Hello, gentle readers, I am sick.
Came home, went down, better now. Not ready to write much yet.
All our equipment from computer to cells to house phone to TV are in a bad way!! Constantly being thrown off the computer!!
All for now, YAZZYBEL the laid low
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
In the Bay Area
Good morning.
It's Day Nine of being away from home, and I have not blogged until today.
I couldn't remember my password and was too lazy or busy to look it up.
I have done a lot of cooking since we came up here, and have enjoyed it. I do always enjoy cooking unless I am too tired. Haven't been tired here! Until at nine at night, when I crash.
We came for Ben's eye operation, which has passed and was successful. He went back to work today which was optional, so he must have felt like things are back to normal. (Or he couldn't abide the "Bickersons" any longer!)
Yesterday we went to eat in Sonoma at The Girl and the Fig. It was fun, but it's too established now. I'd have enjoyed it more in its newer days. The food was good. We went for brunch which is inexpensive, so the bill was not bad. We had several good things: Theo had Croque Monsieur, which was by far the "biggest" thing anyone got...a huge sandwich with bacon and egg and ham and a salad on the side of frisee with nice dressing. Benjamin had Confit of Duck with potatoes and etc. Also very nice. He ordered a tomato-watermelon tower as well, with feta cheese and a pleasant creamy dressing. I had chicken sausage with grits and chard. The chicken sausage wasn't very good; was hard and nothing to a real pork sausage which is the trouble with chicken sausages. But the meal was good, all things prepared well; unfortunately there was a garnish of bees and hornets over everything as we'd chosen to eat in the patio.
Beware of the patio if you're in bee country; they can take away some of the pleasure of eating outside for sure. And do not choose "outside" if there are more than two in your party and it's brunch time, (or any time, really)---the sun is going to be in somebody's eyes no matter what you do.
We weren't going to have desserts but chose two in spite of that: I had profiterolles which I shared with my spouse. I wanted to see what they thought was good bittersweet chocolate sauce and it was very good. And the pastry was a pleasant surprise, being crisper than I'd have expected. Ben thought they might have fried the cream puffs but I'd say they did not. The choux paste just came out kind of crisp. And Ben and several bees and hornets shared the port and fig ice cream, which came housed in a shallow thin little cooky, very pleasant. I said the cooky was like a fortune cooky; he said it wasn't. But it was, only very thin and flat with a saucer like curve.
We have loved and admired the hills all around, with the golden dried grass and the black oaks. How beautiful it is. How much more beautiful it was when Theo and I lived here as younger folks, with the little winding roads and the interlacing oak tree tunnels, and the happy cows on the dry grass hillsides, making their incredible terraces as they munch their way around a hill. Ben is able to find plenty of such places all about, but truly now most is all ruined by progress, by concrete, tacky housing, very tacky landscaping, stores, malls, and such. Well, what do you expect in fifty years? James H. Kunstler is right. We have really messed up the USA in those fifty years. The American mindset has been wrong; but it's about to be re-set at last, I think. The young will do it; they have eyes and brains. I hope. YAZZYBEL
It's Day Nine of being away from home, and I have not blogged until today.
I couldn't remember my password and was too lazy or busy to look it up.
I have done a lot of cooking since we came up here, and have enjoyed it. I do always enjoy cooking unless I am too tired. Haven't been tired here! Until at nine at night, when I crash.
We came for Ben's eye operation, which has passed and was successful. He went back to work today which was optional, so he must have felt like things are back to normal. (Or he couldn't abide the "Bickersons" any longer!)
Yesterday we went to eat in Sonoma at The Girl and the Fig. It was fun, but it's too established now. I'd have enjoyed it more in its newer days. The food was good. We went for brunch which is inexpensive, so the bill was not bad. We had several good things: Theo had Croque Monsieur, which was by far the "biggest" thing anyone got...a huge sandwich with bacon and egg and ham and a salad on the side of frisee with nice dressing. Benjamin had Confit of Duck with potatoes and etc. Also very nice. He ordered a tomato-watermelon tower as well, with feta cheese and a pleasant creamy dressing. I had chicken sausage with grits and chard. The chicken sausage wasn't very good; was hard and nothing to a real pork sausage which is the trouble with chicken sausages. But the meal was good, all things prepared well; unfortunately there was a garnish of bees and hornets over everything as we'd chosen to eat in the patio.
Beware of the patio if you're in bee country; they can take away some of the pleasure of eating outside for sure. And do not choose "outside" if there are more than two in your party and it's brunch time, (or any time, really)---the sun is going to be in somebody's eyes no matter what you do.
