Snow and Signs at Twilight

I got some interesting effects today taking pictures out of my car window in less than ideal light.  The tree in the top picture has pink branches which are probably a result of all the brake lights going down the hill.  I was sitting in a line of cars waiting to go up the hill on Randolph Road behind somebody who had gotten stuck, so I just rolled down my window and took a couple pictures of trees on the island next to me.

I used a flash on the one above.  It seems like the flash turned all of the snowflakes into white globs, although I'm pretty sure some of the snowflakes actually were white globs.

Keeping the twilight theme going here, I noticed that the local Chinese buffet here in Glenmont had a couple of letters missing from its sign.  Mayflow Buffet - It's both funny and slightly unappetizing, all at the same time.  But that doesn't seem to stop people from eating there.

I took the picture below about a year ago.  Would you shop at a department store named "Ears"?  I love signs with missing letters!

In other news, we had a recent resurgence of activity working on our house.  You can read all about it here.

Our "First" Thanksgiving

This is probably the last thing anyone wants to read about, including me, but I thought I'd go ahead and summarize our first Thanksgiving experience in our new house so that I can refer to it the next time I have people over for Thanksgiving. And I'm sort of hoping that won't be next year, but you never know!

I guess it was sort of cheating to do a trial run a few days earlier, but we are total rookies in the turkey department and we were using new and unfamiliar equipment.  We really wanted to make sure that everything was going to work, turkey-wise.

For the first turkey I made stock from the neck and the giblets, and made a roux out of flour and butter and combined it with the drippings and the giblet stock to make a ton of excellent tasting gravy, which I then immediately put in the freezer, along with all of the meat from that first turkey. The leftover giblet stock went into the refrigerator. The next day I made more stock from the carcass of the first turkey, so I had lots and lots of stock. I simmered it down so that it would be more concentrated and take up less room. It turned into turkey jello in my refrigerator.

I picked up our fresh, all natural turkey from the Amish Market in Laurel on Tuesday afternoon. The label said it had been packed that very morning, so that's pretty fresh. This turkey was kind of a splurge, but now we have a chance to compare turkeys of different prices. The Amish turkey did seem to be of higher quality in several ways. It seemed cleaner. It didn't have one leg ripped halfway off the way the other one did. That makes me sad for that other turkey. Maybe he was trying really hard to get away. Anyway, the Amish turkey had the skin cut some fancy way so that the drumsticks were tucked into it. So the string wasn't necessary. I had to untuck them for the washing but they tucked right back in without too much trouble. The Amish turkey was almost 16 lbs which was almost too big for our roasting pan and the platter. I kept saying it wasn't necessary to get more than 13 lbs, but Doug wanted a bigger one so that's how that went. Of course it took longer to cook too.



I cooked it upside down for the first 45 minutes so that the underside would be brown and hopefully thoroughly cooked to begin with. There didn't end up being a dent this time, so that was good. I was able to be more attentive with the basting on this one because I didn't have to deal with the stock. I decide to freeze the neck and giblets for later use since I already had a bunch of stock sitting in the refrigerator.

Having the gravy and the stock from the first turkey available to use for the actual Thanksgiving turkey made things much easier. I heated up the frozen gravy and thinned it with the stock and I also used the stock for the stuffing, which made it as moist and turkey flavored as if it had actually been stuffed inside the turkey. So that was successful. I had doubts about that stuffing because I didn't entirely obey my mother's recipe, but it worked out fine. She liked the rosemary that I added in addition to the usual sage. It was the classic simple stuffing that I grew up on, made from dried out white bread, onions, celery, sage (and rosemary), and fresh turkey stock instead of canned chicken stocked or that delicious botulism-laced inside-the-bird flavoring. Sheesh, I've become such a germophobe in my old age!

Anyway, the turkey took thirty minutes longer than planned but the people who have an opinion about such things said that it was moist and tasty and juicy and perfectly cooked, not overcooked. I'm a gravy person, so dry breast meat doesn't bother me that much.

Our oven has a setting called "bread proof" which heats the oven to 100 degrees. I guess that's for something in the bread making process.  It was perfect for drying out the fresh slices of white bread.

Doug bought redskin potatoes for the mashed potatoes and they tasted good and mashed up fine when I first fixed them, but they got dried out when Doug reheated them and the texture got weird. I added more milk to the leftovers the next day and they got back to the right texture. They were probably the least popular thing that we served. I thought they tasted delicious with the little kick of horseradish that I but they were definitely dry when we served them.

