Curry

I made curry in the crock pot today.  It turned out great but I've got a touch of Bangalor Belly at the moment.  The curry lit a fire in my innards that I have yet to quench.  Here's what I wound up using after discovering I didn't have curry paste around 4:30 this morning.

• package of chicken breasts
• two cans of chickpeas
• a can of Rotel with habanero
• a can of chicken broth
• a generous teaspoon of South Seas Curry Powder (a gift from Carrie months ago)
• sliced water chestnuts

It was a little heavy on the chickpeas but damn tasty.

Gerald's vacuuming as I write this.  The little Roomba isn't as thorough as I'd like but he's a tremendous time saver.  I just have to run him every couple days to keep up with the dog hair.

Why do I always pick Johnny Cash to listen to when I'm embarking on a task I find distasteful?

Wodehouse

About once a year, I go on a short P.G. Wodehouse binge for about a week.  This year's started yesterday with Sunset at Blandings, an incomplete fragment, the last Wodehouse book and the last of the Blandings Castle Saga.

I think it was about 2003 when I first decided to give P.G. Wodehouse a try.  I'd seen Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and Christopher Moore all list him as one of their influences.  The first one I read was World of Jeeves, the complete collection of Jeeves and Wooster short stories.  I devoured it in two days and never looked back.

The Wodehouse books are a gateway into a fictional world of doddering nobility, monocles, top hats, and parties, the world of the idle rich of 1920's England.  You wouldn't think a rural Midwesterner like myself would take to it but I did after the first few pages.

While Jeeves and Wooster brought me to the dance, once I exhausted those novels I stumbled upon the Blandings Castle saga.  Jeeves and Wooster is essentially a two man show whereas The Blandings Castle series is more of an ensemble piece and eventually eclipsed Jeeves and Bertie in my affections.

As I write this, I've read 48 of P.G. Wodehouse's works, more than I've read from any other author, although Terry Pratchett is slowly gaining on him.  And I'm just over halfway through Wodehouse seeing as how he's written over 80 books and was working on one at his hospital bed when he died at age 93.

The Picnic Report (and other happenings)

Let's see if I can ignore this headache long enough to write something meaningful.  I'm chalking it up to not eating until a few minutes ago.

Our picnic was a fun time.  We dined at the roadside park in scenic Bloomsdale, eating big sandwiches and fruit cups while drinking bottled water.  Afterwords, we went for a country drive, taking Y all the way out to 67.  It was a good time.  But why is there a tiger sanctuary on Y halfway between Bloomsdale and Lawrenceton?  Missouri doesn't seem like an appropriate place to house tigers.

I finished the last Matthew Scudder book this morning, or the last one until Lawrence Block puts out another.  I enjoyed it so much I friended Mr. Block on Facebook and sent him a message, something I don't think I've ever done.  Now I'm going to read a Wodehouse and try to forget about serial killers for a while.

Belle stashed that damn hoof under my pillow last night to keep me or Carrie from getting it.  She's an odd dog sometimes.

Saturday PM

Picnic in 60.  I'm excited and I hope Carrie remembers to bring the picnic basket.

I unloaded a duffel bag full of books that I had no intention of ever reading again a couple hours ago.  No idea how many it actually was.  30 maybe?  A drop in the bucket.  I stopped at that number because the duffel bag was full.  I'd say I have another two bags on the "read" pile and maybe another on the 'to-read" pile.  The "to-reads" are the ones that pile up too fast.  I have no idea why I've held on to some of the books I've read for so long.  There are a lot of them that I haven't contemplated opening since I read them the first time.

A week or two ago, I reached a stopping point in the Parker series by Richard Stark.  I'm at an impasse until University of Chicago Press reprints Butcher's Moon next spring or I find a used Butcher's Moon for an affordable price, hopefully in the single digits.  I'm at pace to finish the Matthew Scudder series by Lawrence Block in the next couple days.  It's satisfying to finish but I'll have to find another detective to follow until the next Scudder comes out next year.  I'll probably go with Robert Parker's Spenser.

Not much else going on.  I'm listening to music while Gerald vacuums the living room.  I love my little robot!

The Hound

Belle's a Basenji-Schipperke mix, making her one of the more aloof dogs you'll ever meet.  She views other dogs as inferior beings and isn't crazy about most people either.  With one exception...

Belle loves one of my neighbors to an embarrassing degree.  Gone is every touch of haughtiness, replaced with utter submission and lots of whining, making a spectacle of herself until she gets enough attention.  The last time I talked to my neighbor, she said she'd have a treat for Belle next time we saw her.

Today, I opened my mailbox to find a curious object.  Once I brought it out into the light, I saw that it was a hoof wrapped in cellophane.  Great, I thought. 

The hoof itself isn't the problem.  The problem is that Belle has three hiding places for her treats, none of which are convenient.

• Between the cushions of the couch, usually accompanied by Belle pushing imaginary dirt over the object being hidden with her nose
• In my usually open sock drawer
• Under my pillow

And don't get me started on her outrage when you dare discover one of her disgusting treats in its hiding place.  I'm taking wagers for where I find the well-gnawed hoof around bed time.  My official guess is under my pillow.


 

69 more days

National Novel Writing Month is swiftly approaching.  As I sit here typing, I can't help but reflect on the NaNoWriMo's of the past two years.  Cue the harp music and wavy screen effect...

NaNoWriMo 2008 almost didn't happen.  I was three days in before I started and I wasn't very enthusiastic.  I didn't have any ideas but I'd already told a lot of people I was doing it.  25 days later, I had written 54,000 words of A Summer at Thornhill Manner, the story of a kid with a summer job at a nursing home for wizards.  I was proud of some of it but knew I could do better if I planned ahead.

Last year, things were very different.  Gone were the doubts of the previous year.  I started planning over a month in advance.  By the time November 1 hit, I had an outline, characters, and a list of crap I could work in if I got stuck.  I hit 50,000 words by the 16th, winning early, but it took me another month to write the next 38,000 words and finish the thing. I was a lot more confident with Sailors but I still had my complaints about it.

This year, I plan on hitting 100,000 words by the 30th of November.  I've never written anything that big before, much less in a month, but I'm confident I can do it.  Since reading Jack Vance's Dying Earth and Hugh Cook's A Chronicle of an Age of Darkness in recent weeks, a story and a main character are trying to take shape.  I've begun jotting things down but a lot can happen in the next 69 days.

Meanwhile, back in the present, I'm very excited about it being cooler in the next couple days.  Carrie and I will be able to walk with me leaving a trail of back-sweat on the ground behind us.  I've noticed a few trees along the road turning already.  It would be nice if they'd drop their leaves early so I don't have to mess with them in November.

Junk Drawer Sunday

I was moving my Salvador Dali print when something went wrong and I needed to rework the wire and the hangers on the back.  Even though I didn't want anything to do with it, I had to dig into the junk drawer.

Junk drawer.  Everyone has at least one, the haven of things not of obvious use but too precious to be thrown away.  I started rummaging around, only coming up for air an hour later.  I did not find the picture hanging wire I was looking for.  I did, however, find the following items.

- miscellaneous screws
- a pin for the deck of my lawn mower
- eleven pairs of sunglasses, two of which were still useable
- two christmas gift wallets, neither used
- six pocket knives
- five tubes of chapstick, most barely used
- books of matches from assorted bars
- three small notepads
- a brand new nail clippers

I threw away about half the conents of the junk drawer.  Now I can get back to accumulating small bits and baubles.

FYI, I used some strong fishing line to temporarily secure the Dali.  I'll get some wire after I get some pictures suitable for hanging above my TV.