Next week he will be 6 months old, and is growing fast.
He has just started with a tooth on top; not the front tooth, but the second tooth, on the left side.
He’s been rolling over now for at least a week, though, he needs a bit of help occasionally. He is trying to crawl on the sheet of their bed, but, as I said, he doesn’t get anywhere. He is making the correct movements, but nothing is working yet.
Here he was, just a few minutes ago. Enjoy.
He’s watching a soccer game with his dad.
Today, Friday the 16th, is Independence Day, here, from the Spaniards. Nothing got done today, except I baked a juicy, delicious spatchcocked chicken. It was probably the best chicken I’ve made in awhile. Can’t wait until tomorrow to have more of it.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Tomorrow, I will be making croquettes de huauzontle.
What the heck is huauzontle you ask? (Pronounced u-a-u-zont-lay, but quickly. More like wow-u-zont-lay).
Huauzontle is a green vegetable that grows here, in Mexico, and is considered a weed in the US. Not so chicos.
Like the “weed” called purslane, or verdolagas, here, verdolagas, as well as huauzontle are much a part of the indigenous cuisine of Mexico.
I am determined to learn how to make a decent meal of the huauzontle plant. This is what it looked like before I removed the thick stem, and brought it down to just the “florets”, if you will.
The blue arrow is pointing to the huauzontle plant as it looks after having been harvested.
When I finished removing the stems, and was left with the florets, this is what I will use to make the croquettes.
I must tell you that it smells very ”green”, meaning that it smells very
green.
I will be mixing it with crumbled cheese, onion, and garlic powders, a bit of AP flour, S&P, and a couple of eggs. I will form small handsful of said greens into small rounds, and fry them in about a teaspoon of a neutral oil.
Before all of the above, I will be making a salsa de pasilla chiles, using tomatoes, onion, and garlic, all toasted on a very hot comal, (coe mal), or griddle, and dried pasilla chiles, rehydrated in boiling water. When everything is toasted, and/or rehydrated to my liking, I will put everything in the blender, blend it up, and then fry it in a teaspoon of oil for a few minutes. This will be the platform on which the croquettes will sit. I am hoping for the best outcome.
Neither of us has ever tasted huauzontles, and have no idea what it will taste like, but, according to the “likes” associated with the recipe, it should be good.
By the time you read this, we will already have made, and eaten the above. I will definitely let you know how it tasted. Looking forward to the challenge.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
You folks probably already know, and have done the thing I just figured out.
That’s ok. I’m frequently the last one to do things.
It is amazing, however.
Unsubscribing from email senders for whom you are no longer, or never were intererested.
That simple.
I opened my phone the other day, having deleted about 50 emails the night before, to a whopping 91 emails; just overnight.
I spent the next hour, or more, opening each email, scrolling to the bottom, to search through the microscopically tiny print to find the word “unsubscribe “. Finding each one, and eliminating each one, was cathartic in the best of ways.
This morning, or afternoon really, I found I had 2 emails; both in which I had interest.
“Lose 40 lbs. of belly fat in 30 days.” “Eat this before bedtime, and lose 20 lbs the first week.” “Confirmation necessary: you’ve won…..”. Really? I don’t care about any of those silly things, and I was really getting upset at all of the crap I had to go through to find the very few emails I needed, or wanted to read.
No longer. Try it, if you haven’t already. It truly is amazing.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Last night, well, 2:30am this morning, I thought I would try the expired Melatonin 3 mg. tabs I have on the shelf in the bedroom.
I know that 3mg. does nothing for me; 6mg. either. So, in my heightened need for sleep, I tried 12mg.
That worked. I slept 12 hours. A wasted day, but much I am much refreshed.
Tonight, I think I will cut back to 9mg. and see what happens. I will either get some more much needed sleep, or I won’t. Stay tuned.
Not much happening around here.
It has been raining daily. In fact, Jesús said last night that yesterday, Gabi thought he could stay home from school because it was raining so hard. We all laughed; Ivan, and I remembering about how we hoped to stay home from work having had 12” of snow during the night.
