the path is clear
22 Aug 07
Today, a big fat wet air mass settled on Southern Ontario, but our house stayed cool and dry inside. Rather than stay in after dinner and heat the house up by doing one or more of the many things that need doing, I decided to go outside and get all sweaty working in the garden. I had only intended to do a little weeding, but somehow I ended up scraping up all the mud and weeds and fallen bits of tree that had made the above path pretty darn hard to see (I must remember to start taking “before” pictures).
Afterwards, I went to the alley where we park the car and cut down all the little trees that always spring up along the back fence—one of these is a mulberry and the others are equally weedy—and then cleaned up the last couple months accumulation of litter from the parking area. (In Windsor, at least in older neighbourhoods like ours, the garbage pick-up is off the alleys, and people aren’t always careful how they put their garbage out. Our parking area is bounded by walls and a fence on three sides and seems to be a catchment area for other people’s windblown trash.)
Finally, I had a shower and it still wasn’t yet eight o’clock. How is it that there is always so much that remains to be done?
Posted by pzed on August 22, 2007 at 9.10pm
signs of life
14 Jun 07
It turns out I’m much better at taking photos than posting them. Here, then, is something from somebody else:
http://jeffreystedfast.blogspot.com/2007/06/movies.html
Posted by pzed on June 14, 2007 at 1.59pm
Milwaukee at last
10 May 07
Today we met Chicago; of course, parking cost more than lunch. We didn’t really research Chicago before we came, so today we just got a first taste, but it’s certainly a place we will have to come back to. I did get this great picture of tourists getting their picture taken.
And look, they left their pigeon behind!
This was in a cafe at the corner of Erie and St. Clair, which if you think about is kind of where we live. Jodi noticed that all the other women were wearing their purses over one shoulder while eating, which made her a little nervous, but not enough to clutch hers to her breast. We walked around Michigan Street, the so-called Miracle Mile, and discovered much to our disappointment that it wasn’t our kind of shopping. Imagine hoping to find Queen West and ending up at Bay and Bloor. Eventually we discovered a great little Thai restaurant called Dao:
We ate a very slow lunch, after which we pretty much had time only to go back to the car and head for Milwaukee, the slow way, up Sheridan gawking at houses and the Bahai Temple. A couple hours later and we’re with friends in Milwaukee and it feels almost as good as being home.
Posted by pzed on May 10, 2007 at 6.11pm
effner
9 May 07
The thing about slowly making your way across unfamiliar territory, taking backroads and just being open to experience, is what happens if experience isn’t open to you? There’s a bit of a danger, if you think “hey, lets just head off into the middle of nowhere”, that you’ll actually find yourself in the middle of nowhere.
After yesterday’s visit to Nashville, we headed up the I24 to Clarksville and turned north on the US41. We meandered, deliberately not taking the express route, across the westernmost tip of Kentucky. There’s not a lot there, but it’s beautiful country, and certainly a nice break from big cities and interstates. We finished our day by crossing the Ohio and driving through Evansville, Indiana, where we stopped for the night.
This morning, we looked at a map and decided just to continue north on the US41. There wasn’t a lot of adventure along this route; I guess our stop at the Goodwill in Terre Haute is the closest you could come, but we didn’t buy anything. Indiana is unrelentingly midwestern. Funny thing is, it’s not that different from the Windsor-Essex-Chatham-Kent region I’ve grown so accustomed to living in.
After about 6 hours of driving through farms and small towns, we decided to head over to Illinois for a while. We crossed the state line in Effner:
I can’t tell from the map whether Effner is in IL or IN. But immediately after crossing, we found the Illinois welcome center:
This is on the US52, and you’re looking at all of it. A few more pictures will convey pretty much the full extent of what we stared at all day today. First, looking back into Indiana:
Farms, lots and lots of farms:
And finally, trains:
I can’t believe how many trains we’ve seen or heard in the last two days. Must be on a major rail corridor heading to Chicago. And heading to Chicago is exactly what we’ll be doing tomorrow.
Posted by pzed on May 9, 2007 at 10.51pm
music city
9 May 07
Nashville was fun, although I suspect it would be more fun on a Saturday night than on a Tuesday morning. It’s funny how there are so many American towns with some kind of mythology about them. Nashville is, of course, the home of country music. The thing is, walking around Broadway looking at all the little country music clubs, you couldn’t help but get the feeling you were in some kind of heritage zone. There’s an L-shaped district (called, if I’m not mistaken, The District) made up of 19th century buildings housing businesses which, like Ernest Tubb Record Shop, have been here for 60 years.
That’s the Nashville Arena in the background. (To digress: when we first started planning this trip, I had hoped the Predators would go a little farther in the playoffs.) I find it remarkable how this little district of clubs and country music souvenir shops is surrounded by modern skyscrapers.
Nashville has become a theme park. What was once the home of country music is now the place where people go to experience the idea of the home of country music.
We also managed to check out parts of the Vanderbilt University campus.
A few more Nashville photos can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pzed/tags/nashville/
Posted by pzed on May 9, 2007 at 10.52am
The long trip home, part one – Monday, May 7
7 May 07
The long trip home will take seven days, from Athens, GA to Windsor, ON, via Milwaukee WI.
Today we toodled across North Georgia, experiencing the unexpected heights of the Chattahoochee National Forest and the devastating lows of the Coconut Bay Cafe in Manchester, Tennessee.
