Northern Spring

Gainesville

There. Finished with those two books at last. Arduous reading, to say the least: the second one was a novel length disaster story, and I feel like I went through the thing myself. I hope I'm past this compulsive reading phase for awhile. Headaches, eyestrain and general disorientation are the results of too much book-reading.

I'm breaking in a new hard drive tonight. The one that seemed so humongous just 3-4 years ago when I bought this computer, has now revealed itself to be a measly 20 GB. (Measly!) I replaced it with one ten times that size-- 200 GB. Bill installed for me, and thanks to the cloning he did, it looks and acts just like the old one, all the same programs and settings-- except it's much quieter, much faster, and instead of being stuffed to gills, it is only 1/10 full. I will need a new computer eventually (this one will not take any more RAM, and the clock speed is plodding by current standards) but I'm hoping to make this one last another year until the Macs that run Windows come out. Bill is convinced that is the way to go.

We also got a big drive for our local network that we can both use for backups. Bill hasn't gotten it working yet, though.

I don't know what I'm going to do for holiday cooking. It's just too bloody hot to think about grilling or smoking anything. I want to try the chicken with the grape salsa that Sandy mentioned from the newest FC. Some other things in there look good too-- I'm intrigued by the various chopped salads, and may try the shrimp one and have it with White Gazpacho, a holiday favorite of ours. Will finalize all this before heading out to shop tomorrow.

I'm delighted that there are some vegetables planted in that lovely little plot of your, Mom, and that you're getting your greenhouse/porch going too. I have made February my target for getting back into gardening. By October, it's already too late to get the winter garden going here, especially if we head off to California fairly soon. Makes more sense to work on getting the soil prepared for an early spring effort.

I made a dish I've had on the schedule for several weeks but never got around to: Basil Burgers. Quite good, as it turned out-- the usual burger/ chopped onion/ garlic patties served over salad greens and sliced tomato and topped with a mayo/ Dijon/ basil mixture. We ate the whole thing, and the cat was pissed because she didn't get enough.

Pretty grim business for Aunt Dotty and the lawyers. Let this be a lesson to us all: Find the friendly and honest lawyer BEFORE you need one, and get things set up so they go the way you want them to go, and everyone is clued in.

And Sandy, I agree with you about the spelling of "Pah." However, we should cut her some slack-- after all, it really WAS her father, and maybe that's the way she always thought of him. Mom, what did you call him before I dubbed them "Pa and Dan?" Father? Dad? Papa? I still find it bizarre that both you and Dot adopted "Dan" and it got passed down through the generations. All I can figure is it was some combination of Iowa and Scorpio stubbornness that made me refuse to call her "GRANDma" and instead settled on the dyslexic nickname.

Before I forget, I have been relishing the olives, Sandy. As with the first trio of bottles, there is a point after opening the first that I lose all control and just eat a bunch of them-- after all I have THREE bottles! However, I then come to my senses, and have one per night after that, and that one gets moved to the second drink. The stainless steel olive pick is glorious, especially in this hot weather-- it channels a little bit of icy cold up to it's olive-shaped tip, which is lovely to the touch.

I hope all of you in the North enjoy your spring. We down here in the tropics are hunkering down for our bad season-- not just the predictable heat/humidty combo, but also the promise of more hurricanes. The joke around here is that Gainesville property values are skyrocketing because speculators assume they will one day soon be beach-front. Ha ha. (Laugh, I thought I'd die.)

The sun is shining into the house from the north windows in the late afternoons-- only happens about this time of year, and it's always startling to see objects that never see the sun any other time suddenly gleaming. Typically thunderstorms obscure this effect, but not this year-- we remain onimously dry. Another reason to not even think about lighting fires to cook outside.

Time to eat the ceremonial olive and think about an orderly shutdown.