She rode the city bus for the first time.
Kimberly Crum, I salute you.
"I am a pampered woman with good credit, disposable income, and an automobile that will get me where I wish to go." she said.
But she journeyed far outside her comfort zone to take advantage of a service she pays for in part anyway: some of our local tax dollars go to support public transportation; only 14% of the cost of their operation is covered by fares. She rides once a week to save on gas and carbon dioxide.
Kimberly Crum, thank you for being a leader and showing others the way. Thank you for writing about it in Today's Woman. When you haven't ridden the bus before, it can be daunting. But it is well worth it.
When you get used to doing it once a week, you might consider doing it every day. Then you can stack up the savings times five!
And more! If you leave your car at home instead of driving it to work, you don't have to pay for parking. You don't have to pay for gas. You even have the option of using your "little ticket"--the Stop and Go bus transfer to stop at the grocery on the way home and pick up a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. That eliminates another trip by car. You do get up to 2 hours of transfer time on your transfer, and that gives you time to browse as well. How many of us really take more than 2 hours at a store without our eyes crossing?
Kimberly Crum described her experience: she watched geese fly overhead and then saw all the drivers looking straight ahead while on their cell phones while she indolently imbibed her own Diet Coke and read her magazine. You can't sip a Diet Coke and read a magazine in a car. You can on a bus and leave the driving to the bus driver.
When I first rode the bus seriously (that is, when I didn't have a car anymore), the transition was hard. But over time I noticed something: life slowed down for me. I no longer have to rush anywhere. When I wait on the bus, I don't get anxious about when it comes (most times). While I'm on it, I don't worry about the time, because the bus is on a set schedule, pretty well guaranteed to be on time. The bus service is always tracking the time it takes to go from one major stop to the next, so in this way they continuously plan the bus itineraries to make them more true to the traffic. So while I'm on the bus, I don't have to look at my watch wondering if I'll make it on time. Either I will or I won't. If I get the right bus, I will. If I don't, I won't.
I like not having road rage. There's nothing to road rage about. The bus driver takes care of it all. With 10,430 Kg (that's 23,571.8 pounds--or 11 tons) compared with a mere 5 tons for an average car, you really don't have to worry much even about a crash if, Heaven forbid, it should happen. No car would really survive it, while the bus would probably hardly feel it.
Besides: the bus drivers are excellent drivers. Much better than you or I.
I figured it out one time that in order to park my car, I'd be paying $4 per day (insurance). To drive it, that's probably $30/wk for gas and $0.25/mile wear and tear on the car. Then $25 per quarter oil change at the Valvoline, and maybe $50-100 maintenance each year besides (just guessing). How much was that I was paying? (I figure I'd drive about a thousand miles per month--just a guess.) Let's see, I came up with a figure about $361 per month.
$361 per month is a lot of money. That's some families' grocery budget.
A lot of money for convenience and status. A bus pass is just a little over 1/10th that cost. ($42 at present.)
At the end of a year, if she didn't have a car, she could have saved up enough for a downpayment on a small house. Or a home improvement loan.
Kinda makes you think.
- Location:Hikes Point
- Mood:
tired
There's No Substitute for Good Cooking!
However, there's a great site for substitutions!
http:www.foodsubs.com is the site of The Cook's Thesaurus, an online database full of food information: how to cook it, and--most useful to me--how to substitute one food for another.
Sometimes I find it very hard to cook a recipe because I don't have the specialized ingredient. (Or several!)
A consummate cook might always have a bottle of sherry on hand for flavoring (and maybe other things) or a baker a flask of rum, but I don't keep alcohol around my house, and if I did, I don't use it regularly like--say--the Cooking Cajun might.
I've been looking at my book, Everybody's Wokking by Martin Yan (of Yan Can Cook on PBS), and I wanted to do some red cooking. Fortunately, a lot of the sauces Yan uses are usable for many different occasions. Red cooking sauce can be gathered up after cooking one meat and used to cook another meat. Some sauces even gain more character and flavor the more they are used. (This is assuming they don't get used up!)
But I didn't (and don't have) dark soy sauce. I don't have sherry. So I paged through the book to see if there was something else to do. I got one or two ideas, but even they were a bit out of reach.
