If that photo doesn't make your mouth water than you've probably never made a pumpkin pie from scratch.
Mix all that together, pour in a pie shell and bake.
15 at 450 then 40 at 350. An hour later you have The Delicious!
Happy Thanksgiving, wherever in the world you are today!
So a little over a week ago, I posted a few photos I'd taken from my photography class. We'd been on a day field trip to the cactus garden.
Over the weekend, we again had a field trip. This time it was an evening into night shoot in a town called Redwood City. We started at the CalTrain station and worked our way through downtown.
Hooo boy did I struggle with this field trip. But the good kind of struggle. When the light is changing that fast, you have a lot of technical things to keep in mind. Since I'm just learning the technical things, I'm still pretty slow, so many of the photos didn't come out worth a dang.
But I learned A LOT, and that's the point.
Anyhoo, I put up another gallery of my favorite photos from the night, there are just 27 in this collection.
Here's a few to get you started. Click any of the images to see a bigger size.
Assignment here was to play with the light of sunset as it bounces off objects and buildings.
Assignment was slow shutter speed, I *love* the ping effect of the droplets! Look at the big size to really see it!!
Also a long exposure, I was trying to catch the purple light on the tables and also got some passing tailights on long exposure. I liked the effect!
I have learned so much from actually being hands on out in the field. My assignment now is to keep practicing!
Here is a transcript of my day:
10:45 arrive at my friend's house, she gives me the details and directions
11:15 da mama leaves, and I'm there alone with the most adorable tiny sleeping baby
11:20 I freak out a little bit. Oh the responsibility!
11:21 I calm down and settle onto the couch to surf the internets
12:00 The baby wakes and begins crying loudly
12:05 I find a bottle with formula and plug it in to the appropriate outlet.
12.06 Crying stops.
12:20 Bottle is done, I lift baby to my shoulder and pat
12:21 Six pound child emits a long deep burp that would make a frat boy proud
12:30 Child is asleep again
2:00 Da mama comes home, child is still asleep
Damn. I'm *good* at this babysitting thing! For three whole hours I rooock!
*Breathe*
*Stretch*
*Limber up*
I have a challenge ahead of me today.
A challenge that is not for the weak at heart, mind or body.
I must prepare my body with deep warming up exercises.
I must focus and prepare my mind for the calm.
Ooooooohmmmmmmmm.
Yes. I must be steady. Balanced. Yet, with catlike reflexes.
This will be my greatest challenge in some time.
Later today...for three hours, I am babysitting a one-month-old baby.
: Cue scary music! :
One of my dearest friends, who is very grateful to have finally given birth to that watermelon sitting on her bladder, has been able to quickly get her little one onto a nice schedule.
And so da mama is going to get her hair cut and colored today. Yes, she's *ever* so happy to be able to color her hair again (as you know, you're not supposed to do that when pregnant).
So I was all too happy to say yes when asked to come sit with the tiny princess.
But I'm no stranger to this game. I've got godkids and twin nephews and lots and lots of friends with kids.
I know what deep waters I'm wading into.
While I’m confident I know what to do...I'm also pretty sure I can't plop kibble in the bowl then walk away to go read a book like I do with The Feline.
And so...wish me godspeed on this very dangerous yet important mission!
Over the weekend, I was playing a new online jigsaw puzzle game I found. Fun!
At the beginning, you are presented options, Easy, Medium or Hard.
I picked Medium.
When I buy salsa: mild, medium or hot?
I pick medium.
There is a really fabulous coffee place here in the Bay Area where they will add cream and sweeten your beverage to perfection.
When they ask me "how sweet would you like it?"
I reply "medium sweet."
My shoe size, 8½ is neither very large nor very small. It's somewhere in the middle. (and always sold out of the good styles)
My dress size is the same as that of the "Average American Woman"
I have medium brown hair. Neither light brown nor dark brown. Just there in the middle of the brown range (thanks to my hairdresser, it's also more brown than gray).
I live "mid-Peninsula."
We live a middle-income existence.
