Smoke

Once again we smell the fires

It's been an interesting few weeks. Living in interesting times and all that. We lost our friend Barry. That sucked. He fought the cancer like the true competitor he always was, but eventually it won. We cancelled our upcoming trip back to Israel cause bwo's aunt in San Diego is not doing all that well. Life at squint central has been quite stressful. Bso is visiting and that has been nice. Now once again there are fires in N California. Our generator arrived and while many other communities around us have been without power for a day or two, so far we have been spared. May it continue so. 

Denatured Alcohol and Mini Veggies

This is now ridiculous. I popped over to the local Lowes on the weekend to buy some denatured alcohol. I like the "green" kind because it was 95% ethyl alcohol. It works well for diluting shellac which I use for French polishing guitars. At Lowes the usual shelves were empty, so I drove over to Home Depot, there too, I was out of luck. So I asked at the paint counter. "Sorry, denatured alcohol is now banned in California. You can thank your governor". I was floored. Why denatured alcohol, it is pretty innocuous? I used to use Everclear (grain alcohol) when we lived in Israel, but that too is banned here in California. 

So what am I to do? I immediately went home and ordered a gallon off Amazon. It has not arrived yet, hopefully it's not stopped at the border and send back home. Which seems to be the fashion these days

The lovely people at Squint Central wanted to send "flowers of condolences" after the mother passed on. While we were in Houston I explained that Jewish people usually do not send flowers, but rather food for the Shiva. Well, we had no Shiva cause of the Jewish New Year, so I expected nothing. Last week a wooden box (from Harry and David) arrived filled with perfect mini vegetables. Perfect except for the artichokes. Did you know that even the deer will not eat artichokes. Evil things.

Bwo grilled them up with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Served with some brown rice and a balsamic mustard reduction (I think that's what she said). It was perfectly delicious. And the wooden box will find a new life in my shop. 

Let there be light

It's been an interesting few days. We got power back last night after PG+E shut us down for two days due to the "fire risk caused by high winds". Well, wind-mageddon turned out to be quite underwhelming in our part of the world. The power shutdown not so much. We got to experience life with no lighting or oven for our post-Yom Kippur breaking of the fast meal. The stove top grilled cheese was delicious as was the matzo ball soup. We had gas and hot water, so it was not all that bad. Besides having to throw out a fridge full of food, we did OK.

I have to take credit for ending the power shutdown. I knew that as soon as I bought a generator, all power will return. So I took one for the neighborhood and dropped the cash on Amazon. When that did not work immediately, yesterday morning David and I drove over to his house and dragged his (very heavy) UPS over to attempt to save the fridge contents. The UPS only managed about 30 mins of juice before it gave up. But of course that hassle tipped the scales and power was restored soon after.

It's interesting how the lack of electricity effects life. Bwo and I were asleep by 7:30pm (as soon as it got dark). We actually read books and spoke with one another. I got to go off to work each day while bwo had to stay home with no internet. The horror!

"And there was light .... and the light was good"

Queen

I saw this on FB and had to smile (Not sure who created it could have been a Mr. Knote)

Nextdoor

When we lived in Raanana there was the "raananalist". A mail-list run by English speakers for English speakers. For a while online you could get recommendations and find interesting tidbits (preferred American spelling, the rest of the world uses titbits) of Anglo life in the suburbs North of Tel Aviv. Over time it degenerated into a whole lot of moaning, some political, some religious and I lost interest. For a while though it felt like you did not have to live in Raanana, all you needed to do was read the raananalist and it was as if you were there. The whole 80% of life in the Holy Land in mailing list digest form.

Since we moved to the US, nextdoor is quickly becoming the new raananalist. Same thing but US based and therefore so much more noise. I love it. I enjoy that every day there are a surprising number of people who have lost dogs and cats (usually related to the spotting of coyotes in the area) and pretty much the same number have surprisingly found dogs and cats. But every now and then we get some wonderful posts. You can only guess what "Mouth breathing chicken" covers (he was posting for his wife, their chicken was making a wheezing sound, the post quickly degenerated into a treatise on the quality of locally raised eggs). Then there was the classic "Stolen Tortoise" post. Turns out it had escaped and was later found, but this was only after a long reply on how there is a lucrative trade in Desert Tortoise eggs and one should have 24hr surveillance as it is likely their property was being watched for a convenient tortoise robbery. The post signed by someone with the following qualifications: "Missing Persons & Sensitive Crime Investigations". I love California. There is a staggering number of people that do not stop at stop signs. As opposed to the raananalist, there is no problem with "lashon ha-ra" (the religious moderators frowned upon bad mouthing others), on our Nextdoor there are some very incriminating photos. 

The "For Sale & Free" section is useful and I must admit I have scored some interesting tools: A mini mill and a lovely original US made Porter Cable 690 for a fraction of their value (to me). Happily bwo shows no interest, which is great, because we would end up with another house full if she watched these deals. She posted once, but needless to say no one wanted the couch she got from the neighbors when they moved. No one would take it, not even for free.

She's hard at work crocheting mandalas on the patio.