Small Victory

After a week of reminding, and reminding, and reminding, and perhaps a bit of nagging and reminding him again that if it doesn't get done, the city will do it for him and charge $110 for whoever they hire to do a lousy job, stepfather finally mowed his lawn.

Checklist

Mom's shower at aunt's house - check
Civic has full gas tank for hubby to use - check
Out of town shopping for my house & mom's house - check
Stepfather's chiropractor appointment - check
Personal items removed from Element - check
Element vacuumed - check
Element cleaned on the inside - check
Element cleaned on the outside - check
Element gas tank is mostly full - check
Courtesy snack food box stocked - check

Element is ready for missionary pilots
to go joyriding for the next week during EAA - check


Thanks Dad for letting me use your truck!
It sure beats riding my bike over to mom's house twice a day to make sure mom & stepfather get their morning and evening meds.
Plus it is a bit tricky to haul stuff with a bicycle.  I will be on a shorter tether this next week as Dad's truck is lovely but gets pretty lousy mileage.

Please pray for safe travels for all the folks visiting EAA this year.  There is a lot more road construction going on in the area than usual.  

Hungry?

Pizza is a good excuse to use up the swiss chard in the freezer.

The sugar snap and snow peas were tasty while they lasted.

Lamb stew, Kurdish style

In a pressure cooker, layer lamb, onions, 4-5 handfuls of chunked rhubarb, salt, pepper, 1-2 tsp Penzey's Turkish Seasoning or any other middle eastern seasoning blend.  (The rhubarb makes a suitable substitute for sumac which is very difficult to find in the US unless there is a specialty store nearby.)  Pour in 1 cup water.  Top with potatoes cut in big chunks, sprinkle a little more salt over the top.  Lock the pressure cooker and cook for 40-50 minutes on high pressure.  The flavor is a bit like the tart style of dolmas except without the hours spent stuffing cabbage leaves, onions, tomatoes, grape leaves, oriental eggplant, etc.  If you don't want the fiber content of rhubarb, substitute 1 cup rhubarb juice for the whole rhubarb.

Hungry now?

Hope Y'all Had

a Very Happy Independence Day.
(Aside from the smoke and bang of fireworks, Saturday was much like all the others here, due primarily to the daily care needed by mom and stepfather.  On the plus side, the call screening feature of AT&T's Uverse Voice is working like a charm, no more robocalls!  [The paradox is that the TV & voice bundle means that the control of the voice calling features, which are managed through a website, are a bit tricky to use unless you can access them from somewhere else with internet service.  Somebody wasn't thinking very clearly when they set it up that way.]  Also, the call log feature is catching stepfather's relatives in a big fat lie.  Their numbers have been entered in the log so that they are able to call stepfather without being blocked.  They promised me they would call him; they have not.  The lack of rain is getting a bit wearing; it would be nice to have one day when the gardens don't require watering.  There might be some rain on Monday - fingers crossed.  Sorry I'm a bit grumpy if you hadn't guessed.)  

Getting back on topic.

Of course if you're British, this day marks the beginning of the end of the empire - so sorry (not really).  On July 4th 1776 the Declaration of Independence was drafted.  In rather eloquent terms it told mad King George III to stick it where the sun didn't shine.

  Unfortunately, politics having devolved to its lowest possible state, a lot of politicians could use a good dose of some special ex-lax yet again.  Human nature has this uncanny tendency of corrupting the best of intentions.  And when the carefully crafted checks and balances drafted into the constitution get in the way, they just ignore them.  Maybe some of that banging outside isn't fireworks, but the earthquake of the founding fathers rolling in their graves.