Dark Side of the Moon

Recipe Redux

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:32:38 GMT

Sometimes I cook from recipes, sometimes I cook from my own native wit. Sometimes recipes fail, sometimes my wits do, too, and then I try to see what else can be done.

Last weekend, I made a side dish based on a recipe that I'd made once but I didn't take the time to find again. It was for sorta southwestern spicty sweet potatoes with brown sugar and cinnamon and chili powder and I used what I remembered and what else I've done with them and what else I had. I made a lot, because I wanted to take the leftovers into work for lunches.

Version 1.0: Pare and cut up 3 pounds of sweet potatoes and 2 pounds of carrots. Mix with brown sugar, ground cinnamon, ancho chili powder, garlic powder, a little nutmeg and salt and black pepper, and enough olive oil to make the seasonings stick to the vegetables and the vegetables not stick to the pan. Roast at 400 to 425 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes, till done.

But I used too much spicing and the proportions of sweet and spicy were out of whack. There were more carrots around. There were also some leeks in the fridge that were going bad. So a few days later...

Version 1.1: Pare and cut up another 2 pounds of carrots. Clean and chop a couple of leeks. Mix with some olive oil (but nothing else) and roast as before. Mix with the previous vegetables, also adding honey to taste.

This worked much better. The added vegetables spread the spicing around and the added honey blended the sweet and spicy flavours together. We had them as a side dish again with dinner, and I got a couple of lunches at work, and today when I needed lunch there wasn't much left. So...

Version 1.2: Pare and core and cut up an apple. Mix with the leftover vegetables. Top with sliced or shredded cheddar cheese and cook in the microwave on med-high for 2 to 3 minutes.

The apples added wonderfully to the dish. So now I have to work from scratch again to get out a version 2.0, which will have sweet potatoes, carrots, leeks (or scallions? or onions?), apples, brown sugar, honey, cinnamon, chili, garlic, nutmeg, salt, pepper, olive oil, and the option of either pan-roasting as is, or baking in the oven with cheddar cheese as a casserole. Leaving out the garlic and chili would make it more traditional, but I think I like having them there. I just need to work out proportions better, which means I really should dig up that original recipe. :-)

November 1st

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:17:13 GMT

It's been a while. If anyone would like me to do a 3-card reading for them, just ask. You don't have to be on my friends list, and it's fine if you tell others. I use this deck. It's not Tarot, but it seems to work.

Randomness

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:42:04 GMT

Not even a first draft, just words thrown down like a handful of dice, the ones that didn't roll off the table...

I want to go someplace else
be somewhere else
be someone else
it doesn't matter where
it doesn't matter whom
Just
not here
not me.

The dishes didn't all fit in the dishwasher.
I have failed.

Someone said there's a poem he reads every year
and that makes me want to read it
but it's not online
not all of it
the little I saw is good
why can't I write like that?

There's too much spice on the sweet potatoes.
I must remember to get the car inspected.
There's a message on the answering machine
from Tuesday.

It's all hallow's eve and the weather is warm
and the wind is blowing all the leaves off the trees
and I want to be out there and I want to be blown
away
away
away.

Not a lot of fun going on

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:59:40 GMT

When I came back from Richmond, I was developing a sore back molar that got worse over the weekend (naturally). So on Monday, I called the dentist office and on Tuesday I saw the dentist and he said the tooth had split and it ought to come out. Do it now, or wait? Now, said I, and he did. And he asked what painkilers I'd been taking and I said I had some leftover meds from knee pain, and so he didn't give me a prescription for more, or any prescription for anything else, just some gauze and a sheet of "what to do now." I went to work and read the sheet and it said "do this" and "do that" and "keep taking the antibiotics" and I said, er, huh? I called the dentist office and said "antibiotics?" and they said "let us check" and then they said "oh that sheet is for general dental surgery, just do the gauze and the rinsing and whatever else he told you." The sheet says "Instructions Following Your Tooth Extraction." Hmmm. But I did the gauze and the rinsing and took more pain meds when I needed to sleep. And the space kept hurting and it started to get worse, and frankly it didn't look so great either. So today I called and said "it's nearly the weekend, can someone look at it before then?" and they gave me an appointment with another dentist. He looked at the space. He said, "well, yes, there is a little swelling..." in the tone of voice that really says "uhoh" especially with only about 2 seconds of observation. He went off to check on something, or talk to someone. He came back. He said, "I've called the pharmacy downstairs. Take two of the antibiotics right away and one at dinner and one at bedtime, then three times a day." He also gave me prescriptions for large-dose ibuprofen for daytime and a different pain med for nighttime. Also instructions for additional salt-water rinsing and for hot moist compresses. Also instructions on how to contact the dentist-on-call if things got worse over the weekend, and "please do call if needed!"

I support doctors who try not to use antibiotics as an automatic response to anything and everything. Drug-resistance in disease-causing organisms is a big, big problem. But in this case, 'twas not so good, and now we play catchup.

Unexpected Gifts

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:59:39 GMT

A while ago, I put in an order to Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab for the "Falling Leaf Moon" limited edition scent, which turned out to be an absolutely wonderful one. I've ordered from there before and they always send a couple of little sample vials free with whatever you order. The sample vials are called "imps" if you order them directly, and the free ones have come to be called "frimps". This time I also ordered a t-shirt from the Trading Post section, which has a separate website and payment process and the order shipped separately. There'd been a problem with the printing and the t-shirt was delayed, but it finally came this week. It came with a bunch of little foam Halloween stickers, and a striped orange and brown and green pencil, and another frimp of sample perfume: "The Last Squished Jelly Bean."

Guess what the scent is?

Licorice.

But I really like licorice jelly beans.

Long time no post

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:54:06 GMT

I've had other stuff on my mind than LJ. But catching up from when I last posted...

On the 17th, my sister did not die in a fiery car crash right before my eyes. She did, however, get sideswiped by an elderly driver as we followed her back to the house after a dinner out. He was making a right turn on red as she went through the intersection and rammed directly into the right rear side of her car, even though she swerved and honked the horn. Thankfully, no one was hurt. The car was still driveable, not totalled. But it was not a nice thing to have happen.

