Moose and Squirrel

Alex sent me this photo of Joma and Kermit with the title "Moose and Squirrel."

Why I'm Quiet

I had surgery on my left hand last Thursday.

The condition is called a "contracture" and it is a gradual tightening of a tendon. This one was in my left index finger, making my finger bend inward. It's been years since it started, and I wasn't worried about it, until this past year, when it seemed to be getting worse rapidly.

Now it's taken care of, the doctor says. In a week, stitches will come out and the mini-cast will come off. In the mean time, typing is a challenge. Well, actually, anything I'd normally do two-handed is a challenge.

But I did walk with Kermit again this morning, and we saw a glorious red sunrise come up through the hazy sky.

Puppies

Just in case anyone was wondering how Kermit is fitting into the household...

Joma is four years old. Kermit is 10 months old. And while we still make sure that Joma is safely out of harm's way when Kermit gets silly-puppy-gallops, he's as gentle as a stuffed toy with her. She does get frustrated when he gets in between her and where she wants to be, mostly because there is no way she can shove him hard enough to make him move.

Joma's shirt? She adores playing "soccer" with kids her age. As you can imagine, it mostly involves kicking a ball and screaming while racing around madly.

28 Pounds

Yes, I did. I picked 28 pounds of tomatoes from my front yard garden.

Bernie snagged probably another pound for his salsa before I got to the scales.

This has been a great year for my tomatoes, with Shady Ladies and Early Girls vying for the prettiest production. However, the tomatoes in the silver bowl are on reserve -- no one who is ambivalent about the taste of tomatoes should eat them, because they are Bush Big Boy, and definitely the best-tasting tomato I've had since I was a kid, and Mom raised Big Boys.

I'm going to go eat one of them now.

P.S. Bernie and I froze five pounds of zucchini this morning, and seven pounds of sweet corn yesterday afternoon. That'll take the bite out of winter!

What?

Since people are not supposed to hang clothes outdoors, according to a city ordinance, I chose to hang some in my living room. 

Fortunately my living room has some large indoor plants -- they got so large I had the roof removed.

And anyone who knows me can tell you that my dog is an indoor dog, as you can tell by his shadowy figure on the rug.

I find that sitting in my comfortable chair in my living room, with my laptop in my lap and my laundry hung from the walls is a very soothing environment, absolutely wonderful for writing.

Artistic, yes? I love this idea of wall-hangings.

Morning Camp

When you camp out, one of the sweetest activities you have is to build a fire, in the evenings to light the night, in the morning to warm you up after you crawl out of your tent.

Kermit and I get up around five-thirty, mumble around doing what we have to do, and then hit the streets (and/or the river walk) by six, and creep in the northside gate around a quarter to seven or so. On select mornings, Bernie has a stack of kindling in the chiminea ready for ignition on the back patio, and my tea water on simmer at the back of the stove.

I must say that on mornings like today, when the temps are still in the 50s, that morning campfire feels mighty good. The sun comes up and adds to the thawing effect on our old bones, whispering to us that soon there will be no point in a fire, that if we are at all cool at 7am, we should count ourselves lucky.

Yes, I will. But I'm very lucky now, too, to sit and sip tea by the morning camp.

Awakened at 2 AM

We were awakened by John booming something about an accident on the street, sometime around 2 am. Bernie went to investigate; I blearily got up and took Kermit out, as puppies have to go when they're rallied from sleep, even if they don't usually get up until six. By the time I got out front, the truck that made those tire tracks in my neighbor's grass had been pushed back off our rosemary bush.

Apparently the driver had fallen asleep.

Right. In point of fact, he had been drinking, according to Bernie and John, who had conversed with the fool before the police arrived and arrested him for DUI. (I missed that drama as well. Thanks, Kermit.)

The wreck knocked down the fence; the truck got hung up in the rosemary bush -- a wild, unruly shrub that I've been itching to yank out for years. Glad I didn't, as it kept the truck from killing my tomatoes and baby shade trees behind it. A couple hours after I took this picture, we did indeed take out the rosemary -- the truck had snapped it off at the roots.

