Uninspired

The fact is, I am not feeling like writing tonight. Nothing is wanting to pour out through my fingertips, onto the keyboard and into the aether. I don't think it's writer's block (heaven forfend!) It just feels like a temporary ennui. Hopefully it will pass soon.

So tonight, for anyone who is interested, here is a link to a children's story I wrote about a very fine mouse named Elouise.

And another photo of my mantis friend.

It Tastes Just Like Chicken

Stubborn?

When the weather is nice, we always eat outside at the picnic table. We have a lovely view up to the foothills and the entertainment of hummingbirds buzzing and jousting at the feeder. Kitsu and Sachi meander by to say hello before heading off on important cat business. The clouds drift by. The shadows shift on the hillside. I could happily stay at the picnic table until dark.

While I cook dinner, the Engineer does his nightly patrol and changes into after-work clothes (play clothes as my Mom used to call them) then sets the table. Tonight was no exception.

I looked at the sky and said, "It looks pretty dark, maybe we'd better eat inside."

He said, "No, it's going up the canyon, it'll pass us by." To make sure, he ran out to the front of the house and studied the sky. "No worries."

As we carried our plates out, it was growing rapidly even darker. There was a big wind up on the hill, evinced by a great cloud of brown dust hazing the view. Again I suggested that perhaps we should consider eating inside.

"No, it won't rain, we're only getting the edge of it."

So I decided I would see how long he'd last.

The wind picked up. Heck, the wind picked up the deck chair and threw it against the house. The salad dressing bottle blew off the table. Three pickets blew off the fence. The trees thrashed and dropped branches into the pool.

As huge raindrops splatted into us, we carried the picnic table under the overhang between the carport and kitchen door, then continued eating. The rain drops, however large and hard driven, were few and far between. Not even enough rain to knock the dust down. Dinner was getting a little gritty.

We finished dinner before we went back into the house. I carried the light weight things that I'd been holding down back in first. Didn't dare let go of them, they'd have taken flight.

When we watched the news at 9:00, the weather lady reported that wind gusts at the meteorology station about a mile from the house measured 63 miles per hour.

Stubborn?

Oh, yeah!

What To Do With Those Overgrown Armenian Cucumbers

My Armenian cucumber vines keep producing zeppelins. I try to catch them when they're small, but they lurk in the foliage until they pop out looking like an elephant hiding behind a sapling.

An overgrown Armenian cucumber tastes much like a small one. If you cut it up and scoop out the seeds, you can still eat it in a salad. I don't know about you, but I can only eat so many salads before I feel like a rabbit, so that doesn't use them all up.

I've tried them breaded and fried, a la summer squash. Not bad, but bland. Maybe with a spicy breading or dip they would be good. I plan on trying them in a stir fry sometime soon. I love cucumbers in stir fry, so I have high hopes.

Today I had a friend over for lunch and was planning to have a frittata, salad with fresh garden veggies and zucchini bread. When I got the zucchini out of the fridge, I discovered it had a soft spot. The trash can was my only alternative. Oh well. So I used Armenian cucumber instead of zucchini. Put it through the food processor, soft seeds and all.

The bread was yummy!

I'm going to try making Runge Pickles with them tonight.

Runge Pickles
½ Gallon Sliced Cucumbers
2 C Sugar
¼ C Canning Salt
2 C White Vinegar
2 Medium Onions, Sliced
1 Tbs Dried Crushed Red Pepper
½ tsp Powdered Alum
1 tsp Turmeric

Put everything except cucumbers into a kettle and boil. Cool. Put cucumbers into ½ gallon glass container, pour fluid over. Let stand, unrefrigerated, overnight. Chill and serve.

Commuting With Nature

One of the things I like best to do when I'm at the cabin in Idaho is to go by myself down to the creek and (to quote the Engineer) "commute" with nature.

I find a nice rock and sit quietly, watching the creek, looking at plants and rocks. Some summers I will see a dipper, a plain looking little gray bird with a cocked, wren-like tail. The dipper bobs along the bank of the creek, bouncing from rock to rock, then suddenly dives into the water. Dippers walk and fly underwater seeking their food.

Last time I sat on my rock, I was thoroughly checked out by a chipmunk. He came within about five feet of me, curious, but nervous and tail twitching, before he told me I was ugly and smelled bad. Then he scampered off.

When I'm out on my rock, I feel like I could live at the cabin, but I know I'm too spoiled by the comforts of modern urban life.

Is the World Absurd or Is It Just Me?

Tomorrow is Labor Day. So what do we do? We take the day off work, kick back, watch some sports on TV and maybe have BBQ.

Okay...

Traveling from Utah to Idaho along Interstate 84, just over the border, there's a sign that says, "No Stopping Dangerous Dust Storms." Half a mile further on, there's a rest area.

Maybe if the DOT officially sanctions the stop it isn't dangerous after all?

Or my favorite: you have to have so many years experience to get a job. But how do you get the experience if you can't get a job without having experience.

Now that's a Catch 22 if ever there was one.

Contradictory things are so common we have a special word for it - oxymoron (which I used to think was somebody as dumb as an ox): jumbo shrimp, military intelligence, alone together, honest politician (or lawyer), clear as mud.

And, of course, in all things, Murphy Rules.

Sigh. No wonder sometimes I don't know which end is up.

I Don't Know Why I Haven't Killed Him Yet

I tend to give nicknames; Kitsu is KitsuSweetSue, Sachi is BabyCat, I am (intermittently) GrumpoGirl. The Engineer has several nicknames: SnoreBoy, BelovedSpousalUnit, DoctorDemento, ChainsawBob. He's earned them all.

He acquired the ChainsawBob moniker about a month after we moved into this house when he went up on the roof with a chainsaw and cut any branch that hung over the roof. If an airplane flew over the house, the view would be of a perfect, house-shaped, cut-out in the greenery. Whenever he goes to a Master Gardener function with me, everyone calls him Bob. The past president won't let him into her yard until she's frisked him for power tools.

He always waits until I leave before he wrecks his master works.

The vinca jungle used to be full of irises and assorted bulbs and perennials. No more. Whenever he thinks it's looking a little too untamed, he scalps it with the lawn mower. He's killed most all of the flowers, only the vinca, the mighty daylily and the yellow rose survive. He cuts any shrub or small tree into either a ball or a rectangle. He regularly weed whacks my daylilies and violets.

Two summers ago, he decided the juniper on the driveway side of the yard overhung the road too much, so he "took care of it." He cut off all the green outer layer of the old juniper, leaving the bare scrubby trunks and inner branches exposed. I told him it wouldn't grow back. He didn't believe me. It's been two years. It hasn't grown back.

Today I went to the farmers' market, the dry cleaner and the grocery store -- my errands gave him lots of time -- and ChainsawBob struck again

When I got back, he was
strutting around with his chest puffed out and a self-satisfied grin on his face. Big Trash Day, the day that the city picks up anything you put on the curb, is a week away, and he's made himself the biggest pile in the neighborhood. He butchered the driveway side of the juniper he whacked two years ago, essentially giving it a mohawk, and mutilated the junipers in front of the house. The man is damn lucky that I have no idea of where my baseball bat is. I think I would have used it on him today.