I’m unwilling to wear either of my good coats out there to the garage, so with 3″ of snow coming down, I go out to saw boards in sweatshirt and bare-handed.
Cold. In the words of Bela the Bat, I tell you wot, cold!
OTOH, there’s a visceral joy in getting real cold when you can come into safe warmth with a job done, and a pot of stew in the Crockpot.
The recipe: pkg 15-bean soup beans soaked overnight, water; a pound of rump roast cut in slices and seared, potatoes, carrots, celery, and a tablespoon of black pepper, sprinkling of red chili flake, and 2 teaspoons of salt (jury still out, while cooking: beans particularly uptake a lot of salt), tablespoon of basil, and cooking all day. It’s not certain that’s all the pepper and salt, and I’m searching the kitchen ruin in the living room for the bay leaf—I need one leaf. But it’s well underway by noonish.
Last night’s dinner was butter chicken and a Filipino vegetable stew, pinakbet. Rice on the side. Either recipe would probably fit your wish for lower carbs; you might need to go light on the butter for the chicken, or just forego much of the sauce (which does have a fair amount of fat if you don’t skim or remove it.) Recipe for either or both available on request.
And the rice, alas. I’d only be allowed an 8th of a cup, cooked. But it sounds good. And you can sub cauliflower for rice.
Can’t stand cauliflower, cooked. (Doesn’t extend to all the brassicas though.) Raw with dip it’s OK.
Considering how often we get recipes posted, maybe you could set aside a sub-section for them, alongside spoilers and BJDs? That way we could post them without derailing a main thread, just note the recipe is in that section.
not a bad idea. I’ll have to talk to Gregory, who is our help with the page. The new version works, but I don’t know how to fix certain things. Which I need to know.
And I created one but it isn’t showing, which is kind of routine for the template. Sigh. One of these days when I’m not busy with kitchen remodel I’ll have to undertake the site, but not yet.
I substitute cauliflour rice for real rice, and tots made of broccoli and onion for potato tots these days. Both found with the frozen vegetables. But I like the brassicas, and they are healthy. It’s now Brussels sprouts season, but alas the grocery doesn’t sell the stems of sprouts anymore, just bags of already trimmed sprouts, which turn brown more quickly. I’ll make do. Sprouts coated with balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and baked until tender are much better than boiled.
Braised too; they go a little sweet…
I adore roasted brussels sprouts and just realized it’s been too long since we had any. I’ve been seeing sprouts on the stem in our grocery stores here in the last two years; don’t remember seeing them sold that way before then.
It’s a good way to buy them, but you may want to bag those you don’t use soon. The stems are a bit unwieldy for refrigeration.
Unfortunate news:
Paddles, First Cat of New Zealand and social media star, dies after being hit by car
She was a polydactyl cat with opposable thumbs belonging to Jacinda Ardern, the new Prime Minister of New Zealand. Paddles’ Twitter profile said “Have thumbs, will tweet.”
Paddles also managed to interrupt a call from Donald Trump.
From Clarke Gayford, Jacinda’s partner:
There we were at home on a Sunday morning when “Nick” from the “Situation Room” in a thick all-American accent called to give a 30-minute heads up. Then in a wonderful little taste of Kiwi, a parliamentary work colleague turned up in jandals (flip-flops). As the call was transferred our cat (yes that bloody cat) came flying through the cat-flap. She leapt up on to the chair next to Jacinda and began announcing her very squawky arrival. There was a flurry of action as I tried to hustle it into the next room while quite literally the leader of the free world was connected through to our little home in Point Chevalier.
Re: First Cat interrupting a call from Herr President; might one say ‘Good.’?
Awww…
Aw, heck. Well, it sounds like Paddles had her priorities.
My senior cat is now 11 and perhaps two months, as I don’t know his birth date, so I count from when I got him. My junior cat will be (wow) turning 8 between Christmas and New Year’s, also 6 to 8 weeks older than his arrival date.
