$7924.00 later I have a brand new a/c unit.
My house has gone from 100°F + to 81°F… Life is good.
I woke up to a house full of smoke Saturday morning. -Trust me, smoke will get you going a helluva lot faster than any ole boring cup of coffee.
Anyway, after sniffing everything electrical in a house full of computers and appliances I finally pulled the cover off the inside unit of my split a/c and was greeted with blackened wires and electrical sparks…… Not a good sign.
To make a long story short. It’s time for a new unit. It’s only going to run about $9k. (I went with the cheap unit.)
I also had to buy a new fridge. After 30 or so years my old one died. Also on Saturday.
(So much for saving up for that long vacation.)
And here I was bragging to a friend that everything in the house was done except the kitchen. Now I get to re-redo the bathroom.
When I talk to my friends about black bread with smoked salmon and cream cheese they always think I’m talking about lox. Which is traditionally thinly sliced.
However, I prefer the thicker style
It gives more smoke flavor and a better texture.
I just put a fresh loaf of black bread on the cooling rack.
All I need now is a chilled bottle of Chopin vodka.
Banana Nut Bread
One cup butter -softened
2 cups of sugar
6 large very ripe bananas
1 cup walnut pieces -optional
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp each ground nutmeg & cinnamon –optional
In a large bowl, using a potato masher thoroughly mash the bananas -small lumps are ok.
In another bowl lightly whisk the eggs and vanilla
In another large bowl cream the sugar and butter. I did this by hand, it only took a couple of minutes and I didn’t have to clean up the beater.
Combine all these with the bananas.
Mix the dry ingredients and add to the bananas mixing until just combined.
Stir in walnuts
Pour into a buttered cake pan or two buttered 9×5 bread pans.
Bake at 350°F anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. After the first half an hour check your bread with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out clean it’s done.
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Sour Cream Frosting
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cream together the butter and sour cream until very smooth.
Stir in the vanilla until well mixed
Then stir in the confectioners’ sugar a little at a time until it is fully incorporated.
If you didn’t put any nutmeg or cinnamon in your banana nut bread and change your mind, you might try adding a little of each to the frosting.
Any leftover frosting should be refrigerated.
White carpet. –Why in God’s name would a sane person have white carpet?
People who have white carpet are always tense, they spend every free moment worrying that someone might forget to take off their shoes when entering the house. They live in constant dread that the most minute piece of the outside world will be tracked in, ruining their sterile vision of how the world should look.
The sort of people who have white carpet expect their house to look like something out of Architectural Digest, which is not possible.
Even the houses that appear in that esteemed magazine don’t look that way in real life. Before they are photographed every room is cleaned top to bottom it, doesn’t matter if the maid just finished, they are still redone. Then lights are strategically placed behind furniture and plants, newspapers and magazines are either removed or placed in such a way as to provide an accent to a specific piece of furniture.
But no matter how often you point out that even the people who own these houses don’t live in a place that looks like the picture. No matter how many before and after photographs you show them. People who want white carpet will still want white carpet and a house that looks like it would appear in Architectural Digest. And if you are thinking of sharing a home with one of these people, be warned, they also have a tendency to want chrome and glass coffee tables and couches of the palest pastels.
Anyone who wants white carpet will always be frustrated by their inability to keep it clean. (Even if it was just shampooed they will find a spot that isn’t perfect and there will be much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair.) As a result these people are incapable of being at ease with guests, as witnessed by the inevitable bursts of temper and the cleaning frenzy set off by a single flake of your dandruff hitting their recently sterilized, periwinkle blue, wing-back chair.
This is a sickness that has no cure. So if you stop by to visit a friend and you see white carpet when they open the door, smile and tell them that you have forgotten something in your car. Then back away slowly, turn and walk as calmly as you can to your vehicle, get in and drive quickly away. This is your only hope of saving both your friendship and your sanity.
I haven’t been writing enough or been organized enough to figure out what this blog is about. So for the moment I’ll continue to post random stuff at random intervals and maybe I’ll have an epiphany and decide where it’s going.
For now I’ll post a world famous recipe someone just sent me.
Ingredients:
Mud
Instructions:
Beat with big stick
Shave curls
Bake until done.
There’s nothing that can beat the taste home baked chocolate chip cookies except Indonesian Mud Snacks.
A friend brought his first born over.
She’s only two days old.
It’s a phonecard, featuring a character developed by the Pro Wrestling Revolution.
Casique brand cheese is pretty good, but their chorizo sucks.
If you look close you’ll notice the lack of hamburger sized pieces.
In fact when you first cook it (this is reheated) it cooks down to sludge rather than crumbly sausage.
The flavor is good but it makes for greasy juevos con chorizo.
Proctor & Gamble launched a site for stay at home men that reads just like a magazine for the “traditional” housewife.
Straits Times -The site, Manofthehouse.com, went live this month and offers the kind of advice on child-rearing, cleaning and cooking more often found in women’s magazines.
The site will eventually be used as a vehicle for advertising P&G’s household and other brands, said Jeannie Tharrington, spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble Productions. The launch comes as the United States struggles to emerge from a downturn that hit men’s jobs especially hard, according to US Labor Department unemployment statistics.