However! The Cook's Thesaurus showed me that I could substitute balsamic vinegar (I'll use balsamic vinaigrette) for the sherry.
It doesn't have a substitute for dark soy sauce (which Yan says has a different flavor), so at this point--til I can get to the Asian grocery--I will have to just do with regular soy sauce.
It's funny, but I don't have brown sugar right now. (I knew I should have got some yesterday at the grocery.) I do have white sugar. And I have molasses. These are the two products you get when you refine brown sugar. On The Cook's Thesaurus site, it showed me how I could proportion my molasses with white sugar to get the proper flavor.
And remember my previous post about using molasses to round out my rice pudding? Same thing.
So now I have the ingredients I need for red cooking. (And for some reason in all this I did have star anise!)
I took an excursion through the Internet to land on the site of this wonderful cook's tool, and it saved me a trip to the grocery, which can cost a person at least a dollar a trip (wear and tear on the car and exorbitant gasoline prices). It postponed the expense of the brown sugar ($2) and allowed me to skirt the sherry altogether. A bottle of sherry can be $10 while a (store brand) bottle of balsamic vinaigrette costs me sometimes no more than $1. I adore balsamic vinaigrette. It and basil make everything yummy. It pays to like the inexpensive stuff. I'll get these ingredients later on, but it does postpone them to the next pay day.
I milk the Internet for all it's worth to find gems like The Cook's Thesaurus. It helps me make the most of the odds and ends I have. When I can do that, I don't have to overspend for new ingredients before I'm ready.
- Location:Hikes Point
- Mood:
cheerful - Music:Theme from Friends
Answer: none, but it sure sounds good!
Stomp’s signature piece with brooms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-_mUAhzh
Who handles scores of trash cans at work but gets no garbage collected?
Answer: Stomp
Here is their Signature piece with trash cans. Watch for the guy with the trash can lids! (2 parts)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az2qI5cEw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu15Ou-jK
Stomp is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha_K11LNl
and here's one of my favorites: a piece with Zippo lighters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNUEbR6MS
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood:
satisfied - Music:Stomp Out Loud
But the day of inspection has come and gone, and, as usual, mine was not picked. So I can sit back and enjoy a nice clean apartment, even though I didn't have to stand for inspection.
- Mood: content
1. I am editing my novel and have 8 pages left to edit before polishing up the format for sending it to a publisher. I will do that last 8 pages tomorrow, while I'm waiting for the inspecting people to come. Since it is a spot inspection (no one knows what apartments will be inspected), then I will wait all day for an inspection that might not come. Perfect opportunity to get this done.
2. I have a new printer from HP that is light, compact, and "all-in-one." I have printed color and black and white on it and scanned a few pictures into it. It does very well, and the color is good.
3. I have a new camera, a Pentax digital that I love. It does much more than my last camera did at half the price of my old camera. When the weather lets up, I will probably have more opportunity to take pictures.
4. I found out that my grocery sells camera media as much as CD-R's and flash drives. I can go to the grocery and pick up a flash media with 1G for 1/3 the price I paid for 512MB. I can get--and have got--a 1G SD card for my camera for less than what I would pay in other logical places.
5. I'm almost finished with my crocheted shell blouse. It needs one more shoulder piece, and I will be ready to join the sides. I hope it fits. If it doesn't, I'll just have to start over with a different size.
6. I fill up on doctored-up rice when I need something to fill up, on. Right now, I've doctored it with chicken base, garlic, and peas. Sometimes I've put zucchini pieces in it.
7. I am going to make some Chinese dishes in the next couple of days from Everybody's Wokking, by Martin Yan of the show, "Yan Can Cook."
8. My newsletter is finished for the first quarter, and I don't start working on it again till February.
9. I stink at knitting.
10. I crocheted a very nice hat!
11. I know two songs on the piano for my church, now!
12. I want to learn Japanese, and I'm thinking of going to the cultural center called the Crane House to learn there. Cheaper tuition than at University.
13. I have a picture to put up.
14. My friend sent me a Webkinz stuffed animal, and I'm enjoying playing with her and her daughters!
That's all I can think of right now.
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood:
busy - Music:Here it goes again--OK GO
The National Weather Service in Louisville has issued a wind chill advisory...
