My actual birthday is this coming Wednesday, when I will be umpty-dump years old. A good friend treated The Squire and me to a very generous meal of hard crabs and steamed corn – absolute heaven, as far as we are concerned! It was a real treat; not only did I not have to cook, but this is one of my favorite things. Add a bottle of beer and we are good to go!
Hard crabs are strictly a summertime meal, and defy all of Miss Manners edicts. You use a mallet and knife in lieu of more conventional cutlery, spread the table with brown paper or newsprint, and set out rolls of paper towels rather than proper napkins. Somebody will be sure to ask you what you paid for the crabs; this is not rude, but expected. It’s OK to put your elbows on the table, so the juice runs down your arms. It’s not as classy as eating lobster, but it’s also not as stuffy.
Stock photo
When we were going together, The Squire and I ran into some friends while we were at the mall. Bill and Mary offered to get two dozen crabs and meet us back at my apartment. The Squire had grown up in the mountains of North Carolina, and was totally unfamiliar with seafood – he didn’t even know what mountain oysters were! His only encounter with Maryland crabs had been when some coworkers had given him a soft-crab sandwich. This is definitely an acquired taste, but considered a delicacy; I guess they thought they were doing him a favor. At any rate, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be involved with this adventure, but I showed him how to clean his first crab, and promised I’d make him a sandwich. The four of us got to chatting, and it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t followed through on his sandwich.
I glanced down and saw a HUGE pill of shells in front of him. “How many of those things did you eat?”
You were all headed in the right direction. This is a hair curler, and you do wind your hair on it.
You stick a bobby pin in the holes in the end, slip a lock of hair under the blade, and wind it onto the rod. When you are done, you lift the blade a bit and slide the hair off the rod and onto the bobby pin.
Depending on how you wanted to look, this made great Frances Langford pompadours, or Shirley Temple ringlets. My grandmother used to put my hair into ringlets when I was too young to fight back. I probably looked like I just got off the boat!
It works better with human hair, but since I couldn’t figure out how to hold the camera in one hand and the curler in the other, Felicity had to stand in. At least she stands still and doesn’t wiggle.
We woke up yesterday morning to discover we had no cable – no TV, no phone, and – aargh! – no Internet! In addition, the electric power had been off, and most of the clocks needed to be reset. I did float to surface during the night when the a/c in the front bedroom went off, but it wasn’t enough to actually awaken me.
Anyway, The Squire checked all of the connections, and then called Comcast, as the problem seemed to be outside, and therefore, their responsibility. To make a long story short, a vehicle of some sort had been involved in an accident, and torn the transformer off the pole. The first repair man to come out said it looked as if an oversized semi had caught on the cable, but whatever the problem was, he couldn’t fix it by himself, and he was going to call for a cherry-picker and a larger crew.
It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you have neither TV nor Internet. The Squire finished a book, and I worked on the dollhouse. If I’m going to get that thing finished before Austin starts high school I’d better get a wiggle on!
When the crew arrived in the late afternoon – five o-clock or so – it was still in the 80s, so I walked out with a pitcher of iced tea and some paper cups. As I told them, our grandson used to be a lineman for the Gas and Electric Company, and I try to look out of the guys hanging from poles – or directing traffic. While I was wandering up and down the road, I noticed a lot of what I call “front end stuff”. A bumper and a lot of plastic chrome, plus bits of glass. The guard rail was torn up and the yellow and black sign that warned of a narrow bridge was on the verge.
Whatever it was, it must have been pretty spectacular, but we slept through it all. We had cable back before we went to bed, so there is peace in the valley, again.
Back in 1999 Hurricane Floyd dropped a tree on the house, and the insurance company wanted to condemn the place and either rebuild on this lot, or let us buy someplace else. We convinced them to patch up the Old Homestead, and so they did.
There was a lot wrong with the place, shortcuts that had been taken when it was built – how about no footers, eh? – and other weirdness done in the many additions and remodeling that had taken place before we bought the house.
For the first fifteen years or so, things were fine. Now, with the climate changing and the water rising we are really seeing the effects. We are about a mile from the Gunpowder River and the bay, but we are exactly at sea level. While there have always been damp spots in the yard, now there are more, and they are larger. The pond was originally dug to encompass three springs, and we diverted another one to flow into it. However, there is a limit to how much larger we can make it!
And one spring seems to be under the house. Isn’t that grand? There is one section of the patio that is about a half an inch lower that the rest, and we have a matching crack in the wall under the bow window in the dining room. AND one corner of the floor is dropping, and taking the corner cupboard with it. The fool thing is about six inches off true, and I keep expecting it to fall over one day. I have to tie the doors shut. In all seriousness, I have begun removing some things from the top, both to reduce the weight and to save irreplaceable things from being destroyed. The cupboard itself was made by one of The Squire’s ancestors, and has been in his family for several generations, and is obviously also irreplaceable.