We weren't going to have desserts but chose two in spite of that: I had profiterolles which I shared with my spouse. I wanted to see what they thought was good bittersweet chocolate sauce and it was very good. And the pastry was a pleasant surprise, being crisper than I'd have expected. Ben thought they might have fried the cream puffs but I'd say they did not. The choux paste just came out kind of crisp. And Ben and several bees and hornets shared the port and fig ice cream, which came housed in a shallow thin little cooky, very pleasant. I said the cooky was like a fortune cooky; he said it wasn't. But it was, only very thin and flat with a saucer like curve.
We have loved and admired the hills all around, with the golden dried grass and the black oaks. How beautiful it is. How much more beautiful it was when Theo and I lived here as younger folks, with the little winding roads and the interlacing oak tree tunnels, and the happy cows on the dry grass hillsides, making their incredible terraces as they munch their way around a hill. Ben is able to find plenty of such places all about, but truly now most is all ruined by progress, by concrete, tacky housing, very tacky landscaping, stores, malls, and such. Well, what do you expect in fifty years? James H. Kunstler is right. We have really messed up the USA in those fifty years. The American mindset has been wrong; but it's about to be re-set at last, I think. The young will do it; they have eyes and brains. I hope. YAZZYBEL
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Farewell to the M.O.W.
Yes, as of this Monday we stopped taking the Meals on Wheels meal that we were receiving every week day since February. Will we resume our subscription? Yes, if I am ill and cannot cook.
I do get hungry. But Theo ended up eating most of the meals because he gets hungry too, and he wants a meal lots of times when I am happy with a salad, a small sandwich, or some other light offering.
Now I can review the meals as a whole, from afar, and I say the grade I give them as meals is about 2 out of 5. As meals. They are not delicious; the vegetables are all undercooked; the flavors are predictable and not all pleasant.
Particularly bad are the 'smoked' or 'barbeque' flavorings. I have never been a devotee of smoke flavoring as it's supposed to be so toxic, but there it is in the sauce and also in the pork 'meat' that comprises the 'riblets', yes, those very same riblets that are so reviled in the health food articles against McDonald's riblets. What are they? We may not want to know.
The 'Mexican' flavorings are also bad. They have that alien spice taste that I just hate in false Mexican food (like taco seasoning). What on earth is that stuff? Again, I do not want to know.
The Italian tastes are better...a pleasant tomato sauce graces most of the pasta dishes and I can eat it. There is very little taste of garlic but that may be by popular Anglo Saxon demand.(Shortly to change as the population has changed big time.)
And the short cooked vegetables are awful. They are terribly hard. Hard is tasteless. The lima beans which appear frequently as an addendum to corn (which is on practically every menu) are as hard as bullets. Some people hate the mealy texture of lima beans but it can't be made any better by not cooking them through. And rather watery mashed potatoes began appearing lately and they weren't good either. Spinach and greens, being undercooked, were better. Carrots--more pellets.
I ran out of room so had to edit this to eliminate spaces. Censored! and by the M.O.W! YAZZYBEL
I do get hungry. But Theo ended up eating most of the meals because he gets hungry too, and he wants a meal lots of times when I am happy with a salad, a small sandwich, or some other light offering.
Now I can review the meals as a whole, from afar, and I say the grade I give them as meals is about 2 out of 5. As meals. They are not delicious; the vegetables are all undercooked; the flavors are predictable and not all pleasant.
Particularly bad are the 'smoked' or 'barbeque' flavorings. I have never been a devotee of smoke flavoring as it's supposed to be so toxic, but there it is in the sauce and also in the pork 'meat' that comprises the 'riblets', yes, those very same riblets that are so reviled in the health food articles against McDonald's riblets. What are they? We may not want to know.
The 'Mexican' flavorings are also bad. They have that alien spice taste that I just hate in false Mexican food (like taco seasoning). What on earth is that stuff? Again, I do not want to know.
The Italian tastes are better...a pleasant tomato sauce graces most of the pasta dishes and I can eat it. There is very little taste of garlic but that may be by popular Anglo Saxon demand.(Shortly to change as the population has changed big time.)
And the short cooked vegetables are awful. They are terribly hard. Hard is tasteless. The lima beans which appear frequently as an addendum to corn (which is on practically every menu) are as hard as bullets. Some people hate the mealy texture of lima beans but it can't be made any better by not cooking them through. And rather watery mashed potatoes began appearing lately and they weren't good either. Spinach and greens, being undercooked, were better. Carrots--more pellets.
