Life Quote #1 - Ellen Burstyn

Wolf Sighting

On the eve of the eve of the Wolf Moon....  Coincidence?

Meowusing...

Snow don't lie.  There's a kitty in the city...

Tuscan Cabbage Soup

I love my Tuscan Cabbage Soup!

Chicken Stock
Pancetta
Onion
Carrot
Celery
Green Beans
Cabbage
Cannellini Beans
Zesty diced Tomatoes
Oregano
Black Pepper
Salt to taste

And I would have said "It's just perfect!" as is.  But then I got the idea of adding some shrimp freshly sautéed in the grease from the Pancetta and voila!  Perfection perfected!

All My Gardens Have Come Inside

Which is to say, anything still growing in the little sunroom.  Originally just a little covered porch, I had it redone back about 12 years ago into a year-round room with heat, electrical, insulated walls and large windows.  I guess that qualifies it as a "room" now.

Among the few bloomers is actually one of the only year-round residents: a little African Violet.

It was originally a present that some student had given to some teacher at the end of the year about 5 years ago.  They didn't want it, so it ended up in the office, and they didn't take care of it.  I ended up rescuing it when it was on it's limp last legs.  Then I applied my mother's wisdom to it.  

1) I found it a location in indirect light and left it there

2) I always water it from below

3) I otherwise leave it the hell alone!

Seems to be working just fine!

Next up is my beloved Tree Philodendron "Audrey".  Audrey started out as a wee little think in a four inch pot when I first purchased her back in 1986.  And over the years, she's grown!  She now weighs 120 lbs in a dry container and well over 6 feet tall.  Every year since I first moved here in 1994, I take were outside to live in the warm months and then come's a day in mid- to late-november when I bring in into the sunroom to while away the winter.  Back in the summer of 2013 she took on a cohabiter.  A little fern suddenly appeared out of nowhere and grew among her roots at the edge of her pot content and unobtrusive.  After a another season, the fern popped up in a couple of other places.  And the same the next year.  Now, it's actually sending a runner up one of Audrey's trunks and sending out fronds!  And by all appearances, Audrey copacetic with it.

The frogs were just another whimsical purchase I probably made in some zoo's gift shop.

And finally, I love it when volunteers just show up in my gardens, and they're still surprising me even in the winter.  Here is a Torenia (Monkey flower).

Prototype Globe of Earth's History

First draft of a Cambrian world ready for further speculation and details.  But first more research on my part.

Started with Dr. Blakey's Mollweide Map of Earth some 450,000,000 years ago.  Them recreated it on an actual globe.  Still have some upgrades to match Blakey's assumptions.  But here it is in a series of turns.

Lemur Mania!

Lemurs are moving toward extinction at an alarming rate.  Like sweet, curious creatures being sucking into the oblivion of a humanity black hole.  Their presence with us is not long...

In the evolutionary family Lemuridae there are 5 genus:

Lemur, with 1 species
Eulemer, with 12 species
Varecia, with 2 species
Hapalemur, with 5 species, and
Prolemur, with 1 species

Of these 21 species of Lemur, 12 are found in zoos in the United States.  The only hope for many are their captivity in US zoos half a world away from their native homeland.

The only attempt at reintroducing a species to wild ended 12 months later with the death or disappearence of 12 of the 13 animals.  This after years of planning and months of acclimation.  Only a single male lived long enough to procreate in the wild population.  Until the situation in Madagascar miraculously improves...survival will depend on a large and diverse captive population.

Boxing Day Movie Marathon

For a long period in my life I collected Gay themed movies and many from foreign countries in languages other than English.  I probably have near to 80 or 90 DVD's!  Today I popped out 5 for a mini-movies Marathon.

 Starts out rather pretentiously as the actualized version of the protagonist "X"'s life.  He presents as a self-absorbed asshole who makes his living as an exclusive and well-paid hooker.  He has two roommates who complicate his social interactions and then takes on an older well-healed client who teaches him how to be a happy person instead of just a person driven and afraid. It's quite a wonderful story, really.

 A wonderful coming of age/coming out story.  Though my circumstances were very different, the emotions and confusions ring 110% true.  Lea Delaria has a supporting role and gets to sing as only she can.  The lead left acting a few years after this film was made and went to college.  He became a lawyer.  I hope he remembers this moment in his life with fondness.  He should.

 A one note act of love.  I dunno, scarcely an hour long, it's just one man's tale of how hard it is to become a dancer in a gay club when you are born skinny...  It is funny, but it's also ridiculous...which adds to the humor.  I nice background flick while completing dinner, too fluffy to need to focus too much on!

 What a joy.  This film is so sentimental and has many fine actors in it.  Never fails to bring me to happy tears!  Set in Montana in time when we believed in the myth of good folk in remote places like White Fish.  Kinda of like reading Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty and believing in fairy tales still.  Yet, I love it, like those fairy tales, EVERY time I see it.

FAQS is a mediocrely acted and well messages tale of where the misfit toys end up and how grace is better than violence in this world hellbent on hegemonies like family.  It's a film that is worth experiencing in spite of it's flaws.

