Not dull, just dirty

When we were little, my clever sister inferred that dull was short for adult.  It made sense.  The grown ups would sit around the table FOREVER, just talking and talking, and drinking nasty things like wine and coffee.  Sometimes they would laugh very loudly at things that made no sense whatsoever.

Friday night we got to go out to dinner in Portland with friends.  We left our assorted offspring with a babysitter and a movie.  Our friends took us to a relatively new place in Portland, the Irving Street Kitchen--it was excellent. And we talked and talked and laughed uproariously and drank wine and espresso.  A snippet of the conversation went as follows:

Adult #1 "You can get anything on Amazon."
Adult #2 "Yes!  Our espresso machine died of over-use--I just ordered a new one on Amazon!"
Adult #3 "I ordered my new vibrator." (Did the last one die of over use?)
Adult #4  "I just got one of those hand pump espresso makers--it's sort of a cross between the two."

Ho ho ho.

Science experiment, and a recipe

My chickens used to have their outdoor run in what had been a raised garden bed.
Then it rained even more than usual all spring, and the roof of the chicken house collapsed.  I had just given away my old chickens, so there were no fatalities.
I hired a very competent guy to re-build the coop for me, and while we were at it, we made it more efficient, space-wise.

There is room for a hooligan in the coop now.  This could come in handy.

So I was able to re-claim my garden bed for some tomatoes.  We all know chicken shit is good fertilizer, but seriously!  It is amazing!  Here are the tomatoes in the regular bed:

Here are the chicken-shit tomatoes:

I think I need more chickens.

We ate caprese salads almost every day while we were traveling.  Fortunately, they are well within my capabilities to replicate, and it's easy to grow all the produce.  I need a buffalo, for the mozzarella.  Since I am also fond of melon with proscuitto, perhaps we should get a pig, too.  I wonder what the city codes are....

Sliced tomatoes
Sliced up fresh mozzarella
basil leaves
Arugula (optional)

Pesto dressing:
minced basil(6 sprigs)
minced parsly (2 sprigs)
minced mint (1 sprig)
one or two garlic cloves-minced
juice of one lemon
1/3 C olive oil (better is better)
salt

You can leave out the pesto part and just do a lemon garlic olive oil thing if the basil leaves in the salad are enough for you, or you can buy a tub of pesto and thin it with a little lemon juice if you are short on time.  I could live on this.  I like to expand it with sliced grilled eggplant or sausages and grilled french bread.  I think we'll have it tonight.

A question of no particular import

What does the ubiquitous taffy at the beach have to do with salt water?
And why do I buy it and eat it when I don't even like it?  The Hooligans love it, because, you know--it has corn syrup!  They ate my share.

They'll Eat Anything

After finishing a plate of escargot, the Smaller's Hooligan's comment:
"Those are so good!  And now we can have frog legs!"

Guest Blog-- The Man Who Lives in My House-- "Those Rollerblades Suck"

The Hooligans' Mother is too addicted to her new knitting project to do her "real" job-- writing this blog.  So, I, the Man Who Lives in Her House, am charged with the duty.  Hopefully, this will not be as lame as when Bill Keane, the creator of the evil Family Circus, goes on "vacation" (too drunk to draw right) and "Billy" takes over.

Larger Hooligan recently scored tennis shoe roller-skates at a garage sale (see figure 1).

Figure 1

Smaller Hooligan has been busy stealing them at every opportunity even though they are far too big: They are the new cool thing. It seems to have slipped his mind that we have a basket full of excellent rollerblades that were Christmas presents two years ago.  I happened to know that the smaller hooligan's feet now fit the larger out grown rollerblades.  After the predictable squabble over attempted roller-skate theft, this was our conversation this morning:

Me: "Go and get those red rollerblades, they will fit you perfectly!'

SH: "Huh?  Those rollerblades suck!"

"No they don't.  They are FINE."

"The straps always come right off."

"No they don't.  Go get them"

"Well, they have spider webs and spiders on them!" (from dis-use)

"Just wipe them off!  See, they are great!"

(After sliding the rollerblades on to a perfect fit) "Oh, I think I was thinking about my old ones."

"Let's go get your helmet and pads."

"Goodbye friendly father."

"Goodbye friendly son." (see figure 2)

Figure 2

Five minutes later:

"EMERGENCY!  EMERGENCY! [The larger hooligan] scraped his knee and needs the BIG kind of bandaid!!"

Believe it or not, this actually got the Hooligan's Mother off the couch and out to the street, where she administered first aid.

Orthadonture Couture

Look at this!

Here's the link, in case you want to order one.
http://www.areaware.com/proddetail.asp?prod=kmrng&CatID=111&subCatID=70

I find this so entertaining, I think I would wear it, even though it is completely revolting.
It's too bad I didn't have a chain to attach my retainer to back in the sixth grade....it would have saved me (and my mom. sorry mom.) from an afternoon of looking through the school dumpster after I scraped it off my lunch tray...oops.

I spotted this trinket on the blog Whorange, by Tula Jeng.  If you haven't come across Whorange, just click here: http://www.whorange.net/whorange/page/2/ .  You'll be captivated.  Where does she find this stuff?

Delinquents of Heroic Proportions

My college town has a very well funded football team (thanks in large part to alum/nike founder, Phil Knight).  It is somewhat ironic, given that our university (and education system in general) is chronically underfunded.  In a typical week, our local paper might report that we have difficulty keeping professors because our pay is below standard, and also that the newly completed athletes' center (funded by the aforementioned Mr. Knight) cost in the neighborhood of $1100 per square foot.  Many folks here care deeply about football.  Unfortunately, a number of our players have had run-ins with the law.  A few stand-outs seem to have proclivities for brawling and larceny.  That makes a big splash in the paper, too.  To the university's credit, those players have (for the most part) been benched or booted.  The Hooligans follow all of this with great interest.  Hence the following conversation:

SM. Hooligan, "Mom, does Eugene have a lot of crime?"
Me, "Um, no, not really.  I mean, a lot of bikes get stolen, but not the really bad crime stuff, like in Baltimore."
Larger Hooligan, "Mainly, the criminals are football players."