Lookin' sharp!

Dull knives are so maddening.

They LOOK as though they might cut or peel something but really all they do is mash or scrape.

Have you ever smooshed a tomato, instead of slicing it?

Sawed on a raw chicken breast until it finally separated, but not in even strips?

I'd petition every likely male who dared venture near the kitchen to sharpen my knives, because I didn't think it was something I could do without completely wrecking my whole set.  You can imagine how few likely males wandered through my kitchen...I'd worn out the one who lives here on this task and he could no longer be classified as "likely". 

So, a few weeks ago, I took my cheapest, most awful paring knife and practiced.  If I wrecked it, no great loss! At first, I could only really get one side sharp.  It was a start, though.  I didn't test it on the hair of my forearm, like guys do. (That's a cool trick, if you're a guy, and certainly shows everyone how brilliant you are with a steel! But on chicks, it's just....weird.)  I used tomatoes.  If you can cleanly slice through a tomato with no real pressure, your knife is nicely sharp.  My knife needed pressure still, so it wasn't quite right.

Every way I tried to work the other side of the knife felt awkward and dangerous.  You all know I'm a klutz; the fact that I still have the ends of all my fingers and no scarring on my wrists and arms is a near miracle, really.  But I kept working on it, every time I needed to use that crummy little knife.  And one day, something clicked.  I GOT it!  The knife was SHARP, now, and I grabbed another one...one of the good ones.  Zoop, zoop, zoop, zoop....repeat on the other side...and IT was sharp, too! 

Yes, I just stopped and sharpened all the knives I could. 

I would imagine it was the same feeling an ice skater gets when they land a triple lutz!  YES!

Now, every time I grab a knife to use, I check the edge and if I'm slicing delicate things like tomatoes or bread, I'll give it a quick zoop-ing.  You can't believe how this tiny little skill has made such a huge difference in the tools I use daily!  I feel so....competent and independant!

I think it's one of those things that every girl should learn how to do before leaving home. 

The Cowboy Cookbook

My son's last name is Pluhar, but he's a Dutton, too. 
We read and collect cookbooks; at least my Dad, my Aunt and I do.  And we buy each other cookbooks, if we find one that we think is really good or particularly interesting.  I would have to say that at least half of my good cookbooks have been gifts from Aunt Bert, and many of them are regional, church-fundraiser Texas Velveeta-fudge-and-bacon-grease-in-everything-for-good-measure cookbooks....full of good recipes that aren't politically correct or health conscious at all!

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a Cowboys and Indians magazine outside the library on the "Free! Take one!" pile, thinking it would be a good one to leaf through while I was waiting on the bus in the afternoons.  And it WAS interesting, in a more-money-than-good-sense-Western-style sort of way.  Angus saw me looking at it and wanted to look at the "cowboy" magazine, so I innocently handed it over.  It immediately became HIS cowboy magazine. (You know, because possession is 9/10ths of ownership...) He poured over it, page by page, chattering about all the fascinating things he was looking at.  One article in particular, though, captured his attention: a review of a Texas cookbook, with a full page picture of oysters on the half shell. 

"Can you make this for dessert, Mom?"


"Well...probably not for dessert.  But if we could find oysters, I could make it."
(What are the odds of THAT happening here in Eastern Montana, right?)


"And you could make this one, and this one, and this one....please?!"
(Pointing to all the pictures...)


"Well, baby, I'd need the recipes to know how."
(There are no recipes with this article. Ha HA!)


"Here's my cowboy cookbook.  IT has recipes!"
(Pointing at the photo of the cover of the featured cookbook...)


"Mmmmhmmm..."

I really thought he'd drop it and lose interest after awhile, but he didn't. At least once a day, he'd dig that magazine out and show me the pictures, requesting that I make those "cowboy desserts".  (It's like being pecked to death by a chicken, when he gets an idea in his head and is trying to persuade me...)

Finally, this week I gave in and ordered the dang cookbook Texas Eats: THE NEW LONE STAR HERITAGE COOKBOOK WITH MORE THAN 200 RECIPES by Robb Walsh.  I was praying that it had at least a couple of recipes that I could make to appease the child...

Two days later, the cookbook arrived!
Here's Angus after I handed it to him...

