September 6th, 2018
“Iterluarit” Wishing you a “Good Morning” in Greenlandic, an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken in Greenland and Denmark.
The Great American Read is still running. I am still voting. Are you?
As most of you know, I do love to cook. I also like to try new recipes. The way it usually works is I will dream of something. Not the recipe per say but the new disk will be included in a dream I might be having about a trip I want to take or something like that. I seldom remember any details about the dream except for the images that I end up wanting to paint or changes to a story that I am writing or in this case, a conceptual recipe that I cannot wait to research, write out and try. This week I had a couple of them. One was a Beef Broccoli Stir Fry and another was a kind of a Cheesesteak Po’ Boy sandwich. Both were fun to figure out and cook.
Our watermelon vine has flowers on it !!! Keep your fingers crossed.
This week I learned some stuff:
• Today is another twofer national day of celebration!! Today is NATIONAL READ A BOOK DAY and NATIONAL COFFEE ICE Cream Day!!! So grab your books, dish up a big bowl of coffee ice cream and dig in!
• Every year I try to make something with my own hands to give as Christmas presents to my friends. It is challenging to try to come up with new ideas that are fun to do and fun to get. But I try. I just decided what I am doing for this years presents so I can get busy building them.
Website Update:
• Last week for the New Vocabulary Quiz!!!
• New “UJT Music Trivia Quiz” !!!
• This week I added some new recipes. Check out the Beef Broccoli Stir Fry, CheeseSteak Po’ Boy and Remoulade Sauce . Yum!!!
Writing, Ceramics and Painting Update:
• Next week we restart my classes and I cannot wait. It seems like forever since I have been.
Weird-Stuff-O-Meter:
• TV Matters! Probably much more than it should to most of us. The stats are pretty stunning about how much time the average man, woman and child spend in front of a TV screen. It has gotten worse lately as well. Now they can put TV on your phone, tablet. and laptop or PC. We can download TV content from “The Cloud” now .. no tapes or wires required. I am somewhat ashamed to admit the TV matters to retired people a lot. I am fortunate, I still like to read, listen to music, paint, write, garden and cook. But I have “My Shows” that I schedule around and will watch over and over. Many of my contemporaries just make the circuit from the tv to the kitchen then to the bathroom and finally to bed only to repeat the next day. If you know anyone living like this, please stage an intervention. Get them out of their house, away from the hypnotic mind much maker in their “TV Room” and reintroduce them to a library or art show or food festival or famers market. It really doesn’t matter just something non-routined or programed. Then do it again! 🙂
• I may have mentioned that when I was covering the catbox landscaping my builder left me in my back yard to something with a few more features of interest, I chose to line the inside of my fence with a beautiful golden yellow and green clumping bamboo. My goal was two fold. I had no desire to view or provide viewing in my back yard of all my neighbors. Secondly, I love the sound that bamboo makes in a hearty windy rainstorm. I have achieved goal number 1 but was unaware that San Diego couldn’t through a hearty rainstorm if its life depended on it. Droughts are not a problem! But a good old fashioned roof pounder, not so much. But as a result of my selection, I have taken on a maintenance burden unlooked for. My landscape designer assured me that my “clumping” type of bamboo would remain inside the elaborate and expensive thick copper mesh lined trough he installed to hold it in place. It did not. So now I have to patrol my permitter for escapees. These desperately sharp new growth bamboo to make sure it does not march inward towards my house or outward and eat the fencing with my neighbors. This work we have found is not to entrusted to the hands of our yard guys. Not because they are not well meaning but because their English sucks worse than my Spanish. I am good ordering dinner with wine in Madrid, describing how to prune bamboo, not so much. So now as Registered Old Fart, I find myself out back big ass limb pruners in my hands lopping off the heads of would be escapees in the bamboo. Life is good!
Music Update:
Here is another musical smorgasbord for you to feast upon. I know that not ever dish will be your favorite but I hope you will sample it all.
Go to this week’s UJT Radio program.
• Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention — I’m the Slime — In honor and in support of my Defense Against the Dark Arts diatribe on TV, I believe Mr. Zappa said it best way back in 1973 on their album “Over Night Sensation”.
• Hootie and the Blowfish — Running from an Angel — From The Vinyl!!! Just some college buddies from Columbia, South Carolina, but they did see pretty special music. Darrius Rucker has gone on to become a big time country music solo artist.
• Men At Work — It’s A Mistake — I have always love this bands sound. This one comes from their album, “Cargo” released in June of 1983. My kids and i picked this one out at the second hand record store using our coupon money
• Ry Cooder — John Lee Hooker for President — Doing his best Blind Melon Chitlin imitation. This one comes from his “Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down” released in 2011.
• Fred Foster, Kris Kristofferson and Janis Joplin — Me and Bobby McGee — This version comes from her Gratest Hits album, release in 1973. She was just so special. Its a damn shame she didn’t understand that.
• The Shins — So Now What — These guys are just something special I think. Released in 2017, this is a deep cut from their, “Heartworms” album.
• Stevie Wonder – He’s Misstra Know-It-All – The master of amazing music!!! This is a deep cut off his “Innervisions” album, another record released in 1973. This is supposed to be about Richard Nixon and it would seem to fit but somehow it seems to work better these days.
• The Doobie Brothers — Takin’ it to the Streets — From the Vinyl!!!! The title cut of the first album after Michael McDonald joined the band. I really loved the Doobies before and even more after this record was released in 1976.
That’s it… Do the best you can; Laugh every chance you get; And always remember … The best is yet to come!
As always, thank you for being my friend!
James
Under the Jacaranda Tree URL: http://www.jfmccann.com