Life of Wry

I chose a recipe for tonight based on ingredients I had on hand, and wow was it good! It was my first Christopher Kimball recipe, which I debuted in 2020 — the year of my return to the kitchen. (Pandemic? Nothing else to do? If not now, when?)

I think he called it “Roasted Chicken with Tomatoes and Herbs” or somesuch. Chris Kimball recipes are known for their intense flavor, and this was no exception.

You start by putting into an oven-proof pan: red onions, tomato, garlic, olive oil, herbs (he calls for fresh oregano and rosemary, both of which I have, but it was raining and I didn’t want to get wet/muddy, so I used a big handful of dry Italian spice blend), salt and pepper. Toss that all together, then add chicken broth and wine and push the whole concoction to the perimeter. Then you salt and pepper some chicken (I used b/s thighs) and add them to the center of the pan, stick it in the oven and bake for 40 minutes at 450. At the end of the roasting part, there’s supposed to be a lot of liquid in the pot that you are then to reduce, but in the three times I’ve made this dish, there has been no liquid at the end of the roasting part, not sure why. Still, I put the pan on the stove as directed–removing the chicken first–added some lemon juice and more olive oil and warmed and whisked all that together. This is one intense sauce! You add the chicken back and serve (over rice in our case). Hoo boy, it’s good. And easy to make.

A couple shots.

This is the onion, tomato, garlic, s/p, herbs and oil:

And this is the finished product over brown basmati, with broccolini, and some Sonoma-Cutrer chardonnay (since it was the only wine I had and needed to be opened and used as cooking wine).

Yes, ma’am! Won’t wait three years to make this again.

When ants invade….

I’m tellin’ ya: I’m outa patience on this ant thing. Out of patience, unamused, so over it, at my wits end.

The rains in the last few days have brought the ants back with a vengeance.. they’re in all their old haunts, and have discovered a few new ones. I’m overwhelmed, bordering on despair, and very tired of our soapy water solution (which drowns the ants but doesn’t eliminate them). I swore, yelled and said some very nasty things to the ants in the laundry room tonight, then I marched into Jim’s office and made my petulant little announcement that I’m not going to clean them up anymore. I’m done being nice to the ant race, I want poison in the form of a professional service that will come out and take care of my problem in exchange for money, and at the expense of the environment and animalkind. I don’t care anymore. Jim–Mr Sensible, Mr This Doesn’t Bother Me, Mr Patience for all things–assures me they will go away when Northern California finally dries up, and in the meantime, he’ll reposition the environmentally-approved, colony-killer pods we spent a lot of money on (which should–but don’t seem to–work) to some more strategic and, importantly, dry locations around our perimeter, including one at the front door. Maybe this time, it’ll work! It’s been my observation, however, that the ants don’t come in through doors and windows. They simply, mysteriously, materialize in random places, seemingly through walls and through floors.

Actually, I don’t wanna talk about this anymore. I’m too frustrated. I’m going to bed and letting the ants do their ant thing while we sleep in a so-far untouched-by-ants bedroom. I just don’t have a blog in me.

~~

So, instead, how about some cranky humor? This has nothing whatsoever to do with ants, but it kind of checks off the cranky box!

Good night!

I’m pretty impressed with my point-and-shoot nighttime photography. Thank you iPhone camera technology. You do me proud.

We exited the Odd Fellows Hall last night (after seeing The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming)…. and the sky was mostly clear, the air crispy cold.

Check out the stars!

I particularly like the brightness of our current calendula bloom. The Poppies are Coming, the Poppies are Coming!

Down ballot, that is.

The [somewhat suggestive] slogan is meant to spur dems to vote in every race that appears on their ballots. This is because republicans tend to cast their votes in all ballot races, while democrats’ interest and attention seem to fade before they get to the end of their ballot. This is an empirical fact. Weird, huh?

At the annual Sister District Summit today (in Berkeley), someone shared the statistic that in the 2020 election in Michigan, for example, there were something like 167,000 people who case a vote for Biden, but who did not vote in the down-ballot races. Presumably, most of those voters were democrats. Many of those down-ballot candidates were candidates in state races and lost by tiny margins. They would certainly have won if dems had simply completed their ballots. I mean really, dems. What the heck.

Extremely important policy decisions are made at the state level.. think gerrymandering and reproductive rights for two. The courts look to be tossing a whole lot more the states’ way, too, so dems need to get control of those state houses.

Here’s what SD says about the importance of focusing on those state races:

Voter and media attention (and money) seems to go towards the high profile races, ignoring the down ballot races and state level elections. That’s why if we focus instead on these smaller (seeming) races, we can have a very large impact. Your $100 goes a lot farther in a state legislature race than in a presidential or senate contest.