On the 18th, my uncle did not shoot me. I went over to his house to deliver some of the extra sandwiches from after the funeral, and my sister warned me to call first. Apparently he keeps a loaded revolver (no safety) by the front door. I called. He didn't shoot me. Neither did the stuffed black bear (also near the front door) savage me. The stuffed Canada goose behind his easy chair looked more dangerous but I avoided eye contact and stayed out of its reach.

On the 19th, the dog did not disappear forever. My sister had recently acquired a shelter dog, an English setter, to replace another shelter dog who'd died. My mother had missed the other dog very much and had wanted another in the house, so my sister complied. The other dog had gotten elderly and unactive, but this one was young and strong and had gotten loose before (my mother's fault: "but she'd wanted to go out?" without attaching the lead) and had only been found when she turned up again at animal control. We had her out on the lead. Come time to bring her in, the end of the lead had broken off and the dog was gone. We dithered. The dog was a roamer. The tags had fallen off in the ivy some days before. Finally I went out driving around the neighborhood, more to do -something- than expecting any good result. I stayed out as long as possible, even as it grew dark, and on the final pass in working my way back to the house, I saw a similar dog being walked by a man. It was the dog. He'd hoped she'd lead him to her home, but it hadn't worked. They'd caught her earlier and if I'd gone out earlier I wouldn't have seen her, so really, it was a miracle we'd met. Next day, I bought one of those ID capsules with a slip of paper inside. It's not something easy to knock off, and even though the leads have been replaced with sturdier versions, it feels safer to have that on her.

On the 20th, we did not find the will but we did find the lawyer. There was a folder from 1996 that had copies of my parents' wills and powers-of-attorney. There was a letter from a lawyer saying that the originals were with another lawyer. There was a scribble on my mother's will that said she'd changed it in 1999. There was no copy of the change. The lawyer who'd written the letter was now an Episcopalian minister somewhere. The phone number on the letterhead had been disconnected. There was no indication of how to find the lawyer with the originals of the original wills. My sister started tracking down the minister (he turned out to be in Pittsburgh now), I started Googling, and we found the second lawyer in the area, still in practice.

On the 21st, we still did not find the will. The found lawyer's assistant said that the notes in the archives said the originals had been put in the vault at Nations Bank. Nations Bank is now Bank of America. The Bank of America representative, the one from the downtown main banking center, said "We don't have vaults. Do you mean a safety deposit box? Any branch could have one of those." My sister said no, the only safety deposit box had been at First Union. Which is now Wachovia. Moral of the story from the last two days: do not assume it will be easy and obvious for anyone to find your lawyer or your bank even 10 years from now.

Also on the 21st, I did not die in a fiery car crash in Connecticut. But it was close. This was between New Haven and New London on I-95, a two-lane per direction road at that point, and the speed limit was 65, I think. The traffic was going faster. I'd thought I had plenty of time to pass a car going only 70, but as I started, another car came up very quickly behind me. Very, VERY quickly. So quickly, I was afraid to brake and fall back behind the first car, for fear he'd ram me, so I sped up myself to finish passing. Unfortunately, what that did was to close the gap between my car and the first car that the second car had sped up even more to try to shift through. He ended up swerving around the first car in the other direction, through the breakdown lane, and mouthed obscenities at me when he came back on the main road because I'd obviously been deliberately cutting him off. Oh well.

On the 22nd, I went back to work. On the 23rd, ditto, but also a call from my sister to say that the will had been found, it had been in a vault at the main Bank of America downtown, so much for their representative. On the 24th, I did grocery shopping, and started another batch of lemon-balm/rosemary cordial. On the 25th, I went to an all day workshop at the Fuller Craft Museum to learn how to make textured beads in polymer clay. It was a good class. I'll go to more there.

And that's what's been happening.

Rain

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:33:30 GMT

The funeral was today.

On the way back to the hotel, the four of us (me, husband, 21-yr-old son, 19-yr-old daughter) talked about the differences between it and what we might want for ourselves. My daughter wants to be dressed in Master Chief footed pajamas (she still regrets not buying the Halo 3 boxers she once saw) and her ceremony should be non-religious and no more than 30 minutes long. They should show the video of Thriller and read quotes from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and from Star Wars if there's time, and there should be a bag of ground coffee put in the coffin with her. Given the coffee and Thriller, her brother offered to blow her head off with a shotgun when she came back as a zombie, but she thought her final ending ought to be more epic. So instead he's going to get up high on a stepladder, or something, and drop down on her with an axe, and that's been deemed acceptably cool.

It's always nice to plan details beforehand.

(Please don' t think they were being flippant about the actual funeral. They were, and are, wonderfully understanding of when to be serious for such occasions, and when, afterwards, a touch of humor would be welcome.)

Over

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:56:36 GMT

My mother died early this morning. Those who've been reading this journal for a while may remember that she's been and out of hospitals for the past couple of years with congestive heart failure and other problems, that she broke her hip at the beginning of July and that accelerated the decline. My sister did miracles of care, and there were very good days over these past three months that she was able to enjoy, and in her own home. Even at the end she wasn't in deep pain, but she'd become so frail that her skin tore easily, there was constant aching, it did hurt greatly when she needed to be moved onto her side or adjusted in bed, the other conditions were getting worse, and there was no hope of turning any of it around. She went quietly in a sleep that had been increasing troubled lately, but last night wasn't. She's fully at rest now, at peace.

Tentatively good and hoping for better

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 03:36:51 GMT

The wireless is, I think, it seems, currently at least, working.   It took a lot of fiddling with settings, of setting and resetting passwords and connection defaults (including going back to our original DSL password), and we still haven't seen if it'll stay working if we ever need to reboot the system.

Tomorrow: work. Yes, I know it's a holiday. But something needs to be done for Tuesday that didn't get done on Friday because I was getting my daughter back from college for the long weekend.

