Before I created the internet, people had to rely on these unwieldy bound stacks of paper called ‘books’ that were full of tons of information – mostly irrelevant to what you actually needed to know. Here is an example of one such book – a cookbook that Lloyd bought at an auction years and years ago. It is divided into all kinds of categories – main dishes, side dishes, desserts, baby food, cocktails, how to make your own sausage, blah blah blah. It has two things in it that I need – how long do you boil eggs to make them hard boiled, and my sister’s awesome carrot cake recipe taped to the inside. God bless the internet.
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Take that, Orville.
I ran out of microwave popcorn bags a while ago. Rats. I really love popcorn. Seriously, I think I have a problem. No day is so bad that a beer and a bag of popcorn can’t erase it from your memory. Anyway, I discovered that I had a jar of actual popcorn that we used this summer in school. Did you know that you can throw a palmful or two in a lunch sack, fold it up tight, and microwave it as-is? Just take it out when the pops start slowing down, just like the other kind. The beauty of this is that I can slather it with butter (a reasonable slather – I’m not crazy), and feel good about putting actual butter in my gut, not some unpronounceable crazy fat. Yum!
I’ve used this bag eight times. I’m going for a record.
This ROCKS!
Lloyd and I went with Tim and Annette to a flea market in Lincoln on Saturday. It was pretty cool – some people were selling cool sutff, some people were selling embarrassingly sad items like old Gladware or the contents of their sock drawer. Lloyd saw a table where three old board games that we gave to Goodwill were on sale. (He’s pretty sure they were the EXACT same games.) I got the coolest rock/fossil thing in the whole wide world. I wish I could show the blue spot up close with light shining on it, but I can’t.  Without lighting, it is a very striking blue. Here it just looks grey.
However, shine a light THROUGH it and you have:
What could it be in there? I know it’s got to be some sort of fossil, but what?
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The Bat Man
While getting ready for bed, I heard a *scrabble scrabble* from the vent to the attic fan in the hall. It’s the first bat of the season! I went to tell Lloyd (who – as you’ll read about in the lower post – was comfortably in bed after drowning his sorrows from the worst day ever). He rose to the challenge, though. Whistling the theme from ‘The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly’ and wearing a fleece poncho we’ve been using as a blanket, he went to catch that bat. It involves propping the vent open with a broom, waiting until the bat comes out, then catching it with a sheet to release it into the wild. My job is to hide behind a door – this time with a camera.
The poncho fell off in the scuffle.
I’m glad he caught that bat. It surely would have eaten us in the night.
Sick and bored
I have a sore throat today and feel like a big whiner. Yesterday I slept all afternoon, which resulted in a terrible night’s sleep. So today I’m watching a lot of t.v. while sitting on the floor so I don’t sack out. I also made lunch (tuna casserole) and tried a microwave cake recipe. (Some guy on Food Network was making microwave brownies, but I’m more of a cake person.) Anyway, it turned out ok. It was a little dry, so I guess I’d add more liquids or not zap it for the whole two minutes. If you want to try it, here’s a link.
The recipe is: In a microwave-safe container, mix these ingredients successively: (use a little whisk if you have it) 2 Tbs melted butter, 3 Tbs sugar, 1 egg, 2 Tbs cocoa powder, 2 Tbs flour, 1/8 tsp baking powder. Cover loosely and microwave 2 – 2 1/2 minutes. (I’d try under two minutes, and I added a splash of vanilla. I think I’d add a little milk or a little more butter to moisten it up.)