The spinach souffle with fresh dill suffered the same fate, but it all got eaten anyway. Doug's boiled sweet potatoes with fresh thyme were perfect, which is not surprising since they were cooked near the end. The vinaigrette dressing I made had too high of a concentration of shallots and then I tossed too much in so it wasn't as subtle as it had been the last time I made it. Oh well. They still all ate it so it can't have been too bad.

The butternut squash soup was delicious, although it wasn't actually made from butternut squash. They were out of butternut so Doug bought something called buttercup squash which looked like some kind of mutant acorn squash. I didn't like it as well, but I went ahead and made it the night before figuring I'd do some remedial spicing of it the next day. We don't have a food processor so I put it through the Foley Food Mill three times to get it to the right texture. I was running short on time and had to go get dressed, so I told Doug to do his thing with the spices. I think he added maple syrup in addition to the sage, rosemary, cayenne pepper and cinnamon that I had suggested. He did a good job.

I realized at the last minute that I didn't have a centerpiece for my table, which is relatively on the small side for seven people, so I improvised with some grapes and a candle. It's kind of messed up looking in this picture because people were munching on the grapes, but when it was first assembled it actually looked pretty cool and it coordinated nicely with the pink flowers in my dishes. I guess it looked good enough to eat, hahaha! The grapes were gigantic and I after I took them all off the stems they looked like giant marbles.



So that covers all of the stuff we fixed, I think. There were other outstanding contributions too. My brother brought an amazing Merlot that he got from some vineyard in Virginia. Usually you think of white wine for turkey, but this Merlot went really well with it, kind of in the same way that cranberry sauce does.

Speaking of cranberry sauce, my mother brought some of her homemade sauce, which was delicious as always, along with some rolls, a mincemeat pie, and hard sauce.  Yum!

My sister-in-law brought a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie and both were amazing.  I took one bite of the pecan pie and thought I'd died and gone to heaven.  The pecans on this pie were so good that they practically overshadowed the pie.  It turns out that they were freshly picked from her mother's pecan tree in South Carolina less than a week ago.



Two things that made our time in the kitchen much easier were these excellent potholders that our friend Donna crocheted for us.  They are so tightly woven and so thick that no amount of heat can pass through them.  In addition to being cute, they are sturdy, durable, and washable.  I'm so glad we didn't have to go out an buy some lame potholders.  These are great!



So that's the blow-by-blow description of our dinner.  I also have some more general observations:

• It was difficult to get and/or keep all of the food heated at the same time for serving.  I kind of wish we had a double oven instead of two microwaves.  But Doug felt strongly about that so that's what we have.
• I LOVE Orca the sink.  My sink named Orca.  It's a whale of a sink!
• I'm really glad Doug has his own sink, which shall remain nameless for now.  Although I secretly sort of want to name it Pig Pen, after the character from Peanuts.
• All of this handling of the bird and dealing with the various organs and the skeletons of two different turkeys in less than a week has made me realize that I'm a little creeped out by all of that.  What a sissy I am!  Well I already sort of knew that, but now I've proven it to myself.
• I am so damn tired of having turkey grease on my hands and having to wash them about fifty times a day.  It's annoying and terrible for my bass playing calluses. 
• 
  

Trial Turkey

Since I haven't cooked a turkey in a really long time I decided that it might be a good idea to do a trial run before the big day.  Although I am quite capable of making things that taste good, I do not consider myself to be much of a cook.  It's not something I do for fun.  I enjoyed it when I was a kid, but for most of my adult life I've had a barely functioning kitchen and/or I've been on the road, leading a life completely devoid of cooking.  That's all over now, at least for the time being.

I was thinking back to the first turkey I had an actual hand in cooking.  My roommate and I had our boyfriends over and the two of us did the whole thing together.  Nothing went wrong and it tasted great - and that's all I can remember.

There was one Thanksgiving where Doug and I had both sets of parents over.  That's all I know.  I must have blocked the rest out.  It was probably fine.  Doug was probably running the show for that one, and people probably brought stuff.  I really can't remember a thing about it.