I’ve ordered a waist pack; I keep misplacing my current old one. (Really, I ordered three in case I don’t like the design, and to have two spares. I can switch out.) — Er, I also overspent on a fandom item, something I’ve wanted since I was a kid, but couldn’t have afforded and would’ve quickly outgrown. I am telling myself this is OK, even though I’m also feeling guilty over it. (Ahem, a replica Battlestar Galactica Colonial Warrior jacket from the old Classic series. LOL, I intend to geek out in style.) (I was surprised it was cheaper than expected, and it’s more accurate than another I saw. I’m telling myself it’s a Christmas present. I still feel guilty and wish I didn’t. But I did it, so I can’t blame anybody but me. So I’d better enjoy it! I will, though.)
—–
@Hanneke — The night before last, Hanneke’s package finally arrived via mail, without requiring a signature. Oh, was I surprised! I’ll be opening it tonight, when I can more properly appreciate it. It will get time alternating with Spanish and French review, but I’m curious to see how well and how fast I can pick up a cousin-language I’m not used to.
(LOL, it seems looking up Dutch language videos on YouTube can lead to some surprisingly funny or odd stuff. As of yet, I can still barely make out spoken Dutch, and yet several words are clearly cognate with English and German, just slightly off in form and pronunciation. That hard CH/HH for G is still throwing me some. But this included some fad for Dutch kids, and while funny, it was also hard to unsee that.)
Today, I have scheduled a grocery store trip, IF my friends don’t get busy and forget again. :-/ Still trying to work out reliable transportation, and irritated about it. But when I go, I’ve got to stock up, and I’ve already alerted them, hey, I’ll need another trip prior to Thanksgiving, because I don’t propose to do much, but I don’t have space to store holiday food too long, and by then, I’ll need another grocery trip anyway. — I haven’t had a trip by my storage space in a while, and want to do so next week. It’s still mostly full and I really, really want to get out from under that. :-/
But life is puttering along, and I’m getting by. I keep telling myself to keep my eyes on the prize and that I’ll make it eventually. (Hmm, and I just deleted where I sidetracked on too much personal stuff on a rant. You all don’t need that and neither do I. I wish I could work things out better. Basic, reliable transportation is still an issue, and my personality overall is getting in the way of me doing things. I’m trying to work past that, but it’s a fight. So, meh.)
I hope everyone’s having a good day. I’m thinking of avoiding any news articles for a while, because it’s just so crazy-stupid out there in the news.
@Hanneke, thank you again so much for the package. It’s going to be great fun trying Dutch. I’ve already enjoyed it a lot, and a chance to appreciate a new language with so much to offer is really great. Thank you! 😀
Surely Uber would be an option to use occasionally to get around? You can easily check approximate fares between two addresses. Uber fare estimates, Houston, TX
What about buses? Are you near a bus route?
Heh, I’d twice asked the low vision clinic eye doctor’s two assistants to get the paperwork in to the city for Metro Lift bus service (handicapped, which requires a doctor’s signed note). Either the doctor didn’t get it done or the city didn’t get it through to me, after my appt last year. The doctor divides her time between the local Lighthouse for the Blind and the Veteran’s Administration, and is thus overworked and underpaid. (Hah, if she’d wanted to make money, she could’ve gone into dentistry!) The bus route is not close, though I think the Metro Lift buses _may_ serve apt. complexes, _maybe_.
Uber — I recently got the name of an Uber driver and he may or may not turn into a reliable, regular source. (I’d had two Yellow Cab regular drivers up until a couple of years ago. Both left the business.) Of prior attempts to get either Uber or Yellow here to my apt. complex, I had an important appt scheduled days in advance, and Uber’s app assured me all was well, right up until 10 min. before the cab was to arrive, and they cancelled on me. I ended up having to cancel the appt. Another attempt, scheduled a day in advance or on the day claimed the cab had arrived, but I was already outside waiting and never saw any cab outside the entrance. If it arrived across the street at the apt. offices, I don’t know, but my half of the complex is separate and gated, with a major road in between. So I haven’t been too impressed with Uber. My experiences with Yellow resulted in a cancellation on me, not my doing. So I’ve been frustrated overall and have been relying on working around friends’ schedules when I need a ride. Not ideal, and I never had a significant problem when I owned a home, except before I’d found a regular cabbie.
