Mushy stuff

    So this whole relationship thing is going remarkably well. We are sensationally compatible on every level, enjoy each other's cooking, like one another's pets and possess similarly quirky senses of humor. If there's one thing to complain about about Tamara (apart from the whole using "impact" as a verb thing) it's that there is nothing to complain about. Hey, you read this blog. You know I live to complain! Oh, that and I blame her for having "The One That You Love" by Air Supply running through my head constantly. But you know what? I can live with it.
    Now the hard part: will Earthlink/T-Mobile let me post? It took ten minutes or so to send out the Drinking Liberally email. More mushy stuff may be added on edit if I can get this out at all.

Do you mind if I whine about kitty litter?

    I can't seem to find anything consistent with people and cats being able to breathe. All of them advertize that they are 99% dust-free. Search any of their reviews on the Internet and you will find that these claims are, uh, inconsistent with user experience. I'm using a cedar, pine and something else (basically sawdust) type at the moment. I may be allergic and the cats don't seem to like it either. It clumped in the past, but it isn't clumping at all now. Before, I used clay and that was even worse. It totally coated my bathroom floor and moldings, and Amelia's eye weeped and ran constantly.
    I feel like buying plain sandbags. I'm fairly fed up. I looked up sand and fuller's earth, which should work, and found that that was the original Kitty Litter brand. Apparently this brand became Tidy Cats. Whether they still sell anything with fuller's earth, I can't find out for sure, but I tend to doubt it. Interesting though. I knew I should have trained Amelia to use the toilet!

It was the doohickey

    I went to vote this morning. Since it was cold, I drove even though that polling station is maybe half a mile away and I walk it practically every time. Voting was extremely straightforward. I was in and out in minutes. I came out and the car wouldn't start. This car has had a tendency not to start after brief stops for as long as I can remember. Also the battery has tended to build up corrosion for at least the last year.
    This time, no. Usually if I just wait a minute or two in the brief stop/no start situation, it starts up. This time, there was nothing at all. I lifted the hood and looked, but there was next to no corrosion, if any at all. I called my brother William asking him to bring the jumper cables; he said he would come. Now brother Malcolm had given me a doohickey that allowed me to connect my iPod to the car. Rather, it powers my iPod and broadcasts its songs to the car radio. Go figure. Doohickey plugs into the cigarette lighter and has a red light indicating... that it's plugged in? that it isn't connected to an iPod? I don't know.
    Regardless, I thought it would be worth a try to unplug the doohickey. I waited another minute and tried and the car started readily. (World's smallest dome light left on.) I called William and caught him before he set out, fortunately, and took the car all the way around the beltway to charge the battery again. All is well and I only missed about an hour of American Top 40 (by driving with all electrical accessories off). It's ok; it was 1978. We learn a new lesson: it was the doohickey. It's always the doohickey.

I could tell you

    I could look it up. A month or several ago, those brain-dead balding guys forever in their car eating in the Sonic commercials went out of their way in a spot to address each other by name, whereas they had always gone out of their way not to previously. It was so freaking weird that I made it a point to write the names down using a notepad app on my phone. I assumed that now they would be Peter (driver) and T.J. (passenger) forever (I looked it up), but no, nothing of the sort. Perhaps there will be a contest later and they will give away a Beach Boys record and $1000 worth of tater tots. If so, you can be the lucky winner!
    What I don't understand is who is being drawn to Sonic by these commercials. It seems more like a Twilight Zone episode to me, or a Beckett play. Can they leave? Do they want to leave? What are they using for a bathroom, and has anyone looked in the back seat? Peter, T.J., enlighten us!
    Dreams continue weird. Mostly pleasant except that I had to get my dad out of a building which included two vertical climbs. For some reason, this wasn't a problem, but getting him up when he'd sat down to rest was. And I felt bad that I hadn't found him big enough slippers, which was the one true to life part. But he could walk without a walker, which was neat enough.

Whoosh!