My cowboy cookbook!!!!!!!

Happily, it's a GREAT cookbook!  Recipes like Stacked Enchiladas with Pork and Red Chile, Espresso BBQ Rub, and Pecan Torte with Caramel Topping....

(Did you drool on the keyboard, just reading that? No? Well, I did!)

I haven't had the opportunity to make any of the recipes, yet, because he packs the book around with him everywhere he goes.  I think this weekend, though, we'll try a couple!

Take me out to the ball game...

Last Saturday I took the kids to their first baseball game! Our friend Aaron Carroll (aka Sparky...you may remember him from the Christmas post) coaches baseball at Dawson Community College in Glendive and his team was in Miles City for the weekend, playing in a little round-robin tournament.

We needed to go to Miles anyway, to get Maggie new footwear, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Disappointingly, it was COLD...bonechilling cold...and Sparky's team was playing in the morning at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

We did as many errands as possible before heading to the field (we may have been waiting for it to warm up a little) and caught the last couple innings of his first game, which they won!

Maggie and Angus, all decked out in Boston Red Sox gear.

Maggie sat down, watched a little of the game and started saying very loudly, "Youk! Youk! Youk!"

We really were wishing Youkilis would appear out of nowhere, wearing a DCC Buccaneers jersey, but no such luck.

It was a lousy place to try to take pictures without an uber-telephoto lens.  I was quite a ways away, standing on a little concrete stump and balanced precariously over the chain link fence to get these pics. 

Here's the team...Bucs in a box, sort of! I think Sparky said he had 22 or 23 kids on the team.

Love the swing!

Safe!

Trying to steal, but headed back to 1st and safety....

 This picture cracks me up! I have no idea what the boy was doing, but you'll see that both feet are off the ground.  Taking off? I don't know, but it's an interesting shot.  (When I went through the photos, I got all distracted by the people in the background.  THAT'S an interesting story unto itself, really.)

We didn't sit in the stands, but beyond the fence in the outfield. Maggie and her two friends from school gave up the game pretty quickly and played hard.  They found this huge patch of ground that had been plowed up and happily dug, rolled around, and ran through it.

Angus had had enough baseball by the end of the first game, so he went to stay with Grandma Banana (my mom) while Maggie and I went to the second one.  It sort of warmed up...but only when the sun was out, five minutes at a time. We had a great time and plan on attending more games this spring and summer!

Up all night

Saturday night was my night to watch heifers, this week.  We were down to 17 and supposedly between the big cycles, so the Boss (my FIL) decided I could handle it. But he would be in the Big House, on call, should I need any assistance.

When we night calve we get up every two or three hours to walk through the heifers and look to see if any are starting.  (More on that later...)

Some of my friends and family know that I have a hard time shutting my brain off at night and am a terrible sleeper; if I'm awakened some time in the night, it's nearly impossible to go back to sleep.  So, when I'm the one to watch the heifers, I'm generally up for most of the 9 hours I'm there.

Here's the bed I don't really sleep in....

When I do try, the common method is to take off the coveralls outside and slip into the sleeping bag in full wardrobe.  It's faster, warmer and more efficient all around.

This is the camper that houses the bed, inside a shop in the country. Nice because it doesn't rock in the wind, it's warmer and there's electricity.  It looks kind of funny, but it works!

The coffee pot is my friend, not surprisingly.  I only drink it from 3 o'clock on, so that really has nothing to do with the insomnia.  I think I'm pretty much the only one who ever makes coffee, since the guys seem to be able to get up, slog around the corrals in the brisk night air, lay back down and sleep like rocks until the next alarm goes off. 

The coffee I make in the camper is hot, strong, stale and sour.  I need to get new grounds out there, but what I'm looking for is hot and strong...that's what I get alright!

Snacks! And a little microwave on top of a dorm refrigerator!

They're not very nutritionally sound, but they give quick energy and ALSO entice children who come to visit during the day.  We've noticed a spike in shop visits since the camper moved in.  Coincidence? I think not.

Houdini Marie, my partner for the checks.  She didn't show up until about 3 a.m. because she has her own perimeter to patrol: "stray" cats to be discouraged, mice to catch, garbage can inspections.  It's really an honor that she makes time for me at all, really.