So this year we are finally back in our house and we have our big fancy new kitchen, which for me is kind of the equivalent of walking around the mall in hiking boots or having a big rugged truck to drive to gigs in.  I still shake my head at how ridiculously fancy it all is.  Of course we don't have a lot of the basic things that a normal well stocked kitchen has - like enough forks, for example.  We had to go out and buy a roasting pan and a carving knife, among other things.  At least we have plenty of dishes.  We didn't replace all of our kitchen stuff right away after the fire because we didn't have much room in our rental place.  And now we don't have the money.  That stuff is expensive!

Anyway, it's been my "turn" to have Thanksgiving now for close to 20 years, so I decided to go ahead and do it, ready or not.  My brother is allergic to black pepper so I needed to figure out how to get a turkey that doesn't have mystery substances injected into it and figure out how to make it taste good without using any pepper.

We got a fresh 13 pound turkey from Giant on Friday and I finally got around to cooking it this evening.  Since I don't have any cookbooks, I looked things up on the internet and watched a few videos on Youtube to learn how to do the various activities.  There sure is a lot of conflicting information to sift through out there.  So I just picked out the article or video that seemed like the best way to procede for each thing.  My choices were highly subjective, that's for sure.

It really seems like individual creativity comes into play with most cooks almost immediately - judging from the various comments on each recipe or article, most people don't follow any recipe completely literally. It seems like they immediately start changing it without bothering to find out if the actual recipe is any good.  I guess it's not necessary most of the time to follow recipes exactly, although I'll bet it matters a lot more with baking.  I decided not to be too literal-minded about things, although I did clean the turkey very very meticulously, with a great deal of mocking from Doug.

So I figured out, based on some website that I liked enough to print out the pages, that I would cook the turkey in Doug's fancy-ass convection oven without brining it.  They raved about their test turkeys that were cooked at 375 degrees for an hour and a half to two hours without brining and since I don't know any better, I went with that.  I also decided not to stuff it because that makes things more complicated and it's safer not to stuff it.  I'll have to figure out how to get the stuffing moist enough without being in the bird.  Doug was helping a little bit until I kicked him out.  I got him to stick a few onion quarters, a couple stalks of celery, and some sprigs of fresh rosemary inside the turkey before he started acting up.

Doug's convection oven has a probe thingy that you can supposedly put in the turkey and then attach the other end to the wall of the oven and when the turkey gets to the right temperature it turns the oven off.  That kinds of creeps me out, and I was kind of relieved when it didn't register properly because then I could just use a meat thermometer like a normal person.  We've never used that probe thing before and I didn't want to mess with it.  But Doug did, and he wouldn't let it go.  That's when I sent him downstairs.

He came back up a little while later to help me identify the liver, which I was not supposed to use in the broth.  I'm such a non-cook that I wouldn't know a turkey liver if I saw one. Unfortunately that meant that he decided then and there to fix himself some fried turkey livers which stunk up the kitchen for a while.  But eventually the fan took care of the smell.

He went back downstairs and once the turkey was well under way in the oven I spent my time going back and forth between the computer and the kitchen, looking up every little thing up that I needed to find out.

I made turkey stock to use in the gravy, and I made a roux out of butter and flour for the gravy too, and cleaned a bunch of pans and utensils.

Finally the bell rang to check the turkey.  It was a beautiful medium golden brown.  Unfortunately the turkey was apparently sitting low enough in the pan, in spite of it having a rack, that the convection browning action did not hit the bottom three inches.  So I flipped it over and cooked it for another twenty minutes upside down.  I don't think it was actually cooked all the way judging from the juice, so the extra time was good.  But it ended up with a big dent on the top.

It's kind of ugly looking actually, but Doug declared it to be perfectly cooked.  It was tender and juicy and delicious.  He seemed kind of surprised at how well it turned out.  And he was shocked at the excellence of my gravy.  I think it will taste even better next time because this time I didn't do everything you are supposed to do.  It still tasted pretty good and there were no lumps.  I don't remember my mother or his ever doing roux or making broth to add to the gravy, so maybe that's why it was extra good.  Next time I'm going to try deglazing the pan with white wine.  So fancy-schmancy, yeah that's me alright.

Look at that dent!  I'm paying big bucks for some kind of special fresh turkey from the Amish Market that I'll be picking up on Tuesday.   I will not allow dents to happen in Thursday's turkey.

