C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 76

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join up via the Registration link and simultaneously write to me as cj@cherryh.com…explaining you’re a real person, and I’ll approve you in: tis the holiday shopping season, and 28 spammers showed up since last night…the spamcatcher is missing some. I have no idea how many actually tried, but I get unforgiving for anybody who has certain cues in their application that are common to spambots. I can tell you that no one with an account named freedatesrus is getting through the wicket.

Slowly getting better…I think I turned the corner yesterday…

At least I’m down to the nasal nastiness stage, and am due for a sore nose before this is done, I think. Jane is having a little flare-up with her tooth in the middle of it all, and she’s got a call in to her doc.

But I show signs of having a brain. I caught myself thinking yesterday. That was welcome. Even if I did put the razor side of the magfloat aquarium cleaner on the outside…

The bug resurges…gah!

Now I’m chilling—every afternoon. At least it’s consistent. Jeans, heavy teeshirt, floor length velour robe, socks, and three blankets, and a feather quilt, and that is enough to finally get me warmed up again. The crud is now a sore throat, I think because my ears are involved; and my eyes are scratchy. Really, really avoid this stuff if you can.

Jane’s got new pix; and a TexMex quickie…

EVERYBODY’s got da bug…

A real fast easy TexMex dinner for 2 that’s legal on our diet…

You need: a small jar 1 and 1/2 inch—diced canned green chiles

sharp cheddar grated

sour cream

Ortega taco spice

diced chicken bits: I use Foster Farms: Tyson would do. Dice these with kitchen shears.

Embasa jalapenos.

Small flour tortilla (we use the high fiber ones)

In skillet with 1 tbs olive oil: heat the diced chilis over 7 heat on a 1-10 scale until almost all moisture has gone. Add diced chicken. Add about a tsp taco spice. Keep cooking until you’re seeing no moisture. Add a heaping tbs or so of jalapenos. Stir.

Lay out a tortilla. About 1/3 of the way from an edge lay down a fistful of cheese. Lay atop it the chicken chili mix; atop that, more cheese. Roll tightly and lay with the fold-end down in a microwave-safe dish. Microwave until cheese is well melted. Garnish with heaping tbs sour cream and dash of paprika.

You can start this and gather and prep your other supplies while the hot part of this dish is cooking. It comes down to a one-dish cookup followed by a quick assembly. You could do these for a party of 20 without overmuch stress, or cook two, save one for lunch. Moderate the heat to suit. Embasa brand jalapenos are about the mildest. And green chilis have a mild flavor: don’t be afraid of them: you could hardly even call it heat.

You could do this with pork or beef, too. Or do it as plain chili-cheese with tomato, say. One thing to watch is letting it get soppy from cooking. If you end up in a dish with too much water, don’t be shy about blotting the sucker with a paper towel so you don’t have a problem. This can also safely remove an excess of cooking oil, etc.

Tonight, however, neither Jane nor I wanted anything too heavy, so we called out for pizza. One effect of this crud is a towering desire for thin-crust pizza.

Jane says she’s going to tackle the modem problem when she has a brain…

As aforesaid, she has come down with the crud: I still have a touch of it. We’re invited to a filk party tomorrow, but I think it would be wrong to go: it’s in a house where there’ll be a lot of people, and exposure to the stuff now, we judge by when Jane caught it from me, would set everybody in that house up to be sick for Christmas. Nope, nope, nope. I keep my plague-ridden self home. We thought I had picked this up from Jane’s brother, but I think I had to have been exposed a week earlier, to agree with when Jane came down with her case of it.

Nasty stuff! Use a lot of hand-cleanser and stay away from people who have a light cough.

Ahoy, Computer Geeks!

Jane, here. Have a dilemma, a time limit, and no brain.