I ran out of room so had to edit this to eliminate spaces. Censored! and by the M.O.W! YAZZYBEL
Monday, September 3, 2012
No White After Labor Day
Oh dear. That was the old-fashioned rule. I think it came from NY City, where fashions came from and they needed to drum up a fall trade.
Over here in SoCal, our warmest two months are coming up. A lady in church yesterday had on a sleeveless frock of white eyelet lace, no sleeves, loose, short, trimmed with a ruffle or two; a perfect dress for those who have good arms.
What to wear in August and September were always great preoccupations in the fashion papers when I was a girl in Texas. The perfect solution came up from Frost's in San Antonio, one August when I was about nineteen or twenty. There was no air conditioning, remember. Ladies had to look neat, cool and perfect at all times. The perfect solution for August/September was: a black chiffon dress, keeping the coolness of summer clothing, and a big black velvet hat that hinted at fall. Black high heels of course. I had the dress and I had the hat. And the high heels. I looked good at church. Those were Grace Kelly in Rear Window sorts of clothes, and everyone aspired to them. Graceful, beautiful, even in a cheaper line.
Now it's Labor Day. Fewer people are worrying about too much work and more are worrying about too little. Hardly any women are worrying about what to wear after Labor Day, because they know they'll be wearing whatever they wear for work every other day, adapted for the temperature. Times have changed.
I have a box and am packing away summer clothes, irrational though that is. Something in me tells me it's time, even though I know that cool weather won't come here until Nov. 1, and that it is going to be Hot as Hades in my mother's vernacular up in the East Bay Area of CA to which we are going next week. What to do? Am I silly? Worrying about clothes? YAZZYBEL
Over here in SoCal, our warmest two months are coming up. A lady in church yesterday had on a sleeveless frock of white eyelet lace, no sleeves, loose, short, trimmed with a ruffle or two; a perfect dress for those who have good arms.
What to wear in August and September were always great preoccupations in the fashion papers when I was a girl in Texas. The perfect solution came up from Frost's in San Antonio, one August when I was about nineteen or twenty. There was no air conditioning, remember. Ladies had to look neat, cool and perfect at all times. The perfect solution for August/September was: a black chiffon dress, keeping the coolness of summer clothing, and a big black velvet hat that hinted at fall. Black high heels of course. I had the dress and I had the hat. And the high heels. I looked good at church. Those were Grace Kelly in Rear Window sorts of clothes, and everyone aspired to them. Graceful, beautiful, even in a cheaper line.
Now it's Labor Day. Fewer people are worrying about too much work and more are worrying about too little. Hardly any women are worrying about what to wear after Labor Day, because they know they'll be wearing whatever they wear for work every other day, adapted for the temperature. Times have changed.
I have a box and am packing away summer clothes, irrational though that is. Something in me tells me it's time, even though I know that cool weather won't come here until Nov. 1, and that it is going to be Hot as Hades in my mother's vernacular up in the East Bay Area of CA to which we are going next week. What to do? Am I silly? Worrying about clothes? YAZZYBEL
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Via Lago Gets a Thumbs Up
Last night it was just too hot to cook, so we went to Via Lago, out in Eastlake environs in Chula Vista. It's somewhere between Ralph's corner on E. H St at Southwestern College, and E. L street where the Lowe's is. Up in there there's a nice little shopping center of the Tuscan Village type, with a Trader Joe's and a Sprouts and a TJ Maxxx and various other places to shop and eat. Via Lago is in there. It is a branch of Busalacchi's of old that we knew in Hillcrest when we were young.
It's a pretty and a very nice restaurant with a professional staff and plenty of comfort and good food. We expected something good and we were not disappointed. Theo, with his hollow space where a tooth was removed the day before, was foredestined to have spaghetti and not much else, and that is what he had. I opted for the saltimbocco, which were very small tiny escalopes of beef or veal in a delicious gravy. There were four of them. And there was a side of quite a bit of ravioli with fresh tomato/rosemary sauce. There was spinach with the meat. It was all very tasty and delicious. I had a huge goblet of delicious chianti for about seven fifty. The cost of that food was fifty dollars plus a tip of ten dollars. If we had had salads or desserts the price of the meal would have doubled or tripled. Fortunately we are old and cannot eat much more than we got. As it is, we each brought home half our dinners, and traded off today and I got the spaghetti and he got 2 escalopes plus ravioli...we were both pleased. So our dinner was really two meals for 50 dollars,==a dinner and a lunch the following day for two people.