Amazingly, the simple construction of the fence allowed it to be pushed over before it broke, so Bernie was able to pull it upright and pound it back in with a mallet. It looks like it did before. Rustic, maybe, but pretty durable.

Can't say the same for the neighbor's car.

That driver sideswiped her car from tail-lights to headlights, and pushed it up onto the sidewalk. That crunching sound was what woke John up.

Did the driver actually fall asleep, or did he pass out? Judging from how long the destruction went on, I'd say the latter. Shame on him for driving when he was that drunk.

Kermit and Eperis - Dogs

Well, why not take some pictures of our dogs -- especially when they are actually behaving themselves instead of wrestling and crashing around the house? This day, they were tussling and roaring so loudly that we just opened up the back doors and let them take their rowdiness outside. And did they? No, they did not. They settled down on the pool deck and sunbathed quietly.

Kermit is proving to be a wonderful puppy. Based on some physical characteristics, and opinions of other Labrador retriever owners, we've revised his estimated age down a bit. He's only about eight months old.

However, our daily walks are getting much better. He doesn't drag me much at all, and I've become more confident about walking with him. We wake up before six in the morning, and then walk for about 40 minutes before breakfast.

His worst trait? He's still pining for the kids in the family that abandoned him. He sees or hears the kids at school up the street and he just goes into a frantic mood, trying to go to them and find his lost kids. I simply cannot walk him on the street where the school is, except on the weekends.

On Sunday mornings, Bernie and I have been taking Kermit with us when we go to 7am Mass. It's shady and cool where we park, and he can easily wait in the car. The early Mass is a quick one, no music or frills. After Mass, we take him to a dog park in Modesto where he can run loose and chase tennis balls or meet other dogs.

The big surprise is Eperis. Once Kermit entered the household, Ep stopped being a scooty little snotball, and has stepped up his game and become a responsible role model for the younger dog.

When they do get to chasing each other around the yard, Ep likes to evade Kermit by jumping into the pool. Kermit doesn't know how Eperis manages to run in the water yet, but I think in another month Ep will have lured him all the way in.

And of course, Eperis cannot be outdone in cuteness. He knows exactly how to get a belly rub.

There, I've blogged about two good dogs. They're a lot more fun to look at than James Franco.

Why My Teeth Fell Out After Seeing "Oz the Great and Powerful"

Now I know.

The ladies of this household all trooped off to SuperCuts and our favorite hair stylist, Anna, on Saturday afternoon. While Lil was having her massive mane sheared off, I happened to glance at the stack of magazines and saw this magazine with the cover artfully torn.

No, I didn't do it, but I'd like to shake the hand that did.

Big Dog

Kermit the Dog

10 months at most

Alotta cubic feet of canine

Kermit

This is Kermit.

On the evening of March 16, we picked him up at the veterinary clinic. He and I dragged each other around the corner so that we'd have a relatively quiet street to see if we could get him into the car without a crane.

"Let's see if he knows anything about cars," we said, and opened the rear hatch of the Vibe. SPROING! Kermit landed in the back on all fours and -- plunked himself down on the carpet as if riding in a car was something he did all the time.

Earlier that day I had tidied our room, moved some small furniture to make a floor space available, brought in a new water dish, and put down an old blanket for a mat for Kermit to sleep on. I was anticipating having Kermit on a leash 24 hours a day for a few days, to accustom him to Pilarski civilization, keeping him apart from the rest of the household until he was calmed down.

Pffft. He came into the house, sniffed around our room, tried to climb onto the bed. "Aha!" I thought. "He knows what a bed is for." He also knew what the word "Off" meant. He quite readily made use of the blanket mat, so he knew what that was for, too. After a bit, I took him outside, and he knew what a good dog does outside.

In spite of my decision to keep him off the bed, when Bernie crawled under the covers, Kermit lay down right against his legs, and our resolve melted. Kermit slept in between us all night, and even though he is a BIG dog, he took up less space than Ep does when he sleeps with us.

Okay, so this dog knows how to sleep with people, too. He's housebroken, his toenails were cut by a professional groomer, he's sweet, loves people, he's gentle. He doesn't bark. Why in heaven's name would someone just dump him? He was at the animal shelter for over two weeks, and no one tried to find him.

