What are you doing today?

Now she has decided that my car is her kitchen. I go outside and see her working on her dinner in the groove where the trunk lid meets the fender. Some while later, I saw that she moved the bundle back out into her web (which she likes to anchor on the car) to eat it. I park backed up to a tree, so I guess it is fair game. And it must be a good spot, because she puts it back up whenever I get back from somewhere, and she is getting pretty big.
 
Alli said:
They will fry anything down here in the south. It started, of course, with turkeys. Then they started frying candy bars, Hostess snack cakes, marshmallows, Jell-O, and my personal favorite - butter. Don’t even ask.
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We're in the northern stretches of the Appalachian chain and a lot of folks here have kin in the south. So.... yeah. Deep fried macaroni and cheese is big in some of the diners. I can't even get my brain around that idea.
 
Renzatic said:
You know what I hate? When you get home, and feel a little sleepy, so you decide to lay down for what you think is a quick half hour nap, but ends up being 5 hours. When you wake up, the sun's setting, you're confused as hell, and you somehow feel worse than you did before the nap.

That's what I hate.
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I did the grand panoramic take on that once. Came home after working 56 hours straight on some rush job mandated by a court. When I finally got that wrapped and got home it was around 7pm on a Saturday evening. All I could think was man I just want to get some halfway decent food and take a nap, watch a little TV and then catch up on real sleep.

So the front end of that plan worked out ok and then I lay down on the couch for the nap, or so I thought. When I woke up I was feeling pretty refreshed. But as I lay there enjoying not having anything particular to do, I suddenly noticed it was getting lighter outside, not darker. Wow. So disorienting. I felt like I'd only slept for a hour or so but it was 7am.
 
lizkat said:
So the front end of that plan worked out ok and then I lay down on the couch for the nap, or so I thought. When I woke up I was feeling pretty refreshed. But as I lay there enjoying not having anything particular to do, I suddenly noticed it was getting lighter outside, not darker. Wow. So disorienting. I felt like I'd only slept for a hour or so but it was 7am.
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That's never happened to me, because the first thing I always do when I wake up is waddle my way over to a clock to check the time. If the clock says 3:00, and it's dark out, I'll know it's 3AM.

What I usually do when I've been up working or puttering about for longer than 24 hours is that I'll fall asleep right as soon as I get home, but I'll only sleep for about 3-4 hours. I'll wake up feeling like someone beat me with a boat oar, and will stumble around for another 3-4 hours in a bad mood before falling asleep because I'm too tired to stay up. Though on the plus side of that, when I wake up again in the morning, I always feel pretty well refreshed.
 
Renzatic said:
That's never happened to me, because the first thing I always do when I wake up is waddle my way over to a clock to check the time. If the clock says 3:00, and it's dark out, I'll know it's 3AM.

What I usually do when I've been up working or puttering about for longer than 24 hours is that I'll fall asleep right as soon as I get home, but I'll only sleep for about 3-4 hours. I'll wake up feeling like someone beat me with a boat oar, and will stumble around for another 3-4 hours in a bad mood before falling asleep because I'm too tired to stay up. Though on the plus side of that, when I wake up again in the morning, I always feel pretty well refreshed.
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I can't mess around with sleep schedules the way I used to... I still do it once in awhile when I get interested in something and refuse to give it up for a reasonable bedtime. But the price seems heavier now, and more immediate. Used to be the second day I'd feel like hell if I badly shorted myself on sleep or actually pulled an all nighter and then some. Now it's hell to pay on that same day.

At least I don't drink as much coffee as I used to back in the day. I don't like heading off to bed and then discovering I am still buzzed by caffeine. It's not the same thing listening to an audiobook because I want to, versus doing it because I'm wound up on the 12-hour quarter-life of coffee drunk way too late in the day.... and trying to tell myself "hey you always fall asleep behind these books anyway so just play some of it even if you're too tired to listen." All that does is tick me off if I'm exhausted and would rather be sleeping.

Speaking of audiobooks, I'm listening lately to Woodward's book Rage. Man, the WH staffers were crazy to let Trump steamroll their objections and so be interviewed by Woodward for that thing. Did they imagine Woodward was born yesterday? He played on Trump's weaknesses for flattery and attention.... I had to switch to listening to it in the daytime, because I was actually ticked off when the timer would kill it while I was listening at night in bed. Most books I just fall asleep for the last ten minutes of the timer cycle...
 
Scepticalscribe said:
Hey, I love butter.

In (almost) all of its manifestations.
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hulugu said:
Butter is gross.
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Well, perhaps fried - as in a food on its own - but on toast, or for eggs, some vegetables, risotto (come on, a risotto is not a risotto without exceptionally generous quantities of butter), French bread, and so on...
 