The office....the shop bench where the heifer book is, notes from previous nights, tags, flashlights, drill bits, TP (essential), bucket of assorted shop "things", tape measures...everything!  The heifer book contains all the eartag numbers, ultrasound information on days bred, sex of calf, notes about the calving experience for that cow, date she actually calved.  The yellow pad has notes to the next person about what happened that night. (All the writing on it in this picture is the beginning of a letter, not my calving notes!)  And, of course, my coffee cup. The beverage is now cold, strong, stale and sour...

This is the view just before I go into the corral to wander through the heifers.  The barn has great lights that the Boss lets me keep on all night.

I'll go in and shuffle the girls around, looking to see if anyone has started calving.  If I see a heifer that's getting ready, I try to put her in the barn or a pen by herself. It was beautiful weather on Saturday, cold and clear, but when it's snowy and sloppy, getting the heifer where she needs to go becomes a lot trickier.  Fortunately, we have such nice tempered cows that they don't fight me too badly. 

The heifers grew weary of me checking that night.  I ended up having two that calved and I'm a worry wart, so I was down there a lot.  Like, every thirty minutes from 3 a.m. on.  You could practically see them roll their eyes....

Here's 088 and her heifer calf in the barn.  I didn't have to put her in a pen, just in the barn, and she had the calf with no problems.  The odd thing was that when I was trying to get HER in the barn, she had a friend that didn't really want to leave her side.  I looked at 017 really carefully, because she was talking a lot, but she sure didn't have any signs of imminant calving so I left her alone.  When I went back out at 4:00, she was talking away and I saw that she'd calved.  From zero to calf, in 45 minutes!  No problems there, either, but she was still cleaning the little bull calf off, so I checked 088....baby cleaned off, up and sucking...perfect!

I did my last run through around 5:30 a.m. and left my notes before heading home for real coffee. 
When the weather is good, night calving is almost enjoyable for me.  But when it's bad, it feels like punishment!  We have a great set up, easy to move cows from pen to pen, and the bunkhouse is nice and close.  Anyone want to come and join me for a shift?

This week, I learned...

• it's never a good idea to try to apply liquid eyeliner after a good strong cup of coffee.
• eighteen hours is a long dang time, no matter how you cut it.
• if I have a good plan for a meal, it'll just be the kids and me.  If I was just going to have sandwiches and the crumbs at the bottom of all the potato chip bags, there'll be a crowd. Guaranteed. 
• that if my day was spent monitoring the Manning drama every hour, it's an indication of two things: 1. I need to get a real life, and 2. I may like football a little too much.
• akin to the first point, never have a glass of red wine and shred cheese.
• leis are like tiaras; one should always be kept on hand for special moments.
• there's such a thing as too much yogurt and too many episodes of Woody Woodpecker.
• the driver's seat of my car does not make a good mobile office. (Yes, I parked it first! I KNOW you all were thinking that...)
• cheap printer ink is no bargain.  Especially on board meeting days.
• to keep reading in a book that was chosen for bookclub but had questionable, even shocking content in the first fifty pages. 
• snails are very uninteresting pets, once they've been captured and jarred. We may have to break down and buy Maggie a horse...
• that I truly do run faster if I pretend like I'm in a 5K.

Just dough it...

One of my life's missions is to find THE perfect pizza dough.
THAT'S a worthy pursuit, don't you think?  I mean, other people are trying to find a cure for cancer, the lost tribes of Zagawa, new natural resources, and so forth.  This pizza dough quest has really been neglected by well-meaning folks who are distracted by more lofty pusuits, so it's up to me to find it.

Last month, Bon Appetit offered up a cover with this pizza and the bold claim that within its pages was the secret that would enable me to "Make Pizza Like A PRO!"

Snagged.
I was immediately snagged by that headline, not to mention the puffy, yummy looking crust in the photo...
See for yourself:

Kinda makes you think you want to, NEED TO make pizza like a pro.  Tonight.

I happen to know another blogger, Tammi Grimm Littell, who is a food nut (I say that with all fondness as a fellow nut) and who has made it a monthly challenge to make the recipe off the cover of Bon Appetit when it comes.

