yay, cardinal!

Beyond giddy to have gotten a peek-a-boo view of a male Cardinalis cardinalis (Northern Cardinal) on the cedar fence two mornings in a row here in Pittsburgh. I haven’t seen one since I moved, and I don’t know how many years it was before that I last did. I don’t know if I’m more unlucky than average, but for the amount of years I lived in their year-round territory, I’ve seen almost none of them. Like, twice before 1980 and not again.

TGIF (thank dog it’s furday)

If it’s Friday and there’s a Furry convention in Pixburgh, and I’m in town, where else would I be?

Arthrocon: The Fast and the Furrious

planning out a tattoo

Here are some pictures to go with my words so Matt has an idea of what I’m explaining terribly.

My drawing skills peaked in 5th grade with a pencil horse head on loose leaf that people later didn’t believe I drew, so here is a hodgepodge of web images that, cobbled together, would be close to what I see in my head: a heart with a not-too-curlicue ribbon horizontal across the front, pierced by cupid’s arrow from the top right to the bottom left, and, if I can withstand the additional time, offset by my favorite daylily.

Step 1: Start with a sort of Sailor Jerry heart, like the example that says ‘NAME’, similar to the stand-alone, which has a ribbon that is a little bit too froufrou.

Step 2:

Make the red more candy apple red and the texture a little less two-dimensional — sort of like the stand-alone. I just don’t want it to be so shaded that it looks like it’s trying too hard to appear three-dimensional, like the UI of OS X first release did.

Step 3:

Use a more contemporary Flash font, with serif and just a little embellishment, like the home page of The Body Shop website does, to spell out ‘SWEETIE’. Here are some bad examples:

Step 4:

If I’m still in the chair, which is doubtful, add the little flower details like the example, except instead of pansies, use my favorite flower: Hemerocallis ‘Strawberry ‘Candy’. This example appears true to color on the PC I’m using:

If I were made of stronger stuff, I’d use an Anna’s hummingbird up top and Lonicera ‘Goldflame’ on the bottom. That’s what we have in our garden and they are very special to us.

original artwork for you, for free

Artist Vincent Serritella has an amazing project going on. Like the artist El Rey, he believes that original works of art shouldn’t be only the purview of the well-heeled.  Serritella is creating 365 days of free art, one piece per day, one lucky recipient per day. Nothing is more affordable than free. He even mails them to you for no charge — domestically, at least.

This is the Astro Boy that I was super lucky to get. The expression suits me perfectly.

It couldn’t be easier to become part of this movement. Just Like him on Facebook and ask nicely if something strikes your fancy. If you like it but miss the chance to have it, give him a word of encouragement and Share with your Friends. I love this so much I couldn’t Share it fast enough.

Thank you, Vincent.

florence reardon’s oatmeal spice cookies (ovo-vegetarian)

I call these sacred oatmeal spice cookies because they were the only thing I knew that pleased my father besides driving sports cars really fast, flying jets really fast, and drinking beer really fast.

Who’s Flo? Someone my father’s mother knew. His mom used to bake these for him. She also baked really good white bread and was a cold bitch.

Preheat your oven to the most pedestrian of oven temperatures, 350°

Collect these ingredients:

• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 1 cup shortening or butter at room temperature
• 1 cup white sugar or Splenda from that bag you bought at Costco and never used
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached or bleached white flour, whatever
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped finely  (I usually chop them mediumly)
• 2 1/2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats, such as Quaker — not cubicle instant or Martha Stewart steel cut
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I usually double this)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (I usually double this)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda (not powder — these cookies are F-L-A-T)

Combine them thusly:

1. Cream shortening and butter until fluffy.
2. Separately, whisk together eggs, vanilla, spices, and baking soda till mixed.
3. Beat the egg mixture into the shortening mixture.
4. Separately (again — you will wash a lot of bowls), sift the flour, and then measure it.
5. Mix the flour, a little at a time, into the nearly-everything mixture.
6. Fold in the nuts.
7. Fold in the oats.
8. Make a lifestyle choice: bake now or bake later?

If you want to bake now:

1. Drop the batter by rounded tablespoons onto parchment- or shortening-covered cookie sheets.
2. Bake for about 8 minutes, then check for doneness.
3. Remove cookies from the sheet, and cool them on a wire rack. If you leave them on the sheet, they’ll continue to cook. Is this what you want? Sometimes, yes. But if the cookies are the perfect crispiness when you take them out of the oven, you do not want this.

If you want to bake later:

1. Divide dough in half.
2. On waxed paper, which is so old school you might not have, but was the only thing we had at the time to wrap our bologna sandwiches for our lunch boxes, shape into two rectangular logs.
3. Wrap ’em up, secure with tape, and toss in the freezer, laying them flat somehow, like on a Tofurkey box.
4. Tick tock, tick tock, Clarice. Time goes by and the cookies await. HOW CAN YOU STAND IT? You can freeze until the Apocalypse, but the longer the dough is in the freezer, the more it tastes like freezer.
5. When you’re ready to bake, disrobe the logs, cut widthwise into quarter-inch chunks, and bake as described previously, for 8 to 10 minutes.

