Das Tagebuch Murnaus

My, what a week-and-a-bit that was.

First of all, it's nice to have a long weekend once in a while - we did not go to see the Big Parade or anything like that, Aki's seen it enough times and to me it seems to be mostly American high school marching bands (who apparently get more "points" for participating in more events like this, so get more funding to do more of the same, and so on. Which explains things.) But we did get up to a few things:

I spent some time tending my vegetable garden - things are coming up nicely now, particularly the peas and spinach - the cool weather has prevented the latter form bolting as it often does, and I've pulled some good salads out. I even planted okra, and it took a while but it did come up. Not sure why I got it, just thought I would try it. What do you do with okra, besides putting it in a soup? I also planted turnips and radishes and things, they all germinated so I have been busy thinning them out. The pruning we had done earlier this year has paid off; even though the neighbour's maple tree still drops loads of crap on the garden, a decent amount of sunlight comes through and things are growing well. The pear and apple trees had lots of blossoms and I can see a lot of apples starting out. If we can keep the neighbours' tent caterpillars from migrating over we'll be OK.

Saturday night was shadesofwinter's birthday, and it was lots of fun. The previous week he taught me how to run his mixing gear, so I got to DJ for the first time ever! We all took turns so there were only 1/2 hour sets, so for posterity, here are my very first two playlists:

Just Like Honey - Jesus and Mary Chain
Swing Shift - Nash the Slash
Children of the Night - Blutengel
Children Go Bang - Nekromantik
Kiss the Whip - Athamay
Hot On The Heels of Love - Throbbing Gristle
The Interimlovers - Eisturzende Neubauten

Dead Heaven - Gary Numan
Bloody Pleasures - Blutengel
Avanti - Corvus Corax
Ignore the machine - Alien Sex Fiend
Cramp Stomp - Crmaps
Arcade - Chris and Cosey

It's fun to learn new fun stuff.

Victoria Day night we went to see "Uncle Hank" at the McPherson Theatre. This was the third time I've been to see him speak in Victoria, and he's a great storyteller. He spoke for 2 hours and 45 minutes without pausing for a single drink of water, and it was his 99th show in fourth months - what an incredible routine. Here is the poster design for the tour, which is kind of how I've always pictured him:



Oh, and I completely missed the Victoria Steampunk Exhibition that weekend, there was much to do otherwise and even though I have a good uniform I found that would make me look quite the Expeditionary Lieutenant, I still didn't want to fork ovr $40 for a weekend pass. I hope it was fun.

Tuesday we went to sign off the final paperwork with the lawyer for the closing of the sale of the old house. Buying that place was the only good move I ever made with my money - I'm not a spendthrift, but I'm not clever with money either and have never figured out how to make it "work" for me as hucksters would have it. But this was a good investment, a good return for years of living like a miser to save up for the down payment.

Friday I went in to drop off the application to have Aki's Canadian passport renewed. It took only an hour an a quarter to have the necessary short conversation with the clerk, who does little else other than check things are complete and take my money. In his/my case (I have to do it because he's under 16) they did a quite thorough check, including wnating to see all the paperwork relating to my divorce - also had to send the forms to Japan to get Ex to sign them off in the right place. Anyway, with luck it will be here by the end of June and he will have his trip go off without a hitch - still haven't settled dates for it as his mother is supposed to arrange all that (and pay for it, which she does instead of paying me child support) and "can't find out when Air Canada flies to Tokyo". Aki is really nervous about flying by himself there - he has travelled there many times but always with his mother or with the help of a stewardess as an Unaccompanied Minor. I told him to pick someone from the airplane and follow them, as they are all going to the same place - first luggage, then Customs, and his mother is waiting on the other side - and if he has any trouble to Ask A Uniform, because there will be plenty of them there at the airport.

Saturday and Sunday were a blur of work, as the deal for the house closed on Monday the 31 and much cleaning remained to be done before hand-over. I was quite stressed but thanks to dzherzhinski and his truck, we took a load of stuff to Hartland Landfill on Saturday and spent the rest of the day cutting the grass. It has not been cut for over two months, as the gas lawn mower had finally given up the ghost. Fortunately we took the electric one with us, and even though it's not meant for such heavy work, it did chop the grass down to size, though the lawn did not look exactly manicured. It was quite the longest grass I'd ever cut - the back yard was full of deer and raccoon scat, so i guess it had become somewhat of a wildlife refuge.

Sunday I sorted out more crap for the landfill, and poor shadesofwinter wrenched his back that morning, so I pitched in cleaning up the house interior as well. Later my Mom cam over for dinner, so I made a large spaghetti with fresh spinach salad and for dessert

The Easiest Cake Ever:

4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup not-so-sweet fruit (blueberries, tart apples, etc.)