The Coconut Bay Cafe is actually sort of a roadhouse dinner place whose Monday special is domestic longnecks for a dollar fifty. We opted for the two-for-one margaritas. Funny thing is, when you order two margaritas and are told “y’know, ther two fer wahn”, you figure that’s Tennessean for “you’re getting a deal”, but it turns out to mean “you’re getting four”:
One nice thing about the Coconut Bay Cafe: we got to watch a little hockey.
Opening face-offs are my specialty. Jodi wasn’t particularly fond of the decor. We only found the Coconut Bay Cafe because it’s right next to the Ambassador Inn where we are staying tonight. Jodi tells me Manchester, TN, is home to some kind of Bonobo festival, but fortunately it’s not now so we don’t have to wade through the hippies and the chimps to get to our chips and salsa. Tomorrow we’re planning to get up early (but it won’t seem early, it’s the Central Time Zone—it’s like we left daylight savings behind) and drive into Nashville, where we will bum around and hope to find interesting things that aren’t the Grand Ole Opry.
Posted by pzed on May 7, 2007 at 8.50pm
hockey hockey hockey hockey. . . .
20 Apr 07
Last Saturday (April 14, 2007) Jodi and I saw a hockey game in Atlanta. Not my first NHL game ever, but my first playoff game; and Jodi’s first altogether. I took pictures, but only before and after; I wanted to watch the game while it was actually happening. Not the most excellent game of hockey ever played, but still exciting to be there. The athleticism of professional hockey players is remarkable. On television, you don’t really have a sense of how fast they move and how very little room they have to do the really sweet things they do. I have a thrashers – rangers photoset: here’s my favourite of the bunch.
Thanks, again, to Bob and Sandie for taking us!
Posted by pzed on April 20, 2007 at 9.43pm
fabric organizing party
30 Mar 07
First, here’s what three boxes and four bags of fabric scraps look like dumped out on Claire’s bed:
Now the hard part: how to get this stuff into two plastic totes in a way that might be called organized—by colour, light and dark? by weight, light and heavy? or by usefulness, useful and “why the hell do we still have this”? What I actually ended up with was bits and scraps (in green) and costume resources (in purple):
Oh, the box of leather is still a box of leather. And don’t worry, baby, I didn’t throw anything out. Not that I wasn’t tempted.
Posted by pzed on March 30, 2007 at 9.17pm
what could possibly be interesting about this bookshelf. . .
28 Mar 07
. . . apart from bad lighting and a jaunty lurch?
Well, not so long ago it was mostly empty. Today, it is more than mostly full, and four and a half boxes that were cluttering up Claire’s bedroom are now neatly nested and tucked away in the basement. A careful observer will notice that a lot of these books are rather old. Some belonged to my grandparents, some belonged to Jodi’s grandparents, a few belonged to my dad, and some were mine and/or Jodi’s all along.
Now, I need to tread carefully. There are some legitimate family heirlooms here; for example, my great-great-grandfather Van Houten’s copy of Pilgrim’s Progress. I’m wondering if, in some cases, it wouldn’t be best to hold a little memorial service and immolate them. Or maybe we’ll just hang on to them forever and let my grandkids figure it out. Van Who?
That being said, rest assured I haven’t done anything crazy. There are, however, a few titles that emerged from these boxes which, I think, can safely be put up for adoption. The following, then, are looking for a new home. Tell your friends!
Family Circle Do-It-Yourself Encyclopedia, vol 2 (Bas-Bui). Garden City, NY: Rockville House, 1973.
Fry, Christopher. Venus Observed: A Comedy. London: Oxford UP, 1949.
Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler, eds. Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century. London: Oxford UP, 1985.
Larsen, Earnest. Good Old Plastic Jesus. Liguori, MO: Liguorian Books, 1968.
Mackenzie, Compton. Vestal Fire. New York: Curtis Books, 1927.
Munro, Alice. Friend of My Youth. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 1991.
Poch, John and Chad Davidson. Hockey Haiku: The Essential Collection. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2006.
Posted by pzed on March 28, 2007 at 8.33pm
chow mein noodle lasagna-esque casserole
26 Mar 07
ingredients
- 1 lb fresh chow mein noodles
- 28oz can crushed tomatoes
- 2 5.5oz cans tomato paste
- oregano
- basil
- black pepper
- cayenne pepper
- onion
- garlic
- olive oil
- 2 eggs
- cottage cheese
- mozzarella cheese
- 2 T parmesan cheese
Fry the onion and garlic with the black pepper and cayenne pepper in olive oil until onions are clear. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, and oregano and bring to a (thick!) boil. Meanwhile, mix the two eggs vigourously into the cottage cheese.
When the sauce is ready, mix half of it with half of the chow mein noodles and dump this in a casserole dish as the bottom layer. Add half the cottage cheese and egg mixture, sprinkle on a thin layer of grated mozzarella cheese. Then mix the remaining chow mein noodles with the remaining sauce and add it to the casserole, followed by the remaining cottage cheese mixture, and a thick layer of mozzarella. Finish by sprinkling the parmesan cheese over the top, and bake at 350°F for 30 minutes. Let stand for five minutes and serve.
Chop sticks are counterindicated.
Posted by pzed on March 26, 2007 at 10.35pm