Anyway… I knew all that, but got reminded and re-energized today. As you do at conferences!

Here are a couple more pics:

Davis was well-represented today: Don, Sue, Tim, Chris and me (not pictured, another Davis gal, Kathy). Many others had conflicts or got covid (or at least a bad cold) at the last minute.

Most of the presentations were excellent, but this was my favorite… it’s the executive director of SD national, Lala Wu, interviewing Anat Shenker-Osorio. Anat is a communications expert, researcher and political pundit whose work, they say, is changing the way progressives talk about everything from immigration to international arms control. 

She was sharp and compelling. I’m planning to read whatever writings I can get my hands on.

And yeah, she’s wearing a pink tutu.

After the day’s presentations, Chris and I went to the Claremont Hotel for a drink… (see Golden Gate, Alcatraz in front of the setting sun)…

Then joined conference goers at Comal on Shattuck for dinner (great). Here’s a view from Shattuck, looking west as the sunset got even better…

This afternoon, heading back from Vacaville, I decided to veer north along 505, then cut back west along Putah Creek Road to get a closer-up view of the SNOW in the Berryessa Hills. A super fun event for us valley folk.

I took some shots through the windshield (never a good idea), and pulled over to get better (safer) shots along the side of the road. Some of us valley/city folk apparently don’t know how to avoid rainsoaked, roadside mud.

Hoo boy. Stuck.

Some Facebook posts, texts, calls, and a conversation with a nice sheriff (who stopped to check out my stuckness and called an AAA towing service in Winters) later, I was bailed outa my mess. A mere hour of somewhat amusing drama. I was completely grateful for the kindnesses of friends who offered suggestions — including offers of help. Made me feel not so alone out there on a remote road.

The sheriff’s advice: NEVER drive off the road this time of year. And I have to say, it was a bit of a sick feeling, when I pulled off the pavement, to feel myself slide slowly sideways. It’s also quite weird to gas the car and feel your tires just spin and get completely NO traction. Deeper and deeper you go. And the mud spray!

I was gratified (well, validated) that the tow truck driver also failed to get my car out (here he is backing up, but still getting stuck):

Then came the chain and a tow:

This is my self-made rut. The ground was smooth (if gooshy) before I got there…. Sorry Mr. Farmer!!

And I finally got home… with most of the mud spray (including that huge turd-like blob on the hood) still intact..

BUT… I did manage a few really pretty pictures of the hills before heading home:

And some random valley shots.. from the drive out to Vacaville, and back from Winters…

So, how’s about a Thursday Throwback? Haven’t done one of those in awhile.

Kinda funny, twelve years ago, Peter was about… 12.. so, he was at his half-way point. For what that’s worth.

This memory came up on Facebook today (have I ever said how much I LOVE the daily Facebook memories feature?).

The comments were pretty funny, too:

And a few more pictures from February 2011, just to put a picture to the voice. Snow trip (Tahoe with the Shawskis and a bunch of other 12 year olds), baseball (Peter on the mound for Crush, and his beloved coach Tim), friends (from Chavez)…

(Brandon, Daniel, Eli, Jack and Peter…)

And because I love this picture so much…. a close up:

Also, just my opinion, you sure do have a life, honey!!

Love you so.

Our front yard’s doing its thing.

Tulip tree’s coming….

It’s worth also noting that we’re about to get some weather, as a storm’s about to roll through. Temps will be back down in the 30s, looks like some rain.. some even say it could snow in Davis. But even if no snow here at the 50-foot elevation level, there will likely be a dusting on the Berryessa hills.. that should be pretty.

Here’s one more.. not a fantastic photo, but it was a dramatic walk home from lunch today: a grey, blue, white sky, deep purple blossoms on trees in the Central Park garden, white sycamore tree trunks… mmm, mmmm.

Lucky me!

I have a kiddo who not only writes crazy amazing things (I presume) that are well beyond my comprehension (absolutely), but he seeks the editorial input of his parents on said incomprehensible research papers.

I read his papers and understand not a thing. The words are in english and they appear in sentences, but beyond that: gobbledygook. Still…. editing his papers is doable (and trippy), since it’s just a matter of correcting spelling and punctuation and in some cases format. I can point out inconsistencies (like, you hyphenate Navier-Stokes in this paragraph, but not this one, honey) without knowing whatof I speak.

