Food Trends

What's up with whoopie pies? First it was cupcakes, hell, in fact, they are still the rage in some places. Then it was French macaroons, but only for a little while because no matter how many cute colors they could come in, they were difficult to make. Then cake pops which are/were over the top cutesy and now whoopie pies.
What about simple things, like, um, cookies. I'd like to read a food blog or magazine without any of the following:


cupcakes
whoopie pies
cake pops
popsicles
red velvet cake
red velvet whoopie pies...


That would be nice, just simple foods instead of food trends.

Gay Go Up and Gay Go Down

"Gay Go Up, and Gay Go Down" by Anonymous. Public domain. One of my favorite poems with my favorite of all in orange. I guess it's more a child's rhyme, but the last bit is a tad creepy.


Gay go up, and gay go down,
To ring the bells of London town.
Bull's eyes and targets,
Say the bells of St. Marg'ret's.
Brickbats and tiles,
Say the bells of St. Giles'.
Halfpence and farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin's.
Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement's.
Pancakes and fritters,
Say the bells of St. Peter's.
Two sticks and an apple,
Say the bells at Whitechapel.
Old Father Baldpate,
Say the slow bells at Aldgate.
You owe me ten shillings,
Say the bells at St. Helen's.
Pokers and tongs,
Say the bells at St. John's.
Kettles and pans,
Say the bells at St. Ann's.
When will you pay me?
Say the bells at Old Bailey.
When I grow rich,
Say the bells at Shoreditch.
Pray when will that be?
Say the bells at Stepney.
I am sure I don't know,
Says the great bell at Bow.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

Father's Day

There are times when you forget that you are fortunate. That's happened a good bit of late, but one thing I am fortunate in is my father. Fred is just the best. He's older now and without my mom, but he's resilient. He's happy, learning new hobbies, hanging out with the dog, and likely watching too much TV, but it's great fun to talk to him. He's had and unremarkable, but yet still interesting life. He always told us we could be anything we wanted to be - even though, heaven forbid, we were girls. He taught me how to pour concrete, change brake pads and oil, how to shoot and never failed to threaten any of my high school boyfriends. That's just Fred. I've very fortunate indeed.

Bering

I love you Bering
Oh, yes I do. 
I don't love anyone as much as you.
When you're not with me, I'm blue. 
Oh, Bering, I love you. 

Well ...

It's been a little over a week and I still miss my friend. I miss his woo woo when I came home and his play bow and his sphinx pose and the way he liked ice cubes. I think the MotH may be right. No more dogs. It's just too hard. Now, I'm going to stop dwelling on this and write about something else for a little while. Until missing Bering doesn't hurt as much.

When sorrows come

When sorrows come,
they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
~Shakespeare
~Hamlet

I can't believe the world is this ...

... cruel.
My baby Bering. He just stopped being. I hate everything. I would give almost anything to ... well, there is nothing I can do - nothing anyone could do, but that doesn't make me hate this much less. Fuck it all to hell. 
My poor baby Ber. 
I want to throw things, and strangle anyone around, and I don't know - fuck fuck fuck it. 
My poor baby. What am I going to do? My heart breaks in places I didn't know existed.

My sweet baby - Bering. 

May

Bering

May must be the cruelest month. I know T.S. Eliot said it was April, but he's wrong. I used to think that it was August because it's so damn hot and humid in August, but I have revised my decision and have labeled May as the "winner" in this contest. My poor sweet Siberian Husky went from being perfectly normal (for him) to perfectly blind in less than a week. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it or fix it. 


Now he wanders the house like he's lost and it's just about more than I can take. It's so unfair and so very very sad. I know life isn't fair. I say that all the time, especially to the Boy, but somehow this seems hateful. It's not like we can explain anything to him or to let him know we're going to take care of him. Damn. I'm sad, but I'm also angry. 


