My friend the late Fr. Paul Brouillette was huge Seeger fan and fellow banjo player; he once played and sang this in church. He was that kind of guy, and today he welcomes his hero to the celestial jam session. I once heard a young Occupy Chicago protester sing it via a live Internet feed. Still relevant, still rousing the rabble, Seeger’s passing means the banksters have one less whiny folksinger to criticize them.
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Carrot Cake : Alton Brown So this was the recipe that I started with to take to Mitch and Gloria’s on New Year’s Day. I originally thought I’d bake it as a bundt cake, but didn’t have a pan. However, I did have a springform pan, and I jazzed it up with some chopped pecans and a little orange juice/butter/rum sauce that I reduced down by half. I didn’t really have a recipe for the sauce, just started with about half and half rum and orange juice, with a couple of tablespoons (or more) of butter, with just a little…
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A cold white blanket of snow covers Burbclavia; we managed to get to the gathering place to celebrate the new year with family and eat yummy chili with all the extras, and the obligatory lox ‘n bagels. My nephew Josh is in town and brought his girlfriend Ashley; FIL Shel and Linda made the trek and so did my BIL Dan and his girlfriend Tammy. Mitch and Gloria put on a really nice buffet and of course Rosie the pooch princess provided entertainment. Things got raucous (or at least very loud) when Josh showed us this crazy trivia game called…
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Not too long ago, I got an email from Amazon: We’re pleased to announce that the Amazon Associates program is again open to residents of the State of Illinois. We’re now able to re-open the program because the Illinois State Supreme Court recently struck down legislation that had forced Amazon to close the program to residents of Illinois. Amazon strongly supports federal legislation like the Marketplace Fairness Act that’s now pending before Congress, which is the only constitutional way to resolve interstate sales tax collection issues. Well, now. It seems like I have to re-apply if this email is to…
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Why don’t I blog anymore? Sometimes I go back looking for recipes or something and stumble across an older post and think “Damn, I can write pretty well. Why don’t I do that more?” I guess the answer is “No time, no inclination.” But we’re nearing the end of the calendar year, and I’m kind of… getting in the mood and the mindframe to write moar stuffs, and to catch up on things, and reflect. There’s a lot that I never blogged about at the time, that now I wish I’d noted down, if only to fix in my mind…
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Errands have been run, money has been spent, stuff has been bought. Never having been a person energized by shopping, I’m taking a break at Panera. But I’ve got the solution to the Christmas tree problem in the car – this year, it’ll be out of Riley’s nomming range, on a riser that doubles as an ornament storage box. I’ve made a start on the stocking stuffers everyone gets on Christmas morning, and I’ve got David sorted. He’ll get stonkin stuffers, too, so that’s on track. I’ve got a solution for the kitty box problem; the problem is that the…
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My husband David and I have been watching the “new” Hawaii Five-O since it began 4 seasons ago, from episode 1. It had seemed that for several seasons now they’d been mostly doing storylines based on international terrorism and the spy-intrigue storyline in McGarrett’s mother’s past. Which frankly, bored me to sobs. I preferred the storylines where it was a Hawaiian setting, with the kind of local color and flavor that is unique to Hawaii. It seemed like they were doing the islands a disservice by only finding the big drama in the “international” arena, saving the local stories for…
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My iPhone died today. I’m not sure why, but it couldn’t have been good when the speaker dock I’d been using started making more squawky noises than usual – sometimes with shocklingly loud humming and buzzing that came through the speakers. It somehow managed to charge the phone where my older docks did not, but it was never a happy marriage, and David had remarked that it was unshielded, so there’d always be interference. So he’d already found a little wireless speaker called “Mini Jambox” that would be my Hannumas present, and he’s getting a GoPro. But the iPhone? It’s…
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I’m riding 35 miles in the Chicagoland Tour de Cure this June to raise money to help STOP diabetes. I’m also riding to support my husband +David Gibbs in his own ride – he’s the leader of Team RED. Tour de Cure is a major fundraising event for the American Diabetes Association. I’m also riding because it’s fun, and great exercise. I’ll be training over the winter in our basement, and I’ll get training stats up on STRAVA, a fitness social media site. If I raise just $100 by Friday, I qualify for an “In Training” T-shirt. So please consider…
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We ended today with a boat trip out to Blake Island’s Tillicum Village for the afternoon salmon bake and cultural show, and by then I was taking photos with the big Canon, not my iPhone. But we did a lot of Touron stuff in the morning and yesterday too, including: Bought a glass thingy from The Glasshouse Studio. They’re shipping it so we don’t have to worry about lugging it. Lunch at the Pink Door after exploring the Public Market, which always tickles me. It’s fun introducing new people to it – once you find it again. Here’s Shel and…