… Arctic air will bring plunging temperatures after midnight across our area...winds that will gust as high as 30 mph at times. Temperatures will fall…into the lower teens across the bluegrass area. Resultant wind chills will fall towards -10 degrees....
…Some sub-zero lows are possible across parts of the Bluegrass Region and Southern Indiana.
Al Gore, where are you when we need you?
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood: busy
- Music:Here it goes again--OK GO
I finally made my borscht, and it is a lovely, lovely beet soup! Ahhhh! Delicious and a half!
I have found, though, that not all veggies are created equal, and, for me, cabbage is not a dark, green, leafy vegetable. Indeed, the one I used was almost completely white. (They were all like that at the store.)
I love borscht, but because of the cabbage, it doesn't like me. And I'm desperately eating my kale (steamed, with balsamic vinegar--yummy!) to see if it cannot stem the battle going on inside me. I have been to the store tonight (where a bunch of kale is a thrifty $1.00!) and purchased reinforcements.
It's a matter of balance, y'know. I still have a significant amound of borscht left, but, like Alice, if I eat a little of this side and then a little of that side, I might meet a happy medium in the middle. (That is, if I jump from a Lewis Carroll book--Alice's Adventures in Wonderland--to a Madeleine L'Engle book--A Wrinkle in Time.)
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood:
uncomfortable - Music:Wii theme--Yoshida Bros.
I have been losing my winter accessories all over the place!
I bought a new pair of blue stretch gloves and I lost one. I used my old pair of stretch gloves and I lost one of those! Then I lost my hat! So I am 3 for 3, now.
I’m hoping that my losing streak is at an end, now. It should be, now that I made myself a hat. It is the first garment that I have completed, and I thank Michaels craft store for putting out a book with it in there!
Here’s a picture of me in the hat:
Pretty cool, what what?
I used Lion Brand Homespun yarn, and the pattern is in
The Michaels Book of Needlecrafts, Lark Books, New York, 2005.
It comes down over my ears, too!
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood: creative
When Dad made toast and it scorched, he just scraped off the top layer of black singe and ate the rest. It's hard to scrape a cookie.
No, it is not the instrument; it is the user. Whenever I try a new recipe or a new oven, I have to get the right combination. 10 minutes might work fine in a giant range; but in my tiny oven, it just doesn't. In fact, it seems most cookies I bake in it need only about 7-8 minutes. Oh, well; live and learn.
But now I have gingersnaps that I've been craving all month!
Next is a gingerbread house (unless I make gingerbread bears first). Do you get the idea I'm craving gingerbread? But this will be the first gingerbread house I will have made. The houses are small and simple. No, I'm not making my own icing. Why make a mess trying to figure out how to dispense icing without a bag when I can get a ready-made squeezy-tube with a perfect tip? Why bother? I just want to make the house, not learn architecture cuisine.
So I am a happy camper tonight!
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood: creative
- Music:none at this time
The recipe is forgiving, too. I waited a day later than I should, but it all baked out well.
So far, there are no takers on the extra starters I now have, so I put one in the freezer to see how that does in hibernation for later. The rest I'm taking care of for the next time or for when somebody wants a starter. I think at the beginning of the year I will have starter out my ears!
There is one thing that I did not anticipate at the store: the 2 small boxes of Jell-o pudding. I got the frosting for the gingerbread house I intend to make, and I got sour gummies for decorations--wreaths and all--but I forgot the pudding mix.
So I was on the phone and online to try to find out a substitute. It couldn't be hard; most of it was sugar. But I knew there was flour--or rather, I found out from my brother-in-law, it was corn starch. No problems. So he talked me through how his mom used to make it from scratch, and I took the ingredients down (mostly sugar!) to add to my mix.
The dry ingredients he gave me were:
1/2 cup sugar
2 tblsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla
(and these would go in 2 cups of milk)
So I doubled the dry ingredients (and cut back a little on the vanilla) and dumped it in. It worked very well.
Adventures in cooking!
My favorite health food store is having cooking classes (how to cook frugally! That ought to be good!), so maybe I'll learn to be a better cook.
What with this cooking class, the photography meetup, and the writers group meetup (and another group to follow up with, too!), I'm in the process of "getting a life!"