    Our latest communal bout with Post Flood Stress Disorder seems to be past, knock on wood. It turns out that I'm not the only one who freaks out a little every time it rains. I can just imagine how the people who actually had their possessions washed away react. Anyway, we dodged the rain bullet and the tornado bullet and aren't doing too badly with the high winds bullet. Some power lines and some traffic lights got knocked out, but in general it's been a pleasant, if damned windy, couple of days. All sympathies to those in neighboring states who weren't so lucky.
    I've been having odd dreams but you are lucky in that I don't remember any specifics. My dad tends to be alive and well in all of them, though, which is pleasant. I remember a lot of the usual dormitory-type dreams except the dorm is vastly more crowded. What does it mean? No idea.
    I've been jonesing for Brunswick stew for ages, partly because my favored Indian restaurants tend to serve a curry stew now and again that's quite similar to it. I'm trying to make something not entirely unlike Brunswick stew at the moment, but I'm pretty sure that's what I'll get: something not entirely unlike Brunswick stew. I bet it's good whatever it is, though.

Sarcasm watch

    Means that conditions are favorable for the development of sarcasm. We had very rough weather overnight, but things are quite pleasant now. Cayce's Riverwalk is totally closed in spite of the weather being much less dangerous than what was predicted. Columbia's Granby Park (also on the river) is open. I was going to say something snarky about Cayce being over-cautious. However, we are under tornado watch until 7 pm, so I will hold my fire. The watch area is more than half of the Carolinas, though, so I'm hopeful that we'll dodge this bullet and the full Sarcasm Warning can be announced. Go to an interior room away from windows or a basement if available.

Razzafrazzin' furniture

    I found exactly the loveseat recliner I wanted. Only problem was that Tamara might immediately leave me to run away with the plushy chair. But suddenly I had this astonishing headache. It mostly felt like a simple sinus headache. Given the weather (moist, misty, humid beyond belief), that wouldn't be surprising. But I didn't like that I got it as I was sitting on new furniture instead of, say, when I was outside or at least driving around. Outgassing is an issue with new furniture and as I'm sensitive to everything else, it would hardly be surprising if I were sensitive to that, too.
    Later I found a very nice floor model in another store at a low sale price. I'm not necessarily being cheap; it occurs to me that an old floor model might be a good compromise between gassy brand new furniture and nasty dirty torn up thrift store furniture. Well we'll go sit on it and think about it. This is pretty fun. If you're ever in this process, try Ashley Furniture first. But bring a gas meter.

Dang fleas

    My ankles got chewed (chewn? chawed?) up again before the month had passed since the cats' last flea treatment. But then... there were no further bites, almost as if there had been one flea and it dropped dead. Still, now the month has passed so I can treat them again, and I bought the Feline Advantage to do it with. So yeah, going through with it, assuming I can catch Harry. Amelia is pretty wily, too, but she basically trusts me. Harry is a cat juvenile delinquent, the James Dean of cats, and is a little harder to subdue.
    Meanwhile, looking for furniture is still pretty fun, but it's still strange how much people want for uncomfortable furniture. Also, the fact that loveseats cost about $10 less than sofas (out of $1000) is both crazy and outrageous. After I posted yesterday, I found a La-Z-Boy loveseat at Goodwill for just $10 that was in good shape. Problem was that it has a pullout twin bed. That might be great if it were new, but used mattresses are not usually something you want to bring in the house. Nor do I need another bed. But $10 versus $1000... Hmmmmmm...

Really, I just want to see my email

    As usual, I had a number of topics to write about today and forgot all of them. I was inclined to write about the movie "The Witch," which Tamara and I saw last night. (Summary: two or three good scares. Otherwise dull. Why you would spend years researching 17th century speech and language just to wind up with a family talking like Yorkshiremen is beyond me, but there you go.) And then there's the problem with finding some kind of loveseat Tamara and I can sit on to hang out and or watch TV. Papa San chair just doesn't cut it for two, but nor can I find anything that I like. Comfy chairs for two must be something no one has invented yet.
    However, the pressing item is the usual thing: the phone's Internet hotspot and the laptop refuse to communicate with each other. This time, it's reached the point where I could only learn that I have three emails incoming, but I can't see them. Let's try again! That's got it! As expected, none of them were anything gigantic. (I mean literally. Of course every email is of greatest importance.) Just TMobile and or Earthlink being a pain in the butt. The usual thing in other words.
    Other subject line idea: "Jeb?" Jebby we hardly knew ye. Or maybe we did. What depresses me is that he wasn't rejected by the Rs because he's too crazy, but because he isn't crazy enough. Sad.