Meanwhile,  I've already frozen most of the meat off of this turkey so it won't go bad and we'll have leftovers no matter what.  I also froze the gravy so that it will keep until Thanksgiving.  I'm going to have lots and lots of gravy.

Tomorrow I'm going to make more stock from tonight's turkey carcass so I won't have to mess with that again on Thursday while I'm trying to do everything else.  Also tomorrow I'm going to get Doug to cut up and bake the butternut squash for the soup I'm going to make.

Here's my menu:

Butternut Squash Soup

Salad Greens with a vinaigrette that has mustard and shallots in it.

Turkey

Really Basic Stuffing - shredded white bread, celery, onion, sage, etc.

Mashed Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes

Spinach Souffle with fresh dill

Cranberry Sauce that my mother will make

Apple Sauce that Doug made from our tree

Whatever pies my sister-in-law brings.

That's probably enough, right?  If it's not, then everyone will get to have the pleasant experience of not being miserably stuffed on Thanksgiving.  That would be okay I think, as long as the food tastes good.  I need to figure out where to use that fresh thyme I bought.  Other than that, I think I'm good to go.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Blue Sparrow

Last week after I got my hair cut, I was sitting in my car waiting for Doug to show up and passed the time by taking a few pictures out of my car window. I was trying to take a close up of a sparrow that was sitting on top of the hedge by my car, but he flew away so I ended up with a picture of this little cutie instead.

But the sparrow came back. I then noticed that his lighter feathers were blue! I didn't know that blue sparrows actually existed, so I googled it and found out that they've been spotted in Australia too, but some people still think that they don't exist. Anyway, this one was hanging out across from the Chipotle, next to the New Wave Salon on Rockville Pike. He almost looks like a parakeet in this photo, but he was definitely a sparrow as far as I can tell. The blue sparrow in Australia was prettier than the one I saw - the color is absolutely amazing! "My" sparrow is a little more subtle.

There's some additional discussion of the blue sparrow phenomenon on this website. Check it out, there's a really great photo there too.

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I've been complaining, mostly to myself, about the pathetic lack of travel that exists in my life these days. My big trip to Delaware happened this past weekend. We played an Andrews Sisters show/concert at a casino for Veterans Day Weekend and stayed overnight since they had a room for us. It made me feel a bit nostalgic for my former life on the road because there were a lot of similarities - the 1940s theme, the army uniform, the enthusiastic crowd, the onstage big band, the meal before the gig, the hotel afterwards, etc, etc. After five years of not touring it was interesting to be able to observe what I miss and what I don't miss.

The next day we got up and went to Rehoboth since that was the closest beach. This will probably be my last beach trip this year - the other day trips (two of them) were to Assateague. I haven't been to Rehoboth in several years. We had to make it quick because my bass was in the car. It was parked in a shady spot, but I still don't like to leave it for very long.

We took a short walk on the beach, had a slice of Grotto Pizza, got some warm caramel corn at Dolle's for dessert, and stopped at the awesome coffee shop at the edge of town out by Route 1, so it was a completely satisfying Rehoboth experience except for the lack of beach time. The beach is kind of small at Rehoboth. And the sand is grayer than it is at Assateague.

The waves were huge! If the water had been warmer I would have gone in. I like big waves, especially out past the breakers, where they lift you up but you don't get smashed by them. I'm looking forward to next summer already!

And here are some more pictures of the blue sparrow in Australia. They are really fantastic, so go have a look!

Fall at the Falls

It was a beautiful fall day and a quick little getaway was in order so we went out to Great Falls, MD. I hadn't been there for at least ten years, but it was at least as beautiful as I remembered it from the last time.

On the Maryland side you have to stroll along the C&O canal towpath to get to the walkway for the falls.

This is a little stream that runs between the canal and the Potomac. It was doing a lovely job reflecting the gorgeous blue sky.

"Leaflets three - leave them be." The poison ivy poem.

Here's the first section that we came to. A sort of narrow gorge.

This is the main part of the falls. Great Falls covers a very wide and rocky section of the river.

Great Falls, VA. I looked at the falls from over there this past spring. I think the main part looks prettier from the Virginia side, but the walk to the falls is nicer on the Maryland side and you can get much closer to them.