Let it be said that I almost can't turn down a challenge.

It will be the death of me, because someday someone will challenge me to a wheelchair race in the nursing home, I'll miss the obvious corner because I've forgotten my little diamond cat eye glasses, and BAM! it'll be all over.  But what a way to go, huh?

Last night, after a pomegranate martini, I thought, "I'll take her challenge!  I WILL make the pizza dough!  And it will be the best in the world." (Thus ending the quest...)

I gathered all four ingredients, rubbed my hands together and made zee dough.

It WAS rather nice, but I was concerned about how little yeast there was.  It seemed proportionately wrong.

I read through the entire recipe (for the first time, mind you) and was shocked to discover that the dough had to rise at room temperature for.....get this.....

EIGHTEEN HOURS.

Eighteen hours!!!!

As Tammi said, after I relayed my dismay, "Who plans pizza 18 hours in advance?"

Apparently, the great Jim Lahey from whose book the dough recipe comes.

We're ALSO supposed to plan a relaxed, informal pizza party for the next evening in which the guests each assemble their own pizzas with ingredients like goat cheese, caramelized onions, pecans and so forth. Each pizza is to be cooked individually, on a pizza stone, until bubbly and crusty.  (See the picture; Exhibit A)

Now, I live 80 miles from goat cheese, don't have any takers on the caramelized onions, save myself, and it does NOT sound relaxing to cook 15 pizzas, one-by-one, all evening. 

I'm going to include the recipe with this post, Part One of two, so you can try it too.  You know, if you have an extra couple days...

I'm STILL waiting on the dough, although it's riz (from Little Women) and is now sitting in the refrigerator for our supper.  I'll take pictures so you can see if it was a win or a fail. 

Ingredients


•7 1/2 cups (1000 grams) all-purpose flour plus more for shaping dough


•4 teaspoons fine sea salt plus more for seasoning


•1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast




Preparation


No-Knead Dough


•Whisk flour, salt, and yeast in a medium bowl. While stirring with a wooden spoon, gradually add 3 cups water; stir until well incorporated. Mix dough gently with your hands to bring it together and form into a rough ball. Transfer to a large clean bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let dough rise at room temperature (about 72°) in a draft-free area until surface is covered with tiny bubbles and dough has more than doubled in size, about 18 hours (time will vary depending on the temperature in the room).


•Transfer dough to a floured work surface. Gently shape into a rough rectangle. Divide into 6 equal portions. Working with 1 portion at a time, gather 4 corners to center to create 4 folds. Turn seam side down and mold gently into a ball. Dust dough with flour; set aside on work surface or a floured baking sheet. Repeat with remaining portions.


•Let dough rest, covered with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel, until soft and pliable, about 1 hour. DO AHEAD: Can be made 3 days ahead. Wrap each dough ball separately in plastic wrap and chill. Unwrap and let rest at room temperature on a lightly floured work surface, covered with plastic wrap, for 2–3 hours before shaping.

(I halfed the recipe, not being quite ready to host a relaxed, informal party on an untried dough...)

To Make the Pizzas

• During the last hour of dough's resting, prepare oven: If using a pizza stone, arrange a rack in upper third of oven and place stone on rack; preheat oven to its hottest setting, 500°–550°, for 1 hour. If using a baking sheet, arrange a rack in middle of oven and preheat to its hottest setting, 500°–550°. (You do not need to preheat the baking sheet.)
• Working with 1 dough ball at a time, dust dough generously with flour and place on a floured work surface. Gently shape dough into a 10"–12" disk.
• If using a pizza stone: When ready to bake, increase oven heat to broil. Sprinkle a pizza peel or rimless (or inverted rimmed) baking sheet lightly with flour. Place dough disk on prepared peel and spread about 3 Tbsp. crushed tomatoes over dough. Tear or crumble some mozzarella over top. Using small, quick back-and-forth movements, slide pizza from peel onto hot pizza stone. Broil pizza, rotating halfway, until bottom of crust is crisp and top is blistered, 5–7 minutes. Using peel, transfer to a work surface. Spoon a few dollops of stracciatella over pizza. Garnish with crushed red pepper flakes, oregano, and olive oil. Season to taste with salt. Slice pizza. Repeat, allowing pizza stone to reheat under broiler for 5 minutes between pizzas.

