Laundry

Laundry is one of those eternal chores that never ends, only pauses. Sometimes, though, the pauses are for reasons creative and interesting, like when the ambush predator you live with decides to move where the attention is...

That's a nice shirt I got here, shame if something happened to it...

Spring

There is something strange and wondrous about spring happening in February. Welcome to Texas! I have now gotten about as far away from Alaska's seven months of winter as is possible while remaining in the USA! (Okay, there's always Hawaii, but Texas is warm, and affordable!)

I am starting a container garden, because the prospect of starting a larger garden while dealing with owning a house and settling in, and starting a new job, seemed a little overmuch. Despite any husbandly jokes about Scarborough Fair, no, that wasn't what I was thinking when I started parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. And cilantro. And basil. And oregano.

I may have gone a bit overboard on the basil. I could only find it in seed, so I started two trays to see if any of it would take. Now I have twenty little pots with basil seedlings, and I'm thinking... pesto? Okay, I could thin it down, only keep a bunch or two... Or I could have a glorious profusion of basil. I might have to plant some in dirt, though, because that'd be a lot of pots.

One of the joys of living off a base is watching their pilots play while I'm sipping tea out in the backyard. Another is the delightful profusion of cultures for small-city Texas, including two Asian groceries. One of the drawback is the inevitable puzzling head-cocked stare at a complex chart on the small airport wall, trying to decipher just where the base does their coming and going, when, and how to fly around them reliably. Thankfully, there does seem to be an easy rhythym once you get into it, but "Just stay between the local TV station's towers and you'll be good" won't be incredibly obvious until I've flown a bit here.

Given a year, I know I'll get the rhythm down: where to fly, when to plant, when to switch from building a fire in the fireplace to grilling outside. Not yet, but it's coming. Strangely enough, though, when I find myself slipping and talking of "back home" when comparing here to there, I still mean Alaska, not Tennessee. Sometimes, I wonder if that'll ever change: I first really learned to put down roots there, and they dug deep.

Settling in

Once upon a time, the cat was bored. As bored cats do, she demanded that her people play with her, and relieve the ennui of being a house-bound cat.

So her people started making boxes, and putting things in them. The trouble with humans is, they didn't stop putting things in boxes when she'd had enough of it. But she adapted, and decided that as long as they'd understood one demand, they could understand another, and upped the demands to go outside and kill the birds in the windows.

They let her out. But it was in a cat cage, and it was only to go to the vet. After getting a rabies vaccination, she decided she wanted nothing to do with outside anymore.

But the people, they're kinda stupid and slow about learning when to stop. And when they'd put everything in the whole house in boxes, they took her out again, and put her in the car, for hours upon hours upon hours. At the end of the day, they hadn't gone back to the house, either: they put her in a new place, with lots of strange smells. It was scary, but she had her people.

After a couple days of this, they came to a new house, with a new person, and she had her whole huge litterbox back instead of the travel stopgap. Life was good, and there were lots of new things to explore, and couches to climb, and beds to sleep on...

And then, before she could get bored, they picked her up again, drove a ways, and plunked her in a brand new house, with familiar furniture and all the boxes. She's decided boxes are the cause of traumatic change, and wants to be anywhere else when one of her people start opening them.

But time went by, and other than the forbidden garage where boxes still lurk, the house was almost unpacked, and back to normal. A cat could get used to this...

And then the people moved the living room furniture. She gave them the dirtiest looks she had ever learned, and swore a bit. Enough change! Stop that!

Exercise and cats

Why exercise at a gym? After all, you can do almost all the same things at home, without the travel, the fees, or the other people, right?

Unless you have cats. To see what doing situps and pushups with cats is like, go here:

http://www.breakingcatnews.com/comic/the-man-is-doing-push-ups/

This post brought to you by the person who was counting their seventh abdominal crunch of a set when the cat popped out from under the bed, and did a beautiful  cross-body leap, pounce, and bit my left forearm just as I was coming up for the eighth one.

Let's not even talk about yoga with cats. Just...

I've got to join a gym.

A little escalation is good for the... soul?

Now that we live in walking distance from OldNFO, LawDog, and Phlegm Fatale, we've gotten into the habit of rotating group dinners. (And when we decided to make the informal formal, OldNFO and I settle who has which night via the age-old coin toss method.)

Now, when you get a group of very experienced, well trained, highly skilled people together, no matter the subject matter, a natural spirit of competition starts to arise. This can result in such things as marathon races, short takeoff and landing competitions, and gigantic bonfires. But this is just dinner, right?

"Just" dinner.

OldNFO served dinner tonight. Marinated kebabs on the grill, green beans tossed with olive oil, salt, & garlic on the grill, a salad and rice pilaf on the side, a shiraz in the glasses, oh and there just happened to be a german chocolate cake for dessert.

LawDog has proclaimed he's rising to the challenge with a true Texas chili this weekend, and there's an understated understanding that of course this means salad and wine, and we'll see what side.

Great. Not that I feel the need to top both gentlemen. No, I merely need to match their excellent cooking, right? Which is why I volunteered next week to do bobotie. Okay, fine, "Challenge: Accepted!"

..."just" dinner.