Corn Bacon and Shrimp Chowder

Corn and Bacon Chowder with Shrimp

You start with chicken broth and add some diced Yukon Gold Potatoes, Carrots and Leeks and Celery.  Bring them to a boil and cook up 6 strips of bacon in a separate skillet.  Remove bacon onto paper towel to cool.  In the bacon grease add a frozen package of yellow and white corn--but let grease cool a little so as not to create a grease splatter fest!  Also add a tablespoon of minced garlic and simmer for 5 minutes or so before adding the garlic and corn to the soup mix.  Do this in a way that conserves the bacon fat in the skillet as best as possible.  Let the soup mixture cook for about 30 minutes together and add into it a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves and 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.  Salt to taste.

Scoop out 2 cups of the mixture into a blender and puree.  Remove the center cap in the lid and mix while adding 3/4 cup of heavy cream in blender.  Add this back to the rest of the soup and stir well heating on low.

Cook shrimp in bacon grease turning until orange and translucent -- about 6 minutes.  Add shrimp (three or four per bowl) to bowl, crumble bacon over shrimp, and then ladle corn chowder soup over shrimp/bacon and garnish with fresh chives.

Seems like a lot of work, but OMG, it's so worth it!

Recreating a Lost World(s)

As a teacher, I've always felt my best attribute was my own curiosity and desire to learn.  My latest project involves exploring our planet though out it's lifespan to fully internalize it's history in astrologic, geologic, biologic, climatologic, and evolutionary timeframes.  One aspect of this new endeavor is to create globes representing key touchstones in the lifespan of our home planet.  I have begun with the late Cambrian Era when the oceans were teaming with life, but little if any had made it's way to the land yet.

Building on the work of Dr. Ron Blakey and his colleagues at University of Colorado, I purchased a couple of globes and have begun the work of translating his images to a spherical representation of earth circa 450 million years ago.

When glancing at the first image online, a friend asked me if I were using huge styrofoam balls...so I sent her the second pic above to help her better see the transformation in progress.

See What Santa Brought!

Santa, a.k.a Cynthia, sent me a present for the day and what joy to discover this lovely collection of poems by James Weldon Johnson, "God's Trombones".  Based on Biblical themes, this is an American classic.  I immediately turned to the third poem, "The Prodigal Son" with it's famous opening stanza:

Young man --
Young man --
You're arm's too short to box with God.

It's a shame these days that outside of a handful of HBCU, Johnson is all but forgotten.  Joyous day for me, though.

Christmas Day Decadence

In all fairness, the decadence started on Christmas Eve as that was the day I planned my larger meal.  A lovely Pot Roast with Potatoes and Carrots, etc. and then roasted Zucchini, Tomatoes and Mushrooms.  Also a nice Spinach Dip to peck at throughout the day.

Even Romeo got a holiday treat: a roasted organic Chicken Breast.  And I support the decadent part came after the meal for my boy--socked out on the couch.

Then to Christmas Day in the Morning!  Eggs Benedict, poached Egg on Canadian Bacon, Baby Spinach and a toasted English Muffin then Hollandaise Sauce and a little sweet Paprika.

"The Last Night of Ballyhoo"

A real joy: "The Last Night of Ballyhoo" at Theater J housed at the Ed Lavitch DC Jewish Community Center.  The play was written by Alfred Uhry who also wrote "Driving Miss Daisey" and like that play deals with what it was like to be Jewish in Atlanta in a bygone time.  Seen the cusp of WW II, the focus is not.  Instead, Uhry resurrects a historical celebration called Ballyhoo as the frame  for his story-telling.  Ballyhoo was a major happening in the southern US Jewish cultural world wherein young men and women would descend upon Atlanta for a week of socializing and fun that would culminate in a cotillion--the highlight of the social calendar.  It was so popular a phenomenon that it drew participants from as far away as Richmond, Virginia all the way to Lake Charles, Louisiana.

The Ballyhoo that coincided with Christmastide of 1939 was of particular interest to two sister-in-laws who shared a home with the older one's brother and each had a daughter ripe for Ballyhoo festivities. In the end, each makes it to the party with an elegible young man.  The recipe provides ample laughs from start to finish as well as a canvas upon which to explore other aspects of southern/American Jewish culture of the era.

I loved the cast top to bottom and really thought the standouts were the two adult sister's in laws.  Julie-Ann Elliot as Reba Freitag had all of the best comic moments in the play and she hit them with panache and a subtlety at times that just caught the laugh in my throat.  Susan Rome played the slightly older, Boo Levy a socially obsessed and clandestinely delusional Ballyhoo-stage mother to a crisp tee!  I had seen her in an earlier production at Theater J and had no doubts about the strength of her acting.  Josh Adams played Peachy Weil, the entitled southern German Jew five generations removed from Deutschland (Generations before it WAS Deutschland!) with a great confidence.  I've seen him in two other productions in the past year where he played very different characters and I like him.  He has a lot of potential.  The other suitor was played by someone new to me, Zack Powell.  Zach could have been James Franco for all the striking similarities and I look forward to seeing him in the spring play the sassy southern drag queen in the Round House Production of "The Legend of Georgia McBride".  It will certainly determine if he's for real or not.

The costumes were beautiful.  And I can't help by thinking that the Ballyhoo dress worn by Shayna Blass as Lala was not borrowed from the St. Louis Repertory Theater's 1999 production of the same--it's absolutely the same dress that graces the cover of their playbill from their staging of this production.  Think a cross between Carol Burnett's Bill Macky wonder from her skit "Gone With The Breeze" and a Christmas tree!  But the real marvel was the set.  OMG--stunning was my immediate thought and I never saw any reason to bother replacing it.  Truly a triumph of design and execution.