Frog Squeezin'

Reluctantly,
I'm supposed to inform someone about a guest post I wrote for Tiny Paragraphs.

(Mercer Mayer has great frogs and this book cover is funnily apropos...)

My friend Shannon Popkins (I call her Poppie) is a free lance writer and has a really great blog that she faithfully posts to: Tiny Paragraphs.  About two months ago (maybe?) she tossed out an invitation to her friends to write a guest post for her blog and she'd choose a different one every Monday.  To be honest, I truly wasn't going to do it.  Poppie has some writerly, wise, funny friends that I know about through the great Facebook web and I was a little...uncomfortable, I guess....at the idea of my post being in the middle of theirs.  I have a book sitting on my shelf by one of them and I really admire his writing and faith. 

My friend Alice wrote one and I love her viewpoint and grace, and it happened to follow Chris Brauns' post, the writer of whom I spoke.  Now, C.B. is Alice's pastor and she made a funny comment about how it was hard to follow his; I seconded that thought in a comment and immediately got two messages telling me that I HAD to write a post. 

So, I did.  In ten minutes, with need for heavy editing which is Poppie's specialty anyway!
She posted it this Monday with firm instructions to tell people about it.  It's now Wednesday and I'm finally going to put the link out, mostly so Poppie and Chris don't unfriend me on FB. 

My obligations are over!

Frog Squeezin'

New Tunes

Last week,T.O.A.S.T.B.A.  asked what song I would likely next load on my MP3.  I never know what's going to strike me or when, and honestly had no idea!

Well, instead of more Cuban music, which I'm really liking right now, I ended up downloading Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days", followed by Harry Chapin singing "Flowers Are Red", and finished it off with Lost Immigrants' "Waiting on Judgement Day".  So, now you know. (Because you were dying to know, I'm sure...)

The music I really want to tell you about, though, comes from a documentary about some older, traditional Cuban singers that was produced in 1997, released in 1999.  The documentary, itself, is fascinating because each musician is interviewed in his or her space in Cuba, with a performance in New York's Carnegie Hall.  All the musicians were 65 or older....in fact, I'd say most of them are in their mid to late 70s, really.  Most don't speak English, so much of the interview is done with captions, and all the songs have captions so you know what they're singing about. Angus and I got up early one morning, about a month ago and watched the movie, which tells you how good it was; a five year old watching a documentary in another language about old people.

That afternoon, I downloaded their album, because the music wouldn't leave my head...only, in my head, it wasn't as good, you know?  I play it when I'm preparing lunch or supper...it just feels right, then.  Sometimes I have to stop, get my red heels and dance properly while chopping onions.  I think they'd be wonderful on an outdoor sound system; there'd be a barbecue and a dance would break out!  Maggie and Angus like them, too.  Maggie usually gets our her paints when I put the Buena Vista album on and gets busy. The song Chan Chan is the first one I heard and still my favorite!  (The actual words to it are a little risque, but it's fun to watch the ensemble perform.)

If you'd like to read more of their story, go to the Buena Vista Social Club website and check them out!  Have your red heels handy...

A Bookclub Looks at Buffett

At last; the post you've all been waiting for...
Last night was our Buffett bookclub gathering!
Let me just get one thing out of the way and then I'll report on the whole mess: there were no bikinis.

It almost didn't happen, though, like I had it planned.  For one thing, as of 2 p.m., the luau decorations and supplies STILL weren't here.  Oh, they were out for delivery, UPS reassured me, but that could mean 5:30 p.m.  One can't very well have a tropical themed party in the middle of Eastern Montana in March with two  pineapples and some shells gleaned from the bottom of the toy box.  And it's not like I could forage outside for decorations! Miles and miles of dead, brown grass, cowpies and the occasional sagebrush....

The UPS truck DID show, just in the nick of time!
Maggie and I RAN to meet the driver...I'm not lying...we RAN.  He was a little startled. (I can't imagine why; I hadn't had a shower and had been cleaning all day in my most glamorous tshirt and mom jeans, and Maggie was frazzled from the school day.)  Signed for the package, we ran into the house, he peeled out of our yard...the party is ON!    

