Monday, March 18, 2024

This, that, and nothing

What to bore you with this morning:

I gave my dog Gabe a bath.  He was smelling pretty awful, and Cliff was complaining.  It doesn't take long to bathe him, but then I have to wash his "laundry", which means the pad in his cage where he sleeps all night and the dog bed he uses in the living room when he isn't sitting next to me on the couch.  He curled up in it as soon as I took it out of the dryer, but when the furnace came on he moved to his favorite cold-weather spot, the heat register.    Believe it or not, there really is a register under him!



I think the low temperature this morning was 25, so we're having a day or two of winter.  Then our psuedo-spring will come back.  I won't be going outside for anything today unless I have to, because the wind coming out of the north is AWFUL.
  
Last summer I made several quarts of spaghetti sauce for the freezer.  I had some huge tomatoes in the garden that didn't really have much flavor, but they sure make good sauce.  I didn't put meat in it when I froze it.  When I get it out and start cooking I add half a pound of Jimmy Dean Italian Sausage, browned.  I'm sure glad I found a way to use those big, tasteless tomatoes.


This is Cliff's favorite meal, and we still have some of the carrot cake I made last week, too.  

Here's a scoop for you: I'm wanting to get another tattoo.  Go ahead and say it... there's no fool like an old fool.  Dolly Parton wrote a song with a title I absolutely love:  Wildflowers Don't Care Where They Grow.  I want those words on my wrist, with maybe a couple of violets.  It may be awhile though, because the way prices of everything are rising, I might have to wait until one of my T-Bills comes in.    


Peace.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Just checking in

I have been reading a very interesting book, "Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's", by John Elder Robison.  

Ever since he was young, John Robison longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits—an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother, Augusten Burroughs, in them)—had earned him the label “social deviant.” It was not until he was forty that he was diagnosed with a form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome. That understanding transformed the way he saw himself—and the world. A born storyteller, Robison has written a moving, darkly funny memoir about a life that has taken him from developing exploding guitars for KISS to building a family of his own. It’s a strange, sly, indelible account—sometimes alien yet always deeply human."

In that book, I learned that his brother also wrote a book about his own life: "Running with Scissors", which I also found in my library; it was made into a movie rated "R", no doubt because these men had seriously neurotic parents.  I confess that I first put the word "crazy" in that sentence, but realized that might not be proper.  

I discovered I could stream the movie on Pluto TV, but I want Cliff to watch it with me; lately he's been working on the old Ford tractor with the grandson's help, and has been coming in the house too late for us to watch a two-hour movie because I go to bed early.


  I know people probably get tired of me singing the praises of public libraries in this computer age, but I'm such a cheapskate, I can't help but brag about the FREE BOOKS and FREE MAGAZINES I can read thanks to the Libby app, magazines like National Geographic and Rolling Stone that I could never afford!  The one I read the most will always be Reader's Digest, though.

With our recent hailstorm, we also received around an inch and a half of rain, for which I'm grateful.  Mother Nature has been giving us three or four days at a time of temps in the 70's, then several days of cooler weather, but nothing any cooler that the mid-twenties at night.

My asparagus roots were supposed to arrive this week, but with only two days left in the week, I'm getting impatient!  The trench I dug for them has been ready for a week now.  PS:  I received an email saying they're coming today.

And that's what's happening around here.