Tomorrow evening: Monster starts on SyFy, 11 pm Eastern US, English dubbed version. EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH.   *cough*   Seriously, it's only labelled anime because labelling it a psychological thriller dealing with medical ethics, genetics, sociopaths, behavioral conditioning, East German experiments, Czech fairy-tale writers, secret societies, and police procedurals and manhunts, would take too long.   There are no super powers of a sort other than Dr. Tenma's tenacity, there are no demons except those that are inside... who? Everyone, possibly.

The Wikipedia page is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_(manga) (because it's a little hard to search on "monster")

Maybe just cell phones and cable...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:24:47 GMT

Our land-line phone service is Verizon. We've been having trouble with static and on-and-off dial tone for a couple of years now, and sometimes they fiddle with the outside wires (and the service guy tells us the whole area needs replacement wires and boxes) but lately they're saying it must be inside and until we check every phone jack and circuit they're going to keep insisting it's inside. So our land-line is unuseable.

Our internet service is Verizon DSL. Luckily the DSL has been more dependable, though, sharing some of the same old telephone boxes, it's sometimes had problems in bad weather and we've gotten used to checking for a blinking DSL light under such circumstances.

This morning, a nice solid green DSL light but suddenly no internet access.   This evening, the same. We tried powering everything on and off, checking connections, running through the diagnostics, and still no internet.   So I spent an hour or so on the phone (my cell phone) with Verizon support.   Now we have internet access.   But in the process...
(1) We have a completely new network connection icon that we have to click before we can use the internet. There's still the "Local Area Connection" that comes up automatically when we start up the computer, but now we also have to click on "Verizon Online DSL" because that one doesn't start automatically.   And it needs the other running, too: it's not a replacement.   So, two little network boxes blinking away on the task bar. I did manage to fix it afterward so we didn't have to fill in the new password, because, oh yes...
(2) We had to reset the password for our Verizon account. However...
(3) He had trouble getting the password reset because, until I pointed it out, we didn't take the obvious route of using the temporary password he'd just issued, but instead tried to get the password reset by answering my "security question" which was set up 9 years ago and turned out not to have as obvious an answer as it must have seemed at the time. And after I made one error, it said I'd used up all my attempts at answering the question. So...
(4) He tried to clear out all the cookies and cache so I could try a new answer. Except in doing so, he also reset all the Internet Explorer settings to their defaults.   I'm still fixing that. There's also something else that I'll have to fix, because...
(5) We have no wireless now.   All of the above had to be done with the ethernet cable directly from PC to Verizon modem. Because of the new connection and the new password, the Linksys wireless router will have to be completely reset before we can put it back between the two. He did offer to transfer me to the Verizon special team for setting up home connections like that, but, guess what, that doesn't qualify for free support and they'd have to charge us.

And we still don't know what happened, why it happened, or whether it will happen again.   Why do I feel this is like having a car towed in because the engine stopped working, and getting it back with the first engine still there, a second engine added, two ignition switches, and a note that "sorry, we had to yank out the brakes to fit in the second engine, but we don't do brakes"?

Catching up, catching breath

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:11:37 GMT

I know it's been a while since I posted, but it's not that I've been absent from LJ. I've been following other people's journals and that's made it hard to talk about minor problems or pleasures when other people are dealing with matters of life and, unfortunately, death.

There's not a lot to report. A revitalization of a side interest, the roleplaying site is gearing up for a transformation. Work, too, looks like a major project that's had various incarnations over the years is finally getting funding to take us past the "this is what we could do, if you let us do it" stage.  Personal creative projects? I also need to move there, to get past the ideas and on to implementation.

Tomorrow is my son's 21st birthday. We'll have a bottle of "his" wine with dinner, to celebrate his coming of full legal age. When my husband and I went together, when it became more serious, he told me that at his wedding he'd be given a case of wine from his birth year that had been set aside by his father, a man very knowledgeable indeed about wine. Supposedly he and his three siblings each had a case, and they'd joke with each other over the quality of the birth years.   It turned out this wasn't so: no case.   I understand how that works, a passing reference not meant seriously, a good intention never implemented or only partially, fading out over time.   (But I didn't care for the unsympathy of the excuse given, however joking: "Oh we drank a bottle of it whenever you were bad." )   I still thought it was a good idea. When my son was born, the first of the grandchildren, we asked my father-in-law to pick a case of wine that would last well and so yes, there is one. There's one for each of the kids born before his death, and that makes it an extra blessing, that in having the wine we'll also be remembering him.   We aren't saving it strictly for weddings, though.   We'll have one bottle tomorrow, at my son's permission and expectation, and the rest will be his, for whatever he considers worth the celebration.

But next Sunday, he and some friends are going down to King Richard's Faire so that his first legally purchased drink can be mead. :-)

Supreme of Old Rooster

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:55:44 GMT

"Supreme of Old Rooster"

This is based on the "French Casserole Chicken" recipe in Joy of Cooking, the one that's also called in its introduction "Supreme of Old Hen". The time given is for what I had: a rooster that was, if I remember right, about 18 months old. This is absolutely ancient compared to what you'd find in the supermarket. calygrey said, and I confirmed it on the internet because I couldn't believe I'd remembered correctly, that the breeds raised for meat are killed at 8 weeks old. Seriously, they're 4-5 lbs. by then, and if left alone they wouldn't get much older because their heart gives out. Reduce the cooking time to only 1 hour, or even 45 minutes, if you're using one of those.

