Month: September 2023

I’ve called the credit card companies to get our online access back in place, and, so far, so good.

Two of the three I now have access to, but the third is going to take time to “authenticate” me as the holder of the account. Ugh! I hate calling the customer service people.

The very nice lady I spoke with this morning had a very pronounced accent which was really difficult to understand until I relaxed enough to pretend I was back at work, trying to understand the different accents of the surgeons with whom I worked. Then, it all became clear.

She sent me a temporary password, which, when I typed it in, was supposed to start with a lower case letter. I tried, several times, to make it a lower case, but to no avail. I even tried to copy, and paste; that didn’t work either. She kindly asked me to open another search platform, (I use Safari), and actually type the password in. I opened Google, typed in the password, and voilà, it worked.

I now have access to our Credit Union account; just like that. What a wonderful woman.

I wonder why, though, the Safari platform wouldn’t allow me to type in lower case? Hmmm. A thought to ponder; another day, perhaps.

Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves. Pay attention to any CoVid updates, or just be proactive. Stay safe.

I bought a cordless, rechargeable hair trimmer set the other day, but it doesn’t arrive until next week.

I’m going to keep my hair short from now until the unforeseeable future. I had been getting it cut when we were going to Los Altos every few weeks, but it’s been more than 6 months since we were there last, probably longer, and my hair is pulled back into the ugliest, thinnest, shortest “ponytail” possible. It’s more the size of a baby pig’s tail, to be honest, and I hate it.

As I have said here, multiple times, I inherited both of my grandmother’s hair; thin, and sparse. Thanks for that.

When I comb through the little bit that I have I get at least a dozen hairs in the comb. Not for much longer. I’d rather have short/no hair than to keep pulling what little I have left out of my head every time I brush, or comb it. It gets really old watching it all fall out.

I’m going to be proactive, and keep it short. I’ve never been one to fuss over my hair, probably, I suppose, it’s because I’ve never really had hair with which to fuss.

Anyway, enough said. By the time you read this I will have cut my hair back to however long the deepest blade cuts, and that, as they say, will be that. I will no longer have to wait for someone else to cut it. Plus, I don’t think we’re going back to LA until October. By then my mind would have definitely left me.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

PS: happy belated birthday to our son. Gosh, he’s getting old. 😉

PSS: the hair trimmer came a day early, fully charged so I cut me hair. More later.

When one hears that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, or that it is only “skin deep”, one needs only to look at two people who, together, through youth, childbirth, life, and aging are still together, and still in love; see through the whole process of aging, coming through to the other side, still in love.

I saw this amazing photo of Pierce Brosnan, and his beautiful wife of 22 years, Keely Shaye Smith, on a “short” somewhere on line, and had to take a screenshot of it.

If you look closely you can see that her hip proceeds behind her elbow; as does mine.

Many years ago I gave birth to two amazing people, now parents themselves.

Since that time, I have grown into my body as it is now. I no longer look as I did even 5 years ago, and probably never will again; not if I stay healthy that is.

Ivan still looks at me with love, and affection, and tells me so. I only see a fat, balding old woman staring at me in the mirror. I try not to look.

It upsets him to see me dislike myself so I do what I can to hide it. It only works when I’ve had enough sleep though. Since that is in short commodity, it usually fails.

I look at the above photo to give me strength, and a reality kick. I am who I have become. Period.

Perfect in my own way, as there is no one else like me in the entire universe.

Ok. I’m feeling a bit better about myself so I’ll say, until next time

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves. Check to see if you need to mask up again. Please.

Years ago, when they first came out, I used these silver metal snap clips to hold my hair away from my face.

I absolutely hate hair in my face. Always have, and, apparently, still do.

I have tried just about every style of hair band, clips, rubber bands, you name it, with little, to no affect. So, back to the original hair clips I have gone.

You know the ones, they bend in the middle, snapping when you close them. The thing is though, even they don’t hold my thin, fine hair for but a few hours.

Here are the ones I mean. You’ll know them as soon as you see them.

You remember them don’t you? You may not be able to use them, or need to use them because you actually have enough hair that it responds to whatever you do to style it. Not so me, or mine.

I have very thin, see my scalp thin, and fine, baby fine hair, and always have. I have tried everything I know to change it, make it do something, anything, but it doesn’t. I used to dye it white blond so it was more difficult to see my scalp, but got tired of that after about 40 years, so I stopped when my hair started changing to white on its own.

Wearing a paper, or cotton shower cap on my head for my career didn’t help things either. I worked 30 years in Operating Rooms, in Texas, Illinois, and lastly, in Iowa, having to wear a head covering all day, each day I worked.

To say they were incredibly warm is an understatement. The only thing going for me was the rooms themselves were around 16ºC, or 60ºF. My poor scalp didn’t stand a chance.

Anyway, I have come full circle, back to my favorite childhood hair clips, only nowadays they come in pretty colors, and some with decorations.

