I toddled out to the garden to get some sunshine on my skin, and what did I find today? The broccoli is actually making broccoli! It’s possible there is some hope for actual edibles from the winter garden after all!

Yippee!

Since the weather is so warm and sunny today, I decided to go have a look at my pathetic garden. I feel compelled to at least take a peek at the plants every so often, even though the trips out to the garden have been more depressing than fun this winter. The plants are still growing, and what’s survived the freezes seem to be doing OK, but as I went from section to section noticing that everything still looks stunted and not producing anything at all edible, I saw something white peeking out from under the leaves of one of the fava bean plants.

Lo and behold, my fava bean plants are blooming! Yes, they continue to be too short and since the last big freeze are half dead, but they are blooming. A lot of blooms too! After all the depressing plant losses this season, to see something blooming in the garden is a real mood boost.

Also, a few more baby lettuce plants have popped up! I suspect as the weather continues to get warmer and warmer I may find myself overrun with self-planted lettuce. I’m certainly not going to complain about that, and you can be sure I will be saving the seeds from the ones that came up earliest and survived the freezing weather. Those are going to be the seeds I definitely want for early planting next year.

So all is not completely depressing in the garden anymore. I still don’t know that I will bother with a winter garden again, because it’s just not much fun being out in the cold gardening, and I hate seeing hard work go to waste when a hard freeze comes through and kills things even when measures have been taken to save them. But it’s been an interesting experiment, and if nothing else, I’ll have some great lettuce seeds and maybe a pot or two of fava beans out of it.

And one of my tomatoes looks like it might be turning red! Sure hope so. I want those seeds too! That’s been one hardy tomato plant.

This morning I woke up late and got on with my day as quickly as I could. Hit the snooze button one too many times. Oops. What can I say? The bed was warm and comfy!

Having to get out of the comfy bed left me a little grumpy, and then the whole “running late” thing didn’t help. I hate feeling like I am already running late two seconds after I open my eyes.^†

But once Lin was off to work, the cats were fed, the local news was watched, and the first cup of coffee was had, I set about making myself look human. I pulled off the socks I had slept in last night and was reminded I had painted my toenails after my shower yesterday. I haven’t painted my toenails in ages. My bright and shiny silver toenails made me smile and giggle and got my day back onto a happy track.

Ronin doesn’t look too happy to be used as a prop to show off my silly silver toes does he? Well, he doesn’t like having his photo taken anyway, especially during the cats’ post-breakfast morning nap period.

I think once I get my hands into something resembling a healthy state –they are shredded right now from working outside in the cold recently– I will paint my fingernails silver too. Me painting my fingernails is even more rare of an event, but I love this new nail polish!

1. † I also hate being responsible for making sure the other adult human in the household wakes up and gets moving when he should, but that’s a rant for another day … or maybe not at all. [↩]

She’s so precious when she’s sleeping …
and not knocking things off closet shelves or digging in my potted plants.

If you ever happen to be in my house or somewhere else where I am in charge of doing the cooking, and you hear me say I am going to “Iron Chef it!” … be prepared for something completely different created without following or even looking at a recipe. This usually happens when I notice a lot of odds and ends, bits and pieces of things, stacking up in the fridge and freezer. The end result is always interesting and edible, and sometimes it’s worth doing again.

Last night was just one of those occasions.

I knew I wanted to make something with the crab, and I knew I wanted to make something different, so quiche it was. There isn’t a recipe at all, but I can tell you what’s in it. I started by thawing some tater tots and crumbling them to make the bottom crust and top sprinkles. Then I tossed chopped broccoli, cauliflower and crab into a large bowl, to which I then added the last remains of every kind of grated cheese I had in the fridge (mostly mozzarella, Swiss, and Parmesan). In another bowl, beat the last two remaining eggs, added some milk, sour cream, and cream cheese … as well as garlic sea salt and pepper. The tater tot crust got baked until it was starting to turn crispy, the veggies were put on the crust, the egg mixture was poured on top, and the last of the tater tot bits sprinkled on top of all that. I baked it at 350ºF … until it was done. No idea how long that took. Maybe 30 minutes or so.

Totally yummy, and I am thrilled there are leftovers for dinner tonight!

I love just getting into the kitchen and throwing things together. I love it even more when the end results turns out to be something so tasty it begs to be made into an actual recipe other people can follow. I’ll have to make this again in a few weeks and pay attention to how much of what I am using, because seriously, this is worth making and not expensive. Quite filling too.

And now to get to the grocery store so I don’t have to Iron Chef it again tonight. I may love doing it, but I also like having an advance plan for what we are having for dinner.

Tora has been a very bad kitty this afternoon! She knocked a bunch of stuff off the top shelf of the bedroom closet … again. It’s beginning to feel like a losing battle, and at some point I fear I may just have to arrange that shelf for the usage of Tora and Myu who won’t leave it alone.