Dwindling Travel

I love to travel and I've been very lucky to be able to incorporate that into my gigs in the past. I very reluctantly had to give up cruising and touring about halfway through 2006, always thinking that I'd get right back to it in a year, or two at the most. Here's how that plan has played out:
2005
16 Countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Netherlands, England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Poland, Norway.
31 States (including DC): Maryland, DC, Virginia, Idaho, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut.
2006
5 countries: Canada, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Iceland.
27 States: Maryland, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachussets, New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Hawaii

2007
18 States: Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana.

2008
13 States: Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Nebraska.

2009
7 States: Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania.

2010
3 States so far: Maryland, DC, Virginia. Exactly 2 one day trips to the beach this summer. No vacations for me. But tomorrow I’m actually going all the way to Delaware! (for a gig.) I’m so excited to be adding another state to my “travels” for this year!

At the rate things are going, I won’t even be leaving my house next year.

Stink Bugs in my Bass

Wasn't it a gorgeously beautiful day today? The weather was perfect. But then I had an outdoor wedding gig and two stink bugs crawled inside my bass right in the middle of Pachelbel's Canon. They are probably still in there because I did not see them crawl back out. So what am I supposed to do now? I don't want stink bugs in my bass. It's disgusting. I really don't want my bass to smell like stink bugs!

We have Franz Schubert in the house!

About a week ago my friend Nancy came over for a visit and decided that my living room would be the ideal place to get together for a reading of the Schubert Octet. She decided this in spite of the fact that the room was a complete mess, full of boxes and other stuff that I'd never unpacked. Maybe she was trying to do me a favor by forcing me to unpack. It worked!

The reason I hadn't unpacked was because I thought that it would be best to wait until all the baseboards and window trim was done before everything got spread out and moved into place. I hate the thought of everything getting all dusty from the relatively small amount of construction we have left to do.

I still think that, but it's time to actually start acting like I live here whether the house is finished or not. I'm so glad I finally got the stimulus I needed to do that. It's been kind of depressing having all those boxes piled up in there. Playing the Schubert is a much better use of that room.

Anyway I spent the past week painting the coat closet so I could put the coats away. It is so nice to have a coat closet! Our rental house didn't have one and it was always a problem. And that closet was the last room left to be painted so now the only painting left to do is the window and door trim and baseboards, if they ever get installed. Aren't I patient?

So over the last couple of days I've been moving all of the boxes to more appropriate locations and finally the room is ready for its inaugural chamber music session!

Nancy organized the whole thing and we'll have time to run through the whole piece twice I think. It's about an hour long. It's going to be fun to play it with some new people. Some of the players are friends or acquaintances and a couple of them I've never met before.

Later tomorrow I'm playing with a big band up in Baltimore at a place called the Wine Cellar. After that I'll be spending some time learning some new tunes (for me) for a wedding gig on Sunday. I think I might have actually even heard some of these songs before:

#41, Typical Situation, Ants Marching, Crash Into Me by the Dave Matthews Band; Upside Down and Times Like These by Jack Johnson; I'm Yours by John Mayer.

I guess I'll be checking them out on YouTube very soon.

Speaking of YouTube, here's a movement from the Schubert we'll be playing in about eight hours. I guess I'd better go to sleep now. Nighty-Night!

Math Dreams

Subtitle: Strange Woman Forgets Everything She Learned in Math Class

This morning I woke up from a dream where I was trying to figure out whether there existed a formula for calculating the number of different combinations a series of five numbers could have. What a strange dream to wake up from, or even to have! Although I'm quite decent at arithmetic, I'm not really particularly a math type, so why would I even care about such a thing? Anyway, I was sure there must be a formula, which I probably learned in high school, but it's most definitely not something that's come up for me for at least 20 years.

So then, in my half awake state, still lying there, I started visualizing the possible number combinations for 123, because I knew I could do that easily and instantly. Because I'm so organized, I did the ones first and then the twos, and then the threes. Whoopdee Doo. I immediately saw a pattern and I thought I could also visualize it working for 1234 so I thought maybe I could make a formula from that. Keep in mind that I'm still half asleep while thinking all of this, but the snoring next to me is forcing me to become gradually more and more aware of my surroundings, and of what I am thinking, whether I want to be thinking or not.

There are six combinations for 123, which is 3x2. There are three different starting numbers and two combinations for the remaining numbers for each of the three starting numbers so that's 3x2, right? So I thought maybe the formula is the number of different digits (3) multiplied by the number of combinations for the remaining digits (2).

