Today was a Good Day.

I did some shopping and bought a twin bed and a shelving unit from IKEA.  I love building stuff from IKEA.  I love shopping there.  I got some ideas for the kitchen, but I will need to go back with a bigger note pad to fill them out.

All the pups had cookies for dinner and all of the outside kittens showed up for breakfast ans dinner.   The okra has sprouted, as has the sunflowers, tomatoes, catgrass, and some flowers.  Tomorrow I’ll be planting.

There was some commotion with the blue jays earlier this evening.  All of the pups — mine and neighbors’ — were interested.  It seemed that a fledgling got out of the nest, but wasn’t quite able to fly.  Three males were circling — one must have been the dad.  I couldn’t tell what happened in the end, but I love the bird watching.  I credit the wrens living next door with the lack of worms bothering my tomatoes.

I think this is the beginning of the payoff for not using chemicals in my garden.

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Michael Berry Still Lying about Sal Guinta and his Medal of Honor Ceremony, still no Price to Pay for It

I missed this when it was posted, but Michael Berry is still trying to squeeze every bit of a hero out for his own benefit:

Friday, April 13, 2012
Michael’s Interview With SSgt Sal Giunta

It’s not an interview.  It’s just the same old nonsense.

I’ve gotten steady hits for my proof that Michael Berry has been lying.  It’s only a matter of time before this lie is put to rest.

But why hasn’t Berry paid any price for lying?

Why can’t I Remember This?

Perhaps it is Senior Syndrome catching up with me, but I can’t figure out why I can’t remember to try this:

Tapenade (French pronunciation: [tapənad], Occitan: tapenada [tapeˈnadɔ]) is a Provençal^[1] dish consisting of puréed or finely chopped olives, capers, anchovies and olive oil^[2]. Its name comes from the Provençal word for capers, tapenas (pronounced [taˈpenɔs]). It is a popular food in the south of France, where it is generally eaten as an hors d’œuvre, spread on bread. Sometimes it is also used to stuff fillets for a main course.

I will try to remember to try it tomorrow.  It would be a nice lunch/snack.  I even cleaned my mortar and pestle earlier today in anticipation.

I’m getting old.

This Really Tickled Me

Kwame Holman just said on the PBS Newshour that Obama blamed the Secret Service scandal “on a couple of knuckleheads”.  With a straight face.

🙂   LOL

A Little Harvest and Eats

I don’t know which pic is better, so I will let Roberto decide:

It’s free range chicken from Kroger’s, seared over the stove top in a pan that can do both that and go into the oven.

After I took the chicken out, I added fennel picked from the garden this morning, garlic, and a sliced yellow onion.

I added tomatoes and olives and then put the chicken on top and put it all in the oven for 20 minutes.  Then I made couscous with low sodium chicken broth.

The above is the result.

I also picked a number of carrots, which will make a nice lunch for tomorrow.  I’l  freeze what I don’t eat.

BTW, the crappy freezer my mom and sis gave me died again.  It can’t even keep ice cubes.  If I had all of the food back that I lost because that freezer still had it’s light on like it was working . . . I could have probably bought an American made freezer.

The Weekend Begins!

Here’s a cute picture:

I have temporarily given up on installing a pond, so I built a bed and planted 5 horseradish roots.  The kittens like to sleep in the bed since I put down the plastic fencing stuff, and so they don’t feel like digging in it.

All five roots have sprouted.

We had homegrown fennel along with some free range grilled chicken last night.

The cucumbers are back in the bed I had them in the first year and thriving.

The pole beans that a friend gave me the seeds for are climbing well, right next to the tomato plant that made it through the winter.  I let the lettuce and cilantro bolt — again — and so it seems that in a few years, that’s all I’ll have as far as weeds go.

I took the bus home today.  It was actually nostalgic.  I often think of my time in Riga and taking all the different forms of transportation to make my way around the city.  That was many years ago, and I have always been angered at how backwards just a few people in this city can be about mass transit.  Even though we got rid of Tom DeLay, there’s always someone else to step in all big footed and jam up the progress.

I had a nice conversation while waiting for the bus.  It was with a woman who works at the zoo.  Another followed when a man got on at a stop along my way.  He was surprised that I said “hello” to him with such confidence.  I’m not afraid of anyone, and besides that, I have to work with Saudis EVERY DAY.

At any rate, despite my doubts yesterday evening about my plan to basically hide from the EASTER PEOPLE this weekend, I think those two encounters made it clear that it was the right decision.

Barring any technical difficulties, I see many pictures being posted over the next two days 🙂