You've never seen a house go from "cleanish trailer" to "tropical paradise" so quickly. 
Parrots, grass table skirt, candles, shells, backdrops...it was like getting a prom set up in 20 minutes with a four foot tall helper. 

You can't read it, but the black hat with the pink lipstick motif says, "I'm the woman to blame!".  My mother in law went to a Margaritaville restaurant in Florida a couple weeks ago and brought it back for me!  (She says it's for when I work cows with the guys.  I can't imagine WHY she'd think it was appropriate there.  :)

Little take-home bags with wacky nail polish, cocoa butter lotion, tropical beverage stir sticks, paper umbrellas (of course) and flowers for their hair.  Maggie helped me make them up in 10 minutes!

Okay, so the decorating was done...time for a shower.

(I'd have give quite a lot of my sister-in-law's financial resources for a margarita just then; guests arriving in 20 minutes, still need to prep the pork.  And that's after I get hair and makeup done! It has to be done, you know, because I boldly advertised photos to my blog readers. Dang, dang, dang...)

Showers would be a lot quicker if women didn't have to shave their legs.

I'm just sayin'....

Tossed on my Hawaiian party dress, ran a comb through my hair, looked for my makeup...

Drats!

I left it in the car yesterday!

Well, no big deal, right?

Big deal.

BECAUSE...

That very, exact moment in time, the Garfield County Sheriff chose to put on a clinic for the new deputy on how to start and shift the official deputy pickup, right there in my yard. 

That's right.

Roscoe P. Coltrane and Enos were there to retrieve the pickup, but it wasn't a start-'er-up-and-get-'er-into-town process.  They were trying out the microphone, the computer and everything. I mean to tell you, he was thoroughly training on this girl! (Do you suppose THAT had anything to do with the level of instruction? Hmmm...)

Whatever.

I had guests arriving in 10....9.....8....minutes!

Where it gets tricky is that if Roscoe spotted me in my Hawaiian floweredy dress, he'd talk for just ever.

He'd PROBABLY invite himself to the party, because, you know, it was a fun looking shindig if the decorations were any precursor to the festivities to follow.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Finally, they walked around to the other side of the rig, I took my chance and bolted for my car.

Made it back to the house without being spotted....glory hallelujah!...and ran to the bathroom to apply spackle and frazzle mah hay-ah (my hair).

During this time, unbeknownst to me, (SERIOUSLY Traci and Joni...I truly did not hear it!) Roscoe had wrapped up the seminar and was knocking on my door.

Traci and Joni pulled in, just before he was to make a rescue, thinking I was lying dead on the floor.

I'm not even joking.

He thought something was very wrong, because I was obviously home and not answering the door.

(And I thought I over-reacted to dumb things!)

Still no margaritas.

But, hey...homemade guacamole and chips, coconut bread, sweet potato fries, fruit skewers and conch fritters!

We'll survive.

About 10 minutes later, Anne and Marisa showed up with the key lime pie and....moment of silence here...margarita mix and tequila.

Buffett playing, adornment with leis...

Let the party begin!

And it really did.

Here are some of the finer moments...

Margaritas, child...make haste!!!

(She measures, I don't; made it interesting as Anne had never made margaritas and I have made a couple.)

Shrimp!

And big, honking earrings...sheesh.

Please note the umbrella.  I had 144 of those babies; we'll have umbrellas in our drinks...tea, chocolate milk, whatever...for another five years! Also, the green thingie hanging down by Marisa?  Parrot tail feathers, of course!
Incidentally, we were astonished Anne made it to the party, much less able to be upright.  She'd just been home one hour after a Denver trip and picking up her mother in law at the airport in Billings. 

Please...someone comment on this woman's Bermuda shorts.  She was perhaps a little upset that she was the only one who dug a pair out and was brave enough to wear them! (I was in a dress, with equally white legs AND shoulders, so I didn't want to hear about it.)

Fryin' the fritters!  Which were AMAZING, by the way.  A-MAZ-ING.  I'm gathering up recipes to share with you, because you all need them. I need them.  I think if all we'd had to eat were the fritters, we'd have been good. But we did all the food justice.  We're polite that way; even going back for seconds to make the cook feel VERY good about her potluck dish....

