Movie day with Theresa!

Good one, too!  A little sappy and simplistic but a lot of fun.  Full of food and all I had to eat was boring popcorn and chocolate candy.  Yummy but it wasn't vine-ripened tomatoes, freshly squeezed olive oil, and sea urchins.




 
Pictures of Theresa and Bob's new car coming tomorrow.

High excitement in the dry season

Giant rain cloud engulfing the moon.














Didn't do anything.

Thank you Edward

For getting me addicted

Still way behind on the reading challenge

Scarlett by Marissa Meyer


Okay, I messed up on this series.  I thought it was a trilogy, but when I finished Scarlett I went back and checked--there's a fourth one on the way.   This one was better than Cinder, although I'll admit that I was reading it this time, rather than listening to the audiobook.  That may have made the difference.

The story is pure, solid science fiction, and the borrowing of "roles" from fairy tales is sort of like a joke.  A spice of well-executed comic relief!   I'm learning to love Marissa Meyer and I think it's a crying shame that her books are shelved next to "that other author's" with  cover art of a confusing similarity.  For shame!  These books can stand on their own.

Anyway, I'm a little bit sad to know that the battle between the Earthens and the the evil queen Levana of the Lunars won't end in Cress (which I've already started reading!), but that's only because I'm so very engrossed in the story.  When it eventually does end, I'll be sorry.

Aliens have returned with heavy machinery

 
 Zack left a little pile at the step up--I think he was expressing an opinion of some sort.  Dogs know, you know.

Waste of a Saturday

Callie and I took her car for the annual inspection, only to find out I'll looked at the wrong sticker--the inspection is good for a few more months.  It was the registration sticker that expires this month.  I had the new one right here on the counter, but I'd glanced at it carelessly and thought it was for the truck.  Good thing I didn't tell Ed to put it on the truck and he did so...without looking at it first.  That would have been a catastrophe!

But we did get Callie's oil changed and her tires rotated.  She's good for another 5000 miles. With the amount she drives, that's only a month or two.
We also did lunch. Veggie patty==good. French fries and ketchup==bad.

Odd observations

 I think the aliens planted these orange fruited things.  They sprang up overnight.  But they don't appear to be related to the little orange flowers, even though they cluster together.



What the heck do the aliens from Planet Orange intend?

Callie's birthday bow.

 

Looks lethal.  Can't wait to try it out.  When she's not around.

Afest 2014

As an anime character














 As Satan


Which is more becoming, do you think?

Food but...

 Come back tomorrow--I'll have photos of Callie at A-fest.

New food of the week - agave nectar.  Never again.  I bought it without considering the environmental impact of adding mass-scale agave farming to the globe. Why would I prefer such a trendy disaster to maple syrup or sorghum molasses?  Plus, I could probably find a non-GMO organic version of cane syrup if I tried.  I love cane syrup.

The weekend's cooking roundup produced a very grumpy cook, a lot of dirty dishes, and China Study Recipe #24, Greek Salad.   The salad wasn't bad but not good enough to try again, however, I did enjoy getting to use up half of the pine nuts taking space in my freezer.  (Next day note: with the addition of Maine Coast Sea Salt with Sea Vegetables, the salad was a whole lot better!)


And to add a minor gripe--buying pre-packaged salad greens at a Wal-Mart supercenter?  Bad Idea. They were old and 1/3 rotten. Again, never again.

The Daily Coyote by Shreve Stockton

It's been a while since I've gotten so emotionally involved with a book.  I didn't take it to work with me--that would have been too much temptation--so I looked forward every day to coming home to it.  But by the time I got all the necessary house work done--dog walking, dishes, helping teenagers with the sewing machine--I only had time to read a short section before bedtime.  That made it last a long time for such a short book.

On the other hand, every time I picked it up, I felt a little apprehension.  Something bad is sure to happen today.  It can't go on this sweet and idyllic...that wouldn't be real, and this is real.

I won't say any more--can't.  In short, a young woman falls in love with Wyoming, moves there, picks up odd jobs to pay the bills, and adopts a baby coyote.  It's not a travel book but it chronicles a journey--for both of them--with an unexpected ending.  (For me.)

No kids--no hassles

Guardians of the Galaxy and Pappadeaux with my husband...is this what they call "empty nest syndrome"?








I forgot to take a picture of the thermometer when we went into the theater--it read 104.  It came a rain shower while we were inside....

Aliens appear to be gone.

But what did they leave behind?






Bossypants by Tina Fey

Funny.  Very funny, even if it did try a little too hard sometimes.

For some reason I thought this was a book about how to be a manager--tips and tricks and that sort of thing.  I don't know where I got that impression, but I wasn't disappointed to find that it was simply a memoir with a laugh track.