Play with your oven settings till you like the results. If you use a convection setting, babysit at the 8-minute mark; they go from almost done to unpleasantly overdone in a flash.

Retirement budget needs adjusting

Apparently, the armchair budget for LA real estate is going to require a major (98%) budget adjustment.

pith

life is the pursuit of joy in a world of sorrow.

me ol’ bamboo

We finally began planning and poking around in the back yard for the placement of our mini bamboo grove. We’ve established:

 

• We can lift most of the "sod" by means of the manual d-thatching rake. Should take infinity.
• The hardpan begins about four inches below the moss.
• We need to excavate and till 50 feet by 8 feet.
• I’ve lost several of the tags so the green varieties will be a surprise to watch for 3 years until they reveal their full character.
• The dogs will enjoy rolling around the fresh earth but will likely not coordinate in a cooperative digging plan.
• The otherwise adoring Mr. A may not be so so adoring by project’s end.

Perro Gordo: Max’s belly

Max’s belly

http://images.soapbox.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf
Video: Max’s belly

Tombstoning Tour ’07!

I was concerned about spending so many days on a tiny island in remote Cornwall … well, about getting on a few planes, too, but then the media informed me that I’m headed to the trendiest place for middle agers in all of extreme Europe. All the kids are doing it, and now so are the old farts — the old farts who have been drinking all night and forget what time the tide went out and dive head first into the drink while their sober neighbors prepare for work.

If the tombstone thrill wears off, we can try car surfing, to see how many cheers we can draw on the high street. Man, England is fun!

Leap in the dark kills a drinker as ‘tombstoning’ thrill spreads

From The Times
June 18, 2007
By Patrick Foster
A man was killed and another injured yesterday in two episodes of “tombstoning”, in which thrill-seekers leap from cliffs into the sea.

Coastguards are preparing for further injuries as the summer months attract millions of holidaymakers to Britain’s seaside.

At least two people have previously been killed taking part in the extreme activity.

A man aged 46 died yesterday after leaping 30ft (9m) into the sea at Berry Head, Brixham, South Devon, at low tide at 1.30am.

The man, from nearby Torquay, had been drinking with friends at a disused limestone quarry before jumping from the top of a building.

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall police said: “This was apparently some kind of stunt which the male had performed many times before.

“Ambulance service paramedics, coastguards, the Torbay lifeboat and police officers attended the scene. They worked vigorously on the male in a very dangerous location on the rocks near the water’s edge. Resuscitation was carried out but the male was pronounced dead at the scene.”

In Cornwall a man aged 29 was taken to hospital after being knocked unconscious when he jumped from a cliff into the sea. A spokesman for Falmouth coastguard said that the incident, at Trevaunance Cove, near St Agnes, happened at 6.49am. He said: “This is the second incidence of people jumping off cliffs into water – sometimes known as tombstoning – which coastguards in the South West have dealt with overnight.

“This incident could just as easily have resulted in a fatality. This man lost consciousness as he hit the water and became severely hypothermic.”

It is thought that the man had been drinking with friends throughout the night.

Tombstoning had until recently been seen as the preserve of West Country teenagers, but coastguards say that it has now been embraced by alcohol-fuelled adults seeking to emulate the younger jumpers.

Police and coastguards admit that, for those who know the terrain and tides, it can be kept within safe limits. But there is danger for those who want to push it farther – by jumping at night, for example – and for holidaymakers who are unaware of the rocks lurking beneath the waves.

James Instance, watch manager at Falmouth coastguard, said: “It isn’t just teenagers and children doing it. On Friday and Saturday nights there are adults jumping after they’ve had a few drinks.

“We can’t stop people. There is no legislation in place. There are so many harbours and cliffs that it’s impossible. If you know the area well, and the tides, then you may be able to do it safely. It’s been going on for years, but people come down here on holiday, they don’t realise how the tides work and they get hurt.”

In the past police have threatened jumpers with ASBOs, but the thousands of miles of cliffs would make an order almost impossible to enforce.

It is less than two weeks since Gus Courtney, 39, broke his neck and back in four places after diving from a 15ft wall into two feet of seawater.

The former lifeguard, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, was visiting family in Lyme Regis, Dorset, and now faces spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Gary Fildew, 23, a chef, died in an almost identical accident at Long Quarry Point, Torbay, in 2005. Later that year an 18-year-old man suffered head injuries and a 21-year-old Australian bodyboarder broke both legs while tombstoning near Porthleven, south Cornwall.