Friday, June 24, 2011

Summertime

Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion often says that "heat makes you stupid."  As a Southerner living in a hot clime, I should be insulted--or at least protest.  But I can't, in any honesty.  I can add that it also makes you lazy.

It's just that as the temps climb into the 90's and nudge the three digits, you really just don't feel like doing anything, including thinking.  Yes--air conditioning exists.  But for the most part, to save the environment  (that's the noble excuse--the real reason is to avoid sticker shock when the power bill comes in) the thermostats are set high.  So you're not exactly comfortable cool inside (except for those places who get too carried away with the AC and you find yourself shivering).

For the past six weeks I've been teaching in the mornings--I teach, do any grading or prep for the next day, have lunch with Bob, and was usually home by 2:00.  In theory, this gave me my afternoons to do anything I wanted--I could spin, weave, sew, read, whatever.

What I did was take a nap.  I was usually in a stumbling stupid, walk-into-walls state by the time I got home and just wanted to get flat on my face for awhile.

Hence--not much to blog about.

About the only good thing about summer is the fresh tomatoes.  Bob's done a great job with the garden, and before I've fallen on my face with I get home I usually stumble out to water the plants.  We've been gorging on tomatoes as much as possible--sliced, on pizza, the famous BLT salad (the components of a BLT sandwich in salad form--croutons, bacon (with the bacon grease poured on the croutons), tomatoes (some of them fried briefly in the bacon fat to bring out the juices), chopped romaine, and a bit of vinagrette.  Despite all of this, I've had to make one batch of roasted tomato sauce, and will make another batch this weekend.

So that's about it for the last couple of weeks.  I've spent a couple of days at the farm at the museum, spinning cotton, have started winding the warp so that I can weave the cotton, done a bit of knitting on Mom's sock (I had finished one, and then got halfway through the next before realizing tha I made a bad mistake and had to rip it all out.  Just threw it aside for awhile but it's back on the needles again.  School is out and I'm doing programs for the musuem.   The little opposums are out in the release cage--they're be on their on soon.  But mostly it's been tomatoes and naps.



Saturday, June 4, 2011

Mini Vacation

Bob wanted to go to a scale model convention at Warner Robbins AFB today.  It's about a four hour drive away.  In theory we could have hit the road about 5 this morning, been there when it opened at nine. spent a few hours there, and then driven the four hours home.

The heck with that.  We scooted out of work early yesterday, drove up, and found a motel about five minutes from the convention.  Which was at the Air Force museum--which was on the Air Force base.  We both felt a little nostalgic driving past the base--we both spent our formative years behind those chain-link fences.

I waited in the car while Bob checked into the motel--it took awhile, because he came out and said he had to chat up the Filipina desk clerk.  Bob, with his love of the Philippines, manages to find his homeys everywhere (side note: "homey" dates to the time of the Underground Railroad.  Escaped slaves who had left everything they had ever known were always so happy if they ever found anyone who had lived in the same town and knew the same people--someone from home). Gladys pointed us out to a Filipino restaurant--more homeys for Bob and an excellent dinner for both.  I had a pork kare kare--a soup with a peanut broth (rather like a pad Thai sauce), pork, eggplant and bok choy.  Delicious.  Bob enjoyed his pork ribs and fried rice, but kept stealing my soup as well.

We went to the convention this morning.  About a dozen vendors--small compared to the 200+ vendors at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival last month, but enough to please Bob and empty his wallet a bit.  There was also a model contest--Bob scoped out the competition this year and might enter something next year.  We (of course) had to wander around the museum and the static display of aircraft outside.  Bob took some pictures for Dad.


 Lunch after all this was at a Vietnamese restaurant.  I have heard of pho, but never tried it before--it's a soup.  The important part is the broth--then there are add-ins.  Now I know what people are talking about--I'm not sure what was in the broth, but it was amazing.  Bob had beef pho and I had seafood.  A nice touch is that you're given a plate of fresh herbage (cilantro, thai basil, bean sprouts, and a lime wedge) to add to the soup after your served, so they don't cook, just add perfume and crunch.      

                                                                 
And then home.  We were only gone about 30 hours, but it felt like a vacation.  We saw some new things, had a couple of good ethnic meals, and Bob even managed to get a few goodies to play with.