Four Tomatos Make a Bunch and So Do Many More

Tra la la, la la la la
Tra la la, la la la la

One tomato, two tomato, three tomato, four
Four tomatos make a bunch and so do many more.
Over hill and highway the tomato buggies go
Comin' to bring you the Tomato Split show
Makin' up a mess of fun, makin' up a mess of fun
Lots of fun for everyone

Makin up a mess of fun
Makin up a mess of fun
Happiness for ev'ryone
Tra la la, la la la la
Tra la la, la la la la
Tra la la, la la la la

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Ah memories. That little bit of nonsense will mean nothing to many of you. But a select few of you will know right away what other fruit i cancelled to make way for that special little ditty bout all our tomatos. We have as many more as this that are within a day or two of needing to be picked. We went to our local Tractor Supply Store, and could not get mason jars... I figured if any place would have canning supplies, it'd be the trusty Tractor Supply. So, once again i'm reduced to ordering from Amazon.com... Oh well, at least i realize my tax dollars are really going there too anyway.

Do any of you have any canning / jarring advice for us? None of us (JingXia included) have ever properly canned. Jingxia pickles vegetables in crap she pulls out of our recycle bin, but there's no proper sterilization or vacuum sealing going on.

UNTIL NOW that is. Debbie will be glad to know that our household is no longer putting the entire midwest at risk for a botulism outbreak.

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Oh and by the way, I know THOUSANDS of you have been wondering about the mystery of the corn silk. Alas, I have no answer for you. Alack, the mister said it looked disgusting and threw it in the trash. Not even the compost, but the trash mind you. Oh, the humanity.

You Have No Idea

Everyday I come home and find new mysteries in the fridge like this. A ziploc bag full of corn silk. Sheesh. I hope she is going to boil it for stock or something, and we won't be eating it for a side dish tomorrow night. Tonight, we had a side of sauteed squash leaves. They were wierd. Very wierd. Steven says she put some red pepper sauce on it that made it even wierder.

We think--now that we have a nearly $30,000 kitchen--that JingXia is learning, after 3 half years with us, that we like to cook too. She's being a good sport about asking before she cooks, especially on the weekend (when we both, she thinks, like most to cook). And she has pared her preferred 8-12 dishes per meal down to 4 or 5 now.

I miss coming home and cooking a thirty minute (non Rachel Ray) meal. There is something about cooking everyday that I really need somehow. It's not about creativity, really. More like memory and ritual, being in touch with the earth, and rememberance of things passed. It's indoor gardening, really, and somehow it cultivates the mind. Going through the days events while chopping or deglazing or washing.

Chatting while cooking too, that's a nice thing. I suppose if we could talk to one another she would let me do some of it, but that's not going to happen. When Steven works from home during the week, he can if he has time. But usually, I don't think she really lets him ever help either.

We all have dishes we prepare that remind us of that time or that visit or that party. A way of marking time? 3,589 Oatmeal Cookies so far! 342 Roast Chickens! A Brazillion grains of Rice! The last time we had xx was when xx and xx came over.

In the first year, i was relegated to just being the desert cook, since neither JingXia--nor any Chinese grandma for that matter--would cook a desert. Not even with a ten foot spoon.

I think back often to the day--more than 2 years ago now--when Debbie said "You're such a good son-in-law, Sam!" I am trying.

Gone Apoplectic

Unbelievable.

Really Unbelievable.

Why in Hell are Democrats such Ennablers?

Steven, our Representative, Charlie Wilson, voted for this. I will never vote for him again. See who voted how HERE. Only 2 Republicans--Johnson (IL)and Jones (NC)--appear to have voted against this measure. Bet some money has disappeared out of their Swiss Bank Accounts today.

I'm an ENFJ-type. You?

Thank goodness "designer" and "artist" are listed as probable occupations for my type. When i saw nothing but actors in the list of famous ENFJers it scared the bejeepers outa me.

I have Kelly to thank for this test. He's a ENTJ.

Newsclipping(s) of the Day :: Do Nothing Democrats

I don't know about any of you, but if Democrat-controlled House folds on this issue of yet another expansion of Executive power, i'm going to go apoplectic. I can not believe in this day and age--after all Bush has drug us through, and after all that has come out about his less-than-honorable intentions, from the bogus war to the Downing Street Memo to expanding insurance covering for kids to incarcerating citizens of the world without ever charging them--that members of congress feel pressure to "update" FISA. Now. Before the Summer recess. Give me a #@%^%**^&?##% break! I am so sick of these criminals and sick sick sick to death of their Democrat Enablers like Nancy Pelosi. What on earth makes any of them think we want them to cave and vote on a bill that they haven't even read or studied? Again?

Read Hullabaloo's much more informative rant on the subject. Can't resist this quote:

"Here we are trying to pry from the Bush administration just what in the hell was in the "other intelligence activities" they were doing before the entire upper management of the Department of Justice threatened to resign, and the Dems are now publicly capitulating to white house demands that they give them more warrantless surveillance powers --- and Harry Reid is whining about how he hopes the Republicans will work with him? Talk about muddying the waters. The substance is nuts and the politics are nuts."

Ok, i have to go relax for the rest of my Sunday. No more reading the news...I can feel the blood boiling in my head. Back to my Alan Turing book. La la la la la.