Did someone think that the puppy they were raising was going to stay small? And were not willing to pay the $70 live surrender fee to the shelter? Maybe.

Thursday morning, Kermit got to walk around the house. He met John and Joma (Alex and Lil had paid him a visit on Wednesday) and was polite and happy, and then it was Eperis' turn.

They did okay, too. Ep was a little pissed at another dog in the house, but his herding skills kicked right in and he corralled Kermit in the middle of the living room. Kermit loved it.

We're trying to keep Kermit a little quiet until his incision is healed, but soon he and Eperis are going to have some rowdy times together.

So I've got a dog to wake me at 6:30 with kisses and crashing cuddles. Beats an alarm clock any day.

Yeah, he does look like Sebastian, doesn't he?

Guess I'll Have Those Words on a Sandwich, Pass the Dill Pickles

Too big. Too messy. Too much of a chance.

I was sure he wasn't the dog for me, the timing wasn't right, I didn't have time for a dog, blah, blah, blah.

Then Bernie and I went for a walk around the block. On the other side of Zumstein Street, a little dog ran out of a yard. "There he goes," I said to Bernie as the mutt scrambled down the sidewalk at full speed. But as the dog came past the cars parked over there, he dashed forward, across the street ... right at me. Wiggling madly, he came to my feet to greet me with recognition and delight. There was one white dot on the back of his little red neck, a dot that looked exactly like the dot on the back of the neck of a shelter dog called "Hoagie" that I had met and petted months before -- like last August. "Can this be Hoagie?" I said, just as his owner came running across the street, shouting, "Hoagie!"

"It IS Hoagie! I met this dog at the shelter," I explained to his owner. Bernie and I chatted with Brett for a while, then we went on our ways. I was glad to see that Hoagie had found such a doting owner.

Yet it gave me food for thought. If Hoagie, a dog I petted in passing six months ago, remembered me, what must that big pup think of someone who spent twenty minutes petting and playing with him, someone who just turned around and walked away and never came back?

I'd referred to him (after I met him when talking to Alex) as "that froggy mutt down at the shelter." And standing by my bedroom door looking out at the rain, I thought, "What would I do, call him 'Froggy?' Stupid name for a dog." And I'm not kidding, I heard something like a small voice say, His name is Kermit.

We went down to see him again this morning. Oh, boy, did he ever recognize me. We took him to the Adoption Room to let him interact with us in a quiet setting; we were impressed with his calmness mixed with happy spirits. He didn't bark, he didn't jump. He sat beside me, he came when we clapped for him. I put a leash on him to test how hard I'd have to pull on him to get his attention and direction ... not much at all. And then, on the leash, he just lay down and relaxed.

He'll visit the vet in the morning when Animal Control takes him there for neutering, and by evening, I will have a big, smelly dog with me, a dog named Kermit.

Not Him Either

Last week I went down to the local Animal Shelter to look at a dog. Alex had been down there volunteering, and came home with a tale of a nice puppy reputed to be a Labrador Retriever/German Shepherd mix.

We took him to an outside run and messed with him for about 20 minutes, then I had Alex call Bernie and tell him to come down and look at the dog, too. For having been in an animal shelter kennel for more than a week, he was remarkably mellow, and easily came to lean against my legs; he had a happy demeanor, and was willing to sit. His feet were enormous, though; plainly, even though he was a big puppy, he is going to be a much larger adult. I didn't really see any Shepherd in him, but the Lab was quite evident.

On a whim, Bernie dragged me off to an adoption event at German Shepherd Rescue of Modesto. We petted German Shepherds for about half an hour, big ones, puppies, in-betweens. We came home without a new dog.

The next evening, Alex and John had to go out of town, leaving us in charge of the girls. And of Eperis, who naturally slept in our bed with us because he believes that dogs do sleep in beds with people.

When I woke in the morning, Ep was already watching me, ready for a snuggle. Then I knew that the shelter dog was not for me. That huge puppy would require attention 24/7 for a long time, and I'm not willing to give up the interaction I have with Ep.