Discussing deep, important things, such as "What's YOUR favorite Jimmy Buffett song?"

Oh...we DID discuss the book for a few minutes. It was not a big hit, but I don't care...it was a fun read for the dark month!

Around 10, Wayland returned to go to bed or something....I don't know....and I asked him to take a group picture.

It was a process....

We had a reluctant participant.

(She was the only one who had not had a margarita.)

 Action shots...

It got a little wild.

Well, she's in the picture, but she's hiding.  This is where the photographer said that it looked like Anne all of a sudden sprouted big hair.  We lost it, again!

This is as good as it gets!

We missed Susie, but I have a take-home bag for her and we'll see her next month, I hope!

OH!

And the book we'll be reading is Anne's selection:

South of the Border, West of the Sun  by Haruki Murakami

The time has come...

to address something that has driven me crazy for YEARS;

 an encounter that fills my heart with dread, brings tears to my eyes, makes me feel like such a failure...it's simply awful.

It's fresh on my mind, because this week I had another traumatizing experience with

the S.C.A.L.E. at the doctor's office.

(That's right.  I capitalized each letter on purpose, because evil entities really need identified by their proper name.  Somehow, the acronym for  "Suicide Contemplation After Looking Eventhoughyoucan'tstandit" is appropriate.)

I am STILL wondering how in the world the scale at the doctor's office can weigh me in at not three, not five, but EIGHT stinking pounds more than my scale at home does!  Actually, I'm not wondering, I'm just mad.

Don't try to make me feel better by saying it's the clothes. 

It's not the clothes.

I dress VERY purposely on doctor days when they come in the lighted decent apparel I own.

I even wear light socks, if any at all.

I don't wear heavy earrings...minescule hoops.

I take off my rings.

I take off my shoes.

I take off any sweater or scarf or hair thingee or name tag.

Which brings me to my NEXT aggravation about doctor's scales:

WHY do they not put them in a private little room where the door can be shut?

Do I hear an amen?

Why do we have to be measured in the very public hallway where, well, first of all, we can't completely disrobe and get our weight down to a managable five pounds over. And then, every doctor, nurse, patient, Pepsi delivery man seems to walk by while I'm standing there on the S.C.A.L.E., trying not to cry, wishing I hadn't had that sip of water before coming in to my appointment.

Which brings me to my FINAL frustration:

I can fast for a solid 24 hours, only take enough water for my medication, use the bathroom seconds before weigh in, breathe shallowly (Does air weigh much? I don't know. It must. Something like three pounds with each intake, I'm thinking...)

Still....eight pounds over my home scale.

And just so you know, you can't "accidentally" kick the darn thing while you're putting your shoes back on, because the nurse notices that and chides you.  It probably gets written up in your chart.  She probably adds two pounds in retribution. I'm sure she does.

I wonder if they just design these professional instruments to tack on extra pounds, some wicked "Watch this, Marge...I think this one will actually swoon when she weighs in; buy you a Diet Coke if she doesn't..."

It's probably some medical lottery to liven up the office.

Whatever it is, it can certainly take an already uncomfortable situation and turn it into a half hour of defensiveness and "But I run and eat fruits and vegetables like you can't believe, Doctor.  Really. I do!"

S.C.A.L.E.s

Next appointment, I'm scheduling in July...I swear I will!

It'll push the envelope on "lightest decent apparel" but if I go to Walmart afterward, I might become famous...

Changes in latitude, changes in attitude...

We still have a book club....I know, it's been so long since you heard about it, you may have been wondering if it still existed, but it does and this month, we're reading Jimmy Buffett's A Pirate Looks at 50.  And we're having a luau-themed party to discuss this deep, extremely multi-faceted book.  :)

Jimmy's music makes me laugh and his book did, too.  I love that he's very upfront about who he is and what he enjoys, how he got to be where and who he is, that he's a curious lifelong learner and embraces people of all walks.  His book reads sort of like a blog; he'll spend some time in remembrance, bounce to the here-and-now, profile a character, take the reader on a flight to Trinidad....you just never know where it's going to turn.  He's a very positive, bright writer who has a pretty generous spirit where life and people are concerned. And he's just funny. 

