Suki blog is up again!

Here's the latest news on Vine St/

not exactly Mensa material

Ned decided to let himself outside today, when my bari sax music student arrived. It wasn't a very fine day - it was clammy and drizzling. I told him (Ned, that is) that he would be sorry, but he scurried off into the bushes instead of coming back inside. After the music lesson, Ned was sitting disconsolately on the windowsill of the breakfast nook. However, he refused to come inside - he kept staring through the window at the cookie jar, expecting the window to to magically open. That window has never opened, but he hasn't paid any attention to that fact. Finally after about half an hour, he figured out that the way of ingress was through the door, and gave up his perch on the sill.

Red suitcase for Freecycle

This is the last time I'm buying a suitcase from Target. The handle nearly ripped off the first trip abroad. Here it is available for anybody on Freecycle who can use it ;)

Kodak folding pocket camera No. 3-A Model C 1909

Click on any photo to enlarge.

Vintage Sci-fi books

Short stories

Posted on ebay today, more of Mom's endless supply of books - click photo to enlarge.

Here is the auction. Hopefully somebody will take these off my hands.

New Denizens of Vine Street

We have a couple of new residents chez Bhat, one of whom is a volunteer and the rest new recruits. Mom and Dad stopped by today while I was working in the garden, and Dad encouraged me to get a couple of fish for the pond. I had planned on doing that when the weather warmed up, and since the snow has (hopefully) passed, I assigned him the job to go to the store to get some. Meanwhile, it appears a frog has taken up residence in the pond. Dad was quite entranced with him, and christened him "Clancy". He filled the pond up and then added a big cement block and some rocks so Clancy could sit on them in the middle of the pond. Then, a frog bridge was required, since with the higher water level, it didn't appear Clancy could climb out of the pond. Dad constructed one using an old piece of wood.

Dad went to the hardware store, and got 5 beautiful goldfish for $1.00. They were added to the pond. They seem to like the shelter of the holes in the cement block, which will come in handy with the neighborhood cats come around. One of the goldfish was quite interested in Clancy, and kept nudging his feet.

Dad said he would bring me some pond water in a jar, and a supply of duckweed, and I should have my own little backyard ecosystem soon.

Here is a photo of Clancy, near the pond

Late snowstorm

This is a photo Mom took Wednesday morning, after 6-10 inches of snow overnight.

The view is Skillet Creek in the Baraboo Bluffs.

Fresh wallpaper

I am on a quest to complete de-countrification in the house, which had a surfeit of "country" style decor from the previous owner. The first items to go were the lace duck valances in the kitchen, which didn't make it past the first year. The slate-blue pillow-ticking and grosgrain ribbon valances, topped with little house motifs, in the TV room were next. The poufy balloon valences have been slowly phased out, although the stenciled hearts and cats still remain in the foyer. I don't have any matching *pink* paint to cover them up, so I'll have to repaint the entire foyer when I work on that area. Probably not pink.

I've put off the wallcoverings until last because the previous owners did such an immaculate job of wallpapering. I've gotten very tired of looking at the dreary slate- blue radish + carrot themed wallpaper in the breakfast nook, and it's a small space to work on, so I got some closeout yellow botanical print paper and I've started hanging that. It's not as perfect a job as the previous owners, but it's still an improvement. I plan to paint the area under the chair rail the butter color I have in the kitchen, to brighten the room and lend continuity to the space. I might get some coving for the ceiling if I can find some at a reasonable price, to finish it off. I'll use the same paper to re-do the downstairs bathroom, in the same dreary slate-blue color with a gingham print.

Here's the before and after photos.

Lockdown in Sector 6

This is a gripe (be forewarned).

GMail locked me out of my mail today while I was trying to open up a photo from my mother. I clicked on "view" and I got a screen which said "Lockdown in Sector 6 - your account has been locked due to "suspicious activity". In google's definition, that would be sending more than 500 emails a day, opening up gmail "multiple times" (I normally open it up many times every day, to check and see if there are any messages regarding ebay postings, letters from family, dealnews alerts, etc), or other egregious problems. Since I think I have sent two emails today, I hardly think I am over the limit.

I reset my google password, cleared my cache and cookies, and got back into my mail. Hopefully that will take care of the problem. I sure don't want to go back to hotmail or yahoo mail.

I purchased a 15" X2Gen LCD monitor for the new kitchen PC from eCost (I saved $10 by using Google checkout - I wonder if that was the problem - or if it's the new Google signon at blogspot?). It has a $40 rebate, which (besides the usual rigamarole), requires a self-addressed, stamped envelope, a receipt and not an email purchase confirmation, writing in Black Ink Only, all caps, signature, yada, yada. They want it sent in within 14 days. I'll probably receive the product in about 12 days, so that's a pretty fast turnaround. Of course, they won't get me my rebate that fast (allow 10-12 weeks for processing). Grump, grump...

Abandoned farm equipment

This is located in the woods across the road from my parents' house.

I remember when this farm equipment was out in the open field. Just goes to show you that when nature is left alone, a forest will grow.

Chappal puja and other oddities

Ned pays his respects to Avinash every day in the proper desi fashion, by performing a puja to his chappals. This goes on for about 5 minutes. Ned seems to find this very satisfying.

Both cats adore the printer. Here is Ned interacting with Avinash again, this time from the favored position on top of the laser printer.

working day

We're in the midst of a cold snap. All of my tulips and daffodils in bud look pretty sad; we aren't supposed to be out of the freezing temps until next Wed, with a low of 1 degree C and an unimpressive high of 7.

I had a busy day, which started off at 5 am with a pounding headache. I gave myself an Imitrex injection. When that failed to do anything, Avinash gave me another one at 6 am. I went back to bed and slept until 9. My headache was much diminished, but still hanging around, so took another 100 mg and 500 mg of Naproxen. I had a nice hot bath and after that I was feeling much better.

Yesterday I had seasoned a chicken for making "Zuni Roasted Chicken". I heated the cast iron dutch oven and turned the oven on high as instructed in the recipe. The chicken sizzled nicely when I put it in, as it was supposed to, and continued to sizzle during its baking period. The chicken turned out well - nicely flavored and juicy - but I'm not sure why everyone raves about this recipe. It's nothing extraordinary, in my opinion.

After lunch, Dad arrived. I had asked him to bring the shopvac the next time he came over, to help clean the flaking plaster and paint off the basement walls in preparation for repainting. He and I cleaned old plaster and paint off the basement walls and floor for a couple of hours. I also used the extension wand to suck up about 10 years of spiderwebs from the rafters - I think I will rename the basement "spider heaven" after this. There is still much more to be done, but I left it for another day.

All of my freecycle contacts arrived simultaneously today, to pick up the old mildewing floor-ceiling mirror in the basement (the flood in the basement this spring did not help), the old strawberry-wallpapered bathroom cabinet (the builder of the house was addicted to the color red and particularly to fruit motifs) and some mildewey Time-Life books from Mom. I'm glad to get rid of that stuff.

After Dad left, I made some Country Sage Chicken Soup from the leftover chicken parts. I had that for dinner with a spinach salad with asagio peppercorn dressing.

Tonight, we have a Netflix DVD "Out of Time".

Miniature daffys

I tried some miniature daffodil bulbs this year. They produced a beautiful little crop of daffodils, all of which had to be prematurely harvested due to a hard frost. Here they are on my desk. I've included a second photo, for scale!