The other thing that I realized, thinking about the dogs I'd looked at over the weekend, was that all the German Shepherds we petted didn't really speak to us: they were all looking for their foster-owners. All looking for someone else. And the part-Lab? He wasn't looking for us, he was looking for anybody.

The Lab would have been too big to be a lap dog, anyway, whereas Eperis is obviously not.

I don't know if I'll find another companion dog for me in my life or not. Howie would be a hard act to follow. For the time being, Ep fills in as best he can, at my heels in the kitchen if he hears me get out the cutting board or opening the wrapper of a loaf of bread, greeting me in the mornings with many kisses, staring intensely into my eyes with optimism and good nature.

I'm content for now.

Predation

I was standing at the kitchen door that leads out onto the patio. A grey piece of fuzziness drifted down from the hopseed tree. And then another, more obviously a fluffy feather.

And then another!

And more, a veritable shower of feathers, not just downy chest fluff, but primary feathers as well. We stepped out the door to see who was plucking what up in the tree, and a small hawk flew away, leaving an avalanche of feathers hung up on the twigs and leaves.

An inspection of the feathers:

I knew immediately what the species of lunch was. And if that wasn't clear enough, there was this:

Delicious, crunchy fresh cedar wax-wing.

Why couldn't it have been one of those noisy, pesty mockingbirds?

The Moon and I

Never was able to take a picture of a full moon before, without the image horribly over-exposing. My "old" camera just couldn't do it. This image was taken with the "new" camera, a Sony DSC H400. And no tripod.

Not yet, anyway. I love the ZOOM on this new camera, but wow, I have to seriously lean on something and hold my breath to use it. When the moon was full last week, I leaned against the back of the house, held up the camera ... I did not know until then that the camera will focus even if you're not touching the shoot button.

I'm a little intimidated by a camera that's smarter than I am.

Goodbye, Mike

The illustration is one I did for the Piker Press story "The Health Club Gallery Tour" by Michael Price. He really got a kick out of it, and we planned on re-releasing the story when I got around to doing more illustrations for him.

Mike wrote stories for the Press for the last four years ... well, he wrote for the sake of writing, and the Press benefited from his work. The last one that got published was "Zucchini Bread: The Recipe" and this morning, I looked at the comments pending approval and found an ominous one:

"My taste buds loved many slices of Mike's zucchini bread over the years, and I will save this recipe since, unfortunately, Mike made his last loaves this past month. RIP, Mike."

My taste buds loved many slices of Mike's zucchini bread over the years, and I will save this recipe since, unfortunately, Mike made his last loaves this past month. RIP, Mike. - See more at: http://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=6186#sthash.QETTDymd.dpuf

My taste buds loved many slices of Mike's zucchini bread over the years, and I will save this recipe since, unfortunately, Mike made his last loaves this past month. RIP, Mike. - See more at: http://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=6186#sthash.QETTDymd.dpuf

My taste buds loved many slices of Mike's zucchini bread over the years, and I will save this recipe since, unfortunately, Mike made his last loaves this past month. RIP, Mike. - See more at: http://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=6186#sthash.QETTDymd.dpuf

My taste buds loved many slices of Mike's zucchini bread over the years, and I will save this recipe since, unfortunately, Mike made his last loaves this past month. RIP, Mike. - See more at: http://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=6186#sthash.QETTDymd.dpuf

My taste buds loved many slices of Mike's zucchini bread over the years, and I will save this recipe since, unfortunately, Mike made his last loaves this past month. RIP, Mike. - See more at: http://www.pikerpress.com/article.php?aID=6186#sthash.QETTDymd.dpuf

What a horrible joke someone has made, I thought, and then Googled Mike's name and town to see if there was an obituary. I couldn't find one, so I emailed the commenter directly and asked for an explanation. And got the worst possible one.

Mike died last Friday night.

Mike was more than a Piker Press contributor. He and I shared a great interest in NFL football; he was always ready to hear my latest rant about unsportsmanlike conduct or unbelievable plays. Our last correspondence was about this year's Superbowl and how we hoped (grudgingly) that Denver would win so that Cam Newton would SHUT UP.