We invented the Spanish Inquisition Omelet

    Tamara wanted to come over and was hungry but all I had prepared were beef stew and pork with black beans and she doesn't eat either beef or pork. So I suggested a Spanish omelet. (We were messaging.) She wrote, "Spanish Inquisition sounds good!" and thus the Spanish Inquisition Omelet was born. We decided that the torture device would be a jalapeno. Otherwise, it's the same recipe (or as best as I remember) from my long lost tapas book by Jose Sarrau.
    For this trick, you need a (preferably non-stick) pan the size of a plate, or a plate the size of a non-stick pan. It's probably best also to have a cover that fits, although mine does not; it does cover the pan, though. Cover the bottom of the pan with extra virgin olive oil and coat the sides as best you can.
    You take a medium sized potato. I think Sr. Sarrau wanted it peeled but I see little point. You cut it in half lengthwise and cut the halves in half lengthwise as well. You slice the quarters widthwise narrowly (shoot for less than 1/4 inch, but don't worry about it overmuch) and add to pan, spreading the slices as flat and evenly as you can manage. Also add a cut-up sweet onion, garlic and the cut-up jalapeno. You can take out the seeds first if you like, but Torquemada would not approve.
    Crack and scramble four eggs, pour on top. Set heat to 3 or medium-low, cover, set timer for 15 minutes, go away. Next is the fun part. Clear everything from the kitchen sink or sinks; plugging the drain(s) might be a good idea, too. Put your plate over your pan. Flip the pan. Your omelet should fall on the plate no problem. Slide it back in the pan. Put back on the heat and recover. This is supposed to be another 15 minutes but I started smelling overcooked onion and turned it off after 8. Turned out superb.
    Sr. Sarrau's book, Tapas and Other Appetizers (or so I remember it), republished decades ago by Fireside Books, is available (possibly for free) through Google Books. It's a good one!

Feeling much better, but

    I'm feeling better all the time, but the thinkbone is not operating at any noticeably higher level. I thought of a half-dozen topics while I was out running errands and looking for a better comfy chair but all have leaked out of my head. The reason I was casting around for topics is because the actual topic for the day, "Inside my head is no place that you want to be" sounds kind of alarming. But there's no existential dread involved, just other stuff leaking out of my head. In other words, my sinuses are draining and the inside of my head neither smells nor tastes as wonderful as I would prefer. I know, I know; you didn't ask. Bright side is that it ought to end soon.
    I thought it was funny that I bought Green's (gluten free beer) at Green's (booze store). Also that I saw a white Toyota Tundra. Also that I saw a bumper sticker: Another American for sensible gun laws. Vague enough for you? But these weren't the topics that subsequently leaked out of my head. No doubt I will remember them all in stereo somewhere around 4 in the morning.

Stuff is happening

    Moreover, for the first time in five years or more, it's good stuff. Sorry I can't be less specific. If you have my email address or phone number or Facebook ID, you can certainly call or write for further information while I work out how to word it for individual texts, emails or phone calls. Also if you want to contribute to my new super PAC, that would be welcome as well. More, as they say, anon.

Breathing!

    It still isn't warm like warm, but it certainly is warmer. So going outside is possible, the heat isn't on all the time, Harry the cat can spend most of his time outside (his preference) and all these things together mean that I can put the Benadryl away and finally breathe again somewhat. Any minute now, I'm expecting brain function to return to some small degree. Glee is just around the corner; I'm all but decided that I'll be buying a new quad copter within the week.
    The rotten stinkburger aspect of life around here is that the fleas have returned even though it's been less than a month since the last Feline Advantage treatment. This means that we all will have to itch for another five days. AWWWWWW poo!