In the nursing profession, especially nurses in the Operating arena, there is no such thing as staying home, unless one is on death’s door. And, even there, you’d better be highly contagious. If not, off to work you go. Many go, even though they are contagious. That helps the entire staff becoming ill. Not good for excellent patient care, for sure.
In the coming season, please, stay home if you have a contagion. No one wants to get sick in this time of CoVid, etc.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
We have eaten almost the entire bag of Russet potatoes; no joke.
Once we got started, it has been difficult to ignore. I make sure we have an ample supply of bacon at the ready, with at least one package cooked, and in the fridge.
We have been putting butter, S&P, bacon, and 5% Fage yogurt on them. Well, I do. El jéfe only likes the first 2 items; minimalist at heart. Oh, I have also been putting a slice of Havarti cheese before the yogurt.
Mind you, these are not the cream of the crops harvested in the US. These are 2nd’s, or even 3rd’s. They are small, and most have cuts through them, or bad spots on them. But, WHO CARES? Not us, certainly. We are just glad to have them here.
I have been making 3 or 4 per “batch” in the Smart oven, so, when I get hungry, and don’t want to make any thing major, I just put one back in the oven, for about 10 minutes, and load it as listed above.
Not much happening here, hence the lack of posts. Sorry, but I am not going to post about nothing.
We are both well; the forever house is coming along nicely, so, hopefully, within the next year, or two, we will move there. It will take as long as it takes.
We shouldn’t have much trouble selling the apartment as the apartment 2 floors above us sold recently for a bit more than we paid for this one, and that was before they renovated it. Wish us luck.
Brandon is growing, as you can imagine. He, and Gabi are such treasures to have in our lives. Watching them grow, and helping out where we can, means the world to us.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
For those of you that had a difficult time understanding the gravity of the fruit fly “crisis”, here’s a bit of proof.
I saw 2, or 3 flies in the Garcia’s bedroom this afternoon, when I went in to vacuum the floor. I checked the “apple” fly trap, and it had the rascals walking on top of it; none were taking the dive, so to speak. I picked it up, and checked the contents, and noticed quite a few flies already floating in the vinegar.
Took it to the kitchen, opened up the apple, and dumped the bit of vinegar that was left in it, and the flies, onto a small white plate, and about croaked.
I gathered up the other 2 apples, did the same to them, (one actually was completely dried, with an entire coating on the bottom of dead flies), and dumped them onto the plate as well.
This is what I came up with.
I”m not going to take the time, right now, to count them, but I’m guessing there are about 100, or more, of the “rascals”. I rinsed out the apples, filled them with about 1 1/2 Tbs. of apple cider vinegar, and put them where I collected them.
Within the hour, and with the fresh, strong smelling vinegar, there were already flies gathering. Somehow, something got in the wastebasket in our bathroom, who knows what, and that is what they were eating. And multiplying. Once I figured out to change the garbage bag, things are getting a bit more “normal”.
And here, I thought the crisis was over. Nope. Only averted.
Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Post script: a wonderful, happy 69th birthday was had by my friend, lover, partner in all things, my husband; Ivan. Many more, mi amor.
He is the sweetest baby I have ever had the opportunity to know.
He just turned 5 months old, and got his first tooth about 1 1/2 months ago. That’s right, at 3 1/2 months, he had his first tooth. At the moment, he had 2 well formed tooth buds, able to bite his mommy.
He doesn’t sit up yet, though that is coming, but he babbles on, and on for 3 or 4 minutes at a time. (In the presence of his mommy.) His face lights up when we come into their room, and start talking to him. It is such a highlight of our day, I can’t tell you.
Here he is tonight.
Liz was holding him on her chest this evening, and they were both having such a great time; each laughing at the other. I called out to him, by his name, and he turned to look at me as if I was in the room. Of course, everything I say to him is in English, so, hopefully, he will be the first bilingual person in the families.
One more funny photo, then, I’m out.
Liz is trying to get him to take a pacifier, so Ivan bought him this one. He hates it. But it gets a laugh from each of us when he uses it for a second.
Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
BAKING POTATOES, RUSSETS, HAVE ARRIVED AT OUR LOCAL COSTO
We have a 4.5k bag is in our trunk.