When they took my blood pressure on Friday, it was average. As was my temperature.
I'm even starting to take a look at being middle aged.
My god, why am I so blastingly AVERAGE?!
I wondered, while I did my medium hard jigsaw puzzle, who picks "hard" on this game, HOT for salsa, really sweet for their coffee and lives on those wispy ends of the bell curve of life?
Probably someone like Richard Branson, eh? Or that Steve Irwin guy before he passed. He probably could solve the "hard" puzzles.
Ah well. Actually, sometimes life's not so bad from the fat part of the Bell Curve.
At least I'm in good company.
So I was reading my mom-in-law's blog, Musing by Moonlight, and her touching post about the March of Dimes and the fight for preemie babies.
Since my own beautiful twin nephews were preemies, I chimed in the comments about how one of the best ways to help preemies is to donate platelets, also called apheresis.
So, it's been a while since I have donated, and since I like to practice what I preach, I called to make an appointment at my local blood center.
They said "YES! Can you come in today!?!?!"
The holidays are a tough time for both blood and platelet needs.
Here is my public service message:
Please, please, donate blood or platelets if you are able!
Here's my "I'm just a big candy ass" message:
Today?!?!?!? YIPE!
While I'm always glad to donate platelets, it never stops me from being very, very skeered!
However, whenever I give platelets, as they flow out of my veins, I always imagine that the person who receives my pretty little red blood cells will wake up, healthy and strong and craving the hell out of green chile chicken enchiladas.
My donation to mankind.
Last weekend, I went to a book signing by Wona Miniati who is a coauthor of The Trader Joe's Companion, a fun cookbook with easy recipes.
Wona made a couple items for the audience so we could see some of the recipes in action.
As she was squeezing a lemon, she began to wax rhapsodic about the citrus juicer she was using, like this one:
She told us that it was her absolutely favorite ever kitchen gadget. She made it sound so enticing, it makes me want one!
And it got me to thinking...what is my favorite kitchen gadget?
Well, besides my Moka Pot for coffee (oh sweet love):
And my juicer (I was just singing to you this morning):
Which aren't really cooking gadgets, they are more for making The Delicious.
I'd have to say my absolute favorite kitchen gadget, the one I use for cooking all the time, never lets me down, always on my side, my god how did I ever live without it is...my garlic press (this one is exactly like mine):
Oh man, do I love that thing. *Squirt* and there's tasty garlic ready to rock and roll.
I have deep emotional ties to garlic.
It might be my favorite seasoning.
Although...it's a pretty close battle with:
Cumin is the wonder spice. Don't let anyone tell you different.
I believe if stranded on a deserted island with a head of garlic and a bottle of cumin, I could make knockout food to sustain. I really do!
Do you have a favorite gadget or spice? Let me know, I might end up with kitchen lust!
This morning, I heard my talking combo smoke and carbon monoxide detector talking to me.
Which caused both me and the cat to jump a mile high.
And then I yelled at it, "WHAT DID YOU SAY!?!?"
The lady inside the detector was kind enough to repeat herself.
"Battery low!"
Ah, whew. Ok. Easily fixed.
But my talking smoke/carbon monoxide detector reminded me of a post from January of this year.
I believe it's time for me to pull a rerun.
Here's a link to the original post.
Here are the contents repeated in full. Thanks for (re)reading!
Near and Dear to my Heart
Sit back, I'm about to go on a bit of a rant, inspired by a story I read today in the SFGate.
About six or eight years ago, I was living in a small apartment in the South Bay, in a small eight unit building. The building dated back to at least the 1930's, if not earlier, and featured this breathing dragon of a wall heater as its only source to take the chill of cold rainy evenings.
I had gone home to New Mexico for Christmas, and my mom, ever the practical one, had given me a carbon monoxide alarm as a gift.
Fine. Whatever. I took it back to California with me where it sat, unused, in the box for quite a while. A year or more, if truth be told.
One day, I was cleaning up the place when I found that thing and figured, "oh well". I put in the batteries and hung it from my ceiling. Fine. Look at me. Miss Practical.
