat dishes, veggie or pasta dishes, desserts, a little forethought, and that could go a long way.
Tommie, thanks. I have two regular muffin tins. Think I’ll look for large ones. That’d be a boon for me to fix portions and freeze them for ready use.
I am still finessing the balance for what to buy in a month, or back to two or three weeks, to avoid wasting anything or being over- or under-supplied. I’m getting closer, though. — If I had a roommate or significant other, someone else living here, I could maybe justify a small freezer, but right now, I don’t feel I need one. Great idea for CJ and Jane, though. They like cooking and are good at prepping ahead. I aspire to that, but haha, I have not reached that level of coolness yet. 😀
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Jumbo-Muffin-Pan-1-Each/16517593
I’ve been having fun with the report in Science Daily about the site in North Dakota with dinos and fossilized amber and fossil fish with glass beads in their gills (and in the amber) and tektites buried at the ends of tunnels in silt where the stream was flowing uphill. They believe it’s from a couple of hours after Chicxulub hit.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190329144223.htm
Very interesting, thanks for the link!
What’s the famous phrase, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”? It’s going to take more research, and more researchers, to investigate this formation, and find it’s equivalent elsewhere. This is a relatively closed site, for good reason, so it’s will have to be both more open and protected, to allow verification.
I think the argument “Chicxulub or Deccan Traps” has to stop. It’s almost certainly “Chicxulub AND Deccan Traps”.
Paul, I think you’re right. I’ve read articles arguing that the shockwave from Chixculub could well have triggered the Deccan Traps. Together they would have been immensely destructive, as that extinction wave was.
That’s my theory, too. Magnitude 10 to 11 earthquake, of course it’s going to have effects all around the world.
Also, from the April 9 issue of the New Yorker, a long, non-technical article on it, with pictures.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died
Possibly so, but there’s no evidence yet. (There’s that word again!) They were a looong ways apart, and the Earth’s mantle is just soft enough to provide enough friction to pretty effectively dampen earthquakes over much distance–it’s a big thing. Nevertheless, one would have to consider how seismic waves reflect within the Earth.
The Deccan Traps aren’t unique though. “Flood basalt” episodes have happened many, many times. (Including our own 16MYA Columbia Basalt Group from the Yellowstone Mantle Plume. See “List of flood basalt provinces” on Wikipedia.) And they have been associated with extinction events.
For the time being, it’s best thought of as a, ahem, “very unfortunate coincidence” that hit ’em when they were already down, so to speak. After all, there have been many of those too, some more extensive. ( See “List of extinction events” on Wikipedia.)
I think we tend to make much of it, because it’s important to us! Like our birthday. 😉
paul, this IS the evidence. It may not be your idea of a “smoking gun”, but it’s certainly a gun with a very hot barrel. If you want more, there’s lots of evidence of earthquakes causing effects thousands of miles away. (Fukushima caused 6-foot seiches in Norway, FFS.) Stuff going ballistic, as the molten rock did, could go a long, long way – they think as far as Jupiter, for stuff that reached escape velocity.
Can’t say I disagree that it possible, just that one observation is that and doesn’t rise to “evidence”. And the “interpretation” at this stage is “hypothesis”. It must be confirmed. And this is going to get lots of activity in the field!
And, living around Portland, on the floor of Lake Allison, I am fully aware of the problems J. Harlan Bretz had getting confirmation, but he did! I also have a tektite on the bookcase in my bedroom.
The evidence *is* the observation: it can’t be changed. The theories have to fit what you find – and what they’re finding is entirely in line with previous theory, and with observation for things like running water and sediment layers.
Anton Petrov, on YouTube, covered a research paper claiming Mars had active rivers and liquid water for far longer than had previously been thought, to as recently as about 1.5 billion years ago. He goes over, in layman’s terms, what the paper says and how the researchers did their analysis of Martian riverbed and crater impact data.
Look for: ( Turns Out, Mars Had Liquid Rivers For Billions of Years ) on the YouTube channel for ( Anton Petrov ). Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyZh6spIuwc
He’s a scientist who went to a university in Canada and is (I think) a Russian immigrant. His channel has popular science astronomy and astrophysics topics, with a sense of wonder and fun. He has an accent, but is fluent, except for a tendency to miss articles a/an and the. He does real science as well as what-if’s and fun stuff just for the heck of it.
Well, that’s a new one. In among the excess spam calls, I got a recording from a “prayer center,” saying oh, if I’d just stay on the line, someone would pray for me! Did I need urgent prayer? And so on. So now we have robo-calls for prayers? Does this mean we have prayer robots now? What would that look like? A little metallic cherub with a halo and wings? Is it a problem these days if the cherub is au naturel? Robo-calling prayer centers. I really am picturing prayer robots. Sigh. Some things just do not go together.
I still pray, but I’m mostly non-practicing and I don’t know quite how I’d describe myself. Gun-shy, maybe. Still, I know people can be sincere believers in whichever faith they value. That’s fine. But as someone who both was very sincere in that and now is mostly “questioning,” I guess — I’m really dubious of and a bit bothered by the idea of a prayer center with a call-in with on-hold messages advertising like that, and way more doubtful of one that calls me unsolicited. And yeah, that canned Muzak and voice brought up the cynical, absurd notion of prayer robots. I know at least one minister who would’ve shaken his head at the commercialism of it. But I’ve known a minister who probably would’ve thought that was a great way to grow a church.
The world just got a little crazier. — Notez-Bien: The call was yesterday, so it wasn’t an April Fool’s Day prank. I could almost wish it was. Somebody out there, probably on the televangelist and religious-political agenda side of the spectrum, has a call-in prayer center that calls people at random and puts them on hold in line.
Where’s George Burns or Monty Python’s troupe when you need them?
I thought it was funny in a “what the heck?” way.
The computerized version of a wind-driven prayer wheel, I suppose.
Apropos of very little, save that she did win an award or two, Vonda McIntyre just died. 🙁
So sorry to hear this. She was a great writer. Besides wonderful imagination and ideas worth thinking about well after reading, her writing helped me understand aspects of myself in a time when few other writers did.
CJ is one of those few writers whose words reached me when I needed them, once I discovered her books in college and after.
When I ordered books online from Vonda McIntyre, she emailed back personally when I’d written, and was friendly and helpful and savvy. I was also impressed at how quickly she’d replied. That happened again later. That she took the time for a personal reply and was so nice, made a strong impression on me.