one 4 to 5 lb. chicken, cut into pieces
1 + 1/4 sticks butter (1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons)
1/2 cup orange brandy liqueur
(or white wine with a little fresh or dried orange peel, or orange juice)
3 large apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 medium onion, minced
4 Tablespoons flour total, separated 2 + 2
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
3 cups chicken stock or broth
1 cup heavy cream or sour cream
1 lb. noodles, preferably the broad flat ones
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Use a heavy pot on top of the stove. Melt one stick of butter (1/4 lb., 8 Tablespoons, 1/2 cup, however you want to measure it) in the bottom of the pot over medium heat. Brown the pieces of chicken a few at a time, removing them to a side plate after. Add the liqueur/wine/oj (whichever you're using) to the butter along with the apple slices and onion and stir, then cook, covered, about 5-10 minutes till the apples and onion are tender. Add in 2 Tablespoons of flour and the salt and paprika, and stir about 5 minutes till the sauce is slightly thickened. Stir in the chicken stock and add the pieces of chicken. Bring just to a boil, and then cover and reduce heat to simmer. Simmer for 3 hours or more, till the meat is tender enough to start pulling away from the bones. Near the end of the cooking time, cook the noodles separately and drain. Mix the hot noodles with 1/4 stick of butter (2 Tablespoons) and the parmesan and set aside. Remove the chicken from the pot and raise the heat to boiling to reduce the sauce, stirring, for about 5 to 10 minutes. Mix the remaining 2 Tablespoons of flour into a little bit of the cream (whichever sort) till smooth and stir that into the pot to help thicken the sauce. Lower the heat and stir in the rest of the cream. Put the chicken back in the sauce and serve it over the parmesan noodles.

Playing (with) Chicken

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:59:12 GMT

Yesterday I went off to calygrey's house and learned quite a lot about the insides of chickens.

Chicken Butchering 101

(1) Catch your chicken. She already had the four roosters penned in an old dog house, so catching them today was relatively easy.

(2) Kill your chicken. No cleaver. The cleaner way is to hold the chicken upside down with your hand around its legs, get its head between your foot and the ground, and jerk up to break the neck. Then you drop it on the ground and let it flop frantically around for a few minutes till it realizes it's dead.

(3) Scald your chicken. Have a big pot of water ready with the temperature around 150-160 degrees Fahrenheit. Not boiling, because then it's hard to avoid actually cooking the skin. Leave the bird in the pot for a timed 5 minutes.

(4) Pluck your chicken. Push the feathers out with your thumb when possible, because that's easier on your hands. There will be a lot of feathers. Try not to be too surprised how small the bird is without its feathers.

(5) Remove extraneous parts. Cut off the head. Cut off the feet at the "knee" joint (anatomically closer to "ankle"). Peel the skin off the feet; it will come off like a tight glove, including little caps from over the claws and a bigger cap from the spurs. Save the feet for stock, and the head too if you've bothered to pluck it.

(6) Open the top. Slice the skin from the breastbone up along the neck and open the top of the bird. Find the long grayish ringed tubes of the trachea & esophagus and loosen.

(7) Open the bottom. This part is tricky because you don't want to puncture the lower intestines. Bend back the tail bump and make an incision very close to that, between the tail and the anus, trying not to slice too deep and not to cut your hand. Cut a slit about the width of the tail piece. Put a finger in and wrap it around the colon to keep it out of the way as you incise two more slits to make a triangle around the anus. Again, be very careful not to cut too deep.

(8) Gooey, gooey chicken guts. Once you've separated the anus from the rest of the bird, reach in through the cuts and pull out the internal organs in as complete a mass as possible. Which means digging around and ripping connective tissue first, but try not to squeeze or tear the actual organs.

(9) Toss out the parts not for general consumption. The intestines are obvious. If you're digging out the insides of a rooster, there's two small yellowish lumps that are testes. The gall bladder is a (usually) greenish sac stuck to the liver. Be VERY careful removing it, and do so by cutting or pinching the liver itself to be sure of getting all of it. If the dead chicken has been lying around too long a time, there'll be a streak of greenish on the liver where the gall bladder lay against it and "leaked." Remove that, too. The gizzard looks like a solid ovoid of tissue. Cut through it around the rim enough to butterfly it open and you'll find the inside is full of gravel and dirt. But there's an inner yellowish membrane between that and the meaty bit, so if you tease that layer apart then you can just peel the mess away. Throw out that membrane, and rinse the rest to be sure all the grit is really gone. If you didn't manage to pull out the trachea/esophagus tubes from the bottom, get rid of them now from the top.

(10) Keep the "good" parts. The heart is a rounded dense cone. The liver is floppy and a deep burnt-orangeish red. Keep the cleaned part of the gizzard. The spleen is a very small dark reddish lump. The lungs are small pinkish-red sacks and extra work to get out: they're underneath another layer of connective tissue and the lobes fit between the ribs. The best way to get those out seemed to be to dig fingers along the ribs, trying to get underneath the lungs and then separating them from the other tissue once loosened from the ribs.

(11) Oil gland: removing the oil gland from the tail is optional. If you want to, it sits on top of the tail piece near the joint. Slit around and underneath to remove. If some of the orange-yellow oil comes out, just rinse it off.

(12) Final clean up. Rinse the bird thoroughly, inside and out. Rinse the organ pieces you're keeping and put them in a separate container to use as soon as possible. The bird itself will keep much longer than one bought from a supermarket. Make sure to do a good cleaning of the sink and any other area you used.

calygrey is a very knowledgeable and patient teacher with a great sense of practicality and humor, full of good information and tips. She offers these sessions fairly often, and I highly recommend the experience if you can handle it. (Maybe not for vegetarians, but I've always thought that if you eat meat, you should be able to take a certain degree of responsibility for knowing and caring how it gets to your table.)

Next post: Recipe for a Rooster.