It reminds me of the job I had for about a year at Transcend … many years ago (post DCTV, post-consulting, pre-full-on-retirement) where I edited translated documents in numerous foreign languages (from English) without knowing those languages….there were the easy ones like Spanish and French, and the hard ones like Tagalag, Chinese, and so many of the Arabic languages with entirely different characters. I just had to match text, page by page, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence to make sure all the words were there, the font treatments carried over, the punctuation was the same… etc. One didn’t need to know the language. It’s kinda the same thing with Peter’s papers. In his case, I’m not comparing it to an original document, but neither am I reading for content… so it’s fairly straight forward.

I love the detail of that kind of work.

And I love reviewing all my edits with him when I’m done. I love hearing him consider my changes… like, does this sentence really need a comma, is an m-dash better than a colon, should this paragraph be indented, is Monte Carlo (in the physics context) hyphenated? I love the way he defends his decisions, or agrees they could benefit from a change.

He’s so blippin’ knowledgeable, so in command of his material. He’s also genuinely nice, appreciative and grown up. He is a pleasure to work with!

How about that.

I also loved hearing about the changes suggested by Jim and by Aaron (his advisor professor). We all see different things (and many of the same things, too).

Takes a village.

So this was a 32-page paper, including one appendix and two pages of references. Took me hours to read!! I loved that when I got to the end and was glancing at the references, I saw one of Peter’s papers. He cited himself! For which he gets professional credit (citings are a big deal in the research paper world). When I asked him about it, he acknowledged it was very intentional and indeed would elevate his standings, so to speak. But more importantly, he actually used the work of that earlier paper to inform this paper. For realz. So funny.

As I said… I just feel so grateful, and happy for him, and proud. He’s doing things he loves, he’s good at it, he’s happy. In addition to his research and paper writing (and publishing), he’s TA’ing this semester, which has been (as far as we’ve heard), quite an experience (time consuming!). The professor (Aaron) is out of town this week so he asked Peter to conduct the lecture on Thursday (I believe it’s a basic fluids for engineers class and has some 80-100 students in it?). That oughta be .. fun? Scary? Challenging? He’s also heading up a collaboration with a researcher or two from another university (UCSD, of all places!) and that’s a new and important experience. So… all in all: things are hopping in A2.

This tree.. hmm… is it an almond? Whatever it is, it’s his favorite spring tree in his favorite alley. Its blooming every year makes me so happy because it makes him so happy. This photo is a bit disappointing; it doesn’t come close to capturing the loveliness of this alley and tree — honestly, it was far prettier in person — but I post it anyway.

The shadows are too dark and the detail in the tree is washed out. You have to imagine the quiet morning on our walk to an early Sunday brunch.. maybe add a bird or two chirping. The air is icy cold, but the sun is starting to warm things up. The sun was still low in the sky and the light through the alley was dappled. I love the tunnel effect of the canopied trees.. but that’s even hard to appreciate here. So: oh well.

There is a huge hole in my American cultural life.. lots of holes, actually: a million books I’ve never read, music I know very little about and don’t even get me started on video gaming, or fan fiction, or tiktok…

But thanks to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Davis, I am filling the American Movie Classic hole. Well, hardly filling. There are more movies in the world than I have time left to watch, but I’m scratching the surface a bit, which is pretty fun. The Odd Fellows has been offering fall and spring series of classic films — four films in a series — for ten years. Darrick Bang is the movie guru who introduces the films and adds all manner of trivia and cool information about the production, the stars, the backstories. He’s so damn knowledgeable and entertaining (takes me back to the earliest days of DCTV when Darrick produced one of our first-ever shows, a movie review show, the name of which escapes me, that was one of the most impressive displays of knowledge, efficiency and poise I’ve ever seen).

I believe this is only our second — maybe third — series. The pandemic interrupted everything just as we were getting into a seasonal rhythm, but we’re back now and tonight was night one of the 2023 spring series.

This time around the theme is war comedies. I would NEVER think I’d enjoy such a thing, but you sorta can’t help it when Darrick plies you with the rich and interesting stories behind these films. They’re usually film titles you’re familiar with and certainly feature stars you feel like you should know. I’m always like, so THAT’S fill-in-the-blank-mega-star-from-the-olden-days.

I always walk out of the Odd Fellows hall with a feeling of improved cultural self esteem. Let’s hear it for cultural competency!

Tonight we saw this film from 1949:

It was long, it was a bit over the top silly, but I still enjoyed it. A huge part of that is about getting a look at the era. The attitudes, the sexism, the cigarettes, the humor, the dialogue. People were watching this movie almost 75 years ago! The characters in the film were somewhere in their twenties.. as were my parents when they saw it (presuming they did… probably date night while in college or grad school).

So yeah.. filling a cultural hole AND connecting with my parents. That’s a win.