We’ve been having problems with our modem. I have to take it apart, blow on the contacts and reset it every few days. We got a notice from Comcast that our modem was outdated. I ordered the replacement and it arrived, and…guess what? It’s a modem/router combo. A 2.4GH router. I already have a really good Linksys dual router.

Has anyone out there used this comcast combo? Is it any good? Is there any reason I couldn’t simply use it as a modem and plug it into my old router?

Some advice w/b really welcome. CJC has passed her crud on to me and feel like doggie doodoo right now and not up to lots of research and/or trial and error.

I’ll call comcast if I must, but I had a hard enough time getting it through to them the last time that we already HAD voice and they didn’t need to send someone out (for $$) to put it in.

Anyone who’s got some good Thanksgiving recipes, post away.

Gran’s Cranberry Sauce…not jellied.

A hand-cranked meat grinder works better than a blender, but either will do. (Blender gets things too ‘same’ and too fine.) Back off and use blender very slightly. You want chunks, not a puree.

2 packets cranberries. Discard green ones.

2-3 large sweet oranges

1 pkg pecan pieces.

Sugar if needed: taste as you go, but oranges should do it.

Grind berries, oranges, pecans, mix, chill.

If you wanted it gelled, cherry Jell-o might do it. But it’s better without. Us kids used to ask for this stuff as a before-dinner bribe and then again as post-dinner dessert, even with the lure of pies on the table.

So what are you planning for Thanksgiving dinner?

I think ours is going to be chili size…ie, a can of chili over spaghetti, topped with jalapenos, cheddar, and a dollop of sour cream. This is Jane’s favorite, and I think I am just about able to deliver that. The traditional dinner just isn’t going to work, this year. But with the pond frozen, and the temperature dropping, I think most of our ‘tradition’ is going to be the chili, watching people use mediaeval weaponry to throw pumpkins, and starting to put up the Christmas tree and such.

Jane had ordered a backup Wiishu—ie, a blank doll body/basic painted faceplate that could sub for parts for Wiishu in the event of an accident—because I really, really do not want to cope with Jane’s upset should something happen to that little fellow who is so dear to her heart. Well, the blank doll came, and to our vast surprise and dismay, they’ve very subtly changed the facial ‘sculpt’ and the painting has changed. The body is ok, and good to have that—but the face is—shock—different. Jane is coping. But it is not what she actually hoped to get. Waa!

She is, however, a very good painter, and sculptor, and because she is learning the art of these faces, I think she can change this little surprise into something more Wiishu-like—if need be.

Meanwhile, we’s curious. What’s everybody doing for Thanksgiving? Cooking? Eating out? Traveling? Having company?

The pond is frozen, but not our pipes…

We have thrown the two levers that shut off water to the yard, opened the outdoor taps wide, plus unscrewed the less-than-dime-sized little screw plugs that let air into the pipes for the winter, to drain any low spot and dry them out.

One thing we absolutely appreciate about this house…no 300.00 bill from the entrepreneurs who will ‘blow out’ your irrigation system and winterize your pipes. Our house takes two people 15 minutes. We clip a baggie with the two essential screw plugs in it to the pipes in question, and we’re good until spring, at which point we will screw in the plugs, throw the levers to open position, and la! we’re open for business with the garden hoses.

Jane’s off mailing a legal document and has stopped by Christmasland at the local Wallyworld where we get our fizz-bottles for the SodaStream. Wally world isn’t our favorite for reasons of how they treat their employees, but it’s the closest place for miles and miles where we can get those fizz-bottles, and they also house my optometrist, so we do go there now and again.

I’m finally feeling better. I nearly threw myself into a relapse yesterday, out there in the iris beds, but today Jane insisted I stay in and get well. It’s been offically 2 weeks now since I began to come down with this stuff. So it’s about darned time!

Temperatures dropping into the teens—got to do some lastmoment stuff…

Like whack the tops off the iris and drain the outside faucet lines: our fence is held up right now with a block of wood and some screws, and we’re hoping it lasts through the winter.