Here he talks about taking his seven year old son through a breakfast buffet at the Hyatt:

I woke up and my gaze was met by a small pair of emerald-green eyes inches from my own.  I don't know how long Cameron has been awake and looking at me, but there he is, larger than life.  It's a great feeling to wake up with my son beside me, or rather in my face.  "Hi, Dad! Let's get some French toast," he says.

The Buffett boys dress quickly and head for the breakfast buffet, where a line of early-bird Christmas tourists has already formed.  The smells of breakfast have our stomachs growling.  A buffet is not supposed to be a complicated meal- cereal, juice, coffee or tea, eggs and bacon or pancakes.  But the Christmas breakfast buffet at the Hyatt is just too much of an opportunity for the food and beverage manager to pass by.  There are ice sculptures of swans, banana-leaf-lined food trays, and an omelet chef.  The line is backed up like the Long Island Expressway on the Fourth of July.  Suddenly the line is brought to a halt by none other than Cameron.  He has stopped dead in his tracks just past the ice sculpture of a pelican.  He is sniffing the air like a retriever with his tiny upturned nose.  "Look at all that bacon, Dad."

In front of us is a platter larger than his red wagon, loaded to the edges with bacon.  He looks up at me with those wide green eyes, and I connect to his conspiring thoughts.  It's just us boys.  We have fled the International House of Women for a day, where skim milk, fresh yogurt and protein powder rule  the morning meal.  All of that stuff is available here, but I load him up with bacon French toast, and sausage, making sure there's plenty for the old man as well.  Bacon is the quintessential representation of something that tastes so good and is so bad for you.  I remember times in our sailing days when I would start the morning at sea by frying up a pound of Oscar Meyer bacon, which we would devour with hot bread, jelly and butter as insulation against the carcinogens.

And that's how Jimmy Buffett writes.

This Friday, we're having our book club "discussion"/luau/fiesta at my house....

Leis! Margaritas! Flip-flops! Coconut shrimp! Bikinis!
Okay, probably not bikinis (I know of three bookclubbers who just gasped out loud at THAT), but we're going coastal and it's going to be fun! 
AND...because it's Friday and no one has to work the next day, AND the barnacles are having a sleepover at their grandparents' house, the party could last indefinitely...'til 10:00 at least.  (Can you believe how wild and crazy these girls are? 10:00 PM?!?! Cohagen will be abuzz with the news...)
AND...because it's MY house, there WILL be photographs.  (Which ensures with 100% certainty that there won't be any bikinis.)

If you want to get an idea of what the book is like, this YouTube video, "King of Somewhere Hot" pretty much encapsulates the entire thing, except you don't get to see Jimmy's son in the Hyatt breakfast buffet line with the red wagon-load of bacon....

What's YOUR favorite Jimmy Buffett song?

First Calf 2012

It's a tradition...we take a picture of the first calf, every year.  It's funny, because as I look back through the files, here are 10 first calf pictures, all little knobby kneed, fuzzy, clumsy little black Angus calves in very bleak March-in-Montana landscapes, with worried young mamas.  And every year, it's exciting! Babies!

*Maggie was being a grump this morning, not happy that we went went roaring out to the pasture to see the new baby. "It's just another calf! I've seen thousands of calves in the pasture!" and then she wanted to know if it was a bull calf or heifer.  I told her it was a bull calf and she gloomily said, "Well, that's just great.  The first calf of the year and he's going to be hamburger when he grows up..."  *big, dramatic sigh*

So, for those of you wanting baby pictures, here's 066 with her baby....you know, the future Angus burger at your friendly, local steakhouse.

We didn't get too close, so these pictures were taken with my big lens.  She was a nervous little mama and I didn't want her to take off with him; she had him down in a nice little coullee where he was sort of protected from the wind.  It's so hard to take a picture of a black calf standing next to a black cow on a cloudy day....

Isn't he beautiful? And she's SO pleased with him.

This picture really shows how young this mama cow is.  See how her face still looks almost baby-ish, still?

There you go.  Brand new baby on the prairie, the beginning of calving for the year!
It's gorgeous weather for it, supposed to be up in the 50s this week during the day, and very little snow.
Let the games begin!