Beat eggs. Mix in sugar, flour, baking powder. Pour half the batter into a greased pie pan and sprinkle with half the fruit. Pour in the rest of the batter and sprinkle on the rest of the fruit. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream.

Stiff and sore today. But the deal for the old house closed today, and all went well. I'm kind of relieved to get shut of it, it was a good enough house but I never felt like I had any time to enjoy it in the 12 years I lived there. Less than a year and a half after moving in, I got run over, and spent the next 4-5 years getting over my injury and working through marriage crap. That took another two years, then a couple more year of house-being-too-small, and then we moved. So there were no real stretches of time where I was able to, or wanted to, do more than small repairs or planting gardens etc. The new house (guess I should stop calling it that) has much potential and while I have just as little time to spend on it, offers more directions for development.

There is a scene in the movie Buckaroo Banzai where Jeff Goldblum and another guy are running through one of the laboratories. He sees a watermelon in a high-pressure chamber and asks, "What's that watermelon doing there?".

The answer, of course, is that Buckaroo was working on a way of feeding the world's poor by developing a strain of nutritious watermelon what could be dropped from an airplane and not burst when it hit the ground.

What's missing from a vitamin-rich, vine-ripened treat like this? Protein! So, we put a chicken in the watermelon and then cook it.

A DVD of the movie was released in 2002. One of the Easter eggs is, if you select the BB logo on the second screen of the "Food from the Skies?" article, you will be taken to a video clip of W.D. Richter (director of the film) called "Why?" where he discusses watermelons and shows a recipe for Chicken in a Watermelon.

Here is the recipe :

Chicken in a Watermelon

Total time : 5 hours

1 very large watermelon
1 roaster chicken, about 5 to 6 pounds
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 lemon
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon five-spice powder
2 tablespoons chilled butter.

Cut a 1/4-inch-thick horizontal slice off bottom of watermelon, so it won't roll. Discard. Cut off the top third of the melon horizontally, then scoop out seeds and enough of the pulp from both remain parts to make room for the chicken.

Season cavity of chicken with salt and pepper. Insert lemon pricked with fork, along with 1 tablespoon of the soy sauce. Brush outside of chicken with remaining soy sauce, and sprinkle with five-spice powder,

Place chicken in the larger part of the melon, and position the other piece of melon on top, securing with long skewers.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, and bake 2 hours. Then, reduce heat to 300 degrees and bake 2 1/2 hours longer.

Place watermelon on a tray and show it to guests. Return it to kitchen: remove chicken and carve. With a ladle, remove juices from watermelon and reduce in skillet until thickened; whisk in cold butter and spoon over chicken before serving.

Yield: 8 servings.

Approximate nutritional analysis per serving: 520 calories, 25 grams fat, 140 milligrams cholesterol, 1,185 milligrams sodium, 45 grams protein, 30 grams carbohydrate.

Yesterday at lunch while running errands I found an incredible deal on almost-expired back bacon, the no-fat kind with the cornmeal on it (In the US this is often called "Canadian bacon".). Bought pounds and pounds and last night I made a simple but very tasty dish for supper:

Potatoes Carbonara

serves 2
cooking time - approximately 20 minutes

Ingredients

350g new potatoes, sliced (about 3 medium potatoes)
1 tbsp olive oil
100g back bacon rashers, chopped (a lump about the size of your palm)
100g button mushrooms (6-8 regular mushrooms, sliced)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 red pepper, seeded and chopped
75ml (1/3 cup) single cream (aka half-and-half)
salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

Bring a pan of lightly salted water to the boil, add the potatoes and cook for 10 to 12 minutes or until tender.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the bacon for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms, garlic and peppers and cook for a further 2 to 3 minutes or until softened. Drain the potatoes and add to the pan.
Pour over the cream and cook gently for 3 minutes, stirring. Season with salt and pepper.

Yum, it was good!

I've started walking to work. It's a nice 30 minutes or so in the cool part of the day, and I can mostly avoid busier streets so it's quiet. I may not bea ble to get rid of this prodigious gut, but I can get my gimply old legs back into shape.

The party/gallery opening was lots of fun! Thanks to everyone who made it out, and apologies to everyone who got lost trying to find the place.... Aki had a great time mounting guard over the gate, I took a lot of photos (will post some when I have them read into my laptop) and made him some good chicken wings. I took a big bag of my castings to give away and stuck them up on a cork-board, at Gary's suggestion I put up a tin can for "donations to the Metal Fund". I don't know how many were taken, but I collected over $30, didn't expect that! I split the take with Aki since the more popular pins were of his design (the Eskimo Astronaut, the Wounded Fandango Man, etc.).