Great. Six months from now, are we going to be doing the veggies carved into the shape of lotus flowers and kobe beef? Because this kind of escalation can be dangerous...

I think I need to join a gym.

Ray's Cheesy Grits

I got this recipe from Ray, after we made all three variants of his cheesy grits disappear rapidly last weekend during a gathering. It has nothing to do with low carb, and everything to do with delicious. Even my husband, who cannot abide American grits, devoured it.

Ray's Cheesy Grits

Ingredients

5 cups chicken broth
1 1/4 cups uncooked quick cooking grits*
16 oz extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (roughly 2 cups)
1/4 cup whipping cream (unwhipped)
1 tsp sriracha sauce**
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
3 large eggs

For meat
Option A: 1 can hickory smoked spam, cut lengthwise into 1/4 inch slices
Option B: 1.5 lbs breakfast sausage, cooked and drained***
Option C: 1.5 lbs Peter Grant's Mex Mix

Preparation

Step 1:
Verify you have all the ingredients for your intended mode of destruction.

Step 2:
Butter a 9x13 glass or ceramic baking dish.**** Put meat of choice in even layer in bottom of pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Step 3:
Bring chicken broth to a boil in a Large saucepan.***** Gradually whisk in grits, bringing back to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened. (While grits are thickening, in 1 cup glass measure, mix whipping cream, hot sauce, black pepper and red pepper vigorously with a fork or small whisk. Set aside.

Step 4:
When grits have thickened, add cheese. Stir Vigorously! Large whisk works well. Keep stirring until glop is not lumpy. Add cream mix.

Step 5:
In seperate bowl, stir together the three large eggs. Stir into grits mix until thoroughly mixed. Pour into 9x13 pan over meat of choice.

Step 6:
Cook at 350 degrees F for 45-50 minutes. After baking, remove and let rest for 10 minutes. Cut with spatula and serve to the hovering crowd.

*stone ground grits can be substituted. Increase liquid to 6 cups & cook time to 60 minutes
**other and inferior hot sauces may be utilized, with predictably inferior results.
***drained is important! It avoids setting the stove on fire!
****Use of metal baking dish will result in cursing, soaking, scrubbing, more cursing, and more scrubbing.
******Not medium, you fool!
.****** Failure to allow resting time may result in second or third degree burns.

Foresworn II

So when we last left our intrepid pilot, he was on a sandbar somewhere in the greater expanse of Alaska, with a malfunctioning GPS. I was on the other end of a satellite phone connection, warm and dry in a pilot shop in Anchorage, having just realized that I'd broken my fervent promise never to do help desk.

With clearly great reluctance, our lost pilot turns off the GPS, and I hear the sigh of relief when it boots back up just fine. "Oh! The numbers on the lower left hand side are..." And he rattles off a software version number that makes me want to facepalm. He hasn't updated the software on this thing in years... in fact, I'd bet good money he hasn't updated since he bought it. "And here's the satellite page! It's searching! It thinks the date is... what??"

I nod, even though he can't see it, and pitch my voice low and soothing again. "Was that the last time you'd used the GPS, sir?"

"Oh. Uh. Yeah, I guess it was."

"Your GPS basically went to sleep when you shut it down, and now it doesn't know that time passed, so it's staring really hard in the wrong spot of the sky for the satellites, sir. It's okay. Turn it off again, and listen to my instructions before you turn it back on. I want you to repeat back to me what you're gonna do. You're going to hold down these two buttons, and continue holding them down for three seconds after you push the power button again. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to... do I hold the power button down for three seconds, too?"

"No, sir, just those two buttons."

I wait. Approximately three second later, the full-pitched panic returns. "It's not finding them yet!"

"It's going to take about ten minutes." I soothe, and desperately reach into my bag of tricks for ways to distract, soothe, and generally de-panic pilots. Time for the biggest one I have. So I pitch my voice up bright. "While we're waiting, what kind of plane do you have?"

He perks up by reflex. "Oh, it's a supercub!"

"Really? What mods have you put on yours, and what are you planning?"

A few minutes later, in the middle of an extended discussion on the best way to spend a limited budget at the amazing and wonderful world of airplane mods known as F. Atlee Dodge, he breaks off. "Hey, it's working! I see where I am! How'd I get... never mind! I can get back to the airport!"

"Good!"

"Um, how much do I owe you?"

I contemplate the absurdity of trying to take a credit card payment from the middle of nowhere over a satellite phone for telling a guy to press three buttons, and reply brightly, "You owe me coming into the shop to get that GPS software updated, next time you get back into the Big City!"

"Okay! Thank you So Much! I'll be right there!" He hangs up, and I put the phone back on the hook with a shake of my head and a sigh.

Fearless Pilot Shop Leader asks all the questions she needs to by just raising her eyebrows. I check - there are no other customers in earshot, just one back by the used avionics counter. I hold up my fingers and waggle air quotes. "I'm on a sandbar and my GPS doesn't work."

She nods, and points over to the GPS update computer. "I got another one over there, waiting for you."

"Can do!" I shift my but off the stool, and head off to another day in the life of tech support. At least I get to talk about airplanes while doing it!