Since I'm not including a fascinating year-in-review newsletter in my Christmas cards this year, I thought I should let you know my major accomplishments of the year.
By then end of December, I will have:
Yes, for me, this is big. Yeah, I also got a new digital camera, too, but I have pretty consistently been willing to fork out cash for cameras, so that's not earth-shattering.
What's really cool about the three items above is I'm only paying for the DSL -- the other two were free.
Now, I don't want to go overboard, but I'm thinking that by the end of 2007, I might just have my very own electric clothes dryer!*
*Ok, to be fair, I have a clothes dryer in the basement that runs, but it's ca. 1950, and I'm too terrified of its energy consumption and fire-starting capabilities to use it.
Political signs placed in the right-of-ways were a big no-no this year, as I mentioned before.
But some people figured out that if they placed signs there last night (or this morning or whenever), their signs would remain throughout the day because the DOH was off work for election day. The most egregious display I saw was the median of Route 705, but there were signs elsewhere, too, and from both political parties.
My voting experience was without incident. I used one of the touch-screen machines. My precinct had at least three of these machines, or maybe even four.
I am still not crazy about voting out in the open. The machines and the sign-in and check-out tables are all in one relatively small space, so you're there with all the poll workers and the people waiting in line with no barrier between you and everyone else. And the poll workers are a jovial lot, so there's conversation and the usual greetings as people they know come in to vote. I know it wasn't possible for anyone to see my screen, but I'd prefer to be enclosed so I could concentrate a little better.
Tonight I attended a parade for the first time in eons. I observed the following:
I found myself buying a lot of squash and zucchini this summer, so I decided to make a small addition to my small garden using the "lasagna" gardening technique. I'm referring to it as Squash Annex.
Kudzu's root systems are much like that of potatoes or other tubers. If left alone, they keep growing and can become large masses weighing several hundred pounds.
It took 33 years, but I finally developed some appreciation for the dreadful humidity we are subject to in this area. Oh, this doesn't mean I'm going to quit complaining, but inwardly, I'll be more appreciative.
You see, I took a trip to the southwest earlier this year. And that was before the summer heat and wild fires got going.
Having lived my whole life in a place where grass is pretty much standard - and sometimes unwanted - it was initially fascinating to be in the "high desert." In New Mexico, the first southwestern state I visited, the different colored rocks were very interesting to me, and I was consumed by taking pictures of nearly everything.
Gradually, the aridness started getting to me.
I marveled at how people could live out in the middle of predominately flat, dry land. Cattle grazed on what appeared to be nothing more than dust, rock, and the occasional mound of sagebrush.Think how giddy those cows would be if they were magically transported to the mid-Ohio valley where there's grass galore.
By the time I got to southern Colorado, I was beginning to get a little depressed. OK, maybe it was partially because of the intermittent altitude sickness I suffered when we climbed above 8,000 ft.
Dust blew. The dryness parched my nasal passages. I wished for rain. We camped on a dry, barren, rocky hillside, and I found myself rather edgy. I wanted water, just to see it. A puddle would have been nice, but something more substantial like a creek would have been preferred.
I recalled of the terrible summers we had in WV in the 1980s, when I remember walking on brittle, brown grass and the Little Kanawha sunk down yards from its normal shoreline. I'd felt the same way back then, like the world was coming to an end.
We drove on through Colorado, driving over places that were labeled rivers and creeks but were nothing more than dried-up ditches. I had previously considered the Little Kanawha a small river. Not any more.
When we got to Colorado Springs, we got a campsite beside a small stream with flowing water! There were huge trees on the bank of the stream. Gloriously huge trees. We admired them, to the point that we asked the owners of the campground what kind they were. Cottonwoods! No matter what he had said, I would have decided they were the most beautiful trees ever.
And eventually, somewhere in Kansas, I exclaimed happily, "Look! Trees on the hills!"
So I don't take it for granted any more. And humidity - well, with humidity at least there's a little hope for rain, so I'm OK with it. Well, more OK with it than I used to be.
I have a list of things that go in my suitcase. A list for the duffle bag. A list for the carry-on bag. A list of things to take out of my purse. A to-do list, broken down by day, of all the things I have to accomplish before departing. A list of things to get at the grocery store. A list --
Well, you get the picture. My life is presently a mess of lists, and I've yet to make it to the end of any of these lists before either losing it or discarding it and making another list. It seems I'm more of a list-maker, rather than a list follow-througher (um, you know what I mean). Or perhaps I just need a list that prioritizes the other lists.
Somehow, I hope to be leaving for vacation in a few days...
Now that the radishes are ready to be picked -- all three rows of the things -- I've realized that there really isn't all that much to do with them besides eat A LOT of salad.
Even if they aren't terribly versatile, I do find them rather attractive. Perhaps I'll just use them to decorate.
I can't remember where I first ate Indian cuisine. It was either in Washington, DC, or Morgantown. Regardless, I fell in love quickly with Indian food, especially chicken curry.
A friend gave me an Indian cookbook several years ago, but it wasn't until recently that I got the courage to try some of the recipes. I've made 3 or 4 of the dal recipes several times, to the point that I'm comfortable enough with the recipes to change them to suit my own tastes and available ingredients.
This is the lentil base, made with pink lentils, turmeric, and, of course, water.
And then here's the "tempering oil", which has cumin seeds, fresh ginger, minced garlic, onions, serrano peppers, dried red chiles, and canola oil. I've taken to reducing the amount of oil in my version, adding a couple of extra chiles and extra lemon or lime juice, and in this batch I threw in some fresh spinach from my garden. This goes into the lentils once they're finished cooking. Mmmmmmm.
Because I don't particularly like cooking (esp. the cleaning up part of cooking), I double the recipe and spoon the dal over basmati rice at each serving, which allows me to eat most of the week on one batch.
I've tried a couple of the potato recipes, and so far I haven't been blown away by the results.
The latest I tried (above) was spinach potatoes, which called for potatoes and spinach (duh), onions, ground coriander, ground ginger, garlic, ground cumin, cumin seeds, fennel seeds (I learned I'm not too keen on fennel seeds), dried red chiles, canola oil, and who knows what else I'm forgetting. Oh yeah, garam masala. It was OK, but I probably won't bother making it again. I like the various dals much better.
"Gathered around our 'hardscrabble,' wide-screen, high definition televisions, we shared that pain."
That's the tip of the iceberg. My advice is to never, ever click on the Discuss link. Just save yourself the lost sleep and elevated blood pressure.
Meanwhile, a Kansas-based "hate group, which operates as Westboro Baptist Church", is planning to picket the community memorial service planned for Jan. 15 at Wesley Chapel in Buckhannon. The Buckhannon Record-Delta reports that they were informed that 10 to 15 picketers would be in attendance from 1:30-2 p.m. Jan. 15.
If you have the stomach for it, Jerry has the group's fax celebrating the death of the miners posted on his site. Keep in mind that this is the same group known for picketing soldiers' funerals.
It baffles and deeply disturbs me that there's more than one person in this country who believes that picketing funerals is an appropriate means of advancing their cause.
Disgusting.
