Monthly Archives: March 2015

Icy Trees, Wet Roads

It stayed cold overnight but got up into the mid 30s (F) fairly early this morning. When I went out to the car, the sky was clear but it was &x201c;raining” under the trees and I got fairly wet. The ice that had coated everything yesterday was melting and coming off in largish pieces. I tried to take a picture of the Zelkova trees on Norbeck, which were glittering in the morning light, but it doesn’t really do the sight justice. The roads were wet, not at all slick, fortunately.

Table Knives

Dorothy and I drove up to Frederick today, but more about that in my next post. We had a little time to kill so we went downtown and wandered into an antique shop. I took a few pictures in there, but this is my favorite, a table covered with flatware. It was laid out with the knives, spoons, and forks in different segments of a circular display, all radiating out from the middle. The knives all range in price from $4 to $6 and the sign said 20% off. All I took were a few pictures, though.

Snow Cream

Without question, proper Italian ice cream (i.e., gelato), with its particular texture (generally no egg and with less fat than “standard,” American ice cream), is just about the best thing in the world for dessert. A close second, and considerably easier to make if you have the ingredients on hand, is snow cream. The recipe is about as easy as anything can be: one can of sweetened, condensed milk mixed with one can of crushed pineapple. Then mix in as much fresh, light, fluffy snow as you can. You want to be ready to eat it right away, because it melts fairly quickly. Of course, the snow is the tricky ingredient, as it’s not always easy to come by, depending on where you live and the season of the year. This evening it was available in abundance. The other two ingredients are easily bought ahead and kept for the occasion.

Sculpture In The Snow

I took only a few pictures today and, not terribly surprisingly, I suppose, they involved snow. Are you tired of the snow yet? I know a lot of folks around here are ready for spring and I’m pretty sure it’s just around the corner. I can almost feel the daffodils starting to push their way up through the cold, wet earth. But for now, we still have a bit of snow. I spotted this piece of natural sculpture when I got to work this morning. Between the stems and their shadows, it paints a pretty picture. Look for spring, but enjoy the remainder of winter.

1/2″ Ship Auger

I hope you don’t find this boring. I was looking around for things to photograph this evening and not having a lot of success, frankly. I’m much better off when I get outdoors but it was getting late and I wanted to find something to photograph. I came across this 17″ long, 1/2″ ship auger drill bit. I don’t remember for sure why I first bought this long bit but I think it was drilling a long hole through the corners of a built-up pond I made out of 4″ by 4″ lumber at our old house. In any case, I like the helical flute on this and, whether it’s worth it or not, it’s my photo for the day.

Cathy and Broccoli

I made some chicken for dinner tonight, in a tomato sauce with sauteed onions, mushrooms, and Kalamata olives. To go with it, I cooked a little broccoli. I thought I’d take a few pictures of the dinner to post, but instead I’m going to go with this one of Cathy, being silly with two large spears of broccoli. She has one foot up in some sort of yoga pose, but I didn’t have the right lens on the camera for that, so you just get her and the broccoli.

Steak, Tomatoes, and Olives

I was home alone for dinner this evening because Cathy had a soccer game. She’s also not having red meat for a week. So, I took the opportunity to have a New York strip steak. I had some very nice tomatoes so I cooked one of those and melted some cheese over it. The olives were something of an afterthought but went with this very well. I had both Kalamata olives and green olives stuffed with garlic, both sauteed a bit in the meat drippings.

Leisure World Globe

Over the weekend something came up about old fashioned phones—remember when you had to turn a dial a different amount for each number—and I mentioned that my mom took my older brother and me to the New York World’s Fair in the mid-1960s. Ralph and I saw an exhibit where you could time yourself dialing your phone number on the then-current “rotary dial” phone and then on a newfangled touch-tone phone. We also talked to each other on video phones, which was even cooler, even if it was only in black and white video.

I mentioned that I had heard that the large globe at Leisure World was from the New York World’s Fair. Turns out that is not true. According to this page at the Roadside Architecture site, the globe from the World’s Fair, the Unisphere, was 140 feet tall. The Leisure World globe is only 40 feet tall. They are similar, of course, because they are both based on the same planet, but they are not the same. Someone also mentioned that there was a rumor that Australia is upside down on the Leisure World globe. That is also false.