The package I recently received came from Amazon US with 100 clips for $7.99, whereas the same clips, just less of them, 80 clips, from Amazon MX, are $28.28. Hmmmm. I say hmmmm.

Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Remembering those whose lives were lost on this day, and the many days, weeks, and months, that followed the attack on the World Trade Center in NYC in 2001. I wonder if we’ll ever know the truth about what really happened there?

While we have the opportunity, I have bought a bit of fresh asparagus.

‘Tis the season, as they say, for asparagus, and like the US, it is only available, fresh, for a limited amount of time; that’s always in the spring.

Recently, I bought 1 1/2 k of said asparagus, all the time having the idea of freezing it, making it available whenever we want. I always seem to want it out of season. No longer.

I bought 2 bunches of epazote to dry; done. 1k of broccoli to cut up, blanch, freeze, and vacuum seal; done, in (7) 1c bundles. 2 red onions, 1 to pickle; done. 2 green peppers to seed, burn, peel, seal, and freeze; processing.

I bought a head of Orejona lettuce, (oh-ray-HOE-nah), having no real idea what type of lettuce it was going to be, only to discover it is actually Romaine. It was, by far, without exaggeration, the largest head of lettuce I have ever received. The root base was at least 5”, maybe 6”, in diameter, the leaves 14” tall, and the top of said leaves, held tightly together, about 10” in diameter. What am I going to do with it all?

No idea.

It appears that a plethora of “wrapped” foods are in my immediate future.

We now have a freezer well stocked with many of the veg we like to eat, but don’t seem to have readily to hand. Now we do. All thanks to a bit of planning, ordering, and processing so that none goes to waste. I love it when a plan comes together, don’t you?

Until next we meet, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

The first time.

That’s what the title means.

For me, today, it means that I am making my very first pizza crust with a sourdough discard, (I’ll explain, keep reading), and sprouted Einkorn milled flour.

This may not seem like much to you folks, but to me, it’s a red letter day!!!

I found a recipe that helps me use some of my sourdough discard, (I’m explaining now, what I started a moment ago), the stuff I have to get rid of so I can feed what’s left of the starter in order to strengthen it, and make it ready to make sourdough bread.

Daily, I have to get rid of at least half of the starter, and feed it with 40gm each flour, and water. If I didn’t get rid of at least half of it, I would have a gallon of starter in no time.

Now that my starter is strong, I can either discard the portion of starter not needed, or use it in a recipe, to create a sourdough something; pancakes, waffles, scones, pizza crust, etc., you get the idea.

This morning, (it’s 2:30am), I put together a simple dough, using a recipe that uses what would have been my portion of the starter to discard later in the morning, along with about 1/3c of my recently milled Einkorn flour, plus the bulk using All Purpose flour. Win-win.

Not only will the crust be unique, (the recipe called for whole wheat flour, which I don’t use, using instead my sprouted, dried, and milled Einkorn, Kamut, or Spelt flours), it will be ready to use whenever we want to make a pizza crust. I have a photo.

Anyway, that’s all for my first pizza crust using the Einkorn flour, and the sourdough discard. The rest of the Einkorn starter should go crazy after using the flour to bake in the kitchen. The yeast will carry to the starter, hopefully, and cause it to really take off. I’ll let you know. The more you bake, the more natural yeast is in your kitchen making anything needing yeast, (Kombucha), stand up, and take notice.

Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover,.

I’m going to learn to cook, and enjoy huitlacoche. Whee-tlah-CO-cheh.

In the US, it’s known as corn smut, corn mushroom, or Mexican truffle. It is actually a fungus, which, is easily obtained in any of the corn growing states of Mexico, and even in some of the Southern states in the US.

You need to understand that when faced with a crop of corn, grown to feed the family, or sell in the market, that has gone to fungus, what is a father to do?

Learn to use what you’ve been given, and deal with it.

Someone, in the distant past, found his crops full of what is called huitlacoche here, and figured out how to make corn smut into a Mexican delicacy.

When I first came to Mexico, in the summer of 1973, just after our high school graduation, Ivan’s cousin, and his girlfriend took us to a restaurant in a beautiful, but abandoned monastery just Northwest of here, called Desierto de Liones, or the Lions desert. They have a restaurant there that served Crepas con Huitlacoche, or crepes with corn fungus. Doesn’t sound good, am I right?

Fortunately for me, I didn’t speak Spanish at the time.

The crepes were incredible. I have not had huitlacoche since, I am sad to say, but am planning to rectify the situation before you read this post. I have ordered a few cans of the stuff which will be delivered in the next 48 hours. Ever onward.

As I recall, the crepes tasted of mushrooms with a hint of corn. (I remember that but can’t remember what I did yesterday.)

First I’m going to try Huitlacoche en tortillas, something basic. I’ll move on from there. Stay tuned. It will either be a win, or not.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.