I didn't think too hard about the combination of four numbers, I just tried to feel it, and it seemed okay, and that's when the pattern, if this is even right, kicks in more obviously. But what I was really trying to do at this point was fall back to sleep.

Instead, I did the pattern of multiplying descending numbers 3x2 (x1, what the heck) and stuck a four in front of it: 4x3x2x1. I don't know if this works, but it "felt" right and I was still too sleepy to care.

When I finally gave up trying to sleep and got out of bed, I was kind of more wrapped up in why the hell was I having boring mathematical dreams than I was in trying to figure out if I'd actually "discovered" a secret mathematical formula while sleeping, ha ha ha!

Then I thought, hey maybe there are some math types out there who are also bloggers and they will read this and set me straight. Since I have had almost nothing to say for months maybe I'll just write this all out and people will read it and say "That's enough! I'm never coming back! She's boring and weird and I don't want to read a bunch of low level mathematical crap. Who knows what she'll write about next to irritate her remaining three readers?" Or maybe the math nerds will take pity on me and tell me they used to dream the same thing - when they were five.

Sorry, I guess I got sidetracked by an early morning case of ADD (adult deficit disorder). So the formula was solidifying in my head: four different numbers gets 4x3x2x1, or 24 combinations. I was really feeling the layers of it and it felt right without even laying out the actual individual piles of number combinations. I really wanted to stay in that state of right brain-ed-ness and not let my annoying, detail-oriented left brain burst my happy little bubble of discovery and wonder.

But now that I'm awake I don't trust it at all, so I'm going have to actually physically double check with five numbers, to answer my original question that I had during the dream. I guess we can add OCD to the ADD. At least I'm well balanced.

Let's see if 5x4x3x2x1 gives us the right number, that is if I'm able to lay these out in an organized enough way to get them all. I guess that's what computers are for, but I'm too low tech to do it that way at this time, especially since I haven't the slighest idea how to do it.

5 4 3 2 1 * * * * * : ( ^%$##@!!!

Okay, I gave up doing it with five numbers. It's a little too unwieldy and unpractical to do it this way and I'm just not that interested. But I'm mildly interested. I'm going to do it with just four numbers and call it a day.

4321, 4312, 4231, 4213, 4132, 4123.
3421, 3412, 3241, 3214, 3142, 3124.
2341, 2314, 2431, 2413, 2134, 2143.
1324, 1342, 1234, 1243, 1432, 1423.

Did I miss any? I went across the first row with 4 in front of the six combinations of three numbers. In the next row I switched the threes and the fours but kept the rest of it the same. Then I substituted the twos with the fours from the first row, and then the ones. This is what my brain "felt" but did not calculate during the time that I was still half asleep.

So now the fives. You'd start the first row with 5 in front of those 24 combinations and then you'd substitute the 5 for the four in the next row and then the three, etc. for each of the 24 combinations. So you'd have five rows of 24 different combinations, right? So that's 5x4x3x2x1 = 120. Please tell me if I'm wrong, because if this is right I want to remember it. I would like for it to be right because it's kind of a groovy formula. Also, how would you write this in an actual mathematic formula, with x's and y's?

I guess this is a perfect example of if you don't use it you lose it. I'm sure this descending factor thingy has come up before sometime in school somewhere. I got as far as pre-calculus in high school but I don't remember a thing about it other than that I liked it and did okay with it - probably half Bs and half As. I'm not totally stupid. My favorite math course was geometry, which seemed more artistic somehow than other forms of math. And creative and logical at the same time. I liked that. Then it was on to music in college and it's been nothing but basic arithmetic for me ever since.

I just remembered why I was even dreaming about this. It was because I'd been dreaming that I would sell on Ebay some hand painted numbered tiles that I bought when I was in Sorrento on my cruise gig five long years ago. I wanted to figure out how many different house numbers would work with these tiles, which I'm not going to be using since they don't work with the color scheme we ended up with.

Uh oh, there's one number in my five tiles that is used twice. So my 5x4x3x2x1 thingy isn't going to work, even if it was the right formula to begin with. My gut instinct is telling me that I should do 5x4x3x2x1 and then divide that result in half. I don't know why I would think such a thing, and it's probably wrong. I've suddenly lost interest in this topic because the snorer is up and now I can go back to sleep. Maybe I'll dream up the right answer. But since I don't really need to know, maybe I'll just not worry about it anymore.

