We currently store the carnival masks in the header photo in the top shelf of a glass fronted stereo cabinet. It is hard to see them.
I want to display them some other way, perhaps in a shadow box or something on the wall. We have a really good frame shop in town, and I would like to have some ideas before we go in to talk with the framer.
How would the Baboons display these masks? What sort of display and framing do Baboons prefer?
Well, if there is no job to go to, no socializing to get on with, weather too cold for comfortable gardening, what’s left? Reading and cooking. Cooking it is!
My next-door neighbor, Rita, texted me last week to know if I needed any garlic. When I said I could always find a use for garlic, she said that was a good thing. She’d ordered garlic as part of her online grocery shopping and instead of one head of garlic, she got one POUND of garlic. I was thinking she would bring me one head, but she brought me THREE! Here’s the first thing I did:
Garlic & Cheese Roll Up Bread
1 container/portion of pre-made pizza dough
6 big cloves of garlic
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 slices provolone cheese (or any cheese you have on hand)
2 Tbsp grated parmesan (optional)
Roll up! (I made little slits in mine and rubbed a bit of olive oil on it)
Enjoy! (But take the photo before you and YA eat most of it!!!)
What would YOU do with extra garlic (or what is your favorite garlic dish?
Caveat: The following observations are only representative of my neighborhood and cannot be reliably applied to other areas.
On my daily walks with Guinevere, I’ve noticed that the Adirondack chair is the most popular chair in my area. There are lots and lots of them, in all colors from natural wood to bright yellow and reds. While there are plenty of Adirondacks in back yards, there is actually a pretty high percentage of them in front yards and on front stoops and porches. Cushions can be found as well. In the backyard of one house on our route there is a beautiful double Adirondack in a dark pine green. There is even a house over on Penn with a whole row of Adirondacks across the front yard of a house – one in every primary color of the rainbow.
This is interesting to me. YA and I have two Adirondacks in the back yard – bright aqua (YA’s choice) and I don’t find them to be all that comfortable. You’re pretty much forced to lean back in the chair. Except for closing my eyes and taking a snooze, I prefer to sit up. For keeping up with conversation, for drinking a beverage, for reading, I need to be sitting up. And, of course, when it’s time to exit of a chair, an Adirondacks is not the easiest chair to get out of. Although for snoozing in while YA messes with a fire in the fire pit, they are quite nice!
Do you have a favorite chair or snoozing spot?
In the early 1980’s, I was a budding classical music audiophile who lived on a graduate student income. Winnipeg had a number of good record stores for classical music albums, and I wanted to make sure that I got the best albums for my measly disposable income. I was able to do that with a handy dandy guide courtesy of MPR and Mr. Bill Parker with Building a Classical Music Library. It was very helpful identifying good recordings and performers.
I hadn’t thought about this book for quite a while until Thursday night, when Husband brought it up out of the basement as we were trying to figure out what was so important about our vinyl recording from 1981 of Vladimir Ashkenazy’s piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition. Paging through the book, I realized how many treasured recordings we have that Mr Parker suggested.
One favorite recording from that period of my life is that of Percy Grainger playing Grieg’s A minor Piano Concerto. Grainger was long dead by the time of the recording. He made piano rolls of the concerto in the 1920’s, and a piano set up to play the rolls was recorded with the Sydney Symphony. Here is the same set up with Andrew Davis conducting at the London Proms in 1988.
What are some of your treasured recordings?
My mother did some gardening, but not a lot – the occasional rose bush but it was never a grand passion. She never asked me to help with anything in the yard, not even raking in the fall. None of my grandparents had the gardening bug either, so I’m not sure where I got the flower fever.
My plan of more flowers/less grass has pretty much come to fruition – there is hardly any grass left in the front. Although the more flowers/less grass situation does come with an unforeseen circumstance – mulch! We use a lot.
And in the more interesting turn of events, YA has made it clear that SHE is in charge of the mulch. She has opinions about what kind is best (cypress), how many bags at a time I should get (definitely 6), where it goes in the yard and who should be putting it down where (I get the boulevard, she gets everywhere else). This year she put down some of that black tarp on the northern side of the front yard and covered it with mulch as well.
Now we’re waiting for mulch to be re-stocked at the nursery – they were out yesterday morning – the latest repercussion of shelter-in-place – lots more folks are gardening!
Any gardening surprises for you this year?
Photo credit: Manfred Richter
One of the lawns along my walking route got an aerated overnight. As we walked by, I was struck how all the little sod pellets looked like goose droppings, although more brown than greenish.
There aren’t all that many geese where I grew up (suburbs of St. Louis) so I could not have made this comparison until after I moved here. If I hadn’t come to Minnesota, I probably wouldn’t know be a single parent. I don’t know if I would have finished my college degree. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t know what hot dish is.
Imagine you are still living in the city of your birth. Tell me how your life would be different.
I had to remind myself repeatedly yesterday that it was Tuesday.
I realize it’s only the first week of my furlough, but I’m wondering how long every day will seem like a weekend day? And when will I get used to it?
Do you have specific days for specific tasks?