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Today: definitely time to pick up the pace of that checklist for "winter's coming".... I have my furnace filter supply re-upped, but haven't been out with hedgeclippers to cut back the jewelweed, thistles and goldenrod that thrive out back near the gas tanks. Usually also have to take a pruning saw and lop off a few intruding branches of the nearby honeysuckle.

I didn't reseed the grass there immediately after the gas vendor relocated the tanks and dug up a narrow little path for the underground feed to the depressurization box on the back of the house. So of course the weeds leaped at their opportunity and in all these years I've never done more than just go out there annually and hack enough of a pathway so the gas vendor can actually spot his target during his September top-off of the tanks! The jungle rules, even in the mountains.
 
lizkat said:
We're in the northern stretches of the Appalachian chain and a lot of folks here have kin in the south. So.... yeah. Deep fried macaroni and cheese is big in some of the diners. I can't even get my brain around that idea.
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The thought makes my arteries harden.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
I have spent much of today judging (I was drafted in yesterday, as a neutral) the weekly photography competition, in The Other Place.
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IMO there's a definite clique there you have to be a part of for those contests, although it's nice to see they're attempting to use neutral judging. It's like watching cooking competition shows, Chopped is one of my favorite, where they had "beat the judge" and the judges were all peers of the (fellow judge) contestant, after watching a couple where the judge won hands down I just stopped watching entirely.

Using this comparison, I also watch Beat Bobby Flay and in the final round they bring in outside judges for a blind taste test. IMO that's the ONLY way you'll ever get impartial judging. Same goes for photography forums.
 
The neutral judging only happened because the chap who had set the topic/theme for this week's competition went AWOL for well over a week, and a discussion as to who should be selected to judge ensued.

I had stepped in once, earlier, several months ago, and was called upon again.

However, I took advantage of the platform this afforded to make a few general points, as well.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
Well, perhaps fried - as in a food on its own - but on toast, or for eggs, some vegetables, risotto (come on, a risotto is not a risotto without exceptionally generous quantities of butter), French bread, and so on...
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To be clear, I meant fried butter.

Onions and mushrooms cooked in butter are wonderful, and scrambled eggs must be cooked with butter, or one is beaten with a frying pan at my house.

At my house, we have a few required provisions and butter is definitely one of them.
 
hulugu said:
To be clear, I meant fried butter.

Onions and mushrooms cooked in butter are wonderful, and scrambled eggs must be cooked with butter, or one is beaten with a frying pan at my house.

At my house, we have a few required provisions and butter is definitely one of them.
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Agreed, I've been on a sauteed onions in butter kick lately and also use it for my eggs both scrambled and fried.
 
ericgtr12 said:
Agreed, I've been on a sauteed onions in butter kick lately and also use it for my eggs both scrambled and fried.
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My wife has discovered dutch baby pancakes, which have a significant amount of butter. This morning's swim may have burned off the one I consumed this morning.
 
For risotto, I learned (the hard way, that is, by experience) that a generous - exceptionally generous - hand with the butter is also an absolute necessity.

Agreed, re mushrooms and scrambled eggs. Butter is a must.

For sautéed onions, I am happy with using either butter, or olive oil - it depends on the dish that is being prepared.

And, I am rather partial to brioche......
 
Scepticalscribe said:
For risotto, I learned (the hard way, that is, by experience) that a generous - exceptionally generous - hand with the butter is also an absolute necessity.

Agreed, re mushrooms and scrambled eggs. Butter is a must.

For sautéed onions, I am happy with using either butter, or olive oil - it depends on the dish that is being prepared.

And, I am rather partial to brioche......
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Ahh risotto, a labor of love but totally worth it in the end. I used to make it once a week but I have to dedicate the entire 45 minutes to an hour to standing over it while slowly adding in the preheated chicken stock, I haven't made that sort of time lately but am thinking about it this coming weekend.
 
I just read that Gayle Sayers passed, after reading the various fuckery our gov't is doing. 😭

I'm going back to bed, to wake up when it's time to drink, to go back to bed.

✌
 
JayMysteri0 said:
I just read that Gayle Sayers passed, after reading the various fuckery our gov't is doing. 😭

I'm going back to bed, to wake up when it's time to drink, to go back to bed.

✌
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RIP Gayle, made it to 77 and had a great life.
 
ericgtr12 said:
Ahh risotto, a labor of love but totally worth it in the end. I used to make it once a week but I have to dedicate the entire 45 minutes to an hour to standing over it while slowly adding in the preheated chicken stock, I haven't made that sort of time lately but am thinking about it this coming weekend.
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A slow, labour of love, - where concentration and total focus are both required - and an occasional treat, but well worth it, when I do indulge.
 
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