Japan-Nippon

Japan--that's an exonym. Nippon--that's an endonym.  Who knew there was terminology to describe the names we assign to foreign locations? But why do we use Tokyo and not Munchen? France but not Suomi?

Household Mishaps

Blocks of cheese do not maintain their orginal structure once frozen. Everytime I tried to cut a slice, it crumbled. Curses!

This door sweep, which I destroyed whilst removing it, is no longer available in stores.

Door sweeps are the vinyl things on the bottom of outside doors that keep bugs, dirt, water etc. out. Luckily I tackled the door in the garage before the front door. Speaking of doors, there is right way and a wrong way to install weather stripping. This, I discovered after destroying more than one strip by trying to cram it into the groove with a putty knife and whittling away part of the door jamb. 

Reading a Brand

I watched a rather interesting program called, "Family Undertaking". It was all about people who take care of their own deceased family members. I think finances are often a driving factor, but there was a ranching family in South Dakota who did it because it felt like the proper way to care for a loved one. They had recently buried the grandma and were making preparations for the grandpa who was this frail little 90 year old man. One of the grandsons had built a casket and they were all in the barn getting ready to decorate it with branding irons.
One of the men was explaining to the camera how to read a brand and apparently when a brand is on it's side it's called "lazy".  So, for example, below are K and Lazy K.



 
 
Well, then the frail old grandpa sitting in the wheelchair goes, "I'll show you how to read a brand." And in his quavery old handwriting he wrote:

"2.  Lazy 2.  P." , he said. I was so fascinated by learning how to read the brands for Bar Six and Lazy K  I didn't even get that it was a joke until the second time through. Hahaha!



It's a Racket

Rack-et [rak-it] -noun

1. An organized illegal activity.

For, oh, the past 5-6 years I have used Comcast as my internet service provider. For this same period of time I have leased a modem for $7/month. Why am I not the owner of that modem and at least 5 others after all this time? Yes, I am an idiot, but they are crooks! Why is this legal?



Ah, Spring.

Worked in the yard on the loveliest of days today. Looked in the window well and it was full of debris. I hate getting into the window well--deep, confined, full of hidden creatures. Eek, there was a dead, leathery frog in there for a couple of years. I may have blogged about that before...

On this fine day several neighbors were also in their yards so I promised myself, no vocalizations no matter who/what else might be down there. Deep breathing, focusing on scooping junk into bucket, large spider on glove perilously close to wrist. Shrieked, swatted, was sure the thing had fallen into my glove. Eek!! There was precious little space in the window well between me, the bucket and the ladder, but thankfully the basement window remains intact. Psyche, less certain. Forced myself to stay down there for an additional 15 seconds in case the neighbors heard me. Death to all spiders.

My Neighbor

This is the view from the back of my house. I have made little helper marks/drawings to assist you in visualizing my problem. My neighbor never shuts the blinds in the indicated window. He often will just sit in one of the four chairs lined up on his back porch. There is a reasonable facsimile of him in chair no. 3. He has a fake parrot hanging from the awning. Free show.

(The pictures are tiny but if you double-click on them they'll enlarge to actual size.)

We'll see who shuts their blinds first.

Petit Fours

Batch No. 2 

Don't they look like delicious chunks of butter?

Batch No. 3

These are my second and third attempts at making Petit Fours. On my first go of it, I misread the recipe and ended up trying to frost the little cakes with something akin to taffy, which while delicious was impossible to work with. No pictures. Tried a different recipe the second time around and wanting to be sure I could drizzle the frosting, kept it pretty thin. The result is lovely, but the little cakes are soggy on the inside. Batch no. 3, well, you can see how thick the icing is. Hardened almost immediately. Clearly making Petit Fours is an art. I will master this.