Wish me luck!
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood: busy
- Music:Cello Rondo
So now I've told you what to do with a Friendship Bread starter when you receive this wonderful gift. But what if you don't have any and want to make some? With all the people in this world on the Internet and a Google of pages to search, there must be someone out there who knows how to make official starter. So I found this in Allrecipes.com:
Amish Friendship Bread Starter
SUBMITTED BY: GINNY LEE
Now, before accepting this as official, I have to think about what a society who does things in the simplest, most non-commercial way possible (the Amish) would do.
And I have known recipes for sourdough to require the ingredients to be left open to the open air for fermenting. Why? because yeast float around in the air and get into your food--like your milk--and make it go sour. That's where original starters come from. Not Red Star. (Though if you are going to use the above recipe, Red Star is, to me, the best active dry yeast: it makes a killer loaf of challah bread!)
So I read further down in the comments and found one by Olga, who agrees with me in her comment:
It's up to you as to how you want to go about doing it. Some people in the comments have made Friendship Bread from the Allrecipes recipe and have sworn it tastes the same. Then there are purists who use the passed-around starter because of, well, for lack of a better term, the "vintage." Yeasts differ slightly from place to place, and a young starter is a different creature (so to speak) than an older starter, whether you keep it for yourself or give some to friends.
Personally, I'm fascinated with the idea that the starter that I got might have gotten all around Louisville, or Kentucky, or even farther around than that, since it's been almost 20 years since I saw starter to begin with! What subtleties and strains it might have picked up from this region and that region!
Happy bread baking!
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Music:none at this time
December birthday:
12-21; Haiku Day fun!
Bring on the presents!
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood: satisfied
- Music:Yellow Submarine--March of the [Blue] Meanies
My family first got friendship bread right around 1980. Wow! that was 28 years ago! I wonder if my starter is a descendent of that one back in the 80's?
Here I shall try to reproduce the instructions as it was given to me--and who knows how many times this recipe was xeroxed and xeroxed! Now if you receive a starter, you will know what to do with it!
I recommend getting real Ziploc bags--really tough ones--because the starter has to be mushed a lot, and that can weaken the zipper part.
If air gets into the bag, let it out
It is normal for the batter to rise, bubble, and ferment.
Day 1: Do nothing. This is the day you received the batter, date on the bag.
Day 2: mush the bag
Day 3: mush the bag
Day 4: mush the bag
Day 5: mush the bag
Day 6: Add to the bag: 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk, then mush the bag.
Day 7: mush the bag
Day 8: mush the bag
Day 9: mush the bag
Day 10: Follow these directions:
1. Pour contents of bag into a non-metal bowl.
2. Add 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and 1 1/2 cups milk.
3. Measure out 4 separate 1 cup batters and place in 4 one-gallon Ziplock bags. Keep a starter for yourself and give the other three to your friends along with a copy of the recipe. Should this not be passed onto your friends the first day, tell them which day the starter is at when you give them the bag.
4. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
5. To remaining batter add:
A: 3 eggs
B: 1 cup oil
C: 1/2 cup milk
D: 1 cup sugar
E: 2 tsp cinnamon
F: 1/2 tsp vanilla
G: 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
H: 1/2 tsp baking soda
I: 1/2 tsp salt
J: 2 cups flour
K: 1 large box instant vanilla pudding or 2 small boxes
6. grease two large loaf pans and mix additional 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. Dust the greased pans with half the mixture.
7. pour batter evenly into the two loaf pans and sprinkle the remaining sugar only on top.
8. Bake for one hour. Cool until bread loosens from the pans. (approx 10 mins) then turn onto serving dish. Serve warm or cold.
If you keep a starter for yourself, you will be baking bread every 10 days. Only the Amish know how to create a "starter", so if you give them all away you will have to wait until someone gives one back to you. Enjoy.
Raisins, nuts, and other flavors of pudding mix will make bread even tastier.
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood: busy
- Music:Kodo Music
I love this recipe. It is a warm recipe rather than a cold one. I'd say it's appropriate for the weather.
I used balsamic vinaigrette instead of vinegar. It has a milder flavor with lots of pizzazz!
