Fail: 1, Success: 1
April 2, 2025
Batted .500 on the week in the dinner category.
This should have been great..
…it’s a seared pork tenderloin, laid upon a sheet of puff pastry slathered in mustard and honey, sprinkled with thyme and rosemary, then wrapped, slitted, eggwashed and baked. But it was a big fail! I’ll know next time to roll the puff pastry flatter so that it has a chance to cook through. I won’t over saturated the veggies (in this case broc, though the recipe called for Brussels sprouts) with balsamic reduction. And I won’t overcook the tenderloin (as I try to finish off that damn puff pastry).
I was very bummed.
But redeemed the next night with this!
That would be a sheet pan Greek chicken dish. The marinade was the key to this one: olive oil, mustard, lemon juice, salt, garlic, oregano, thyme and lemon pepper. Both the chicken thighs and the veggies (red onion, yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes, zucchini) were tossed in it. After 30 minutes, I added a cup of kalamata olives and a 1/2 cup of feta and returned it to the oven for 10 more minutes. Tossed with garden parsley. So so good.
April 1st Garden
April 1, 2025
This is where the garden is, as of April 1:
The redbud’s in full bloom, and a bunch of bulbs have come up (not the first, but a good batch)…
The chard’s going gangbusters…
With more on this side, plus some dill, parsley, chives and onions…
And we’ve moved strawberries over here, making it a dedicated strawberry box with borders, to keep the berries from infiltrating everything else… (that’s mint in the planter to the right)…
Platelets Are Hard
March 31, 2025
And by hard, I mean uncomfortable and time consuming. Uncomfortable because you recline in a chair for nearly two solid hours, largely immobilized because your arm’s tethered to a machine and a collection bag, and a needle’s been threaded deep into your vein.
Essentially, they’re drawing blood out, separating and processing the platelets, then putting the platelet-less blood back in. A very weird sensation runs through your body every time your blood reenters the bloodstream from which it was just removed. Your lips tingle and…. it’s hard to explain what it feels like to be wide awake and have blood get pumped back into your body. It’s just odd. You can’t move for most of that two hours and it’s cold. They offer blankets and heated rice bags and while this makes you very dozy, you’re not allowed to nod off. In fact, you’re required to fiddle with a hand-held rice bag in order to keep the blood flowing through the needled arm.
The whole thing makes me antsy. I’ve done it now maybe 5 times (I believe) and have had successful donations only 3 times.. the other donations were stopped partway through for one reason or another (like the time they unknowingly hit the wall of my vein which caused bleeding and hurt like hell, or the time my arm got too cold and the veins shrunk and the process was too slow as a result).
Thing is, there is a huge demand/need for platelets and they are relentless in their pleas for donors. Platelet transfusions are commonly needed for cancer patients and people who’ve lost a lot of blood after an accident, organ transplant or surgery. So in spite of the discomfort and weird factor, it feels good to do something so vital, and I really like the direct person-to-person benefit. They say it’s life saving. Can’t beat that.
Here’s me this morning, covered in rice bags, mustering a smile as best I can.
A Three-Fer
March 30, 2025
March 30 is always a double celebration day. It’s my dad’s birthday — he would have been 98 today (holy cow) — and it’s also the day Jim and I decided to get married, 29 years ago (!), while sitting on the stone wall in Central Park, on a beautiful Farmer’s Market Saturday.
Lovely memories, both.
I’m calling today a three-fer because any day Jim and I get to spend time with Peter and Maya, it’s a special day. Peter texted us this morning suggesting we do a Pub Quiz.. so this evening we did just that. Not a great pic, but here we are… P&M in Ann Arbor, J&K in Davis, Pub Quiz Zooming.
They won, as usual.
Colleague of Old
March 29, 2025
In the way back of my long past career, I knew a guy, John Higgins, who I considered one of the visionary thinkers in our field. He was a midwest practitioner who went on to become a professor in the rhetoric department of University of San Francisco, specializing in media studies, alternative and community media, public access media, and storytelling.. and is also a puppeteer (which I did not know until I read his bio just now).
Turns out, we also have mutual friends in Davis, unrelated to our mutual careers. So.. today, John and his wife MJ were visiting Steve and Megan (leaders in Indivisible Yolo and part of my huge political tribe!). We all met at Farmers Market and, hoo boy, did John and I go down the access rabbit hole.
Here we all are.. John, MJ, me, Megan, and Steve in back.
John and I were in shop talk heaven (was unaware of any picture taking going on.. not even sure who took this)… It was super fun to catch up and reminisce about our field, the incredible changes in technology (internet for starters), and all kinds of professional gossipy stuff.
(Alternative media people dress alike, is the message here.)
I like this shot of Steve and me (we took a moment to discuss an upcoming resistance event… ).
Opening Day
March 28, 2025
Yesterday was the opening day of the 2025 Baseball season. And check out the opening day roster for the Detroit Tigers!
For the non Davis High School Varsity baseball team fans out there, I’ll point out that the roster includes infielder/outfielder Ryan Kreidler, a former teammate of Peter’s (not to mention a kindergarten classmate!). This is not the first year Ryan’s made the opening day roster, but it was still exciting to see his name, as he’s been plagued with injuries for a good percentage of his MLB career and I believe it was touch and go whether he’d make the cut this year.
Ryan’s a great player to watch and a good guy. I hope he has a solid season.
Only We
March 27, 2025
I did a round up a couple of days ago of some of my latest favorite political signs and memes. I somehow left this one out, so I shall post it here.
It speaks to the righteous truth that our country’s future is ours to decide. We are not in good hands with the executive branch of government. And the legislative branch is useless (dems have yet to speak with one compelling voice and reps are in lockstep with their cult leader). The courts are sorta hanging in, but the big one has a few too many conservative ideologues who seem to default to a strong executive branch, so I think we’ll lose more than we’ll gain as cases float up to that court.
Which means that we the people have to rise up in a big way and exert pressure where we can — primarily on our members of Congress. Making a big show, creating huge turnouts for rallies and marches, getting as much media attention as we can … all of that will influence others, which is also vital. We need to not only make our case to our legislators, we have to reach those who sat out the last election, those who were trump curious or Biden averse, those who are now lost and frustrated or scared or whatever. Mass turnouts will show the movement’s power. Mo begets mo.
Point is: It’s up to us.
Davis: California’s Last College Town
March 26, 2025
Came across this today in one of my social media’s video clip thingies..
I really loved this particular angle on the train station. I do adore our sweet, historic train station. The video was all aerials, but frankly, the roofs of downtown Davis are not much to look at. This shot, however, was cool.
Just a Fantastic Spring Day
March 25, 2025
Ah, Monday. Ah, home again. Ah Putah Creek.
Spafford Lake is pretty much done, after a long year-ish of excavation and renovation. Miss the Zelcova.
And some posies:
Always look up.
Our tulip tree is nearing its end for the season.. but wow, what a great month!
Signs of the Time
March 24, 2025
Today was a post-road-trip, re-entry day, and no worthy pics to tell any sort of story… so how about a collection of the best political signs and memes. They most certainly tell a story.
Life of Wry 