Finally true

    Recently, I claimed that I put cloves in everything I cook, just for humorous purposes of course. Unfortunately, then the claim became true. I made my polenta lasagna for lunch and reflexively put in cloves. Ummmm, let me just say that you probably won't want to do that. It wasn't terrible or anything, but nor was it exactly great. I tried to cover with extra oregano, basil and garlic, but no go; I could still taste the cloves. Premature senility is a terrible thing.
    Meanwhile, the weather has become gorgeous and warmer, too. It isn't springlike exactly, but it's getting there. So I'm going out hiking as soon as I'm cleaner. (Allergies have me on Benadryl and thus sleeping half the time. I hope fresh air will help. Harry the cat seems to feel that way; he's been gone for hours.) And this blog now has 36,000 views all time. Huzzah and thank you! Pretty neat on the five year anniversary.

Mass cabin fever

    This is the mass cabin fever edition of It's always darker before the dawn, or vice versa. The cats are driving me nuts since they want to be fed every two hours. It's still nasty and cold outside, though it should be temperate again by midnight (the day's high is supposed to come at 11 pm) and then get warmer as the week wears on. Mind you it's still February and they might sneak in any number of additional cold spells. But this is freaking South Carolina; it should be generally springlike from here until it gets furnacelike in a month and a half or so.
    If I really fed them as often as they want to be fed, I wonder how big they would finally get? These two little waddling sausages on four legs, staying on the floor since they wouldn't be able to jump anymore. I feed them four and more usually five times a day. Not much at each feeding, but when I fed them twice a day they left a lot on their plates. Less food more frequently seems to work best.
    Maybe I'll just order a whole tuna from the Tokyo fish market. Have at it, kitties! Yeah, that'll work! Naw, just a few more hours and it's spring again and I can let at least the wilder cat out most of the time. Ah spring!

Humidity wrangling

    As I mention now and again, my place is pretty dank during the colder months. The humidity in here finally got dry enough such that the air temperature felt comfortable. Unfortunately, that was so dry that I could barely breathe anymore. So even though we're expecting a wintry mix by morning, I had to plug in the humidifier.
    Now that it's breathable again, I'm thinking of unplugging the darned thing again. I can live without any more dank. On the other hand, it's hardly likely that the heat will be off much of the time on a night with expected overnight lows around 20. As I have noted (and as I have declared will be the motto of John University), thinking is hard!
    As it turns out, really chilly weather does lead to more walking outside since Harry (who follows me on neighborhood walks, whining all the way) is less inclined to go outside. So I had another very nice neighborhood walk this afternoon. On the other hand, having two cats inside all the time has my allergies mimicking a very bad cold. Or anyway the Benadryl helps, which suggests allergies rather than virus. I'm still not a doctor, I know.

Well THAT will make me go walking!

    I'm very unreliable. The minute I posted that the reopening of several of my favorite walking paths had led and would lead to me walking every day again, I stopped. Not altogether, of course, but I've missed many days and seldom get close to a half-hour walk. As I may have noted now and then, Johnny is no fan of chilly weather. However, today the mighty mighty USC Gamecock basketball team had a noon home tipoff against the much declining Kentucky Wildcats in a battle of first-place SEC teams. (Gives an idea what UK declined from that they're still in first place.) And got boatraced. Just absolutely ashcanned. The first half was bad enough, but they came out from the break and immediately fell even further behind. And suddenly I remembered how much I like going walking in Olympia. Harry was inside and everything, so I didn't have to worry about him following me. It helped that, though cold, it's an insanely gorgeous day.
    Note to UK: big road win happens with Calipari thrown out after two minutes. Maybe y'all could save big salary and just let the assistants coach.

Improv a TV ad

    I went to Aldi, wound up with an armful (even forgetting the cats' sardines-- the idea!) and went up to the cash register saying, "Why do I always come here for one thing and wind up with enough to break my arm carrying it?" And he said, "It always happens like that!" and rang me up so fast that I didn't have to pause to say truthfully (since he'd already given me the total, "AND spend less than $20!" And he said it, too. We were smooth, letter perfect and funny, and it's only a shame that Aldi doesn't do TV ads. Boy we'd bring 'em in!

Hey buddy!

