I have a tiny tomato on my lonely
tomato plant. (It's on the lower right). That was such a relief,
because I was really concerned that I needed bees to pollinate the
flowers. Unlike Jon, the notion of letting bees into the apartment
just did not appeal to me. That sure did tickle my father though.
He's quite the urban gardener. He got quite the chuckle out of that
proposal. He explained that tomatoes are self pollinating somehow.
They've been developed that way, because bees are so scarce anymore.
I'm fairly pleased at how strong that plant is especially compared to
the last time I tried to grow something. I may get a mini herb garden
to keep it company. I know it sounds weird, but it just seems like
the plant is lonely all by itself. UPDATE! It's been days since I
started this blog. I now have a little thyme plant to keep the tomato
plant company, and supply me with thyme. That's my favorite herb.
I've been having trouble keeping up
with all the blogs I need to post over weekends. I'm considering
moving this blog to mid-week when I don't have a bottleneck. I'll be
having some really busy weekends in the next few weeks, so that may
be prudent.
Craig as My Nemesis?
Jon thinks I am Craig's nemesis. I do
drive him crazy, it seems, by putting him in my fiction (he's even
made an appearance in my fanfiction) and writing about him in the
blog. He's not really angry. He's just puzzled that anyone finds him
interesting. I know a lot of people who are interesting in many
strange ways, but I know few who are as interesting and consistently
funny as Craig. He worries that people will be disappointed upon
meeting him. Highly unlikely. I can count on one hand the people that
can make me laugh as hard as he does no matter what my mood is or how
badly I feel. Today, I was feeling really down (tired of being tired,
really tired of all the pain). I swear that he senses this, because
he always seems to call when I am at my mopiest. One call was to
inform me that Ray Liotta was back in his orbit. I looked him up to
see if he was between shoots or really stalking Craig. It seems to be
the former. The call that really cracked me up today was his review
of John Carter. It's not the worst review I've heard from Craig. That honor goes to
Pathfinder. If Jon ever gets a notion to tune in on that film, I am
to leap across the TV screen in slow motion screaming NOOOOOO to
block the signal from the remote. I can't repeat the other things he
said. The John Carter review was more colorful and far less angry. He
likened it to his keen disappointment with Star Wars Episode 1 but
with a herd of Jar Jar Binks .
And he said the leads were pretty but ill suited for dialog beyond 'I
love you, cardboard character (his words).' 'If I wrote one of those
review blog things, I'd give it four F#$%K Nos and recommend people
put their time to better use like auto-erotic asphyxiation.' See, he
can't help being interesting. So, I accept being his nemesis. He's
too much of a gentlemen to start a war with me. He'll just try to
terrorize Jon.
Social Butterfly
Aside from the sojourns that Marie and
I have taken to the Culver Hotel after shopping at the Culver City
Farmer's Market, I had two other social engagements. That was a lot
before I fell ill. Since then, it's unheard of. I think I held up
fairly well. I even managed to put makeup on AND do my hair. Have I
mentioned that some of the most helpful makeup tips I've found online
has been from transvestites and transgenders? Who better to instruct
on making skin look flawless? I still can't get behind false
eyelashes. They just make me giggle.
At any rate, the first of the social
engagements was an impromptu celebration of Gabriel Koerner's 30th
birthday. It happened that he really liked a place that was five
minutes from our place, and it was very reasonably priced. Jon said
that if I were to create a restaurant in my fiction, it would be
exactly like Sara the Wine Bar http://www.sarathewinebar.com/
(Things are very glamorous in the video. Something like that was
going on in a private room, but the main restaurant was really down
to earth and homey). When I approached the entrance, there was a
handsome, older gent dancing with an adorable, chubby cheeked baby
who was grinning and laughing. Inside, there were two generations of
extended family attentively waiting on customers. Though I was not a
regular, I was welcomed and felt very comfortable alone waiting for
Jon, Gabriel and his friends to show up. Of course, with Gabriel
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gabriel_Koerner
involved, there is a Trek connection to the joint. Cirroq Lofton
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Cirroc_Lofton
is best known as Jake Sisko from Deep Space 9. He married a talented
chef from Tuscany. The result is a place with amazing, handcrafted
food and a warm, friendly atmosphere that made me feel at home. Our
first birthday party with Gabriel was when he was 15 and prone to
swing from trees. When I first met him during my interview for
Trekkies, I thought 'I seem to have found Jon's son.' Our
relationship with him reminds me of family – highly entertaining at
times. He's packed a lot of hard living in 15 years. I'm glad to see
that he's mellowed though he remains quite the charming dinner
companion. A fine time was had by all.
The second outing will have to wait for
another day. I have more to cover, and my inbox is not emptying
itself!
Jammin'
I suppose it was inevitable that all of
this fresh produce would leave to making Jam. I think that was only
part of my interest in the practice. Most of it came from the
interest in making bread from scratch. It seemed silly to me to spend
time allowing the dough to ferment slowly for enhanced flavor only to
slather on some store bought jam that has sugar or high fructose corn
syrup as a first ingredient. I'm also planning on making maracons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaron
from scratch. Regular jam wouldn't do. And if I am considering Jam
that in the ten buck range, I'd just as soon make my own. I'm not
courageous enough to trust that my canning will hold up for months.
I'm happy with smaller yields (2 jars per type) that will last in the
fridge for a couple of weeks. Once I'm better at it, I'll give jars
as gifts. The process isn't difficult, but it is exacting if one
wants to avoid dangerous canned goods. I think the biggest challenge
for me is that once you begin the sterilizing process, you have to be
ready to fill the jars with the hot mixtures. As I've often said, our
apartment is small, and the kitchen is miniscule. Making the various
jams used every bit of available space and most of my pots and pans.
Luckily, the recipes can be re-heated to boiling later on or even the
next day (I just don't add the pectin until right before I'm ready to
put everything in the jars). I can rest while Jon cleans up the
kitchen. Love that Kitchen Aide! Then, I can start the sterile
cleaning of the stove and the sink. I even did the floor. I think I
was thinking of an operating room. The instructions were adamant
about everything touching the jars and lids be extremely clean. It
was a mite scary transferring the newly cleaned and rinsed glasses in
the hot water pot with the transferring grabber gizmo. I had to make
sure that water was filled to the top without falling over. But what
was really terrifying was grabbing the sterilized jars, pouring out
the hot water and gently setting it on a tray. My long time readers
may recall, that I am quite a klutz at times. And I have had
incidents with scalding water. Luckily, Everything went well this
time. And the jams turned out nicely. The apricot isn't quite as good
as the stuff I had in the south of France, but it was tasty with very
little sugar. I'm hoping the process will get easier with each
attempt.
Updates
I have a web series update on
http://demonspawntales.blogspot.com/
. I have a very pointed yet literary rant on trolls who write bad
reviews without reading the book here http://sybpressyaoi.com.
There are no new book or film updates. I have a pile of stuff I'm
slogging through in my inbox, but nothing I'm free to report.
Stay tuned.
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