Also, before I was dreaming about selling my hand painted tiles on Ebay, and messing around with number combinations, I was playing millions of games of Free Cell in my sleep. I just discovered Free Cell after years of playing just plain old Solitaire. It's a lot more interesting and winning seems to have a lot more to do with creative organizational skills than it does with how the cards happen to fall.

Hey, I wonder how many layout combinations there are for Free Cell, and more importantly, how many possible winning layout combinations there are? 52x51x50,etc........? And would you cut the number in half because of the fact that there are two reds and two blacks for each number? And blah, blah, blah? Who cares. It's time to add two more hours of sleep to my previous three.

So how was your morning?










Is it better to be half asleep or half awake?

Is my glass half empty or half full?

And, most importantly, is my brain half empty or half full?


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apples, apples, apples

This year was a particularly good year for our apple tree. We've been enjoying them for well over a month now and the final apple was picked just a few days ago. It's great to have such excellent apples on hand. We've mostly been eating them fresh but Doug has made applesauce with his Foley food mill a few times. I love his applesauce.

We had about three times as many apples in our refrigerator and on our countertop as you can see in this current picture but we've been eating so much of them that it's finally gotten down to a manageable quantity. These will last us for probably another month if we take our time.


Last week my awesome friend JoAnn offered to make us a pie so I took her enough apples for two pies and today we got to taste the results of her excellent pie-making skills. This pie tasted perfect to me. It was tangy and not too sweet and the baking seemed to make the flavor of the apples even more intense. And they were tasty apples to begin with. The crust was delicious too. Thanks JoAnn!

Now that I have an actual kitchen maybe I should learn how to make a pie. I remember watching my grandmother do it many times when I was growing up. And I'll be able to take the pie out of the oven with my amazing new potholders.


See how red that apple is? Usually when you buy MacIntosh apples in the store, or when the deer knock them off your tree, they are half red and half green. If you don't pick them too early they'll become sweeter and they turn completely red on the outside.

The next best thing to having your own tree is to hit one of the local fruit stands. There are actually orchards that are not too far out of town. And now is also an excellent time to buy locally made apple cider.

Glenmont Skies

The Glenmont shopping center is probably one of the least attractive places in all of Montgomery County. But this evening it was looking pretty good.

There's nothing like a little sunset to help things look as good as they possibly can.

It's really not a good idea to stand under those wires. Those birds are always there, taking care of business.

a most peculiar day

Today was the first day I've had completely off in a while and since it was also relatively cool, I was all psyched to mow the grass. But today was also the day that Doug's five year old overpriced lemon of a $700 Honda mower decided to call it quits for the final time. It has been acting cantankerous practically since the first year Doug bought it, during the one spring that he had to mow the grass because I was off cruising. Today was the first day that Doug could not get his precious baby interested, even after considerable poking and prodding.

H E L L O

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I reallyreallyreally wanted to get the damn grass cut, so I quickly went inside to research lawnmowers, and I soon figured out which moderately priced non-Honda would best satisfy my needs. I even called someone I knew who had recently bought the same one to make sure he still liked it. As I was attempting to share this information with Doug he informed me that he had decided that this afternoon would be a perfect time to do our annual paddleboating session at Lake Centennial.

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I knew full well that this was a diversionary tactic, not only for the sake of getting me off track in my quest to do whatever it might take to get the damn grass cut, (i.e. spend $400 on a new mower) but also so that he could further delay his own wallboarding duties inside. He doesn't seem enjoy it much when I'm not in there cheering him on. But that's not my fault. My plan was that we would both do the taping and mudding just as soon as I finished mowing the grass. I found out later that the secret reason for the paddleboating trip was so that we could stop in some random hardware store in Clarksville, MD that might have lawnmowers to look at on the way back. We live in Silver Spring so that makes total sense. Yeah.

As usual, we had lots of fun paddleboating, although I did notice Doug gazing rather wistfully at the kayaks. The weather was perfect too - not too hot and not too bright. We can go kayaking next time, especially if you mention it before we rent a paddleboat.

I wish I knew how to make a slide show here. I still haven't gotten around to learning how to do that. You'll just have to pretend those ducks above were in a slide show.