Back in February of 2016 we had to have some major work done on the wall under the bow window in the dining room, as a huge crack had developed in the cinderblock wall. Looking back, this was the beginning of the end. There is a gap on this side of the window that you can put your hand into, and the window itself, which came as a single unit, is twisted out of shape.
We seem to be in a race to see what is going to fall down first – the house, or one of us.
From time to time a site called Townhall pops up in my spam folder, along with a bunch of other stuff. A few days ago I clicked on it, just to see what it was about.
The article that piqued my interest was about a black principal in Chicago who was is under pressure to step down from her leadership position because she is outwardly opposed to criminal conduct: among other ‘problematic’ acts, she’s urged students to “not participate in violence or looting.” She is, thus far, refusing to do so.
You’d think a situation such as this would draw a lot of support for the principal, but it did not. The remarks were absolutely vile, and somehow, President Obama was the villain in this piece, and Trump was the hero. Beats me.
The conversation hit a downward spiral pretty quickly. I’m cherry picking some of the comments, just to give you an idea of what was posted. None of it was about the lady in question, oddly enough. This was the response to a question asking for sources for a particularly off-the-wall screed:
*That’s the problem with you brainwashed Trolls, you believe all the rhetoical lies told by the alphabet propaganda media outlets that you Stupidity still watch and your minds are no longer capable of processing logical thought patterns. Then you go out in public and reiterate those Lyingous pervarications like you’re programmed as if they are facts. I tell you the truth about the Great Divider Obamie and instead of looking up to check my facts you’re looking on some Lefty Libaturd websites for a properly programmed Elitist Neo-nazi lie for you to spew, you are such a good peon tool.
*Snorkie • 10 days ago
Want to stop the violence? Bang bang bang. Want to stop the looting? Bang bang bang bang…..Problem solved.
*Lamar @ Snorkie • 10 days ago
Arm-up. You will be given no choice.−
*DawgsofWar @ LAUGHING at LIBERALS! • 10 days ago
the only good democrat is a dead democrat. Unfortunately, if you DON’T want this type of insanity, you need to vote Republican. Your choice.
*Worcester Rooster • 10 days ago
Buy a gun. This is going way beyond crazy.
*Transplanted Floridian @Worcester Rooster • 10 days ago
And plenty of ammo so you can practice, practice, practice.
This afternoon my very best friend called to ask my help with a cooking question. She wanted to make an applesauce cake, using her mum’s old recipe, which called for a “one pound can of applesauce”.
Well, they don’t sell the stuff in one pound cans any more, and she was totally stymied as to how much she should use in this recipe. I got out two of my cookbooks, and we compared the amount of flour versus the amount of applesauce each one required. I went on-line an did a search for “how much does a cup of applesauce weigh” It’s 8.9 ounces, if you ever need to know – and all sort of to-ing and fro-ing.
And then it dawned on me. “Why we are doing all of this? Don’t you have a scale hanging on your kitchen wall?”
“Oh, crap!”
We both just roared with laughter, as she has not only one kitchen scale, but two.
I never did get her mother’s recipe, but if you ever want to make my applesauce cake, this is the recipe. It’s not an “everyday” cake, but if you are having company or want to bring something nice to coffee hour after church, this is the one.
APPLESAUCE CAKE WITH BUTTERSCOTCH MERINGUE
1/2 cup butter or margarine 2 cups sugar
1 whole egg, and 2 egg yolks (hang on the whites; you’ll need them later)
2 -1/2 cups flour 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons salt 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoons allspice 1/2 cup water
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and yolks and beat well. Add the flour, etc. alternately with the water. Stir in 1 cup of raisins and 1/2 cup chopped nuts.
Pour into a greased 9 x 12 pan and bake at 350º for 60 minutes, or until it tests done.
WHILE THE CAKE IS BAKING: Beat your two egg whites with 2 cups of brown sugar. When they begin to make soft peaks beat in 1 tablespoon lemon juice.
Spread the meringue over the HOT cake, sprinkle with 1/2 half cup nuts – pecan are best – and bake at 400° for about 5 minutes, until golden brown.
I was reading the comics this morning when a doe walked past the window. By the time I found the camera, she had disappeared, but I spotted her on the far side of the pond getting a drink.
Slowly, slowly, I walked toward her, and managed to get this shot, just as she lifted her head. Another doe joined her, but I wasn’t able to get another decent picture before they both headed back to the woods behind the barn.
he corner cupboard with it. The fool thing is about six inches off true, and I keep expecting it to fall over one day. I have to tie the doors shut. In all seriousness, I have begun removing some things from the top, both to reduce the weight and to save irreplaceable things from being destroyed. The cupboard itself was made by one of The Squire’s ancestors, and has been in his family for several generations, and is obviously also irreplaceable.
thisendoftheswamp 