    I change the cats' litter boxes outside in hopes of impinging less on everyone's breathing. This time out, instead of supervising up close, Harry decided to go up on the roof and supervise from there. Midway through the job, I noticed him and in surprise, more or less shouted, "Hey, buddy!" Robert from up the street was walking by and stopped dead, thinking I was addressing him. I told him that he's a buddy, too, but I was talking to Harry on the roof. It was pretty funny at the time.
    I'm feeding the little weasels four times a day now and I had already given them their first afternoon feeding. So I was surprised when Harry came down from the roof and came in with me when I brought the litter boxes in. I had to cook for myself, but he didn't know that. Eventually I was cutting up raw chicken. You NEVER saw anybody more willing to help out in the kitchen, and I include little kids when cakes are being frosted. I guess a nice person would have cut up one chunk tiny tiny and made sure it was both unspiced and completely cooked and passed it along. But then, their food costs more than mine does anyway!

Still learning how to dress in layers

    I know the rest of the country will be sending a big boo hoo at us poor South Carolinians (highs in the 40s, lows in the 20s) but remember, we don't have the clothes for this stuff. I have a new restaurant in my neighborhood. Well I have two, but the first is a pizza place not known for concern about gluten. But the new one is a taco shop that's great on gluten. And I was going to walk over yesterday and welcome them to the neighborhood. Got almost three blocks. Big big wind up.
    When I drove over, I found that while they were good on gluten, they weren't interested in procuring non-GMO corn. Sorry; forgot to mention that it's a taco place. So I bailed, nicely I think. Point of all this is that it wasn't that darned cold even with the wind. Apparently, my cotton long-sleeve shirts worn as undershirts, my flannel shirts worn as over shirts and my cotton sweaters aren't suited to actual wintertime. If this keeps up, I'm going to buy a pack of thermal underwear shirts. (I'm wearing one now and feeling a lot warmer.)
    Today I won the gas pump lotto, drawing one that I didn't have to hold onto to keep it pumping. (Here in the third world, those are getting rare.) This was very lucky, as I had forgotten my gloves. I should have played the real Lotto, but I just don't.

I dreamed and dreamed and dreamed

    Fortunately for you, I'm not writing this at 7 in the morning, so I forgot most of them. But I had amazingly detailed, crazily interconnected dreams. The start was one that was somewhat like the John D. MacDonald I'm currently reading (The Brass Cupcake from 1950). That is about an ex-cop pretty much falling into a Hammett situation. The dream was about a city employee whistleblower type wanting to write a book about it, except sometimes he was more like MacDonald's ex-cop. I was helping him write it.
    Then suddenly I was living in a hotel with my brother William. He was making endless steak fajita strips and they were very good. Then I was wandering the hotel and they had a computer game store carrying many many games which I either made up in previous dreams or my brain was telling me that it was a recurring dream. In other words, I have periodic dreams about computer or Nintendo games which I believe I remember fondly, then when I wake up I realize that they didn't actually exist. They may always be the same or more likely I just make up new ones every time.
    Then I wandered and found this bar casino arcade filled totally with black people. I thought it surprising, but very very cool. I was worried only about cigarettes, but there were none.
    THEN we were hanging out with Green Day, only they were Rancid. The hotel was somewhere in South Carolina, possibly Rock Hill, possibly Greenville, possibly both. Green Day and or Rancid were supposed to be in Copenhagen at the time according to a calendar on the wall. They were playing and I liked the bass playing (which is why they were Rancid) but at the same time their newest tracks were playing. I guess in real life big band was playing on the stereo, but what I was hearing sounded reasonably like Green Day only with horns added. I noted that in the studio, everything probably seems like a good idea.
    THEN I woke up about 6 and felt totally well-rested. I didn't even need particularly to go to the bathroom but did anyway. I wasn't expecting to fall asleep again but did and dreamed that I had a vast variety of toys, two of everything, and was giving away the extras, especially the three-foot long scale model of the Concorde. What does it all mean? I have no idea. But I've been strangely gleeful all day. You just have to give away your extra SST models, I guess.