New England Fall (or is that "Fail"?) Weather

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:11:38 GMT

Last night I'd checked the local forecast for the next few days:
Wednesday: High 81, Low 65... Friday: High 65, Low 38

Something Lighter : Nine Inch Nails

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:52:39 GMT

The music section of a recent issue of the New Yorker (I suspect Sept. 14th) talked about the Nine Inch Nails "Wave Goodbye" small club performances and gave some background on the... well, it's hard to say "group" since Trent Reznor is the overwhelming presence. This reviewer, like most, pushed the loud industrial dissonance aspect of the music, but it would have been nice if there'd been even a passing mention of the surprisingly lyrical pieces that do exist and are considered a serious part of the canon, not just throwaway "something different". Now I like even the dissonant stuff (the more you hear, the more you realize how cyclical it is, how the newest lyrics reference the oldest ones and no, please, not because Reznor can't think of anything new to say). But I started to put together my own version of a somewhat lighter and more tonal list with which to woo those who think they'd never like NIN. When I did, I found the oddest thing: the track numbers lined up with only a single duplicate. It's not perfect, there's a few instrumental pieces I'd switch around if it were an actual album, and some of the pieces aren't totally dissonance-free, but they have a musicality to them that a non-industrial fan should still appreciate. Soooo... here's my take on it:

NIN : LIGHTS
01 - I Ghosts 1 (Ghosts I-IV, 2008)
02 - Piggy (The Downward Spiral, 1994)
03 - The Frail (The Fragile, disk 1, 1999)
04 - The Good Soldier (Year Zero, 2007)
05 - Something I Can Never Have (Pretty Hate Machine, 1989)
alternate 05 - Echoplex (The Slip, 2008)
06 - The Fragile (The Fragile, disk 1, 1999)
07 - Lights in the Sky (The Slip, 2008)
08 - I'm Looking Forward to Joining You Finally (The Fragile, disk 2, 1999)
09 - The Four of Us Are Dying (The Slip, 2008)
10 - A Warm Place (The Downward Spiral, 1994)
11 - La Mer (The Fragile, disk 2, 1999)
12 - The Great Below (The Fragile, disk 1, 1999)
13 - Right Where It Belongs (With Teeth, 2005)
14 - Hurt (The Downward Spiral, 1994)

What would you add? what would you change?

Oh, and re: the coinage fuss:
I like research. I like full documentation. I like details and disclosure and history and all possibilities available for discussion. It's turning into a big piece and will need to be split into parts, but I need to get everything together first.

It's good to have friends...

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:45:39 GMT

Someone new has friended me!

*waves to the EK seneschal*

Mmmhmmm.

On the Use of Metal Tokens at SCA Events

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:54:14 GMT

Copy of post sent to SCA-East today (long):

To the autocrats of events in the East Kingdom:

Bear with me. This is going to be long but it seems to be necessary to get
this information out in as complete detail and widely as possible, in the
hopes that will avoid future problems, and, yes, to bypass the current
methods of intervention and their inaccuracy.

It has come to my attention that the East Kingdom seneschal is refering
people to me, as autocrat of the "Twa Corbies Tavern" event in Carolingia
this past March, as a reference for how & why to avoid using metal tokens.

This is more than a little awkward. This is like giving the name of a
person you've sexually abused to someone else as a reference for how good
you are in bed. (Yes, that is a delibrately chosen metaphor. No, I will
not retract it or apologize for it. Yes, I am still livid at the way it
was handled, both at the kingdom and at the baronial level.)

However, since then I've done my own research and concluded that,
unfortunately, the ruling is correct, even if the reasons quoted (and
still being quoted) are badly chosen, including misapprehension of which
US laws are most appropriate and of what were the past problems within the
SCA itself.

The problem in the SCA was from a person who'd attempted to have his
"coinage" accepted throughout his region, at multiple events and by
merchants, and not from the use of tokens at a single event. That the
regulation making it into Corpora could be read more broadly, is, sad to
say, not an unusual escalation.

The law most often referenced has been the one on "Counterfeiting and
Forgery: Tokens or paper used as money" (18 USC Sec. 491):

"Whoever, being 18 years of age or over, not lawfully authorized, makes,
issues, or passes any coin, card, token, or device in metal, or its
compounds, intended to be used as money, or whoever, being 18 years of age
or over, with intent to defraud, makes, utters, inserts, or uses any card,
token, slug, disk, device, paper, or other thing similar in size and shape
to any of the lawful coins or other currency of the United States or any
coin or other currency not legal tender in the United States, to procure
anything of value, or the use or enjoyment of any property or service from
any automatic merchandise vending machine, postage-stamp machine,
turnstile, fare box, coinbox telephone, parking meter or other lawful
receptacle, depository, or contrivance designed to receive or to be
operated by lawful coins or other currency of the United States, shall be
fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both..."

This has rarely been quoted in full. When it is, the focus is on fake
coins that could either (1) be mistaken for real ones, or (2) be used in
automatic vending machines or similar. This is not our problem.

The regulation that does seriously affect us is this one:

"Use of Metal Tokens: Final Statement of Policy
Volume 50 Federal Register 28679-81 (July, 15, 1985)
Agency: United States Mint, Treasury
Action: Final Statement of Treasury Policy Regarding the Use of Metal Tokens"

"SUMMARY: The United States Mint, Department of Treasury announces its
final statement of policy regarding the use of metal tokens. The Mint has
historically been opposed to the production and use of metal tokens
because of its concern that widespread use of tokens would lead to their
circulation in the community as coinage in violation of the criminal code.
Exceptions to this opposition have been granted by the Mint for the use of
tokens by gambling casinos on a case- by-case basis.

"The Department does not oppose the production or use of tokens which meet
the following conditions:
1. Tokens should be clearly identified with the name and location of the
establishment from they originate on at least one side. Alternatively,
tokens should contain an identifying mark or logo which clearly indicates
the identity of the manufacturer.
2. Tokens should not be within the following diameter ranges (inches):
       0.680- 0.775
       0.810- 0.860
       0.910- 0.980
       1.018- 1.068
       1.180- 1.230
       1.475- 1.525
3. Tokens shall not be manufactured from a three layered material
consisting of a copper nickel alloy clad on both sides of a pure core, nor
from a copper based material except if the total of zinc, nickel,
aluminum, magnesium, and other alloying materials is at least 20 percent
of the token's weight. In addition, tokens shall not be manufactured from
material which possesses sufficient magnetic properties so as to be
accepted by a coin mechanism.
4. Establishments using these tokens shall prominently and conspicuously
post signs on their premises notifying patrons that federal law prohibits
the use of such tokens outside the premises for any monetary purpose
whatever.
5. The issuing establishments shall not accept tokens as payment for any
goods or services offered by such establishment with the exception of the
specific use for which the tokens were designed.
6. The design on the token shall not resemble any current or past foreign
or U.S. coinage."

