There is no point to this image, other than I was checking to see if I’d set up the pre-loaded div up right at Mfop2. It seemed to come over to the blog normally, so…
Empty Hallways
Monthly Archives: November 2004
Kittens! Kittens! Kittens!
I blame my husband David. And he blames Dennis.
Lava Lamp Safety Drill
A man who lived in a trailer in Kent, WA had a lava lamp that he decided to heat up on his stove (probably because the light-bulb heating element was busted, also probably because he salvaged it from somebody’s trash). So he put the sealed glass lamp – it’s actually a bottle, complete with bottle-cap lid that is normally covered by a metal topper – on the burner. After it exploded (an inevitable event) he was found dead by his parents with a large shard of glass in his chest.
Our Lava(TM) lamp is quite safe and still catching odd looking blue space creatures on our mantlepiece.
Via boingnet – also the original police report is here.
Dark, Darker, Darkest
One of the “joys” of winter is that not only is it bleak and cold, it’s also dark. So today, 3 whole weeks until the longest night/shortest day of the year, it’s already fully dark by about 420pm. It didn’t help any that it actually was very gloomy and overcast at 3pm today.
My favorite seasons, in order, are:
- Fall
- Spring
- Summer
- Winter
Winter moves up in the rankings when it’s pretty and fun, such as during or just after a good snowstorm (so long as I’m somewhere warm and dry, rather than stranded somewhere). It moves down when it’s merely the aforesaid bleak, cold… and dark.
Geocaching
David’s been talking about doing something with geocaching for a while. Turns out there’s a very active, very local community of cachers. Hmm. Looks like fun.
When The CSS Shadows Fall
I screwed around trying to figure this out before, and then I settled for setting slightly differently colored grey borders and said “the hell widdit,” because the best method required me to wrap an extra div around the image tags.
Then I realized my husband David was using the exact same method, and that it wasn’t such a big deal learning to deal with the div, as it were. So here goes. Will it work? I don’t know.
UPDATE: Holy CRAP! It works! I used the same method I’d looked at before, David’s does pretty much the same thing but has some minor differences, and also he’s got one for floating an image to the right, and to the left. He’s also got the ability to shadow a paragraph for a quote.
Well, hey. This isn’t so bad, after all. I used the obligatory cat-theme picture for the better screwing around with, just as before.
Schizo-Google
My Google ads are politically schizophrenic at the moment. I added them back in, and took out the Bookqueue thing that I was never updating, and will think about putting in a Bookqueue static page for all the stuff I’ve got in the database so far. Later. I’ve got other blogfish to fry.
Episcopal Parish Services
Just wanted to bookmark Episcopal Parish Services‘ site for later. I’m going to be doing something for (shudder) evangelism. I’m going to call it outreach and welcoming, thanks. I’ve got an idea for organizing a monthly or quarterly parish dogwalk, and wondered if Episcopal bandanas are available anywhere…
Turkey Day Dilly Bread!
This post is rated “R.”
Phew, had un petit crise earlier today when I started to make the onion dill bread – I had purchased cake yeast (that is, it’s pressed into a cake and has to be refrigerated, not that it’s just for making cakes). And when I opened the wrapper, there were three or four different kinds of fungus on it. At the time, I had already started cooking/melting the first few ingredients, so I had to turn everything off and run around for a while hollering “fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK.” Then I got ahold of David, who was off shooting photos of the snowy forest preserve, and he promised to pick up some more yeast and bring it home ASAP.
Okay, breathe.
There now, all is well. I finished putting the ingredients together with the busily-working yeast, kneaded like a sonovagun, waited til it riz, kneaded again and put the divided halves of dough in the breadpans for the second rise. We leave for T-dinner in 90 minutes, the bread goes in the oven… right about now. Excuse me.
All is well. My loaves are in the oven. Hey now, no wisecracks. So here’s the recipe for one loaf:
1 package dry yeast
1/4 c warm water
1/4 t sugar
1 c. small curd cottage cheese
2 T sugar
1 T instant onion (use 2-3T if using fresh onion)
2 T butter
2 t dill seed
1 t dill weed
1 t salt
1 beaten egg
2 1/2 – 3 c. flour sifted with
1/4 t soda
Start the yeast “working,” using water that is quite warm but not too hot. Over boiling water in a double boiler, combine cottage cheese, sugar, onion, butter, dill seed, dill weed, and salt until butter is melted. Remove upper pan from heat and stir until comfortably warm. Add the yeast mixture, which should be bubbling up. Caution, too much heat at this stage kills the yeast! Add the beaten egg to the cooled mixture. Start adding the flour to the liquid (or if you prefer, make a well in the flour and pour the liquid into it). Stir until the dough starts to come together and pulls away from the side of the bowl or pan. Turn it out onto a floured surface (breadboard is best) and work the flour into the dough and knead until it starts to smooth out and is slightly elastic. Knead by pushing the dough with the heel of your hand (floured) and then fold the elongated dough over itself, give it a quarter turn, then knead it again. Put the dough in a buttered or oiled bowl, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and put it somewhere warm to rise until double in size (about 35-40 minutes).
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Punch down, turn onto board and knead again until smooth. Form a loaf by rolling side to side, pulling the sides of the dough under (if making a double batch, divide the dough in half). Place in a buttered, floured loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 40-50 minutes. Bread is done if it “thunks” hollowly when tapped.
This is the best thing for leftover turkey sandwiches. It’s also really, really good toasted and buttered. And it makes the house smell incredible.
It can be varied – since I didn’t have dried onion, I minced some and caramelized them in about half of the butter while I combined the other liquid ingredients in the double boiler. It occurs to me that I could also carmelize the onions in ALL the butter, but I still have to heat the cottage cheese mixture, so the proportions I used seem about right.
It occurs to me that it might be interesting to use extra-virgin olive oil instead of butter – it would turn out more like Italian herb bread.
The bread has about 20 minutes to go, so now seems like a good time to hop in the shower and get dressed. I’m in my traditional dilly bread-making garb, which consists of a T-shirt and a pair of purple sweat pants, which have flour spattered all down the front. Most years, I have a big floury handprint on my butt, too.
Update: Fixed an error in the recipe; the soda is not added to the liquid ingredients, it’s sifted in with the flour. As for the bread, it came out pretty well – very good consistency, no big airholes, and it was moister, with a more tender crust than I usually get. I think it was the fact that I caramelized fresh onions in half of the butter, which added a touch more moisture. Next time, I would up the proportion of fresh minced onion, and cook them till they were even browner. It also helps to brush the surface of the loaf with milk or egg before putting in the oven.
I still have a lot of bread left because almost all of the cousins are on some form of Atkins. I am pretty tired of being asked to bring bread and then taking three-quarters of it home again, so next year I’ll offer to bring something else. For some reason, there’s never mashed potatoes – again, Atkins. How can they not have mashed potatoes, but two kinds of sweet potatoes? that’s not right.
Chris Mess Is Coming
The florist shop in the building complex always goes all out with the seasonal decorations.