I, uh, fell asleep

    Not to say that it wasn't a particularly super Super Bowl, but I fell asleep repeatedly during the first half, and that was when it could have gone either way. Of course, I also fell asleep twice in the past two days while cooking, the second time burning up my spaghetti pot more than somewhat, so I may have finally come down with Dad's narcolepsy. (Smoke detector will probably be re-batteried and re-hung up any minute now, if not replaced with a new one.)
    I'm Old School enough to appreciate a defensive battle, but am also the first to admit that it doesn't make for electrifying TV. I find a pitcher's duel much more tense and edge-of-the seat. I've also fallen asleep watching many, many baseball games, but I'm not sure that any of them were genuine pitcher's duels. The Braves used to have a pitcher named Charlie Leibrandt who put up fine numbers, but whenever I watched he seemed to be giving up 8-run innings. And I was off to cavort with the Sandman.
    It's nice that Peyton got his second ring. It's creepy that he slipped in that Budweiser reference twice. That didn't seem the LEAST bit staged. Dan Patrick says that active players can't shill for alcohol, so this was actual a tipoff to his retirement status. I thought it was the NFL getting even further in bed with their sponsors, so it's nice to think it might have had some other meaning. And that's probably the finest commentary on the game itself: the most that can be said about it is what happened afterwards. Zzzzzzz.

Payola in bluegrass not what it once was

    There's a station in town called The Dude, 94.3 on your dial, playing autotuned country 6 and 23/24 days a week. The other hour is 8 on Sunday morning, when they have a bluegrass show. It's fine as far as it goes. But they only play about 10 songs. Over and over. Every week. They're good songs and I like them. I just can't get over the idea that with 100 years of bluegrass recordings to choose from, they could maybe try introducing a little more variety.
    Of course, cynic that I am, another idea that I can't get over is that there's some kind of payola involved. Why anybody would pay to get the same 10 songs played over and over at 8 in the morning in a relatively minor market is another question that I can't answer. Presumably they're the only 10 non-autotuned records that the station owns. That would also be sad. Maybe they'd like me to loan them a few.

Just light brown

The question comes up again and again
Is there difference
between white and brown eggs?
And it's just like the question
about difference between white and brown people
except there are no white people
just light brown ones.
The difference is that one is white
and one is brown.
There is no other.

I, for one, miss our crappy river

    Columbia sits at the confluence of the Broad and Saluda Rivers, forming the Congaree. The Congaree is not a notably mighty river, by and large. Most of the time, you see people standing in it halfway across in water nowhere near their waist, trying to fish. I'm not going to try it but I suspect that you could walk across. The deal is that there are many lakes and reservoirs upstream on both the Broad (called the Catawba closer to Charlotte) and the Saluda. We've been in a drought for about 30 years, so the flow of the Congaree was fairly restricted for most of my life, as the water was needed upstream. Apart from the people standing in the river, you could nearly always see rocks in the river. On the one hand, it made the river look... piddling, maybe. On the other, it never, ever looked threatening.
    Although there weren't floods exactly, the kookoo weather started last year in April, as I recall. It just rained like crazy. The actual floods started at the end of September if I recall correctly. (I could look it up, in this blog if not on Google, but the actual date isn't that important.) And though we've had breaks, we've had torrential rains every week or so ever since. The river recedes, but never to the levels I'm used to from pre-2015. And it is more than a little threatening. There's a poem etched into a large stone at the entrance to the still-closed Canal Park. An awful poem by a presumably local bard named Max Revelise. It was about the Congaree and all I remember about it is that it starts, "O tawny flood!" I always thought this was soooo funny. I don't think it's so funny anymore.

Walking again

    It would appear that I was correct in thinking that it was the lack of trail options and not the bad weather that was keeping me indoors more than previously, because having had some of my trails restored to me, I've been walking every day in spite of further poor weather. Now, will I keep it up when it actually gets cold again? well that's another question!
    Rainy Day Pal Books, the bookstore in Lexington's Old Mill wiped out in the flood, has reopened. Fortunately, the owner had 50,000 books in a warehouse, so he still has some inventory in spite of losing what was in the old store. He's moved upstairs, which only seems smart. I will try to kick him some money the next time I am in need of books to read. Crazy mad glad that he's back in business, though.