We discovered we were both gardeners, too, (something to do in Off-Season) raising tomatoes and zucchini and whatnot, comparing varieties and techniques and the climates of Minnesota and California.

This past June, Mike submitted a piece to the Press called "Lest We Forget," about a -- letter? speech? -- to his deceased father, with a quote near the end of it:



"Hell, now I might as well just wait and deliver [this] in person.
Shouldn't be long now, Dad."

Ah, Mike, I wish you hadn't been right, and I'm going to miss you a lot, my friend.

New Stuff

This mockingbird was still a bit fluffed-up and grumpy-looking when I poked my head out the kitchen door and snapped this photo. It's not the greatest subject matter, the composition is ... meh. The big thing about the picture is that it is one of the first ones on my new camera.

I stayed with Sony, as my old ("old") camera has lasted for nine years. The new creature is another Cyber-shot, a Sony DSC H400. There's a lot more camera there, with a 63x zoom, and a host of features I have yet to explore.

People who know digital cameras well tend to sneer at the "Point and Shoot" cameras, but I think that this new toy is going to do everything I need it to do and then some, and I didn't have to spend a thousand dollars on it. The salesman at Best Buy was introducing me to a camera that -- in order to do what my old camera could -- would require me to buy two lenses in addition. Uh, no.

Looking forward to lots of new ways to shoot pics.

The Development of Language

This is Joan Maria, AKA Joma, adorably assisting her grandfather in his culinary experimentation.

Joma is three and a half. She's been a little slow to master the use of vocal language ... or so they say. She certainly understands everything that is said to her, and there have been odd moments when words and sentences come out so clearly that it's amazing. She calls her big sister "Loa" -- but when Bernie teasingly pretended not to know who "Loa" was, Joma said, with a little exasperation, "Lillian." It wasn't that she couldn't say the name, but rather that she had decided for herself to re-christen her sister.

Ask her to say any word, though, and you get silence. At least here at home; her teacher at pre-school speech therapy has no problems with Joma's cooperation. Joma says what and when she wants to.

Bernie and I were hanging out with our grand-daughters a few nights ago. The TV was on, and Bernie wanted Lillian to watch a travel program about Laos with him. He'd recorded it a few weeks earlier, and this was the first chance he'd had to show it to her. Joma was playing with her toy cars on the floor beside him, ignoring the conversations around her.

He thumbed the remote down through the menu of recordings. And then did it again. And again. And then realized that somewhere along the line, he'd deleted the show.

"Dammit!" he said, shaking his fist in the air.

"DAMMIT!" Joma shrieked in merriment, leaping to her feet. "Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!" She crawled into Bernie's lap, laughing, "Dammit! Dammit-dammit-dammit!"

No difficulties with initial consonants at all. No hesitation about final consonants or middle consonants or the production of vowels, either. What's more, she knew that "Dammit" was an expletive, and thought it hilariously funny to say it.

She hasn't said it since that night; most likely she's saving up that performance for the most shocking and inopportune time. I hope it's not at pre-school ...

Standing Rib Roast? Seriously?

No, that wasn't tonight's evening sky, it was a couple weeks ago. But the feeling you get when you see a rainbow arch across your winter sky is like the feeling I had when I bit into my first nibble of my first attempt at a standing rib roast this afternoon.

Number One, I couldn't afford a standing rib roast. Number Two, I didn't know how to cook one. Number Three, wasn't about to ruin an expensive cut of meat with a culinary mishap.

But this year, things were different. Our Save Mart supermarket has been introducing a line of beef called Angus 43. It was heartbreaking when they stopped carrying Harris Ranch Beef (which is incredibly tasty) and I kind of sneered at the Angus 43 when they began advertising it. But when they offered boneless New York strip steak for the absurd price of $5.99/lb, I sprang for a couple ... and was pleasantly surprised. Tender, good flavor, okay. They've gradually reeled me in, and when they put standing rib roasts on sale for $6.99/lb, I began salivating and researching.

As it turns out, it is so dang simple to make that there is simply no reason to take the family out for a luxury dinner of prime rib.