After the two regular cabbies I’d had were gone, and before I’d moved out of my home, I’d call each time and get the luck of the draw. This resulted in, ah, occasional fare gouging, but mostly farcically comedic mishaps, such as the time the cabbie’s cell phone service kept dropping, so he couldn’t get directions, and was lost and switching between English and his language (or two) for mild cussing, haha; to the young Middle Eastern cabbie with whom it took about five tries for him to understand the spelling of the street name had an A in front of it. (Apollo. A-P-O-L-L-O. With an A in front. One P. Oh. L-L. No, two L’s. Oh. — No, no, it starts with an A. Apollo, like the Greek god or the Harlem theatre…. It went on like that. Poor guy finally did understand, but wow.) Other things like that, all silly or basic, and all because the cab business over the past few years has become so badly run, with both major companies hiring anyone with no experience and not doing anything which lets the drivers make a living, so that you get that level of lack of training or knowledge of the city’s streets. When the legally blind guy knows more than the sighted driver, but yet I have real trouble navigating these days, well, let’s just say it gets interesting! Haha. Oh, and add to that, the street my former house was on has a break in it many blocks long, effectively two streets, because it was never connected, for whatever reason, probably prejudicial against the residents in the other section.
So, for a while there, I was getting the luck of the draw, and it was very sporadic and not working too well, but it was working. Then here at the apt. complex, it’s been, eh, mostly not working. — I’d been really surprised I hadn’t found someone to use regularly by then.
So…periodically, I spin the wheel and take a chance, and no real luck yet. :-/ My hoped-for outcome is to find a couple of regular cabbies again. It’s got to happen; it’s just that I’ve been so turned off for a while about it that I stopped being assertive about it. Too many big negatives in a row. So, we’ll see how it plays out. (I’ll try again tomorrow if my friends miss today, but after that, I’ll try the new cabbie’s number and see how we do.)
Sorry BCS, I just answered you but I put in one too many links and it’s awaiting moderation.
@BCS, I hope the dictionary on CD works! I sent it without the box, to save weight and not have to pay next bracket postage*, thinking it would be safe enough sandwiched between the books.
I repacked it at the post office trying to shave off 20 grams and save 10 euros, and ditching the box was the only way to get there. The next day after it was gone I started worrying if there might gave been some number somewhere on the box that I didn’t see (I did look for a software-style barcode sticker with a numbers-and-letters code but didn’t see anything like that), that you might need in order to install it…
Regarding weird Dutch YouTube videos: can you get uitzendinggemist.nl on your computer? That’s the Dutch “missed a broadcast?” site , which has a lot of TV episodes spoken in English and subtitled in Dutch, as well as a lot of Dutch original programs and gameshows like Lingo.
Searching on YouTube for “Nederlands ondertiteld” finds a lot of English-spoken films and episodes with Dutch subtitles.
I haven’t been able to find many subtitled original Dutch productions on the internet that are at all interesting except maybe this one about the Deltaworks (most of what I find are some sort of official information to the public from some (semi-)government institution, and probably not interesting for anyone not living in Holland).
Google’s autotranslate gives bad results for Dutch sentences, from what I’ve seen in translated newspaper articles and tweets, and YouTube’s automatic subtitles are generally just weird, so put no trust in those!
But something like “Holland from above / Nederland van boven” has 10 thematic episodes narrated in a slow radio-announcer’s voice (no subtitles in Dutch or English), that might be vaguely interesting to watch (after looking up the title word to get a sense of the theme of the episode) even though you will probably only catch the occasional word. At least you get the “King’s English” version of the sound of Dutch, with that.
I just googled “youtube nederlands leren” and was surprised at the first two hits I opened – one had a fairly strong Caribbean/Surinam/Antilles accent, and the intonation of the second was all wrong, clearly machine-read and not by a human. That’s no way to learn how to speak good Dutch!