The main point is that it was delicious, well prepared food, served with care by people who knew what they were doing. Grade: A. I only wish I had the appetites and capacities of a person in her twenties who could have appreciated the salad and the dessert along with the rest of the meal. And they had some good sounding appetizers, too. I'd like the mushroom crepe, on a winter's evening sometime. Oh, and they served a pretty good peasant bread with oil and balsamic vinegar to keep us calm till the food arrived. YAZZYBEL
It's a pretty and a very nice restaurant with a professional staff and plenty of comfort and good food. We expected something good and we were not disappointed. Theo, with his hollow space where a tooth was removed the day before, was foredestined to have spaghetti and not much else, and that is what he had. I opted for the saltimbocco, which were very small tiny escalopes of beef or veal in a delicious gravy. There were four of them. And there was a side of quite a bit of ravioli with fresh tomato/rosemary sauce. There was spinach with the meat. It was all very tasty and delicious. I had a huge goblet of delicious chianti for about seven fifty. The cost of that food was fifty dollars plus a tip of ten dollars. If we had had salads or desserts the price of the meal would have doubled or tripled. Fortunately we are old and cannot eat much more than we got. As it is, we each brought home half our dinners, and traded off today and I got the spaghetti and he got 2 escalopes plus ravioli...we were both pleased. So our dinner was really two meals for 50 dollars,==a dinner and a lunch the following day for two people.
The main point is that it was delicious, well prepared food, served with care by people who knew what they were doing. Grade: A. I only wish I had the appetites and capacities of a person in her twenties who could have appreciated the salad and the dessert along with the rest of the meal. And they had some good sounding appetizers, too. I'd like the mushroom crepe, on a winter's evening sometime. Oh, and they served a pretty good peasant bread with oil and balsamic vinegar to keep us calm till the food arrived. YAZZYBEL
Saturday, September 1, 2012
The Republican Convention
Good evenin'.
Guess I'd better write a word about the Republican Convention (now over). Everyone else has.
I did not watch every moment. Let me say that I am a Democrat with Maoist leanings. We'll get that out of the way first.
The Maoist leanings mean that I don't wholly believe in the power of the ballot box to make the changes that are needed in our world.
In another way, I am quite conservative. I was brought up not to throw money down a rat hole. And I was brought up to believe that it's wrong to go into debt, to borrow when you have not a snowball's chance of repaying, and it's wrong to deceive people about money, to accept bribes, and wrong to steal. So you can see that on that measure I have no place at all in any currently operative US political party (de facto) and its ideas of how to run our country.
I watched most of the Republican Convention watching that I did in the company of my afternoon pals of MSNBC. Chris Matthews particularly has me heart, the sweetie. His flaws are just those flaws that have me able to tolerate his company for long periods of time on end. He can laugh at himself with the same innocent charm that bursts out of nowhere that was shown by the lamented Patrick Buchanan, whom I also loved, though he is now relegated to Sheol by the networks for saying his race is the best and his culture is the best.
Enough of those mixed up conservatives and makeshift liberals, though. Let's get to the convention. I felt sorry for Sarah Palin, who obviously got the shaft, however much she might deserve it. I was impressed by the speechwriter of Paul Ryan, a person named Scully, I believe....very very very good. Ryan presented his speech very well and used his mother to best advantage as did others in the speeches with their own poor old worn out mums.
I missed most of Clint Eastwood's speech, apparently fortunately, as no one has any good thing to say about it. Well, that is the way it is when you are eighty two. No one expects anything decent of you and you generally live up to expectations quite well.
I would not listen to Anne Romney as she spoke about MS and I have a deep fear of neuromuscular diseases. I would not listen to Condi Rice as I remember her going out and buying tons of shoes on the day of Nine Eleven, and she irks me mightily with her precise talk and her hints of pianistic superiority. And I keep thinking of her working out with George W. in the White House every day in their spare time. My mind runs wild though I won't desecrate these pages with wild thoughts.
So, it came to an end. I enjoyed watching all those precious little blond kids romping all over the stage...it almost seems right that they are going to inherit the earth. Oh, and I could not stand Marco Rubio. Don't know why; I just don't like him. There was some else there...he gave a big speech too....funny, I can't quite pinpoint who is. ;)
Anyway the Dems come onstage on Tuesday. I'll probably talk about them too but with greater difficulty as my level of invested hope and disappointed change is much greater there, with my own registered party. YAZZYBEL
Guess I'd better write a word about the Republican Convention (now over). Everyone else has.
