Monday, July 31, 2006

Too Hot in the Hot Tub

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle. Is that bacon? No, it's me! We're frying here in MI. And it's so humid that the camera lens fogs when I go out. It makes for a nice natural diffuser. Unless you don't want a diffuser, that is.


In the pink.


Pumpkin flower


Yet another Lily. This one's called "James." ;-)

Yes, these are the dog days of summer.




LLCool-Bun(s) is clearly the smart one here.


U l00k1n @ m3? (So cool he's 733t)

Telly's still on the fritz. After much slappage the other night (to get a picture to appear) the children watched Star Wars as it was never meant to be seen.



And then, in the midst of the heat wave, creativity struck.

We've been eating lunches nearly for free. You know how cheap rice is ($13ish for a 25 lb bag of good Jasmine rice.) We cook up a big potful and serve with the "Korean Mint" (aka Perilla or Shiso) leaves that are growing like weeds this year - plenty of volunteers where I never planted any.

Recipe here. I kind of wing it because we make so much more. Lay a leaf on your rice, wrap the ends under with your chopsticks (so it encloses a nice chunk of rice) lift and eat. Yummmmm.



I found an old printout of a
Sew-Along for headbands, which seemed just the thing for keeping hair out of sweaty faces.




I felt compelled to sew up several. And the girls are asking for more. I gave one to a friend's daughter yesterday, and she wouldn't take it off even at bedtime - insisted on sleeping in it, LOL! I see quite a few more of these being made.

Today, since it apparently wasn't hot enough without turning on the oven, I had an urge to make cookies. I had no eggs, so I Googled for egg-free recipes and hit on one for
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. Sounded a bit weird, but the kids adore them. I have to say they aren't bad.



The Prawn was feeling creative as well, and constructed Plankton from HWT pieces.







WANTAGE BELLS

Now with the bells through the apple bloom
Sunday-ly sounding
And the prayers of the nuns in their chapel gloom
Us all surrounding,
Where the brook flows
Brick walls of rose
Send on the motionless meadow the bell notes rebounding

Wall flowers are bright in their beds
And their scent all pervading
Withered are primroses heads
And the hyacinth fading
But flowers by the score
Multitudes more
Weed flowers and seed flowers and mead flowers our paths are invading.

~John Betjeman*




Stopping to smell the weeds, July 2006


*Thanks to Trundling Grunt for putting me on to Betjeman's works.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool pictures of flowers, animals and food.

And no rabbit stew comments. Absolutely none.

egan said...

I love pictures. Wow, even more pets. I'm stoked.

jlmack said...

Those headbands look great. I have to wear those for work to restrain my hair under my chef toque. (I pull all of my hair into a knot on top of my head and hold any other bits in with the headband). Most of my class ~ including the guys ~ wore them.
I need to make me some.
That dish looks yum. It looks like binatok or chijimi.
Mmmm.

Anonymous said...

I currently don't have much need for headbands (not because I wasn't sweating all day but because my short hair sticks straight up when not styled) but those look fun :)

I feel comforted that I'm not the only one sweating the hot weather out right now. No fun at all with no a/c!

tshsmom said...

That last bunny pic is ADORABLE!!
I can't handle sewing when it's hot, which may explain why I have 2 baskets of mending. :(

C said...

LOL, Winters. No stew jokes at all! He was probably stewing in his own juices in today's heat.

Egan, I do it all 4 U. All. Are you, like TOTALLY stoked, or just plain stoked? Hey that could be your schtick! Ironman who takes his pet on the run/ride/swim - like a chamaeleon or something. . . There's a 20-tissue story lurking in that idea. You know there is.

Jai, they're super simple. And you can get some really fun food fabrics like sushi and, uh, more sushi and MORE

Kitkat - no a/c?/ Aghhhhhh. We're hot even WITH a/c. You must be dying! Blah. At least the short hair has to be cooler, eh? :-)

Trundling Grunt said...

OH YOU BUGGER!! I jumped a mile when I saw the poem as it's Betjeman (minor) but I used to live in Wantage and go back there regularly. It's a great town and you can visit us when we retire there.

As to the buns - very cute. Pasta the Fat Bunny was a dwarf Dutch but not a lop, Lops look somehow softer and more cuddly. Man I miss Wasta.

C said...

TS - Thanks. He's a cute little guy. :-)

Mending is just totally uininspiring to me at all times. Sewing - YAY, but mending, boo, hiss!

C said...

LOL TG. :-) I had no clue you used to live in Wantage. I'll definitely have to visit you there. :-) I'm loving the Betjeman books. You wouldn't believe how many I was able to get from the library. "Patches" is extremely soft. He chews through electrical cords like there's no tomorrow though. Last time he severed the fountain cord and trashed the minidisc cord and earphones (ouch) and this time he killed Sluggie's alarm clock - oh and ate the feet off a friend's daughter's Barbie for good measure. :-P

Manny said...

Pics are way cool....btw I followed you from Winters.

My pics always come out blurred. LMAO

Zen Wizard said...

Way cool stuff!!

egan said...

I could bring your damn kitty with me. Do you have a gerbil?

C said...

Is that a euphemism? No gerbils, Sick boy.

egan said...

What's a euphemism?

Faltenin said...

Star Wars on Acid! w00t!

Is this some way to make sure the kids never do drugs, showing them what a bad trip looks like?

Strow said...

that star wars picture is wacked.

I really really love the plankton picture!!!! You are a creative genius

C said...

Egan, if you'd ever watched - er one of those Dr. Seuss films but I can't remember which - you would know that a euphemism is a toilet.

Fal, LOL! Is that what acid does? It did add a whole new dimension to their Star Wars viewing experience. Mostly gleeful obsvervations like "Qui-Gon's GREEN!" followed by great cackling. Hmmmm. Come to think of it, that does sound rather acidic.

Strow, it was definitely wacked. Though they enjoyed it anyway. It was like the old days of B&W (yes, I'm old enough that our first tellies were B&W) only with random colourisation.

Alas, I am not the creative genius. I am merely the creative partner in creating the herd of creative geniuses. (genii?) Too bad The Boy's Plankton got dismantled before I could snap a pic. It was even more Planktonesque.

C said...

Oh, how rude of me. WELCOME Manny and Zen Wizard!! :-) I think the gerbils got me all of a flutter.

C said...

Harp!!

Trundling Grunt said...

Pasta was free with the cage - she cost us a new carpet, $200 in the op, numerous vets bills, new curtains, replacement of various pieces of distressed furniture...most expensive free thing I ever got. And to top it all she belonged to LSWMBO! How old is he?

C said...

LOL!! That's an expensive freebie all right!

I think Patches is going on a year old. He belongs to the same family as the dog. (dog #2) He's quite the chewer :-P but very entertaining. He jumped up on the couch sometimes to visit me/help me write, and allowed Emmett (orange kitty) to play with his ears, LOL!