Taken through the truck window with my new cell phone while cruising along at 75 or so miles per hour. The camera on the new phone seems to be somewhat better than the one on the old phone!

Texas Highway 290, in case anyone is interested.

I am so excited about these tomatoes! There are three on this plant now, and more flowers coming. So awesome! The other tomato plant is very small but growing slowly, and it will probably be ready to start giving me ‘maters in early spring, if not sooner. Thank you nature for giving me two gorgeous tomato plants! I can’t wait to have a nice salad with one of these.

I might as well show you the soggy mess that is my winter garden. This one bed and a few radishes and carrots sprinkled here and there elsewhere are the whole of it. I never did get the other stuff planted, so I’ll be doing that in late January or early February.

A few days ago, since it was warmish in the house, I left the bathroom door open while I took a shower. I guess it was the first time Tora had seen me get into the “water box”, and she sat in the doorway staring at me with a look of horror and squeaking in dismay.

Today it was not so warm in the house, so I pushed the door closed, but left it so any cat that wanted to could come in to use the facilities or hover in front of the shower while I bathed (as Myu likes to do). No cat came in, but I did hear the occasional squeak from the hallway indicating that Tora was sitting just outside the door.

After I dried off a bit, I opened the door, and you’d have thought Tora’s little world was ending! She was following me around –squeaking loudly– and rubbing against me and wanting in my lap. I guess she thought I’d just been tortured and needed consoling. Now she isn’t letting me out of her sight, and when I do go outside –as I just did to take out the trash– she is in a total state of panic when I come back in a few minutes later. Serious separation anxiety!

Tora continues to be the sweetest and most wonderful of the three cats, though I think her sweetness must be rubbing off on the other two. Myu is becoming something of a lap cat, and even grumpy Ronin is begging for love and attention from time to time. Eventually we may have three sweet and wonderful cats. I can only hope!

And since I haven’t been posting enough kitty photos lately –the cats generally being opposed to cameras these days– here’s a quick web cam snap of precious Tora.

I have to tell you though, while being followed around by an adorable cat is great, the nonstop squeaking is beginning to grate of my nerves. I wish she’d squeak when I am taking video of her, but no … then she doesn’t make a sound. Someday, you simply have to hear how squeaky and cute her vocalizations are!

I hate to do it, but I am closing comments on this one post for the night (or maybe longer). This one post is getting slammed by comment spammers from Russia, and I don’t have the time or patience to deal with it right now. I’ll open comments on it again tomorrow to see if it’s stopped, but enough is enough for now.

Well before my alarm was set to go off I was awakened by the dual sounds of metal chairs being rapidly set up in rows and a vocal group practicing on the giant PA system. I could have done without all the chair noises, but there are worse ways to wake up than hearing some excellent singers singing patriotic tunes. I quickly got dressed and went outside to roam around and investigate.

The weather had turned most foul. Very cold, windy and wet. Yuck. Still, there was plenty of activity to keep me entertained while I wandered around and shivered … like oodles of young people in spit-shined shoes and well-pressed uniforms setting up all those chairs.

They were really quick about getting all the chairs lined up, but unfortunately for them, someone with a lot of brass on his chest wasn’t pleased with the final result and gave them a dressing-down about it.

“When I say I want the chairs set up thirty-four inches apart, I do not mean thirty-four and a half, thirty-four and a quarter, or thirty-three and three-quarters! I mean thirty-four inches!”

I tried not to laugh while they were getting yelled at in a stereotypically booming military way, but I couldn’t help myself. Yardsticks magically appeared from somewhere, and the young military personnel set about making certain each chair was exactly thirty-four inches apart while I hustled back inside to stand in front of the gas heater in the living room and rid myself of an awful chill.

It wasn’t too long before Mom wanted to get out to our seats. I certainly could have waited a little longer, considering how vile the weather was out there, but she wanted to be sure we got good seats, so off we went at 8:30 am for a 9:30 am event. I grabbed the tickets, and we asked the first person we saw handing out programs where we should sit, even though I already knew what section we were in (having scoped that out while watching the earlier chair escapades). A very young and well-uniformed Navy boy escorted us to our section, and we found our seats up in the front. I was already feeling far too cold, because I was, of course, dressed nicely and not dressed properly for the weather.

And then we sat … and sat … and 9:30 am came and went … and we sat some more. Not wanting to take the chance of losing our prime seeing, hearing, and photographing seats, we sat there and suffered. Mom did make a quick trip back to the house to use the restroom and to grab a nice warm wool blanket for us to snuggle under about an hour earlier, for which I am eternally grateful. It was really, really getting cold and nasty. I spent the time alternately shivering uncontrollbly and taking photos of the crowd, like this one of the press box.

Finally everyone who was supposed to be up at the podium arrived^† most importantly, Number 41 and his wife, Barbara.