I did not watch every moment. Let me say that I am a Democrat with Maoist leanings. We'll get that out of the way first.
The Maoist leanings mean that I don't wholly believe in the power of the ballot box to make the changes that are needed in our world.
In another way, I am quite conservative. I was brought up not to throw money down a rat hole. And I was brought up to believe that it's wrong to go into debt, to borrow when you have not a snowball's chance of repaying, and it's wrong to deceive people about money, to accept bribes, and wrong to steal. So you can see that on that measure I have no place at all in any currently operative US political party (de facto) and its ideas of how to run our country.
I watched most of the Republican Convention watching that I did in the company of my afternoon pals of MSNBC. Chris Matthews particularly has me heart, the sweetie. His flaws are just those flaws that have me able to tolerate his company for long periods of time on end. He can laugh at himself with the same innocent charm that bursts out of nowhere that was shown by the lamented Patrick Buchanan, whom I also loved, though he is now relegated to Sheol by the networks for saying his race is the best and his culture is the best.
Enough of those mixed up conservatives and makeshift liberals, though. Let's get to the convention. I felt sorry for Sarah Palin, who obviously got the shaft, however much she might deserve it. I was impressed by the speechwriter of Paul Ryan, a person named Scully, I believe....very very very good. Ryan presented his speech very well and used his mother to best advantage as did others in the speeches with their own poor old worn out mums.
I missed most of Clint Eastwood's speech, apparently fortunately, as no one has any good thing to say about it. Well, that is the way it is when you are eighty two. No one expects anything decent of you and you generally live up to expectations quite well.
I would not listen to Anne Romney as she spoke about MS and I have a deep fear of neuromuscular diseases. I would not listen to Condi Rice as I remember her going out and buying tons of shoes on the day of Nine Eleven, and she irks me mightily with her precise talk and her hints of pianistic superiority. And I keep thinking of her working out with George W. in the White House every day in their spare time. My mind runs wild though I won't desecrate these pages with wild thoughts.
So, it came to an end. I enjoyed watching all those precious little blond kids romping all over the stage...it almost seems right that they are going to inherit the earth. Oh, and I could not stand Marco Rubio. Don't know why; I just don't like him. There was some else there...he gave a big speech too....funny, I can't quite pinpoint who is. ;)
Anyway the Dems come onstage on Tuesday. I'll probably talk about them too but with greater difficulty as my level of invested hope and disappointed change is much greater there, with my own registered party. YAZZYBEL
How Kind a Dentist
Yesterday my husband had to go see a strange oral surgeon. This was due to his dragging his heels on a crown, not wanting to pay the big price of $1200. Who could blame him?
But in the meantime he got an infection that went up above the roots, so he and his dentist agreed that he should have it pulled and he was sent to an oral surgeon.
We knew not whom we'd find, but Dr Mowry of Chula Vista could not have been surpassed as a person of compassion and intelligence. He put up patiently with our semi-senile maunderings in response to their medical questions. When we'd explored all the hurdles to a prompt ending to the situation with a quick tooth-pull, Theo got the quick tooth-pull.
It was five p.m. after a tiring afternoon, and we got the prescriptions filled at Kaiser and were home before six. Dr Mowry's office staff were a group of intelligent, quick and very sympathetic young Asian women. They all, the surgeon included, could n't have been more supportive and efficient. We were gratified.
Theo got some Tylenol with Codeine and I bought some plain Tylenol as well as I was out. I made him take a plain Tylenol last night before bed, but he has had no discomfort at all. It's a miracle. Thanks to God and a big thanks to a good dentist. YAZZYBEL
But in the meantime he got an infection that went up above the roots, so he and his dentist agreed that he should have it pulled and he was sent to an oral surgeon.
We knew not whom we'd find, but Dr Mowry of Chula Vista could not have been surpassed as a person of compassion and intelligence. He put up patiently with our semi-senile maunderings in response to their medical questions. When we'd explored all the hurdles to a prompt ending to the situation with a quick tooth-pull, Theo got the quick tooth-pull.
It was five p.m. after a tiring afternoon, and we got the prescriptions filled at Kaiser and were home before six. Dr Mowry's office staff were a group of intelligent, quick and very sympathetic young Asian women. They all, the surgeon included, could n't have been more supportive and efficient. We were gratified.
Theo got some Tylenol with Codeine and I bought some plain Tylenol as well as I was out. I made him take a plain Tylenol last night before bed, but he has had no discomfort at all. It's a miracle. Thanks to God and a big thanks to a good dentist. YAZZYBEL
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