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Do any of you locals remember the Enchanted Forest? I read recently that many of the original buildings and statues had been restored and moved to a new location. And we just happened to notice it today because the new location is on Route 108. We stopped in on the way back to check it out.

In case you don't know about the Enchanted Forest, here's a link to the story of how it all got started.

The Enchanted Forest stuff has been combined with a petting farm that includes hayrides and pony rides. There were a lot of little kids in there who appeared to be having an excellent time. It seems like a very quaint and gentle place. When I went there as a kid I was sort of past the fairy tale stage and possibly a little jaded by then (a huge fan of fractured fairy tales), but I thought it was cool the way they had so many stories depicted all in one place. My little brother loved it.

"Help! Save me!"

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.

The Dragon as Minstrel

"Yaaay! I finally finished washing the dishes!

Thank goodness for Playtex Living Gloves!"

This is the house where Goldilocks visited the Three Bears.

It took me the longest time to figure out what those things were up on the roof. It's a corn cob pipe for Papa Bear, some kind of night cap for Mama Bear, and a giant baby bottle for Baby Bear, all conveniently located right up there on the roof.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,

She had so many children, she didn't know what to do;

She gave them some broth, without any bread,

And whipped them all soundly

And sent them to bed.

NICE!

Follow the Gingerbread Man into the Enchanted Forest Pine Tree Maze!

I'm really sort of glad I'm not a kid anymore. Our imaginations were fed by some rather peculiar stories and notions, even back then. I can't even imagine what it's like today to be a kid. Probably a lot more frightening.


So after all the fun was over, we went to the hardware store in Clarksville which had nothing useful in the way of lawnmowers, and then to Home Depot in Aspen Hill which had the one I really wanted, plus two that Doug was interested in. We had a little debate, but it remained friendly. Then I was sent off alone on sort of a reconnaissanse mission to Zimmermans Hardware in Burtonsville to make sure I really liked the one I had picked out because they keep their mowers on the floor and I could actually roll it around, unlike at Home Depot. Finally we went back to Home Depot and bought the one I liked. So that went really well. And it was much more efficient than many of our purchasing adventures are, believe it or not.

Tomorrow I will take the bull by the horns and finally get my grass cut.
Toro, Toro, Toro!

Eastern Shore Side Trip: The Wye Oak

This past spring, during a break between services at a gig on the Eastern Shore I decided to go visit the Wye Oak. Or I should say the place where the Wye Oak was before it came down during a huge thunderstorm in 2002.

I remember seeing signs for the Wye Oak on my many trips to the beach over the years and wondering why in the world there would be a sign on Route 50 for a tree, of all things. But I was always in too much of a hurry to get to the beach on the way down, or to miss the bridge traffic on the way back to ever stop and see it. I just don't like anything cutting into my beach time to the point where I would often go there by myself just so that I could do it no breaks. But one day in 2000 or 2001 I had Doug with me and we decided to stop and see it. Doug just loves taking little side trips and I figured it wouldn't take up too much time so I went along with it.

The tree was enormous, very old and very weather beaten, and it was clearly past its prime. It was the kind of tree that you could almost imagine somebody hollowing out and making into a house except that it was really not in very good shape at that point and you just don't do that sort of thing to trees anyway, except in cartoons. But that's how big it was. At the time it was the largest White Oak tree in the entire United States and had held that title since at least the early 1900s. I had never known that as I sped past the exit to it at least a hundred times over the years so I'm really glad I finally got to see it.

I found some old pictures of the Wye Oak here and there. I have linked to all of the websites where these pictures were originally located down at the bottom of this post.

1921

1935

1965

2002

I had my camera with me when I went to visit it again this last time. Here are some of the pictures I took:

It's looking pretty empty here - a fence around a mulch pile?

This is the official sign. Click on it if you want to see what it says.

They planted a young clone of the Wye Oak in the middle of its former trunk.


The Wye Oak seems to be asking WHY?

They have lots of grain storage right across the street.

A few doors down I saw this gate made out of old wagon wheels.

The Wye Grist Mill is still in operation

There are picnic tables nearby

and an old abandoned barn is just around the corner

So if you aren't in a big hurry to get to or from the beach the way I usually am, visiting the Wye Oak is a great little side trip to take along the way. Here are some links to additional information about the Wye Oak:

An American Champion

The Quiet Giant, The Wye Oak

The Maryland State Tree

The Wye Oak Comes Down