these days of leiderhosen

Lily the Bear had a cub! See (and hear) her on her very own webcam and then fantasize about hibernation. She snores!

This is how I spent the evening: redoing and replanning the edge of a shawl, supervised by Shred. Although elderly and somewhat crabby, she is very good company.

Monday night is The Steven's marked off time to go forth onto Second Life and be someone else for a bit, so it seems absolutely appropriate to jump onto the Internets and leave you a little note or scratch my graffiti into the wall. Tonight's dinner was butterflied roast chicken with root vegetables. I have at least a quarter pound of compound butter left after leaving a thick layer with huge handfuls of herbs under the chicken's skin. Compound butter is money in the flavor bank. I've cooked on enough crap equipment for so long that I do not exactly trust the Ferrari of a range the Beautiful Landlords have bestowed into our care. A couple oven thermometers are on their way. If that does not answer some questions I am either taking my flour canisters into the lab and getting protein counts for their contents or special ordering flour nation-wide. The pursuit of the perfect biscuit is not an unworthy quest. It's been downright damp this last week. Every day I go out...

Phillip Valdez of Portland Oregon . Check out the blog. Have you noticed that things get tossed here that I might need to remember. Awkward for you maybe, but handy for me. It's chilly here tonight, but no rain. How am I gonna get to sleep now?

The long awaited Flickr Photo Set: the First Annual Pretentiousville Christmas Pie Fight Off topic: c raving wild strawberries .

I was here during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake . Although, it was a 6.9 serious rumble, caused some damage and collapsed the Oakland end of the Bay Bridge , it was a goddamn picnic compared to the last nine days of Haiti (7.0). I mean this literally; I walked across town a few dusty hours later and rode out the aftershocks with some very nice friends over salmon and candle light. How bourgeois . 63 people died. A couple thousand had to find new digs and a few -boo fucking hoo - quabillion dollar beach chalets took a dive off Opal Cliffs. Over all, we were really fucking lucky. In the theme of disaster, I moved out of state two months later and for years afterwards the sound of a garbage truck would make me leap under chaises and grab complete strangers. We were lucky, mostly because of the devastation of 1906 across the Bay shook us up (killing 3,000 plus) to now be preparing in earnest for "The Big One", which California drags into the headlines whenever news is s...

Plotting: Beef and Carrots ! Waiting to Read: The Happiness Project . Please don't revoke my cranky old coot card . (Apologies to Cat Mum: coot cards .) Weather on the Seventh Floor: Stormy to shiny clear. Amazing theater! Source for bad ass pound cake, especially the lemon variation: Dorrie Greenspan