Newsclipping(s) of the Day :: California Wakes Up, Finally

49 States left to go. This is really good news people. For posterity, when that link above become inactive:

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California Restricts Voting Machines
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
Published: August 5, 2007

California’s top election official on Friday decertified three voting systems widely used in the state but said she would let counties use the machines in February’s presidential primary if extra security precautions were taken.

The official, Debra Bowen, the secretary of state, said she made the decision in response to studies showing that the machines could be hacked.

In a sense Ms. Bowen’s decision amounts to barring the machines, then reapproving their use under strict new conditions.

The decision comes amid growing concerns nationally about the security and reliability of electronic voting machines. It affects systems made by three of the four largest voting machine companies.

Ms. Bowen took her toughest action against touch-screen machines, in which a voter’s ballot is generated by a computer. She said the machines made by Diebold Election Systems and Sequoia Voting Systems could be used only in early voting and to meet voting-access requirements for the disabled.

Another touch-screen model, made by Hart InterCivic, can be used more broadly, she said. But all three of the systems can be used only under rigorous security procedures, including audits of the election results.

Ms. Bowen said optical-scanning systems, in which voters mark their choices on paper ballots that are then counted by computers, also were barred but re-certified under the new security procedures.

Many critics of the voting machines favor the optical scanners. And in announcing her decisions late Friday night, Ms. Bowen said she also thought that those systems made it “easier for voters to see and understand” how their ballots were being tallied.

Voting-industry executives have been critical of how Ms. Bowen’s office has handled a six-month review of the machines, and Sequoia issued a statement early Saturday morning expressing disappointment and insisting that its machines were safe.

Computer scientists from California universities, working at Ms. Bowen’s request, recently released reports saying that they had hacked into machines made by all three of the vendors and found several ways in which vote totals could be altered.

But industry executives complained that the tests had not taken account of security precautions, including surveillance cameras and log-in sheets, that limit access to the machines in most counties and could prevent hacking during an election.

All That Bamboo

No, the title of this post is not an idea for a new reality TV show... but we will be doing an endurance test for the rest of the summer turning a huge amount of bamboo into lovely little fences around the garden. This picture represents one corner of all the stuff we've collected for the job:



Every corner of our backyard has this stuff stacked up against the fences all around. Laiyee found a neighbor up in the Hollywood Hills who had a incredible amount of bamboo they'd been eradicating... and in two afternoons, while borrowing Bob and Laiyee's truck, we collected ginormous amounts of raw material. It took me a few days to recover from that, my chest arms and back have never had such sore muscles. My arms still have scabs all over them!

A Trip to the ZOO

Mom and BC and I got to go kill time (that's just for you Steven!) at the Zoo one afternoon while we waited for Steven to finish a conference nearby in Dublin... and then we went out and had a big lunch!





























Ok, so TWO of these pictures were not taken at the zoo. Anyone want to guess which ones??

Sleeping, Eating, Dreaming FOOD

Ok, So we've been eating way too much lately (BC can attest to this. We stuffed her for two weeks until she said STOP!). What with all the Moms and others visiting, and the now prolific garden, there's just alot of eating to be done. We need to learn how to jar some of this, or give more away.

Yesterday, we went to this totally charming farming village called Bremen, about an hour to the north, almost out of the Allegheny foothills (where we are). They have a tiny little farmer's market there on Friday nights, and we went crazy buying beautiful stuff from a sweet Amish girl, there with a whole bevy of other Amish, with their carriages and horses in the background. Look at all this stuff:






And look at this, Jing Xia has already got this corn shucked before she went to bed. She painstakingly pulls each kernal off with her hands, cutting them off with a knife wastes too much in her book. The American Depression Kid Generation has got nothing on this woman! She wastes nothing:


While i'm at it, we've just downloaded about a gazillion pictures from the camera...look at all this yummy food we've been eating! I'm on my way to becoming the corpulent Orson Welles circa '76 (you remember: "We will sell no wine, until its time..."). Anyhow, check out the steamy glamour shot of my blueberry cheesecake:



Our friend Laiyee made in her kitchen the wonderful strawberry preserves on top of this slab of fatty goodness. She is a great and prolific cook, and constantly brings us goodies from her kitchen and her garden:




















Our neighbors, Mike and Jane are the greatest. My Mom keeps reminding us how wonderful it is to have neighbors you actually like and have things in common with. Anyway, we've been lucky enough to have not one, but TWO! lovely rhubarb pies from Jane this summer. They are sooooooooooooooooo good, and the Chinese love that non-traditional-dessert-sweet n' sour thing the pie celebrates:




Whew! See? That's alot of food. Gotta go make dough for the Vegetable Pie crust!

Crumbling Infrastructure

While every American in sight has maxed out renovating their abodes (including us with our new kitchen, HVAC, and floors, etc.), the opposite has been happening with all our shared assets. All part of the Grover Norquist (drowned it in the bathtub) plan.

I just Tivoed this, but why bother to watch when i can just read the transcript?? Amy Goodman--Goddess Bless Her--knows what time it is in Minneapolis.

Who can turn the world on with her smile?

Who can take some nothing roads, and suddenly make it all seem financially worthwhile?

Well it's you Grover and you should know it

With each scheme and every little idea you show it

Assets are all around, no need to waste it

You can never tell, why don't you steal it?

Your gonna destroy it after all