Which is why looking for Dutch TV or radio might be a better option. The irritating thing is, the Dutch public broadcasting company NPO puts everything up on http://www.npo.nl and not on YouTube, and you need to get the special NPO app to play them on your phone. Though the Dutch Sesamstraat for young kids does have its own youtube channel (Sesame street, still going strong in Holland, like the Donald Duck magazine 😄) – but no subtitles.
@Hanneke — Thank you! That’s a tremendous amount of research help. I think I can wade through the episode site, as long as it doesn’t get picky about international region limits. — I would hope the dictionary doesn’t have a limit. I’ll find out and report back. 🙂
Those radio and TV sources should be pretty good for listening and learning the accent, getting a feel for the spoken language. And it will give me a good immersion challenge to see how much I can pick up from real-world examples and multiple speakers. That’s a good challenge for even intermediate or advanced learners (3rd and 4th semester and beyond in a language course).
LOL! Sesame Street for Dutch kids should be an excellent source for a beginning learner. I’m part of that first generation that grew up when Sesame Street was brand new in America. (And Mr. Rogers and the Electric Company kids’ programs.) The Muppet Show from the 70’s/80’s was on when I was, hmm, around junior high (middle school). So I’m very predisposed to like Muppets. I know different countries did their own programs. It should be interesting to see how they did it in the Netherlands. 🙂 — I had watched a couple of old documentaries on the Muppets and how Sesame Street was created, last month on YouTube, thanks to a random link.
Oh my, computer-generated speech still has a long way to go in English too. There’s a subset of those on YouTube, and I always wonder if the channel owner has a strong foreign accent or might be hearing- or speech-impaired. I know the sorts of things that does to English pronunciation and stress and tone, so I wouldn’t want to rely on that for learning Dutch. That really needs native speakers’ examples.
I’ve used Google Translate at times and (haha) it can come close at times, but often, it’s as if it was run through a food blender, LOL. The results when run back through the opposite way tend to be, ah, “unique.” :rofl: — This is the very reason for human translators, and I suspect it’s likely to be that way for a very long time. Bren’s and Pyanfar’s and Hilfy’s translation skills are safe and needed. — (I still love how this was done in the Chanur books, and trying to make sense of the t’ca matrix speech was a great idea.)
It will be another night before I get to the CD, but I’ll be sure to let you know if it has any problems. At least from the outside of the box (not yet opened) I think anything between the books should be fine. It appears in good shape, though at one place, the box had been dinged. (A light hit, scratch, or puncture. Ding as opposed to dinge.)
I’m about to sit down with the package and check it. 🙂
My friends were by this afternoon, later than planned, so I got by the grocery store and I am mostly stocked up. I’ll try to get remaining items before Thanksgiving or order online for delivery.
The nearest store continues to be odd about restocking and moving things around, almost warehouse style. It means I spend extra time locating things, whether I use them often or rarely. — Oh nuts, I just realized I didn’t get. cloves or allspice. Will need those.
My friend surprised me, not with an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner with them, but he offered to bring by dinner, saying they always have too much anyway. (Extended family of theirs live nearby.)
I said yes, though I’d been thinking I’d cook a small dinner myself. I’ll still do some, but I took him up on the offer with thanks. — I did not think to ask if this would include Mexican holiday favorites, but it might. Tamales are common for family gatherings, especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’ll ask next time I talk to them if they’re going the traditional American route, or Mexican, or both. (His mom and uncle were immigrants, and of course they have family in Mexico stlll, so it’s likely a mix of both.) I’ve said before that I really like Mexican food, though I’m used to Tex-Mex more than other Latin American varieties, and some authentic Mexican style cooking.
