Starting forthwith and going forward, this blog will be friends-only. If you want to be able to read my future ramblings, and you aren't already on my f-list, please send me a private message.

This is the result of a mystery friending by someone whose site I want nothing to do with. Obviously I will not friend them back, but I would as soon close future entries to them completely.

Taken from Kevona. Given that for about half the questions, I chose the best of a list of not-quite-right options, I don't think it did too badly.

Your result for The Golden Compass Daemon Test...

Independent Soul.

Take The Golden Compass Daemon Test at HelloQuizzy

I really don't have that big a garden. Four feet by four feet, containing two cucumber vines, four tomatoes, a couple of potatoes, thyme, basil and a collection of marigolds and moss roses. I can weed it in ten minutes, and water it with the hose - no sprinkler needed, it just doesn't take that long.

But small as it is, I have an abundance of those cucumbers and tomatoes. My basil is bushy enough that I could (and probably will) make several good batches of basil. My harvesting basket is full, and so is the mixing bowl, usually used for bread, that I poured the excess into. It's colorful, too, since half my cherry tomatoes are pear shaped red ones and the other half pear shaped yellow, and both are incredibly prolific. I'll probably take a quart over to my girlfriend, since she didn't get a garden in this year and they won't keep until I next go in to Indy. (Don't worry, Mom. I'll have more by then.) Judging by the number of green tomatoes and blossoms, they aren't slowing down any time soon either.

My son wants to try to make homemade ketchup, and I may attempt it. These are salad and slicing tomatoes, not sauce tomatoes, so I don't know how it will go. On the other hand, I might as well try it. It's not like I don't have the tomatoes to spare.

The original plan for today involved going to meet friends in Aurora for an afternoon of games and sociability. Unfortunately for me, that required that the preceding plan for sleeping last night succeed, and it did not. Since the coming week is already scheduled to within an inch of my life, I agreed when my beloved husband gently suggested that staying home might be the better part of valor. So about 9:30 this morning my guys hopped in my husband's car and betook themselves westward, whereupon I went back to sleep. Smart Kestrel - waking up two and a half hours later is a pretty good clue that sleep was needed. Not a cat day (when I sleep as much as my cats), but not particularly energetic either.

But it was quiet, and I was able to sit and do some reading without the constant refrain of "hey mom!", which is a rare treat. I took myself on a bookstore run, got a demo of the Barnes and Noble Nook (quite a nice little toy, much more readable than my iPhone, and no longer prohibitively expensive), chatted with my son's school librarian, picked up a book that I'd been hooked by sample chapters of, (Baen Books is smart) and took it to read over a quiet dinner all by my own self. That sort of day is a rare treat, and I enjoyed it immensely.

And tomorrow it's back to business as usual. My son has a dentist's appointment in the morning, because he has a baby tooth that refuses to come out. Then I'm going to try to exchange my iPhone, which is misbehaving, and after that and lunch, we go to school so my son can meet his teachers and see exactly where his classrooms are. Tuesday we'll take care of last-minute things (there's always something), and Wednesday he starts school. Tally-ho!!!

Makes a lot more sense to me than the original article. http://io9.com/5585294/methane-bubble-doomsday-story-debunked

Most of the ideas for recipes I’ve come up with have had their origin in existing recipes. Sometimes I see a recipe and think it sounds wonderful, but that I could make it better. Other times I think of a combination of ingredients I think will work, then search my extensive cookbook collection (and now the web) to see if anyone else has thought of it and if so what they did with it.

If my modifications are minor, then I tend to consider it a variant on the original. But there comes a point when I say that it is a new recipe, one that is worthy of its own place and that I am entitled to claim. This apple honey cake falls into that category.

I started with the Fresh Apple Cake from the Fannie Farmer Baking Book, and some things remain unchanged. The finely chopped fresh apples, leavening, butter, eggs and walnuts remain the same, as does the amount of flour. The mixing technique is also the same. Then the variations began. Instead of all white flour, I used a combination of white and wheat. I doubled the vanilla and added almond extract. The original contains cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice. I left out the cinnamon or nutmeg, then added ginger, cardamom and mace. Raisins became a combination of Sultanas and dried cherries. White sugar became a combination of dark brown sugar and honey.

