Overachiever?

There are 17 muscles in the shoulder. The fall only bruised and irritated, inflamed, or pissed off 15 of them. Missed a perfect score by two!

And then I wonder why healing is taking so long... ah, well, time to do my physical therapy homework again. Will write more later.

Slow Cooker Pork Roast

In 6-quart slow cooker, assemble:

4 lb pork loin / pork butt (I used a quartered chunk of pork butt, defrosted)
1 jar sauerkraut
1 bottle beer
4 cloves roasted garlic, smashed
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 Tbsp molasses
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 medium onions, chopped
2 medium apples, chopped

Cook on low for 6 hours (or, if you're not sure it defrosted all the way through like me, I did high for 3 hours and low for 3 hours).

Serve with couscous and steamed broccoli (five minutes on the stove for one, five minutes in the microwave for the other).

It's not low carb. I'm cold, tired, and the rain's making my joints ache; it's perfect comfort food. Feeds 6-8, with ice cream for dessert. Eat, and enjoy the company of friends and a fire in the fireplace afterward.

Rainy Days

I like rainy days. Somewhere along the way, rainy days became my internal signal of "Yay! A dedicated day to do all the housework chores, so they're all done when it's sunny and I can go fly / hike / enjoy outdoor life!"

So to me, rainy days smell of cleaners, and fresh laundry, and blasting good music all through the place.

(My husband is confused by this, but shrugs and just disappears into his writing.)

Unfortunately, this rainy day is frustrating, because I'm not healed enough to Clean! Everything!

Ashbutt is frustrated, too - here you can see him going "Where are my birds? There's rain hitting the window, but no birds!"

Some Beautiful Shots of Winter

Matt's updated his blog with some beautiful shots of winter flying in Alaska. Go check out what I ran away from!

https://blueiceaviation.com/slippery-winter-ops/

And yeah, I don't miss pushing the planes around on ice, either...

A paen to starting rotary engines...

For everyone who's missed the lyrical and lovely writings of Brigid at Home on the Range, she's ba-ack! Not on her blog, which is still locked down post-troll-attack, but in a guest post at Borepatch's!

https://borepatch.blogspot.com/2017/02/knights-of-round-engines-home-on-range.html

The ancients wrote that the great things to be seen are sun, stars, water and clouds. I think they forgot the round engine.

I have a fair amount of experience flying jets and as much fun as I had, I do have to agree - there is absolutely no mystery to a jet engine. The air travels through it in a straight line and doesn't pick up any of the pungent fragrance of engine oil, hydraulic fluid or pilot sweat.

The rules for the operation of a jet are basic. When I first had some beginning airmen to teach there was this preprinted poster with the "four forces of flight". Lift. Weight. Thrust. Drag. Each were represented by a drawing of a man. Someone, of course, drew a dress on Mr. Drag, which now would just get them sent to the corner for "sensitivity training". But it wasn't all that much harder to teach airmen gas turbine engine technology. I have kitchen equipment more complicated.

Go on! Go read it! You know you want to howl with laughter, especially if you've ever tried to perfect angling the clipboard so it deflects the oil spume from the DeHavilland Beaver's engine when you're adding more oil in flight!

Romance and Science Fiction

I know, I know. Ruminations on romance from a gal who's still tickled pink that her husband got her a Ruger Mark IV in steampunky bronze, and promptly declared it an early valentine's present. (Look those things are scarce as well-behaved kittens right now. I'm not fool enough to expect him to be able to find it right on St. Valentine's, and I didn't want to wait until the day to get it, either!)

I'm a woman. I like love stories in my fiction. I know, I know, a lot of y'all see the protagonist making puppy dog eyes and the gut reaction is just like the grandkid in The Princess Bride:

But I also grew up on Anne McCaffrey, Lois McMaster Bujold, Leigh Brackett, Andre Norton, and other Grand Old Dames of science fiction and fantasy, who believed in working love stories right in with the thrilling action. Who doesn’t enjoy fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, and miracles? Or Princess Leia and Han Solo's banter, in the middle of space battles?

Unfortunately, from the 80's on, I saw a lot of emo navelgazing gutting the SF&F romance, and then wearing its skin, calling itself by that name, and demanding respect. It allied with erotica and romance that picked up the barest trappings of SF and declared itself part of the genre without any of the love for the ideas, tropes, or fans. (They seem like a movie crew directed to the wrong set who throw on the costumes, shoot faithfully to their script without exploring anything they've found, and then declare that they must belong to the genre and frachise who were supposed to be there.) This inevitably leads to heartache and heartburn, and giving romance a bad name.

So I wrote the kind of book that I love to read, but have a very hard time finding anymore. It’s set on a colony trapped in a crater while the terraforming on their iceball is failing. While the two factions have temporarily ceased their running civil war and are pretending to cooperate in order to install a weather station that’ll warn them both of killing cold coming down from above, things are never as simple as they seem!

It’s got fighting and skiing, avalanches and intrigue, killing cold and uncovering old secrets, gunfights, true love and sacrifice…

Hope you like it, too.

South-Africanized Cheese and Onion Samosas

What do you do with a leftover cheese and fruit tray from Sams Club? Make samosas! Because then it's different enough it's a brand new dish, instead of trudging through leftovers!

Cheese and Onion Samosas, South-Africanly Spiced

Filling:
2 medium sized yellow onions, finely diced

2 Tbsp Hatch Green Chilis, mashed (or jalapenos, if you like spicier)
1-1/2 tsp minced garlic
4 Tbsp fresh mint, chopped
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped (or cilantro, if you like it)
4-5 cups cheese, chopped into tiny bits (or grated)
1/2 tsp salt
1-1/2 tsp garam masala
1-1/2 tsp chili powder

3 packets of puff pastry
2 eggs, beaten, for an egg wash.

Instructions:

Pull the puff pastry out and let it thaw.
Preheat over to 400 degrees F.
Crack eggs into a bowl, beat, and set by the chopping board.
Chop everything that requires chopping, dump in large mixing bowl with all other filling ingredients. Either stir with spoon or just put on a pair of non-powdered gloves and mix by hand.
Unfold puff pastry. cut on fold lines into 3 strips, and cut each of those into thirds, so you have squares of pastry. Roll  out each pastry square until it's roughly twice original size, and add egg was in a sealing strip to two sides.
Put filling in the middle, and fold the pastry over into a triangle packet, pressing to seal edges.
When baking tray is full (remember, these expand when baking), brush the top of dough with egg wash.
Bake for 20 minutes. Silicone baking sheets very helpful here, so it doesn't stick. Easiest to start one tray, pop it in, then start the next tray.
Pull out, let cool at least five minutes before eating.

Makes 27 samosas, which is enough to use up the cheese of the cheese tray. Feeds at least 5 adults with no appetizer or side dish.

...as for the leftover fruit, toss any past saving, then half or quarter the rest (removing any stems from grapes and the green bit from the strawberries.) Add a tablespoon (or two) of rum, half a teaspoon of vanilla, and mix well. Let sit for half an hour to soak, then fold into whipped cream. Serve as dessert.