A couple months later, the damn thing started going off.
I was frustrated. Surely this was defective. Busted. Whatever.
I unscrewed it from the ceiling and moved it farther back.
And the damn thing kept going off.
Weird.
Fine. So after dealing with the piercing noise for, again, if I’m telling the truth here, several months, I finally called PG&E. I knew it would take them *forever* to fit me in, but whatever.
I told them that my carbon monoxide alarm kept going off and could I get an appointment for someone to come out check.
Anticipating at least 30 days before I got an appointment, I was surprised when, instead, the call dispatcher said, "someone will be there immediately" and further, "open all the doors and windows until someone arrives."
Uh. Ok. Much ado about nothing, right? But at least I'd get quick attention.
Good for their word, a guy showed up within about ten minutes.
He took a reading in the center of the room and said, "I'm going to cap off your gas, you have fatal levels of carbon monoxide in here."
Well blow me over.
Turns out there was a center tube of metal inside the heater that had slid down when the house settled or from age, and it left a crack about an inch wide that was venting the heater right into my apartment.
The next day, I absentmindedly told this story to a friend at work, and she started crying. One of her dearest friends had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Her life could have been saved with the simple installation of a carbon monoxide alarm, but it was, instead, lost.
When The Good Man moved into our place, I told him this story and said I will never live in a place that does not have a working carbon monoxide alarm.
I refuse.
I was reminded about all of this today when I saw the headline in the local paper say:
Two Bay Area families survive carbon monoxide poisoning
"The mother said the family started feeling sick around midnight...When their symptoms failed to improve in the morning, they headed for the emergency room."
That woman's good thinking saved her family, her kids, her own life.
It scares the crap out of me. Apartments are required to have a smoke alarm, but not a carbon monoxide alarm. They even make dual alarms these days, both fire and carbon monoxide. Easy peasy!
So please, anyone who is reading this, don't hesitate, don't call it "some remote possibility". Don't put it off.
Get thee to a Wal-Mart or a Target or a Home Depot and BUY a carbon monoxide alarm and install it where you will spend most of your time.
Buy two, one for the living room and one for your bedroom. Just do it, okay?
Thanks. Your life matters to me.
I have this nasty little problem.
I fall down.
I'm a faller.
'Tis true. I don't know why this is, I just seem to have a propensity for one moment standing, next moment I'm a tornado of arms and legs and I'm startled to be laying on the ground.
I've had times in my life when it was really, really bad. Especially right after I'd first moved to California.
I am a sensitive kid, and I do tend to get a little sensory overloaded. Moving to California all by my little lonesome could quite handily be filed under "a skosh overwhelming".
In the first six months I lived here, almost daily I either locked my keys in the car or fell down, or both.
It usually happens when I’m a little too much up in my head, not feeling grounded, not paying attention.
The last big fall I took was last December. So see, I'm doing pretty good! I mean, I hardly ever fall down anymore.
I had a really smokin' No Fall streak going...until Saturday.
There I was at the day field trip for my photography class. I was feeling *so* great because I was getting some amazing shots, feeling all artistic, and yes, I'll say it, a little smug and self-satisfied with myself.
And so as I was leaving the Rodin Sculpture garden to scale the concrete steps leading into the Cantor Arts Center, I was smiling to myself, feeling happy, folding up my tripod, bopping along and then, as fate will do, I missed the top step, bobbled, and fell.
My tripod went clattering. My knee hit first, then my elbow, then my chin (oooh, took it on the chin!).
Then, somehow, gravity took over from its old friend momentum, and my legs were then flung askew and above me.
As The Good Man says, "When you can see the sky between your shoes, it's not going to be a good day."
I had the definite sensation that I was going to go clank-clanking down all the stairs. And I knew that would be a bad thing.
So I'm not sure what I did, but I was able to clench, or grab or lean or something, but I stopped my downward thunking progression.
*sigh*
I got myself upright again, and sat on that step, midway down the approximately fifteen-stair set of steps, and just...stopped.
I gazed out on the Rodin Sculpture Garden and shook my head.
