Java Davis's Blog, page 9
May 5, 2016
Update: Mina, My Cat
If you missed my previous post about Mina, she’s 16 and she’s dying. Her thyroid, gall bladder, and liver are a mess. She’s turned yellow, stopped eating, and she’s ticcing alot. She weighs almost nothing, and her skin is so loose, we have to be careful picking her up, avoiding folding her skin on itself and hurting her.
My husband and I are hearbroken, and so are Mina’s veterinarians. All of us are powerless to do anything more than love her and try to feed her. Quite literally, every new day with her is so precious.
I know that all of you fellow pet owners are nodding in sympathy. Thank you for that.
May 2, 2016
Recipe: Baked Sweet and Sour Meatballs
http://wp.me/p51aKx-mL
Recipe: Baked Sweet and Sour Meatballs
It occurs to me that I haven’t shared a recipe in a while, and since I am mentally and emotionally distracted by the slow deterioration of my cat, I thought it would be easy to give you guys the recipe for tonight’s dinner. For those of you who don’t use Fahrenheit, you’ll have to do your own recalculations.
INGREDIENTS:
1 T lemon juice
2 Ts sugar
3/4 cup water
1-1/2 cups tomato puree (not yellow tomatoes)
1 lb. ground beef
2 Ts onion, grated
1 egg
Condiments
DIRECTIONS:
Make a sauce with lemon juice, sugar, water and tomato puree. Heat in saucepan. Mix remaining ingredients and shape into small balls, the size of large marbles. Drop into the hot sauce. Cover pan and cook for 1 hour in 350° oven.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
They’re easy to make, everyone loves them, and they’re great in sandwiches.
LOVE YOU GUYS!
April 27, 2016
Mina, My Cat
Meet Mina, my cat. Mina started life as a kitten in a house full of large dogs, four, to be exact. When she turned two, the family decided that they had too many pets, and they turned “Gemini” in to the SPCA. Mina was devasted to be taken away from her family and put in a cage, so she was fostered out.
Enter me. I was looking for a cat on the website Petfinder.com, where I found a cat that got along well with large dogs, such as my Labrador Retriever. I went to the foster’s home and the cat took to me immedately, curling up next to me for a nap. It was a done deal. I brought her home, changed her name to Mina, and she and my dog became best and devoted friends.
That dog has been gone for a long time now, and I’ve had Mina for 14 years. So, she’s 16, and she’s very sick now. She has thyroid disease, gall bladder problems, and jaundice. As of today, she’s on steroids and anti-nausea medication. I’m keeping up with her thyroid medication, too.
Mina can expect perhaps two to six more months. She sleeps with me every night. I miss her already.
April 24, 2016
Book Review: Here, There, Elsewhere (5 coffee beans)
Although I’m not a man, I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that this collection of road vignettes is a manly book. I picture someone reading it before a crackling fire, surrounded by a pipe, slippers, and a resting dog.
Even as a youth, William Least Heat-Moon knew that he was a born traveler. He didn’t just go to exotic places. He drove to places in the United States that appealed to him for one reason or another, such as his homage trip to the home town of William Faulkner [see excerpt below]. The stories aren’t mere travelogs. Mr. Heat-Moon covered history, topology, weather patterns, and local townsfolk, immersing himself in all of his locales. He drove, walked, hiked, observed, and wrote, entertaining his readers just by being himself — interested, descriptive, humorous, and thoughtful. Here is just one sample paragraph from this unique book:
“We rolled on through the pines and rusted soil, past washed-out cotton fields and eroded hill farms, Franklin’s commentary flowing almost without pause. Once the afternoon heat came on good, he wound us into a copse to a worn cabin, its paint sun-bleached here, peeled to bare wood there. In a metal lawn chair sat a man, grandly bellied, in bib overalls; he was about seventy years old. Franklin said to us, ‘Come meet Walter Miller. We call him Uncle Buddy.'”
— excerpt from A Little Tour in Yoknapatawpha County (2013)
I hope that the author and the publisher will forgive me for stealing a paragraph that is meant to introduce the prospective reader to this wonderful collection of road trip shorts. I hope I’ve enticed you.
April 22, 2016
It's Tonight!
Passover starts at sundown tonight. I’ve been working for two days for my holiday table and evening order of service. The shame is that it’s the same amount of work for five people, as we will be, as it is for twelve. But we have a nice little group, and it’s going to be fun AND delicious.
If you’re not celebrating Passover this weekend, I wish all of you a wonderful weekend anyway! Have some fun!
It’s Tonight!
Passover starts at sundown tonight. I’ve been working for two days for my holiday table and evening order of service. The shame is that it’s the same amount of work for five people, as we will be, as it is for twelve. But we have a nice little group, and it’s going to be fun AND delicious.
If you’re not celebrating Passover this weekend, I wish all of you a wonderful weekend anyway! Have some fun!
April 19, 2016
Who’s Traveling This Summer?
Who’s traveling this summer, and where are/were you headed? Please share.
I leave in three weeks for my second road trip of the summer, to Cambridge, Maryland.
April 16, 2016
Passover 2016
Passover 2016
I have friends, a married couple, who converted to Judaism about four years ago. I routinely invite them to my house for the Jewish holidays since their family is all still Christian. Passover is coming next week, so it’s time to get out the special dishes, flatware, and special Passover religious items. It’s time to make sure that the menu is Passover friendly, diabetic friendly, salicylate allergy friendly, lactose intolerant friendly, and not too spicy.
This year, I asked my convert friends if they would like to lead the Passover seder. It will be their first time, and they’ll be among friends. We’ll still hold it at my house, so that I can concentrate on the rituals and the meal, and all they have to do is be the leaders. I’m excited for them, and it gives me something of a break this year, since I usually lead.
I wish I could convey to all of you the intensity of celebrating a holiday that our ancestors have celebrated for centuries. When we share matzoh, we’re eating the bread of our ancestors. When we recite the prayers, we are reaching back in time, sharing the same prayers with our ancestors when they were freed from slavery in Egypt. This is the gift that I am giving my convert friends this year — the gift of reaching back in time.