This is what makes it a problem to use metal tokens. In the past, events
have used old foreign coins, but this is specifically prohibited, even
ones with no current value. Casino tokens themselves looked possible, but
the "specific use" clause might come into effect and that they are not to
be used as money "outside the premises" of the issuing establishment.

If other people can find loopholes, I'd welcome it (for background, this
is a good site to start: http://www.idxinc.com/crossplay.htm ).

- Carol Hanson
SCA: Caryl de Trecesson

I have already been told I should apologize for daring to compare the screwing I got to sexual assault.

What I will apologize for is that I called it a metaphor, when of course it was a simile.

Added:

Three clarifications:

1) This is in regard to the use of metal tokens as currency during an event, not on their use as site tokens or for any commemorative use or similar. It's only about when they're used as if they had monetary value.

2) SCA Corpora:
"XI. POLICY ON COINAGE AND CURRENCY
While the SCA, Inc. supports and encourages the study of period numismatics, it is not the policy of the SCA, Inc. to endorse or require the acceptance of privately minted coinage or other tokens at SCA-sanctioned events. The SCA, Inc. or its branches shall not require the acceptance of privately minted coinage or other tokens as payment for any goods or services at any SCA-sanctioned events. Any such transactions may be conducted at the discretion of the individuals involved, as with any other barter transaction. In such cases, compliance with applicable tax laws is the responsibility of the individuals."

So the SCA Corpora forbids the -exclusive- use of tokens at SCA events. As long as you allow people to use regular currency as another option at your event, then it seems metal tokens would be okay by SCA laws themselves. (We thought of invoking this interpretation for the Twa Corbies Tavern, but the lack of time precluded further argument.) It's the US laws that would seem to forbid metal tokens as currency even if not exclusive use.

3) It was a simile, not a metaphor. And I am sorry that unintended people were hurt by its use, regardless of it saying what I intended to say.

- Carol Hanson
SCA: Caryl de Trecesson

Hermits

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:20:24 GMT

I ended up not going to the SCA event yesterday. Things got hectic in the morning in getting everyone and everything together and I said I'd go later in the second car, but an end-of-summer cold and severe lack of sleep and the amount of rain made me keep putting it off till I decided not to go at all. There were some classes I'd wanted to take, and I always look forward to commedia performances, but... oh well.

I did go out once during the day, to a pet store to see what could be found to help the hermit crabs. My two kids each bought two of the things this summer, early June, when we were at Old Orchard Beach. They ended up in the same habitat because it turns out that "hermit" crabs are actually very social and prefer living in large groups. (Helpful for them: there's a chain effect when one crab moved to a larger shell, then another smaller crab picks up the discarded one as its new home, etc.) The habitat had some sand and aquarium type gravel, maybe an inch deep. On-line research said that wasn't appropriate, and not sufficient depth if the crabs needed to moult, so I picked up the recommended fibrous mulch and more sand (some of it calcium-digestible), and also a half-round hollowed log for climbing & hiding, and more types of foods, and a water-conditioning spray/mist bottle.

Random hermit crab "facts" (Unverified, i.e. Wikipedia):

Hermit crabs have been using gastropod shells since the Late Cretaceous. Before then, at least some used ammonite shells (apparently, a fossil record exists).

The coconut crab, the world's largest living arthropod, is a hermit crab, but one that uses a borrowed shell only when very young.

During moulting, a hermit crab can regenerate lost claws or limbs.

Hermit crabs were once thought to be "throw-away" pets, that would live only a few months in captivity. Now that people know more about the needs, some species can live 20-30 years.

Oh joy. :-)

Last Weekend

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:50:06 GMT

Busy long weekend.

Saturday, I drove up to New Hampshire to the Harpers Retreat SCA event. A little too much traffic on I-93, but once I was off 101 it was beautiful. Winding empty roads and lots of greenery. I spent a long time at the event talking with a friend ( druidharper) I don't see much, and bought a couple of interesting pieces from the merchants to use in jewelry. I hadn't reserved for the feast, so I left around 6 pm when that was getting started. On the rocky road back to the main roads, I slowed down to a crawl to pass a small group, the girl holding a young and hooded horse close by its halter, the guy standing behind and keeping an eye on the small collie that was in a obedient sit by the side of the road. The people smiled at me as I eased past, and I smiled back. After, through the rear view mirror, I saw them continuing on their way, the horse unhooded again, the dog trotting along.

Sunday, I drove down to Connecticut to take a few forgotten things to my daughter and to bring back some empty boxes and the hermit crabs that she'd decided wouldn't appreciate the draftiness of this year's dorm room come wintertime. As we came out with the boxes, one of her roommated was coming back from a trip with her parents to a neighboring pick-it-yourself vegetable farm. We said hi to her and the parents, continued to our car, and my daughter went back for the hermit crabs. Before she came back, the roommates parents had made a circuit around the parking lot and pulled over beside me. "Would you like some vegetables? Please, take some!" and they opened the back of their minivan and started putting together a bag of produce for me, of peppers and eggplant. I laughed, accepted (they had about a dozen more bags there, there was no worry of depriving them), and hugged the mother, shook hands with the father, and waved goodbye, all before my daughter's return, to her confusion of how I'd suddenly picked up a bag of vegetables in her dorm's parking lot.

Monday, I rested. Hey, it was my birthday. Slept late, a lazy breakfast and reading the paper, a long shower. In the afternoon, I put together a hodgepodge of beef shanks and vegetables to simmer in the oven while my husband, son, and I went off to see "District 9". Great movie! Or, great for those who can handle the violence and grittiness and downright nastiness of most of the characters. There's been a discussion about how to play evil on an RPing board I frequent. The movie had a nice range of it, from unseeing racist (species-ist?) disgust and dismissal, to hard corporate bottom-line "practicality", to gang-type be-badder-than-anyone-else swaggering. After that, a good dinner and later, cake and ice cream and presents, including a beautiful shaped-wood bracelet, but most with a decidedly Cirque du Soleil theme: CD, DVD, and book. Lovely gifts, wonderful day!