We scored a little-ish 5-pound standing rib roast, let it sit on the counter for a couple hours to come to room temperature. I rubbed it with extra virgin olive oil, then seasoned the fat cap with salt, pepper, and finely ground garlic powder. It was already tied at the store, so I shoved it into the oven, ribs-side down in a shallow baking pan, for 25 minutes at 450 degrees. After that, with its now gorgeously browned exterior, it gets the temp taken back to 350 until the interior reaches 120 degrees. Then out it comes, gets wrapped in heavy duty aluminum foil, and "rests" for about 20 minutes while you get the rest of the meal finished.

PERFECTION!!!!

Was that Christmas dinner? No, this is Christmas Eve Eve, and we're making a big homemade taco spread for Christmas. This was just for fun, a continuation of the kitchen experimentation of the weekend.

One last thing, about the internal temperature of the meat. We use a Taylor Meat Thermometer with a probe whose cord comes conveniently out the side of the oven door. Good for roasts, good for chickens in the oven, only about $20. An alarm sounds when the temp approaches 20 degrees of the desired temp, again (a bit more frantically) when the temp is 10 degrees off, and then beeps like a banshee when it gets to the proper temperature.

No, that wasn't the last thing. We got the roast with ribs attached, the whole thing tied up with cotton cooking string. Without the string, the ribs fall off. Without the ribs, you have to use a rack.

If you use a rack, you have to wash the rack, and you don't have the bones to gnaw as a snack the next day.

For your next birthday, ask for a standing rib roast to cook.

Merry Christmas!

Clams and Calamari -- Christmas Cheer

Last Saturday, I was seized by a mood to create something, something new and exciting, something I've never tried before. I wanted to leap forward in the face of fear and conquer my inner scaredy-cat.

"Today is the day," I told myself before our exercise walk. "I am going to throw caution to the winds, not worry about the cost, not tremble at the thought of failure. I'm going to try to make my own fried calamari." And with that, I opened the freezer and brought out a bag of frozen calamari I picked up somewhere (can't remember if it was Sprouts or Winco) on a whim.

Bernie and I had tried fried calamari before; we bought a package of whole squids and it took forever and ja-pip to clean them. Deep frying them got us a ton of tasty morsels, but it was a spattery mess that had to be done outside and they were fairly greasy. Didn't want to do that again.

This bag of calamari was nicely cleaned and cut into rings and tentacles, much more appealing to work with. I put it on the counter to thaw and we took our walk down by the river with Ep (who is turning into a really good little dog). Upon return, we realized we had to go to the store for onions, among other things. At the store my mood overwhelmed me, and when we walked past the fish counter, I spotted a bag of Venus clams, all tightly closed.

Clams are another thing I'd never tried cooking, even though if I see "linguini vongole" on a menu, I'll order it before anything else. Clams AND fried calamari! Clear the kitchen, Sand is on a seafood rampage!

I did the mise en place thing and laid out my pans, tongs, olive oil, onions and garlic, cup of white wine (who knew I'd have that on hand?) as well as put some water on to boil for 2 ounces of angel hair pasta. I scrubbed my clams, sauteed my onion and garlic, added wine, cooked it a little, added my two pounds of clams and a little more water, and hey presto, ten minutes later was serving pasta and clams with a white wine and cream pan sauce.

It was good! Actually it was just about as good as any seafood pasta I've ever had.

But that was just the warm-up band, the main act was the calamari.

Once again I set out my implements: a dish of seasoned flour, a shallow bowl of almond milk, a fry pan with high-ish sides with a quarter inch of olive oil in it. Another dish with paper towels for the end result to drain. A spatula and a chopstick to turn each calamari piece.

Then: dump the calamari into the milk, dredge in the flour, fry two minutes on each side of rings (three on tentacles to get them crunchier) and there it is. Fried calamari, and I didn't have to go to San Francisco or Santa Cruz to get it.

Serve with tartar sauce or whatever. It's great. Delicious. Easy.

Successful Saturday, creative urges and seafood cravings satiated.

Merry Christmas to all!