Savory Broccoli Salad
Salt
1 medium head broccoli (about 3 cups florets)
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tblsp vinegar (any kind; cider is good)
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup salted, toasted sunflower seeds
1 thin slice red onion
Fill a 3-quart saucepan with about 3 inches of water. Salt the water and bring it to a boil. Meanwhile, cutt the broccoli head into florets. If desired, peel the stem and cut it into small chunks. When water boils, add broccoli. Cover the pan for 1 minute, then remove the cover and cook broccoli 4 to 5 minutes more. Timing depends on how big the florets are, but the broccoli should be tender and bright green. Drain well. As the broccoli cooks, put mayonnaise and vinegar in a large bowl. Stir. Add drained broccoli and raisins. Add half the sunflower seeds and toss briefly. Mince the red onion. Sprinkle red onion and remaining sunflower seeds over the broccoli before serving. Serves 4.
enjoy!
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood: busy
- Music:Wii Would Like to Play
However
I have ingredients for gingerbread bears.
I am pretty sure I have ingredients for other cookies I want to bake, too. Like chocolate crinkles! It is my favorite Betty Crocker cookie recipe.
I'm going to check out that recipe community they featured this week.
(Wii Would Like to Play)
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood: cheerful
- Music:Wii Would Like to Play
http://askaninja.com/node/5557
The picture of the ninja here scratching his head was something I don't expect ninjas to do, so I was understandably tickled.
Underneath the ninja talks about how they pity poor pirates as disabled drunkards that need a twelve-step program or killing. I'm sure a ninja would find the killing part easier.
I still go by the argument that a pirate has to command a ship on choppy seas in nasty storms, scaling wavering masts to secure sails and bring the ship safely into port with crew intact.
Besides, pirates did good trade and settled down to wealthy lives on highly defensible St. Mary Island. How many ninja enterpreneurs do you know?
But this ninja does what I've seen no other ninja do, and that is take on a debate with pirates on Talk Like a Pirate Day. I have to give him credit for that. I take my tricorn off to him.
So enjoy, and, though TLAPD is 9 months away, weigh in on what you feel about pirates.
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood: cheerful
- Music:Cosmic Thing; B-52's
My friend Heather put me onto this Thanksgiving Tradition. A local radio station annually plays
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_7C0QGki
It has a few good visuals to it, too that you don’t quite get on the radio. So here are the words in case you want to take two or three friends with you to some coffee place or restaurant or something, sing this song at the top of your lungs--in harmony--and not be chased out for being 40 years too late!
(You’ll have to watch the ‘Tube or listen on the radio tomorrow at
You can get anything you want
At
(‘cept’n
You can get anything you want
At
Walk right in, it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want
At
- Location:Ohio River Bank
- Mood:
mischievous - Music:Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie
Like I said: a great instrument is only as good as the player of that instrument. This guy, Ethan Winer, composed a piece of 37 parts on cello. He plays it like a percussion instrument, a slap bass, a cello, a violin, a flute, a guitar, and other things I never thought possible on a cello. And I've never seen a cello played with a pencil or two before!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsavk0FX3
Some parts sound like a string quartet of 2 violins, a viola, and a cello. Another part sounds like a soft bass drum with brushes on a snare.
I never knew thumb position could be used so high up on the fingerboard! The highest note in the piece gives me chills every time I hear it!
Yes, he rivals Yo Yo Ma for best player.
I'd still like to be a cello if I were an instrument.
- Mood: artistic
But even the finest instrument is only as good as the musician that plays it.
I would want to be Yo Yo Ma's cello. He makes every piece he plays sound wonderful. To watch him play is to see him make love to his instrument.
There are some amazing musicians out there, but I believe that Yo Yo Ma has so much heart for his music.
I won't put any links here; there are plenty on YouTube to go and enjoy. I'll let you look them up.
What instrument would you want to be?
I lied.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GczSTQ2nv
- Mood: cheerful
- Music:Yo Yo Ma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etHOFmFF3
Pachelbel would roll over in his grave. Most baroque composers would, too. Many classical musicians possibly would, too.
Ronald Jenkees says, "I make sense to myself." And that's all that matters, really.
I like it.
- Mood: busy
- Music:Pachelbel Canon
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