The show finally started at about 11 am. I was pretty much a popsicle by then. After some local bigwigs spoke, the Big Brass scheduled to speak got up and had his say.

I could get out my program and look up his name, but I can’t be bothered. His speech annoyed me. A great part of it was his disgust with how World War II is presented in school history books. His main complaints? There are only a few pages about it, and horror of horrors, there are some people who believe dropping nuclear bombs on the civilian populations of Nagasaki and Hiroshima shouldn’t be considered a good thing to do. I’m accustomed to high-level and older military people being really rah-rah about World War II and the dropping of large and deadly bombs on people, but this guy was over-the-top.

Considering there were a large number of elderly Japanese who were alive during the war (and the Japanese have been so wonderful to my hometown and the museum–not to mention being great friends of America now), it felt a little less than polite to stand up there and complain that some people think killing and maiming a bunch of civilians in Japan might not have been such a wonderful thing to do. In fact, I thought it was quite rude, as was the cheering, hooting, and general rah-rah attitude coming from some people in the crowd who weren’t old enough to be alive back then and likely have no clue what those bombs did to the people who had them dropped on them.^††

There was a little more speechifying, and then we finally got to the ribbon cutting. I was ever so grateful, because I was just about as cold and damp as I ever care to get, and I was beginning to feel sickish.

Mom and I took off for the house almost as soon as the ribbon dropped. While there was all manner of activity on the street afterward with the chairs being taken down and some bands playing and whatnot, we did not leave the house again. It was too warm indoors and too nasty outdoors, and we’d had just about enough of being out the cold and wet weather … so another evening of hot chocolate, good food, and sitting by heaters watching heartwarming TV programming for us!

Previous posts on this big weekend: Day of Arrival and Fun Day Sunday.

1. † Everyone except Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Her absence and the reasons for it deserves a post of its own and will get one soon. [↩]
2. †† And just so you know it was just little bleeding-heart me that thought his speech was way over the line, even my super right-wing, kill-them-all-let-god-sort-them-out mom was totally put off by this guy’s going on about how wrong it was for anyone to think dropping the bombs wasn’t something to be proud and happy about. [↩]

Just so you know, I had a blast tonight. I have to finish telling you about my trip before I tell you about tonight, so you will just have to wait. Not to mention, all our photos turned out somewhat sucky. Probably because I wasn’t behind the camera.

But yeah … had a blast! And I totally got hit on by men who are not my husband, so apparently, I was HAWT.

This is the best I can do for photos for now.

It’ll have to do for now.

Though the cold wind was still blowing on Sunday morning, the sun was out, and it looked like it was going to be a lovely day. My plan was to drag Mom out to the airport to look at the World War II planes and take some photos. Our street wasn’t supposed to be blocked off until 4 pm, so we putz around the house a little and watched the people setting things up for a dedication ceremony later in the day. After lunch I stepped outside to check the weather, and lo and behold, they had blocked off our street early!

While I certainly could have convinced the nice policeman to let us in and out for a trip to the airport, it was just enough hassle to make me lose interest in doing so. Instead, we sat out on the porch drinking coffee and watching people moving around heavy equipment … until Mom decided her front sidewalk needed to be swept. Obviously, I could allow my elderly mother to sweep the front sidewalk while I lolly-gagged around on the porch drinking coffee while being young and fit, so I volunteered for duty.

As you can see behind me, they had begun to stack the chairs on the street for Monday’s big event, so I had an audience while I worked, one of whom –the nice policeman guarding the entrance to our street– came over to say hello. Naturally, my mother had to have a photo.

Once I finished chatting with Officer Castillo and sweeping the sidewalks, I noticed the dedication ceremony for the submarine in front of the museum was in full swing, so I toddled down there to see what was being said and who was there. The reenactment group that performs at the museums other complex just down the road was in attendance.

After the ceremony ended they went back to making the war come to life a few blocks away, something that usually only happens a couple times a day … except during big events like this one when it seems like it was non-stop bombs and gunfire. It’s loud too, and always sounds like we are in the middle of a war zone while sitting in Mom’s house.^†

Since the weather had become so pleasant, Mom and I wandered over to the courtyard again to listen to the band of the moment, mingle with the tourists, stroll along the memorial walkways, and watch the WWII planes doing flyovers.

I even managed to convince my mom to sit in front of my camera and let me take a photo! It’s a rare event, indeed!

By this time the sun was starting to set, the cold wind was picking up again and the activities were all winding down, so we made our way back to the house for dinner, hot chocolate, and more heartwarming seasonal programming to finish out our day.

1. † If you ever wonder why I don’t flinch when there’s something that sounds like a bomb or gun going off? Growing up with WWII battles happening just down the street makes the sounds of war seem commonplace and safe to ignore. This will probably get me killed some day. [↩]