I especially recommend the audiobook for it's special features--the audio of the Saturday NIght Live "public service announcement" she shot with Tina starring as Sarah Palin, talking with a fake Hilary Clinton about sexual harassment.  Or something like that--I was laughing too hard to get the "message."

By the way, women are too funny!  

Werewolf report

Werewolf is better--he's getting up by himself.  I'm still afraid to let him out in the back yard because the steps are slippery and if he goes in the doghouse, he's stuck.  I might board up the entrance and try him this weekend, but only while I'm outside watching him.

More evidence of alien activity

Digging




    Planting

Werewolf

Werewolf is not feeling so well.  His back legs don't seem to hold any weight so he has to do all the work with his front.

Here he was playing just last January--I hope Zack and Izzy don't have to give up their big brother so soon.

Boring food post

New food of the week is Pattypan Squash
I tried growing it this spring but failed epically.  So I bought a nice mess of the little alien spaceships at Central Market, sliced them, and fried them up with onions, bell pepper and Portabello mushrooms.

New food #2 of the week -- Portabello Mushrooms.

Awesome, both of them.  But don't cook the part of the squash with mature seeds in it--it's worse than seeds in yellow squash.

My dining room

 


One week before the Con.


Sewed in Callie's zipper.  It worked okay but was too short--she could get it on, but couldn't get it off!  Also too loose in the bust.  I'll have to rip it out and start all over. 

Alien weather update

Alien invasion imminent here, but HurricanE Iselle seems to be missing the smaller islands.  Lucky guy!





Our weather is:

What a time to be stationed in Hawaii!

The alien invasion is coming closer. 
Home:






 



                         








Just to keep the record straight, I finally cooked something.  The China Study Cookbook.recipe #23 is
Lentils and Greens.  Incredibly nutritious and it included my New Food Of The Week, Collard Greens.  I wish I could say I liked it, but the recipe had some issues.  First it had me boiling the lentils on medium high for 30 minutes, and boiling is a no-no with beans.  The pan ran dry and the lentils came out grainy, not creamy.

Then it had me shove the greens in on top of the beans and cook until wilted.  That is no way to treat a fresh green, any green!  Greens should be put into a hot pan with only a little cooking oil or liquid and then moved around until all the little leafies "touch" the heat and turn a bright, glorious emerald.  The way the recipe had me cook them, they were black and stringy.

Oddly enough, the taste is growing on me.  But the texture--fail!

After playtime

 

Tried to catch them playing, but here they are resting after play.










Book review: The Fifth Wave                             by Rick Yancey


I fear that I cannot wholeheartedly recommend The Fifth Wave.  The ending leaves so much unresolved that you have to be planned to read the sequel(s).  If they’re written yet.  But it’s better than the ending to Cinder—that was a total cliffhanger.   It’s more like an ending to one of the Harry Potter books, a breather before the next episode. Hopefully the author has planned a finite end, not a series that will go on and on until we lose interest.

But as to my recommendation…how shall I put it…?   If it hadn’t been written in the teenage voice, it would be phenomenal.   There are two main narrators—a high school nothing girl and a popular football jock boy.   The girl is more annoying than the guy.   They are not “together” in any way---no sweet romance—they follow completely independent paths in the narrative.   There are two other narrators, each taking short passages—one fascinating, one annoying.   Each of the primary narrators gets a whole big block of time—there is none of that annoying chapter by chapter context switching, which I HATE.  But—and this is a big but--teenagers are whiny and annoying even when they happen to be stone cold killers. 

It’s written by a male and he seems to be getting his gun handling stuff correct.   There is only one whoppingly stupendous coincidence employed to make the plot lines come together.   And the plot is so darn cool that you are two-thirds way through the book before you finally know who the good guys are.

And starring the smartest aliens I've ever met in a SciFi novel.

ground graffiti

What are these strange markings?   Could it be...an alien escape route?  Is the number 1 significant?  Is it an alien bomb site with some geographical significance like, here's the spot that will exterminate the maximum number of  people but leave the pretty parts of the planet undisturbed?

Or could it mean AT&T is running a new phone line that will triple our DSL speed?

I'm voting for the alien escape route.

It's a jungle around here.

I had the bright idea of letting the ragweeds grow to shelter the doghouses.  When it got close to pollen time, I planned to take hedge clippers and snip the tops.   Right, easy--these suckers are forteen feet high!   That's not a doghouse in the background--that's our house! 

Why do people waste time growing (and fertilizing) genetically engineered corn to make biofuel when all they need to do is strip the soil and let ragweed plant itself?

Back to work

Can't really post what I intended to, tonight.  My computer has become infected by something weird...can't tell if it's a virus or just Microsoft.  Still checking.

So what the heck is a hurricane doing heading to Hawaii?   My kid is there!  One day he's in Texas and the next he's headed to Schofield Barracks and there's a hurricane on the way!