End-of-Summer Beef Not-Quite-Pepperpot

3 large beef shanks, or about 3 lbs. chuck roast
2 medium onions, chopped coarsely
6 to 8 peppers of various sorts (amount of heat up to you), at least 4 cups worth, sliced/cubed
2 small eggplant or 1 large, cubed
1 lg. can (28oz?) diced tomatoes
1 lg. can (28oz?) crushed tomatoes
(or lots of diced fresh tomatoes)
4 to 6 lg. cloves garlic, minced coarsely
1/4 c. olive oil
1 to 2 teaspoons each of rosemary, thyme, marjoram
salt & black pepper

This is going to simmer and soften for a long time so don't cut the vegetables too small or it will cook down to a paste instead of a stew. If you're using a roast, cut the beef into pieces the size of a small thick steak about 1-1/2" thick. It will fall apart into bite-sized pieces on its own. To cook this, use a large Dutch oven, or transfer from pot to casserole, or from pot to slow cooker.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. On top of the stove, brown the beef in 1/2 of the olive oil (2 Tablespoons) over medium-high heat. Remove beef. Add the onions, lower the heat a little, and saute till translucent. Add the peppers and garlic, and more oil as needed, and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the eggplant for another 5 minutes, then stir in the beef, tomatoes, and the herbs. Add salt & pepper to taste. Cover and transfer to oven. Cook for 3-1/2 to 4 hours. Serve over noodles, with dollops of sour cream, and have a good red wine to drink with it.

Picture of peppers left over, but the same sorts as used in the stew:

My son says the odd-shaped convoluted red one on the left is an Escher pepper, or what happens when a regular red bell pepper gets too near a black hole.

If you use WordPress

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:26:25 GMT

WordPress is like BlogSpot/Blogger. You can have a blog on their site or you can install a version on your own site and use your own URL accordingly. Our regular website's hosting service has just sent out e-mails warning that a major hole has been found in the security for installations of WordPress earlier than version 2.8.4. If you're one of the people who have installed it on your site, better update the script.

Cirque du Soleil : "Alegria"

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:20:34 GMT

Last Friday, a week and a day ago, at just this time we were watching the first half of "Alegria" at the Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, CT. This is possibly (I haven't checked) Cirque du Soleil's longest running show, having premiered in 1994 (though I also understand it's been revamped since). It's also the very first Cirque show I've seen in person. Truth: seeing it on TV or on DVD is not the same. Those seriously undercut the awesomeness.

Bridgeport has problems. Think of the most industrial, rundown sections of Somerville, at the very least. The Arena, though, is pretty nice. There's a commuter parking garage right next to it for convenience (the Amtrak station is very close, and the bus station just a block further away), though it would have been even more convenient for me if the elevator had been in working order. But, hey, event parking was only $5.00, which is an amazing bargain for those used to Boston area prices. The concession stands inside only advertise beer but they also have cheap wine, and for those running late, they also have hot dogs, quesidillas, and other "real" food. Seats... now that was interesting. Half the seats weren't available at all, because the stage was set in the middle and facing one direction. Presumably both for viewing ease and because Cirque needed the back half for prep. We also got discount tickets through the Cirque Club, and those were probably the less desireable higher-up seats by the sparsely populated gap between a lot of filled seats and the ones lower down. The Arena isn't large (there are only 26 rows) but the seats are steeply raked and we were in row "T", so very high up. Once the show started, it didn't matter as much. There was a great advantage in being able to take in the whole stage at a single view because Cirque does fill the whole stage, front and back, regardless of the actual performance being featured (but I want a cheat sheet to explain some of the background stuff!).

That's what makes Cirque du Soleil so astonishing, so different. It's a continual performance, front, back, sidelines. From the moment anyone comes in view, they're -on- and they're part of the whole. For me, it twinged some of the same chords as the Broadway musical version of "The Lion King", the one with the puppetry. (Of course, there's also the music. How many circuses would sell their soundtracks? Magnificent singers, magnificent musicians, magnificent music!) There was the same sense of surreal becoming real and then veering off into the surreal again, and while this was most notable in the framing sections, it was also true of the actual performances. Flooring is removed to reveal an X-shape of trampoline and tumblers come out to tumble on it. Yes, sure, beautifully done. But then it turns into ballet. Imagine a ballet where the dancers can throw themselves back and down and bounce effortlessly back into step, into perfect form. The tumblers that run to the ends and jump? Suddenly, in the music, one swears they are hanging in midair, suspended, till the music itself lets them drop.

Quibbles. Are there any? Well, it's me, so of course I can come with a couple. The intermission was off-center. The second half felt distinctly shorter, and was, and left me wanting more. The aerialists that came at the end? Yes, impressive, but their routines always ended in the same drop and catch and movement back up to the platform and I was spoiled, I kept expecting something startlingly different and that never came.

But see it. See any Cirque performance. You won't regret it.

CT Restaurant Reviews: Asian Bistro & Rein's NY Deli

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 02:12:02 GMT

Friday: Asian Bistro Restaurant, 702 Bridgeport Avenue, Shelton, CT (exit 12 off CT-8)

We were staying at the Holiday Inn Express (which is a good place to stay), right across Bridgeport Ave, but the street is multilane and runs along a low spot between two higher areas, with the hotel up a steep winding road on one side, and a multi-layered shopping plaza (with restaurant, also an Outback Steak House) on the other side. Also, thunderstorms moving in. So we ordered take-out with free delivery service ($20 minimum) from the restaurant even if it meant forgoing the hibachi offerings.

Many standard items were on the menu, but with a non-Boston twist and an upscale "good things come in small packages" feel to them. Gyoza instead of "Peking ravioli" were lighter and smaller. Shrimp shumai are usually only seen here at dim sum, and they were good, but also smaller than usual. My daughter ordered the spicy crabmeat roll and enjoyed it. My husband and son both had the teriyaki salmon dinner, and they liked theirs, too. I had the mandarin duck salad: a good selection of mixed greens, four long "chopsticks" of jicama, quite a few slices of roast duck, all topped with shredded red beets. The dressing was "olive-balsamic" vinegarette that came in a separate container, and it went very well with the greens and beets and jicama but rather overwhelmed the taste of the duck.