Keystone Kops Skool of Kooking

    As I mentioned, I invented lentil pancakes the other day, probably for the twentieth time or so. The problem with this is that I made a brilliant innovation caused by making a bonehead mistake before that. Now I want to figure out how to get the same result without either boneheadedness or brilliancy, the latter of which had a fair quantity of boneheadedness as well.
    What I was doing was cooking black lentils. The Whole Foods package had different directions from what I remembered (four times as much water as lentils instead of two times) but I think I did ok. The whole recipe was inspired by finding two things at Aldi: their gluten-free flour mix; and tomatoes with lime and cilantro. (Also jalapenos!) The idea such as it was was to make pico de gallo pancakes. I also steamed butternut squash cubes and collards because I try to make balanced meals and because I knew it would excite shock and dismay on Facebook. And I added crushed garlic, cumin and cloves to the lentils becase it's my freaking religion, and sauteed sweet onions because that's another prime tenet.
    I mixed all this stuff in the stew pot, then worried that all this hot stuff would prematurely cook the pancake batter. So I ran some water in the sink and put the pot in without putting a lid on (did I not say boneheaded?) and went off to take care of something. By the time I returned, the ship was foundering and taking on water. So I dumped it all in the strainer and got rid of the added water, but also the tomato juice and lime juice from the canned tomatoes.
    This was all accidentally brilliant, because I wound up with perfect pancakes, whereas if I hadn't done the straining operation, they would have been runny as anything. I had almost as much stuff as I had pancake batter and I was sure that this would never work, but it really did. So all I have to do is drain the tomato can first and use that as part of the water for the lentils. Right? All solved! Well, if not, we'll just have the glorious fiasco I expected to have the first time I did this. Fortunately, there are a lot of good things in my freezer and if that doesn't suit, there are a lot of good restaurants around here. Big fun regardless, I figure.
    Amelia the cat still wants to escape, but is being slightly less of a pain in the butt about it. She joins me in not being a fan of clouds, apparently.

Amelia the cat continues to baffle

    Once I started feeding the cats wet cat food four times a day (half a 5.5 oz can split between them mornings and afternoons/evenings), Amelia started behaving better and no longer agitating to go out. I thought we'd seen the dawn and were entering on a new horizon. Unfortunately, it was just because it was cold outside. Now that it's nice again, she's back and agitating like crazy. I guess I'll have to put up with this forever except when it's cold or raining. I'm SO getting her a leash and harness!
    Mid-range quad copter's mysterious return to life went the way of all zombie movies in that it didn't last long. It's back up on the shelf. If I remember, I'll try it again on 2/17 (also Dad's birthday but in this instance notable as the last day before one has to register one's large quad copters) and see if it just needs astonishing amounts of rest. Meanwhile the DJI Phantom 3 one notch above the one I lost in the river and with better range has gone down $200 in price. Please help me forget this fact.

Did I mention that Jennifer Love Hewitt is in love with me?

    The other night, I dreamed that I went back to high school. Not the thing I had for years where I had to do all my years of schooling over again for no apparent reason. All this had in common with that was the no apparent reason part. Anyway, I was back in high school and friendly with two insanely attractive young women, both of whom fell in love with me when I told them that they were beautiful. The first didn't resemble anyone famous as best I can remember, but the other was a ringer for the young Jennifer Love Hewitt. I thought, why didn't I try this when I was really in high school? I'm afraid I dropped the non JLH lookalike like a hot rock. Such an awful person I am in my sleep.
    I believe I posted exactly the same thing about Obamacare last year, which is why I buried the subject this time in the second paragraph. That is, it's insane to pay out a huge amount of money for the cheapest policy available which has a deductible bigger than the amount of money spent on me for medical care in my entire life to date just to avoid a $700 penalty. I swear I'm really going to start a company called Fauxbamacare which will charge $500 to certify that one has insurance and thus doesn't have to pay the $700. (Don't worry; I won't really.)
    My mid range quad copter isn't as dead as I thought. One thing I learned from Roscoe the better copter is the concept of warming up. If I turn the old one on somewhat in advance of trying to fly it, it does a lot better. And my grasp of the totally obvious just keeps getting better and better. It's no Roscoe, but it isn't terrible. The pictures show a lot of jello effect, i.e., bendy telephone poles, light poles and even buildings. But heck, it looks like Salvador Dali came to town! So still very cool. Control isn't the best, so it might be following Roscoe to the great beyond at any time. Fun in the mean time, though.