Butter, flour and sugar don’t define a cake, or there would only be one cake recipe. Since there’s no way you could even mostly follow the original recipe and come up with something such as the one I made, the Honey Apple Cake is now mine. I’m planning to make it for Yom Kippur this year.

Honey Apple Cake

2 cups unpeeled fresh apple, cored and finely chopped. (One large Granny Smith apple did it for me.)
6 Tbsp unsalted butter (3/4 stick), softened
1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2/3 cup light honey
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 tsp vanilla powder)
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour (I don’t like bleached flour; it has a chemical aftertaste to me.)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp clove
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/8 tsp mace
1 tsp ground lemon peel
1/2 cup Sultana raisins
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350^o F. Grease and flour (or spray with non-stick spray and flour) an 8 inch square baking pan. Set aside.

Chop apple and set aside. It doesn’t matter in the least if it turns brown.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until it’s light, smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar and blend in, then add the honey and beat until creamy and well blended. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well. Combine the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, spices and peel in a bowl and blend together. Add them to the butter mixture. Beat until smooth. The mixture will be very stiff. Add the apple, Sultanas, cherries and walnuts and beat well.

Spread evenly in the prepared pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until it passes the toothpick test. Remove from oven and cool on a rack. This is incredibly good by itself, but if you are into lily-gilding, add a drift of whipped cream, some vanilla ice cream, or a little creme anglais (aka vanilla boiled custard).

As some already know from elsewhere, my son is having a horribly stressful time at school, courtesy of a teacher who thinks IEPs are optional. He's due for a rude awakening, but that's another story.

Meanwhile, the stress of the mess is overwhelming our boy, so I need to take out any obligations I can to reduce that. The biggest and most easily modified is his bar mitzvah lessons.

So Joseph will not be becoming a bar mitzvah in November, 2010. It's more likely to be mid March or early April 2011. I should have the new date in the next couple of days. Watch this space for details!

I intended to do this yesterday, but "the world was too much with me."

I don't know Liz, (denelian) though I've read bits and pieces of her lj. I've seen some of her work, and those who say she's incredibly creative do not exaggerate. Her writing shows a clever, warm, witty young woman. And right now, it shows a young woman who is absolutely terrified.

She has some severe medical issues, which have put her in a position where her sole resource for health insurance will go away if she can't pay a $600.00 premium in the next week. You can find information over at the community save_liz There are a bunch of auctions, and a donation button on the profile page.

She auctioned some things to help Dave (remember "Save Dave"?); she's that kind of person. But she isn't popular, she doesn't have a huge collection of friends, and now that she's in dire (as in "life threatening") need, she doesn't have anyplace to turn.

No one should be in her position; certainly not in a country that is one of the wealthiest in the world. That we allow such things to happen here is to our eternal shame as a society. But the smaller sub-culture that is fandom seems to care for its own, at least sometimes. I'm hoping we can do so once again.

If you can help her out, great. But signal boosting is also a way to help, by getting the word to more people. Little bits add up faster than we know. Let's prove we're better than the faceless bureaucrats that have put her in this position, and the greedy bastards who are trying to insure the status quo remains unchanged. "If I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?"

I just read a Washington Post headline that I found utterly disgusting. President obama called for a bilateral health care summit, and the Republican leadership is threatening to boycott. Their demands have been met over and over, and every time it isn't enough. Now the demand is to start over from scratch, further delaying something desperately needed. The Senate Republicans no longer seem to think they need even maintain a pretense that they are working for what they consider best for the country. It looks from here as if all they want is to bring the government to a screeching halt so they can point fingers.

If I have a hope in this, it is that their conduct is blatant enough that even those who support them will see which way the finger should point. It isn't compromise when one side does nothing but say "no". I just wish my own side had mustered the spine to call them on it and push the legislation through while they still had the votes they needed.

I don't usually embed YouTube videos. In fact I can't recall ever doing so, though of course I might be wrong about that. I was awed by this performance of the Top Secret Drummers of Basel, Switzerland, and I've never been in a marching band or flag corps. If you have, you will probably appreciate what went into this even more than I did.



Thanks to debgeisler