For the next couple of nights, it’s supposed to get down to around 50°F, which (I think) is the lowest we’ve had so far this fall. But then it will be back into the 60’s and 70’s for the lows. It could still turn colder and/or rainy for Thanksgiving. You never really know here whether the holidays will be warm or cool or truly cold. It _can_ get into freezing weather, or rarely into the teens, but more often, lows then are near freezing, with highs there or into the 50’s; but I’ve also seen both holidays with 70 degree highs.
I am irked. I don’t know if either of my good sweaters, one new, one from when I was in college but still good, are tucked away safely in storage, and it’s finally cool enough to consider wearing them, haha. — The older one was a brindled or marled yarn, going from a chocolate dark brown to almost white, and overall, a light brown effect, very nice. I don’t know if it’ll turn up in my next couple of trips to my storage space. I’m hoping it made it; otherwise, I may have to look for however many skeins of yarn and ask if someone would like to knit one for a commission. 🙂 (This brings up a point: How many skeins of yarn are needed for an adult male pullover sweater, size medium to large? I could scout Michael’s or other stores for the yarn, if I knew the amount and the gauge needed.)
Aha! — Both cats did a thorough Postal Paws Inspection of the newly-arrived package and contents, and after thorough sniffing of all and sundry, and sitting upon the box, they declared it passed. Additionally, Goober lay down on the box for a while. He decided it looked like I was going to stay up reading in bed a while, and therefore, laying there eyeing me to seek attention was a good feline plan.
Everything appears to have made it OK. I saw there was an envelope with a card sealed as the address label, so I’ve got that, and will read it in a bit. The USB thumb drive (“pack of chewing gum”) should be fine. The CD appeared untouched and the quick start installation booklet has, aha, a software key code on the back for the installation / activation process, with instructions in Dutch on network, standalone, and other installations possible. So I think those made it unharmed.
Then there are the books: a grammar and a dictionary, and two completely charming children’s storybooks with adorable illustrations in two quite different drawing styles. The one is more suited to an older child / pre-teen. The other has an old-world charm reminiscent of Christmas elves or genomes and stuffed toys, a bit, a sort of rounded style. Both look like they will be fun to read, to piece together the Dutch as I learn. The two storybooks have colorful endpapers and nice covers. The grownup books (language reference) are very modern.
I notice that at least today, the printed books and my eyesight are clashing somewhat. I know they’re printed with rich black ink, yet the type seems thinner and more of a charcoal grey color to me, which I know isn’t true. The type is a bit small on the reference books for me now, so I will be trying out an LED magnifier device which is sort of like the screen on a digital camera, but with enlargement, to see how much this helps me read comfortably.
I’ve got to relocate some paperwork I moved during my move-in, so I can go in to apply for social security disability and start that process. I’d stalled out because of so many delays. However, I won’t know for a while if they accept or deny it. If they deny it, which often happens now, I’m told, then I’ll have to go through with a later to resubmit the claim for reconsideration, and then await the outcome, and thereby enrich the lawyer; though in such cases, the Fed is obliged to hold all funds due the claimant once a claim is submitted, and then said attorney gets his/her cut from that amount, before it’s distributed to me. Ah, welcome to the bureaucracy. (This also assumes Congress and the Executive-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named don’t first defund Soc. Sec. Disability Benefits, et al., before it’s all done with.) But once that’s through, then I can restart the process with the state, and I’d have some sort of coverage plus help and official OK towards the still-needed retinal assessment before needed cataract surgery; which might restore my sight to previous levels, still legally blind, but much better than what I’m putting up with (badly) at present. Both acuity and color perception are affected.
I’d updated my friends about this, and they’d said they recently had to help a family member with other social security paperwork and office visit, so they’ll help me with that, at least for a ride and moral support, if not accompanying me for the whole thing. That’s to work out once I’ve satisfied myself that I have what paperwork I can provide, but either next week or before Thanksgiving or Christmas for the application.
The junior cat has decided my arm is a good lounging place and is purring, wanting attention. LOL.
All in all, a successful day with some good stuff to read. — I’d wanted to let you know it all appears to have arrived in good shape. I’ll know for sure once I check the CD.
Wow, nearly bedtime. where did the day go? 🙂