You have read, probably more than once, how much we miss our much enjoyed baked potatoes. Jesús, and Liz have only had one, each, their whole lives. We can’t wait to make some for them, too
Even better, we have all of the things we need to make them loaded. I am going to have a hard time waiting until tomorrow to bake a couple.
Never mind. It’s tomorrow night, but we made lasagna to take to the family tomorrow. Oh well. It’s not like they’re going to rot while we’re gone for 3 days.
Our very first bag of baking potatoes. From Idaho. (Ida ho. Old SNL joke.) 10 lbs.
THREE YEARS we’ve been waiting for a baked potato. After all this time, I don’t care if has only butter, and salt to recommend it. I WANT ONE. I want it NOW.
But no. It’s 2:03 am, and way too late for a potato.
Just a half a potato?
Maybe?
Pleeeeease?
No. It’s late. We need to sleep. Tomorrow.
Next week. We won’t have time tomorrow, we’re leaving.
I’ll see what I can do.
Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Today, Liz came down, and we made a beautiful 9”x13” pan of lasagna.
Conventionally? No. Tastefully? Absolutely. We are, however, not able to try it until tomorrow, or Sunday. We are taking it to Los Altos with us. None of them have ever had lasagna.
How can this be?
We have to set things right; bring the equilibrity of life into balance.
It started out looking like the above photo. Do not be deceived my good readers; it ended up looking like this.
We can’t wait to try it in the coming days. We sure hope that they like it as well. Not much worse than taking something you made, something new, and exciting, but no one likes it. Sure, they appreciate your effort, but it’s just not what they’re used to.
Sourdough bread, for example.
Folks down here don’t really go for sourdough bread. I don’t think many folks down here eat much bread, in any form. Period. Corn tortillas are king, and queen while trying to get food from the bowl, or plate, to their mouths. Most of the Garcia’s don’t use utensils; just tortillas. No need for a spoon, except for eating soup, but other than that, tortillas work as knife, and fork. I’m trying to learn, but it’s not easy. It’s a learned way of doing things.
That’s fine. We’re not here to change anyones way of life. We do want to introduce them to other cuisines in the world, however; see if anyone enjoys them. If not, well, I guess we’ll just have to bring whatever’s left home, and eat it ourselves.
OH, DARN!!!
A side note: while Liz was pregnant with El Señor Bebe, Brandon, by name, we made them spaghetti with a delicious tomato sauce, which included garlic bread. They absolutely loved them. They have had spaghetti with a white cream sauce, which is very common here, but never with a rich, meaty, homemade Italian sausage tomato sauce.
While Liz, and I were making the meat sauce, the cheese sauce, then assembling the whole thing, I was telling her that the basic tomato sauce can be used with so many different types of pasta; you just need to make the sauce to your palate. She understood, and here are the results.
I just wanted you to see it for a second time. 😉
That’s it for today. We have an early morning tomorrow; lot’s to be done before we hit the highway. Until we meet again
Sing along, everyone. Happy trails to you, until we meet again. Happy trails to you, keep smilin’ until then. Who cares about the clouds when we’re together? Just sing a song, and bring the sunny weather. Happy trails to you, ‘til we meet again.
If you want to finish the song, just repeat it twice. 😉
Until that happens, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
I hope the majority of you, reading this post, are living the life you always dreamed you would have, with the person with whom you were meant to live it.
I sure am.
He is my best friend, the love of my life from the night we met! He is my love, my lover, my husband. None of this new life would have been possible had we not me, oh, so many years ago.
I never wanted to marry a WASP, ever. Even as a young woman, before meeting Ivan, I knew a WASP was not going to be what I needed to live the life that was culminating in my mind.
Did I know I wanted Ivan? Absolutely. I didn’t have all of the pieces to my life’s puzzle, because I am not God. But HE knew I wanted Ivan.
He threw us together in the strangest ways, it was inevitable. Time, only, had to run its course, and we would connect.
We did, thanks to God.
Now, we have been together for over 50 years, and, hopefully, have quite a few more years together.
Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.
Post script: we are both quite fine, at the moment, and be in our beloved Los Altos by this time tomorrow. Much happiness to all.
