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Looking Ahead for Spring

  “I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it./I’m about to lose control and I think I like it….” Who remembers that 1982 song and which group sang it?  Why am I so excited? Today I received an email from Baker Creek that my heirloom seed order, which I placed yesterday, is in the mail. Yi-haw!  Here’s what I ordered. Veggies 1. Blauhilde Bean (climbing) and Cantare Bean (bush, la la la la) 2. Abashi Bittermelon (from Okinawa) 3. Orchard Baby Sweet Corn (this with Blauhilde will be part of the Husband’s Three Sister plot) 4. Nagasaki Long Eggplant 5. Serpente de Sicilia Cucuzzi (a long, pale green gourd, which from the photo looks like the Filipino tabongow) 6. Job’s Tears (seems you can make rosary beads out of this grain) 7. Ishikura Bunching Onion 8. Banana Sweet Pepper Flowers 9. Canterbury Bells, rainbow mix 10. Candyfloss Red Cosmos 11. Twinkles Phlox 12. Ki No Mai Stock (butter-creme yellow, so stated the description) 13. Hopi Sunflower (supposedly the Hopi used the seeds to make
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Oh, Well.

I did it. Today, I did precisely what I said I will not ever do again, to randomly toss handfuls of wildflower seeds in the yard.  La, la, la may lupine be sparkling all over the front of the house this spring la la la la. Yellow coreopsis, too! 

13 Scary Things

These are some of the things that I find frightful these days: 1. ignorance 2. misinformation 3. sheep mentality 4. bitterness 5. stupidity 6. greed 7. anonymous threats 8. mean spiritedness 9. “alternative facts” 10. complacency 11. narcissism  12. evangelism 13. fascism Our primary election in California is in March, less than two months away!  It astounds and disgusts me that a lot of people believe the current top GOP presidential candidate represents who they are. Shudder.  May humanity prevail. Being Thursday, I’m linking up with Thursday 13 . Come check out other bloggers with me. 

First Thursday of 2024

On this fourth day of the new year:   1. No resolutions did I make to break by today. 2. I figured out what the “auto sense” feature is all about on our new washing machine. The machine is sousing the clothes with water before filling up the basket. That is as high tech as this non-smart washer gets. Thank goodness. 3. Health Benefits, which is reported to be a fake insurance company, has been calling our landline at least once a day for the past couple of weeks or so. I can’t decide if the caller is a machine or a real person. Today I responded by saying nothing after the initial hello. When the voice asked, “Are you there?” I responded, “Are you there?”    Click went the other end. I did not hang up until I heard another click and a dial tone. Next time, I’ll ask the voice to verify herself. 4. I took my first dose of medicine this morning to deal with isolated systolic hypertension, which is when the top number is high while the bottom number is normal. Dr. B has been patient with m

Finding Zen

“World peace.” Has any pageant contestant who answered that ever won a title, particularly a national or world one? Could that be why it hasn’t ever been achieved?  Cutting out hearts from paper and fabric helps me find zen, I discovered today. No questions asked, not by me. Wow, am I really not going to analyze why this is?  Ha, I finally understand my friend who said to me, “You make a federal case out of everything.” I was 10 or 11 at the time, I thought that was a bad thing. I’m still impressed that KT knew the term. Perhaps it came with the territory of having lived in another state and having a fire chief for a dad.   I don’t know. I could use that incident to spin a make-believe story about a first generation American kid growing up with two cultures, if I had the ambition. Who knows, maybe cutting hearts may help me find a steady spark of passion to wake up the ambition. Unlike last time, I’m letting you dear readers know that I’m meandering away from the blog for the rest of t

Daddy’s Fried Chicken

This is the first in my series of food and flavor memories.  Every so often, the Husband and I get a yen for fried chicken, usually when we’re out and about doing errands around town. Depending on which side of town we happen to be, we’ll stop in at the Lucky’s or Safeway’s deli for fried chicken legs and thighs, which aren’t too salty, greasy, or mostly batter. (Did you know that both supermarket chains are owned by the same company? That surprised me, too.)  Yummy fried chicken.  The best ever fried chicken that I’ve eaten was cooked by Daddy all those many years ago. He got an occasional yen for fried chicken, too.  First he’d butcher a chicken into 10 pieces. Whack, whack, easy peasy.  Next he gently shook the pieces in a paper bag with the right amount of flour, salt, and black pepper, and then he placed them in the right amount of fat heated at the right temperature in Mama’s  revered   Revere pot. Daddy didn’t use a thermometer.  He also didn’t crowd the pot. He fried one side o

Sunday Afternoon Rambling

I shall make a list, to check twice, sometime today. Any tasks undone by the end of the week makes me not naughty or nice.   The weather experts say our area is in for four days, more or less, of rain. Whoot, whoot! That means doing indoor stuff. I need to bring the outdoor carpets inside or drape them in such a way, the rain washes them. Methinks the latter. This morning we treated ourselves to a trip to the cafe for cups of mocha and artisanal pastries. What’s an artisanal pastry you ask? A flaky, robust almond croissant, for example, coated with toasted almonds and tasting of quality ingredients worthwhile of it being six dollars. I’m getting better at not flinching at the cost of treats.  “Baby, it’s cold outside,” the ants are singing as they single-file prance their way into the house. I caught them twice invading the tropical plants by the sliding door window.    So far the ants have laughed at the lavender and rosemary sprigs, the vinegar wash, the spray of citrus-scented house