To share, I'd also ordered one of their signature rolls: the Paradise roll. This could easily have been put on the dessert list, which is an odd thing to say about sushi. It's a large roll cut into pieces, and contains "spicy lobster salad, shrimp tempura, banana tempura, kawari sprout" with "yuzu mango sauce" all wrapped in rice and a soybean sheet and beautifully presented with an orchid decoration. It was exotic and absolutely delicious once you got past the surprising sweetness.

Saturday: Rein's New York Style Deli, 435 Hartford Turnpike, Vernon, CT (exit 65 off I-84)

The daughter was left in West Haven and we got to Vernon just before noon. There was a line at Rein's, of course, but it moved pretty quickly and we got a table (take-out is also an option). They brought a bowl of garlic pickles, as usual, but we only had one pickle-eater (me!). For lunch, my husband had a pastrami reuben, grilled, my son had a "Tappen Zee" (a club sandwich with, I think, pastrami, roast beef, and turkey), and I had a bowl of "borscht with the works", which was a lovely choice on such a hot muggy day. That version of cold beet soup comes with chopped onions and cucumbers, a large dollop of sour cream, and a large and still slightly warm boiled peeled potato. I'd wondered about the potato, but it did an even better job than the sour cream in mitigating any sharpness in the rest. We pushed ourselves to have dessert as well: pecan pie for my husband, chocolate marbled cheesecake for my son, and a plain NY cheesecake for me. All wonderful, and my son couldn't even finish his. Some may quibble about exactly how close it is to a real NY deli, but for the rest of New England there's no better place to get that style of fare. And I still need to try their noodle kugel sometime.

Trailer for upcoming posts

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:32:40 GMT

Yesterday we went down to Connecticut with son, daughter, and daughter's stuff for college. We had an early dinner of take-out from Asian Bistro in Shelton before heading down to the Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport to see Cirque du Soleil's "Alegria." Back to the hotel to crash, up early this morning to do the actual moving of stuff into the dorm room, and then a drive back with a stop at Rein's New York Style Deli in Vernon.

More details to follow, but suffice for now: very good food, great performance.

Mature Content

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:20:57 GMT

Yes, I'm marking this post for "Adult Concepts." No, not for the usual reason people do that.

People have been talking about "death panels" and what might happen if "Mama breaks her hip".

Well, my mother broke her hip.

One evening this past week, my sister finally asked her, "If your heart stopped, what would you want them to do?" Mom said, "Start it up again!"

But, see, my mother has dementia. It's mild. She knows who she is and who you are, and the month and year (if not the day, but then who wouldn't lose track of the exact day if bedridden?) and morning from night. But she forgets sometimes who's alive and who's not, and what she did yesterday, and what she'll do tomorrow. She'll tell people how she went outside the other day, how she got up to go to the bathroom, and not only didn't she, but she will never do that again. She can't (or won't, I'll not blame it totally on the dementia) see where she is, and where it leads. There's no looping back anymore. There's no side escapes. The metaphor allows for lingering along the way, for stopping to smell the flowers, to feel the warmth of sunlight and human contact, but there are also painful, scary, dangerous patches, and they come closer and closer together.

My mother's in the hospital again. She couldn't breathe, again. The fluid building up around her lungs, her heart straining. My sister called 911 and then called hospice to "fire" them because the hospice agreement isn't supposed to involve that amount of intervention. "It was so scary! The poor little thing!" says my sister. My sister is a nurse. She was able to give Mom some liquid morphine to try to ease the breathing, but it didn't work well enough. "Then hospice wanted me to give her more, but I didn't want to give her too much. But the ER gave her more anyway. I just wanted them to know how much she'd had." My sister can't let go either. I could say it out loud and she'd see, but really she knows it already: they don't care how much she's had if it helps her feel better. An overdose is not an issue.

My sister talked with me on the phone yesterday. She says, "But I don't think they should do CPR. She's so frail. Her bones couldn't handle it. They start pushing on her chest and the ribs would just crumble." I agreed with her. She continued, "Chemical or electrical, but not CPR." I didn't say anything.

Lay out the facts and they sound cold: unable to walk, near bedridden (my sister got her in a wheelchair once or twice, but it doesn't always work: her legs don't bend as well, she has little control, she slides out), near kidney failure, unoperable heart condition, breathing attacks, dementia, bedsores, dehydrated because she won't drink enough, weakened because she won't eat enough, not "incontinent" as "unable to hold it" but unable to use bedpan (and you can't use adult diapers because that keeps it too close to the body and deteriorates the fragile skin). You can't list the facts without sounding as if you're pushing the "cost-efficient" decision. We've all been in that sort of conference where an authority figure, be it parent or teacher or doctor, whatever, laid out a set of facts and asked you to make a decision, and you knew perfectly well which answer they wanted. And whether you answered that way or otherwise, they'd look at you carefully and said "Are you sure?" Were you sure? Is it right or wrong to make people face truths, if it removes hope? How true do the truths need to be? Can you be the one to say "you're dying" to someone who still smiles and laughs and talks and watches her soap operas and loves the taste of a summer strawberry?

My sister talks of going shopping, especially new tops for Mom. Some loose fitting ones that will be comfortable in bed, but they can't be too long. "Because otherwise the poop will get on them and it's a pain to change your shirt along with all the cleaning up." That's minor. It's the breathing attacks that hurt, that scare, that push everything one step closer to going over the edge.

When do you let go?

This is what journals are for...

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:42:56 GMT

I came up with a good line, in which I truly believe, in discussing with a friend (okay, jkarabella ) the USA's airport restrictions post 9/11, and subsequent: "I'd rather have freedom for the majority than restrictions because of the minority."

Yes, really