Where'd everybody go?

The day after thanksgiving ... across the street from where I've lived this last week...

Trouble with a Capital 'T'

My backyard for the holiday ... better not get used to this kind of life.

Getting Home

I got 'home' --the word -- on my phone ... thanks to the patient counsel of my godson. This post is the proof, so disregard my previous message. Home on the range. Give me a home. Almost home. Be it ever so humble...

Phone Good

I've noticed a consistent problem pattern while learning how to text message with my LG phone. It uses the T9Abc mode, the so-called predictive mode that gives you the most common result for your pattern of keypunching -- for example, when I press 4-3-5-5-6 the word “Hello” appears.

The accuracy of the mode is very impressive. I also appreciate that the mind gets some type of exercise during composition of the most innocuous phrases, as well, when the word you want does not appear. You just have to come up with another word. However, I really wish I could type the word “home” – you know, like when you want to say, “I’ll be home, soon.” “Home” – pressing 4-6-6-3 -- always comes out “good”. “I’ll be home, soon” becomes “I’ll be good, soon.” “Call me when you get home” becomes “Call me when you get good.” “Are you home?” becomes “Are you good?”

Moreover, if it had been around during the Sammy Sosa/Mark McGwire baseball battles it would have been extremely inaccurate. “Home run” becomes “Good run.” Or Dorothy would have been texting over and over "There's no place like good. There's no place like good. There's no place like good."

What would E.T. have done with this? “Phone home" becomes “Phone good.” Sounds more like an endorsement of AT&T by the Frankenstein monster… but perhaps that is what this somehow has all been leading up to, another form of advertisement. “Phone good.”

Et Stew, Brute?

Our second snow of the season means it is probably time to dust off the Crockpot again. The recipe to first strike my fancy this go-round is good old reliably-comfortable Beef Stew.

Not sure where the recipe came from, but it was handwritten off somewhere on the web before I had easy access to things like printers. If the original author finds it here, please let me know your identity so your due credit may be finally paid-off.

INGREDIENTS:
2 lbs. stew beef
¼ cup flour
1 tsp. paprika
4 lg. carrots
3 lg. potatoes
1 can condensed beef broth – 14.5 oz.
1 ½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 lg. onion
1 can tomato sauce – 8 oz.
1 small can mushrooms or a liberal amount of freshly sliced ones.

Cube up the potatoes -- after washing them -- and layer them in the bottom of the cooker, layer on top of that your sliced-up carrots. Cover that with the meat. Sprinkle the soy sauce, salt, paprika, pepper and flour next. Over that mixture spread out the onion which you’ve chopped. Then add the beef broth and tomato sauce. (If you’re using canned mushrooms, I usually put them last – if you’re using fresh mushrooms I usually put them on after the meat.)

Cover and cook on either the low setting from 7 to 8 hours or on the high setting from 4 to 5 hours.

Very different from my first stew made of Sunday pot roast leftovers when I was probably 7 or so years-old. Cubed up the roast beef and mixed it with the potatoes, carrots, and gravy, but realized there were not enough potatoes so I grabbed some from the bag in the pantry, cut them up and heated the mess together for my mother’s lunch.

People over 30 may realize what happened, may remember when potatoes in a bag usually came still covered with chunks of the earth in which they grew. Yes, I skipped the step of washing the potatoes first.

She took a bite, pulled a clump of dirt from her mouth, and told me about the pre-washing step. She also proceeded without complaint to clean out the bowl – except for the potatoes.

Buried Treasure

The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman

Nobody Owens, more-familiarly known as "Bod", finds life in the graveyard – and finds life good. The graveyard is his whole world; where he plays with friends, where he sleeps in his adopted family’s home, where he learns what he needs to survive. His friends and family are the buried dead of the graveyard whose spirits live on eternally.

Orphaned as a toddler by a mysterious man named Jack, Bod grows up among the spirits and other beings (most especially his guardian, Silas) who watch over Bod, teach him their ways and, as best they can, the ways of the world outside the iron fence. Too soon for all concerned, the ways of that outside world intrude in a dangerous way and Bod must learn his final lesson from the spirits: how to live.

Author Neil Gaiman (Coraline and Stardust, among others) wrote this Young Adult fiction as a take on Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”. Being more familiar with the Disney cartoon than the actual stories, I do not find too many exact, one-to-one, characterizations here -- and that is not a bad thing at all. Sure, “Jack” is Shere Khan the Tiger, Silas is most-likely Bagheera, while Bod is, of course, Mowgli – but in the end, it does not matter.

Here is what matters:

Silas said, "Out there, the man who killed your family is, I believe, still looking for you, still intends to kill you."

Bod shrugged. "So?" he said. "It's only death. I mean, all of my best friends are dead."

"Yes," Silas hesitated. "They are. And they are, for the most part, done with the world. You are not. You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished."

An exciting and clever book, nevertheless "The Graveyard Book" really won me over with its great heart and honesty. There is no sugarcoating the terror, and the trickster Bod often falls over his own faults. His foibles are not necessarily well-intentioned ones, either.

It is a book in which the experience of reading it winds up like life itself. At the end of our own time, many most likely do not want an end. We would want to keep going or sometimes would even want to start over. I felt a strong urge to start re-reading “The Graveyard Book” again at the end of the final page. If not for the fact it also makes me want to get out there and live even more. No time for someone else’s stories -- live your own.

I Believe I Can...

All too many mornings begin with this sad sad sight on my floor.
However, this morning marked the first time I noticed the label on the Kapla Blocks box behind him. What is most essential for this toy to learn: flying or falling? When will he learn what he needs to learn?

Another shot (or two) of the good life

Haven't been to a ritzy Clayton restaurant in a while, and with these prices it will be an even longer while before I go again. At least the beverage cost remains reasonable...and it was in celebration of a wonderful birthday. Priceless in many ways.

The Best -We- Can

Photographer David Katz created a flickr stream of his behind-the-scenes shots of Obama and family going through election night this past Tuesday. More on all this later, but in the meantime check out the President-elect's new government site change.gov ...

Just Plain Crosseyed

Still waiting three hours after arrival, but I know I'm next through the door... and after that I will not be able to take anymore pictures. Poll worker seen above tells of the seniors living here in the center who were up in the lobby at 3:30 a.m. in hopes for being first in line. They ended up waiting just as long as I have so far before casting their vote. Hope they're sleeping, now. I know I'm off to work after this is over.

Crosseyed & A Little Pained

Still waiting ...

Bi-State WUSTL Red bus has come through several times now -- the driver giving us the thumbs-up with her horn. Somebody was discovered to have a birthday today and the "Happy Birthday" song was taken up loudly by most of the couple hundred people in line. One little girl goes down the line with her Batman trick-or-treat bag, offering her own treats to thank people for their patience. Somebody waits in their parked car, blasting Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" and many of the better singers in line take up the song as well. The poll workers had come out earlier to remove some campaign signs placed past the 25-feet-from-the-poll rule. No one says anything about the song possibly breaking the same etiquette.

Crosseyed & Painless

After an hour ... still waiting ...

Polling place opened 30 minutes late, but still troubled. Group-mind pretty together, with good-humored grousing about as ugly as it gets. Only one person gave up, promising to come back later. Talking Heads' "Crosseyed & Painless" remains the morning theme song moving through my mind -- probably because of the chorus "Still waiting, still waiting, still waiting..."