And sighed.
My tripod was several feet away, my backpack was laying in the opposite direction, and the camera around my neck was still there, but the telephoto part of my very nice lens was stuck at an odd angle.
If I were skiing, they refer to that as a "yard sale."
Thankfully, only my pride was seriously hurt.
Sorry for the angle up the ol' double cannons there. At least I don’t have crazy nose hair!
A couple days ago, I alluded to a scouting trip to the Arizona Cactus Garden at Stanford University.
I am taking a photography class and Saturday morning, we had a day field trip that included the Cactus Garden, the mausoleum where Leland Stanford, his wife and child are laid, the Rodin Sculpture Garden at the Cantor Arts Center (I *love* Rodin scupltures!), and the New Guinea Sculpture Garden.
It was an unbelievable day of shooting, getting one-on-one instruction from my wonderful teacher, Marty Springer, and trading ideas and stories with fellow classmates.
For the photography buffs, we were working on both depth of field and exposure compensation all day. For some of the subjects, I took photo after photo trying to find an f-stop that suited me. Oh and the exposure compensation too! A whole new world of better photos has hit me square on!
Next weekend, we do a night shoot where we'll learn about working with light.
Anyhow, below are a couple shots. I took about 350 photos that day. Whew! I put up an online gallery of about 48 of the better shots so my mom, mom-in-law and husband could see what I was up to. You are welcome to take a look as well.
Enjoy!
(click image to view full size)
Yup. I waited and waited and finally the persimmon I'd picked and brought inside became ripe. "Like a soft tomato" I'd read was the desired state.
I sliced it open, and gave 'er a shot.
It tastes something like a creamy melon. Normally, "melon" wouldn't be a flavor I like.
But in this case, I found it to be delicious! Still a bit of tannin, but not uncomfortably so.
Nice!
And *then* I read that eating too much persimmon can cause something really fun called a bezoar! Hooray!
Well now, isn't she a pretty little flower, blushing in the sun?
(click to see full size)
Who would have figured she would be hanging around with a prickly fellow like this?
(click to see full size)
Life is just like that, I suppose! :)
Photos taken by Karen Fayeth (with my iPhone) at the Arizona Cactus Garden at Stanford University.
This was a scouting trip. Stay tuned, there may be more photos taken with a better camera on the way!
So, now that we've gone and cancelled our cable, we live at the whims of what's available on the public airwaves.
This means that I've been watching a lot more PBS lately. There's some really fascinating stuff on there!
So I watched, with moist salivary glands, a show called "Everyday Baking."
Host John Barricelli makes some naughty baked things on that show, and the recipes seem pretty easy.
I told The Good Man that I'd watched the show and was going to try my hand at making homemade biscuits.
That grown man, in a full Cookie Monster voice, said "biscuits?"
This morning, I printed out the recipe and placed it on the counter. I will make them later today to be ready for weekend breakfasts.
Every time The Good Man walked by the counter while getting ready for work and spotted the recipe, I heard "biscuits?!?"
He opened the fridge, "hon, why is there a bunch of cut up butter in here?"
"That's for the biscuits, they said the butter needs to be cold and in small chunks."
"Biscuits!?!?"
As he kissed me goodbye for the day, he bounced on the balls of his feet and uttered one last, "biscuits!?!?"
Oh man, with such Cookie Monster passion about these biscuits, now I'm sort of scared. What if they turn out like flour-y hockey pucks?
GAH THE PRESSURE!
Then again, I bought sausage to make sausage gravy. Just about anything tastes ok covered in sausage gravy.
To quote Avelino on Twitter, my source for the link, "Oh crap"
Oil industry sinkhole threatens to swallow city
Having lived in Carlsbad for a while, I could make some flippant joke, but I won't. This is a pretty freaking serious problem.
Carlsbad and the surrounding areas have been pretty well mangled due to oil and potash mining. I believe it was only a matter of time that something like this happened.
Sometimes it takes something huge to create a wake up call.
Got the good town of Carlsbad on my mind today!