He's so stressed right now and running into things and getting stuck in places, not knowing how to get out. We read that this will improve over time, but right now, watching him circle and wander is one of the saddest things I have ever seen. Such beautiful blue eyes, but of no use. 

Spring Garden Update

We're about to go head-long into summer. The fact that we were able to have the windows open last week, was a real shock, but it didn't last long and now it's starting to feel like the end of spring. These were some final spring blooms before the daylilies took off last week. Photos of those and the easter lilies coming up soon. 

bottle brush

Spirea  'Henry Waterer'

And the clematis jackmanii was at its best yet. I've never had this many blooms. It's been in the ground for only two years though. I'm very pleased with the way it looks, esp. in contrast to all the pale pink roses around it. 

The Big Four

The Big Four

Summary: Hercule Poirot has had his share of intruders - yet none more peculiar than the emaciated stranger covered in mud who stumbles into the detective's apartment, shouts half-crazed warnings about "the Big Four," and dies. But not before plunging Poirot into a crazy netherworld of international intrigue, secret weapons, kidnapped physicists, underground laboratories, hairbreadth escapes, and an employee from a local insane asylum who's all too eager to let the baffled Belgian in on the sinister secret of "the Big Four." (source: book cover)


Comments: You know, one of the things that I'm finding as I read Ms. Christie's mysteries, besides the excellent writing and very interesting stories, is how very funny she is. Not in a laugh out loud way, but in a subtle, Austen-like way - a barb here and there, some turn of phrase that makes fun of something - often of fiction and mysteries themselves. Rather a charming characteristic, I find. 
Hastings has returned from Argentina to surprise Poirot in England and the two get mixed up in some very serious business that reminds me of The Secret Adversary, the second book by Ms. Christie. That the poor gentleman, Mayerling, that stumbled into Poirot's room was a victim of "persecution mania" reminded me of how much terms change over time, just like the use of "brain fever" something no one would write about now. 
Poirot, of course, never changes. He's the same egotistical little man that he ever was. As an example, early on the discovery of the existence of the Big Four ...
"No Hastings, Number Four has left no trace, and he knows it. His visit we may call a reconnaisance. Perhaps he wanted to make quite sure that Mayerling was dead, but more likely, I think, he came to see Hercule Poirot, and to have speech with the adversary whom alone he must fear.
Poirot's reasoning appeared to me typically egotistical, but I forbore to argue."
Just as words have changed over time, so have considerations of gender. When Hastings thinks of Madame Oliver, the great physicist, "It has always seemed to me extraordinary that a woman should go so far in the scientific world. I should have thought a purely masculine brain was needed for such work." We see the time period very clearly and thankfully, it is a different world we live in now. 
I am glad Ms. Christie leaves the French text in (just as it is in Jane Eyre as well). It helps me get my little grey cells going on remembering or sorting out the particulars of the language. It seems likely that Poirot comes from the southern part of Belgium given that he speaks French and refers in the book to the town of Spa which, indeed, exists and is also in the French speaking part of the country. 
I enjoyed this book very much. The sharp, quickly-moving chapters were succinctly written and moved the story at a very fast pace, but also developed the characters as well. There are times that I have to look up words, such as, dyspepsia - chronic pain in the upper abdomen. And other terms that I'm not up on such as the Ruy Lopez opening in chess - it's also called the Spanish opening or Spanish game, named for the 16th century Spanish bishop and chess player, Ruy Lopez de Segura. 
Poirot can be a real sentimental, especially when Hastings risks his life (and others) to save Poirot from making a enormous mistake ... "You like not that I should embrace you or display the emotion, I know well. I will be very British. I will say nothing - but nothing at all. Only this - that in this last adventure of ours, the honours are all with you, and happy is the man who has such a friend as I have!"
But he's also a little on the practical side as well ... "That is possibly true enough," admitted Poirot. "I hope that they will not succeed in massacring Hastings also, that is all. That would annoy me greatly."

That's Poirot for you. Just love him, and Hastings too. Up next, The Blue Train.