Stealth Huck

     Poor Huck the cat -- I stepped on one his front paws last night while being a goof (stumbling down the hall when I knew I was too dizzy to move quickly; the variable weather in recent days has played hob with my sinus/whatever issues).  He had to go hide for awhile but was walking normally in a few hours.  I checked him out as soon as I could.

     This morning, he was nosing around in the office while I was online.  I heard various rustling noises...and then an odd bong!  Looked around and he was nowhere to be found.  A few minutes later, Tam walked in and I remarked that I'd thought my cat was in the room but couldn't see him.

     Several minutes later, Tam said, "Look where your cat is now."

     I turned and looked. Nothing.  "What do you mean?"

     "Look."

     And then I realized the curtains behind her desk -- the curtains of the Forbidden Window, into which cats are not supposed to go -- were waving ever so slightly, with the rhythm of Huck's tail when he is watching wildlife. 

     Tam opened the curtains and Huck turned to give her an innocent look.  "Out!"  She closed the curtains. "And not across my desk, either."

     Huck whacked at the curtains, then managed to open them.  Tam closed them again.

     "No, Huck!  --Bobbi, rattle some cat food, willya?"

     I went to the kitchen and he was in the room looking up at me soon after I opened the treat cabinet.  Yes, that's my cat.

    

Chicken-Fried Bacon With White Gravy?

     Yes, they make that and so can you.  I haven't ever, but I hope to....

     I did try applying my white gravy recipe to sausage the other day -- a 50/50 mixture of country sausage and chorizo results in a light-orange gravy, very good over day-old crusty bread.  It's similar to the gravy at Zest! Exciting Food Creations, which I'd had there a couple of days ago.  I'm not certain chorizo is the secret ingredient in their "Double Sausage-Sausage Gravy," since my version was a deeper orange and I think there's a bit of paprika in theirs, but it could be.    For the record, I had a Billy's Big Bowl, with scrambled eggs and cowboy potatoes smothered in the stuff, about as satisfying a breakfast as can be had.

Book And Mortar Brickstores

     Awhile back, there was -- as a kind of sideshow to the "mostly Baen authers vs. SJWs" whatever-it-was, or possibly the other way around -- a flap over the author's-eye-view of Amazon vs. the traditional publisher/bookstore model, and to a lesser extent, the reader's perspective of same

     I had trouble really engaging with it.  Just "Meh."  Tonight (or early this morning, depending), standing in the kitchen looking out at the dining room-library, I finally realized why.  There are something over 5000 books in there (and elsewhere), mostly SF, and of that number, less than five percent were purchased new.  Many of those were bought via Amazon.  What've I bought new?  Most of the C. J. Cherryh books, a fair amount of Elizabeth Moon and Lois McMaster Bujold, reprints of Robert A. Heinlein books and his last three new novels and collections; recent Ursula K. LeGuin and Kim Stanley Robinson,* plus H. Beam Piper reprints and most of Michael Z. Williamson's SF.† The rest of it -- thousands of books -- I bought used.

     I grew up not poor but by no means well-off, and a considerable distance from the local public library, which kept a few shelves of SF with the children's books.  School libraries were pretty thin, too, a good assortment by not nearly enough of it.  I was and remain a fairly voracious reader.  Harvey's Book Exchange, a dark and cluttered building filled with used books, had plenty of Science Fiction and you could fill a brown paper grocery sack‡ with books for five bucks.  It was the start of a lifelong habit and I watched the demise of the small-scale used book store in recent years with alarm, though the later rise of Half-Price Books has made up for it.

      Visiting the new-book seller has always felt like an extravagance.  Visiting the used book store was a necessity.  And it still is.  I like my Kindle a lot but I like shopping for books more.
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* Oh, dear, looks like I'm some kinda borderline commie.
 
† Or not.
 
‡ Ask your parents, kids.

I Don't Want To Say People Are Stupid...

But I was on the Book of Face and got roped into a discussion of the risks and benefits of vaccination. If you run the numbers, Junior is statistically better off getting his shots -- but hey, he's your kid. And perhaps your quarantine.

In the midst of the discussion, I made the intentionally Swiftian suggestion that you could clear up all the debate in a hurry by re-introducing smallpox. I figured there would be outraged responses to this and that I might even find myself banned for a few days.

Ha! Nothing. Nothing from either side. A smallpox epidemic could be as bad as the influenza epidemic that followed the First World War, possibly even worse -- and not a one of the debaters even blinked. That was it for my participation in the thread. There's no point in hangin' with idiots, even when most of them are nominally on your side.

Ropeburn Warning?

     If I worked in an ER, I'd be getting ready for "Fifty Shades Of Wrist and Ankle Injuries."  It's a movie, y'hear? --Professional drivers, closed course, Do Not Try This At Home.  But they will.  Yes, they will.

Reserve Your Lunar Landing Spot Now

This is kewl: Bigelow Aerospace and the FAA have worked out a system to reserve landing space on the Moon! You still can't claim or own land (yet) but this is a step in the right direction.

Local TV Covers Goofy Gun Lawsuit

     Seems a local FFL sold a firearm later used to injure a police officer and it turns out to have been a straw purchase.  Now the officer has teamed up with the Brady Center To Prevent Handgun Ownership (or whatever it is they're calling themselves these days) to sue...not the straw purchaser, nope.  They're suing the dealer, presumable for not having a telepath on staff to do deep background checks.

     This despite State and Federal laws shielding dealers from such suits.  This despite the straw purchaser having passed a Bardy Bill-mandated background check.

     The news story links this with ballistic tracing and leads me to suspect we may see some Bloombergian agitation for "universal background checks" in Indiana -- which would not have prevented the straw sale and subsequent shooting.

     "Make it illegaller" rarely works.  But I guess going after the root causes of crime is way too much heavy lifting and generates too few headlines to interest politicians and lobby groups.

Head....Not Empty....

     But what's in it is mostly pain.  Temperature went from the relatively balmy mid-30s to 8 overnight (that's from 1 to -748 in Canada, slightly higher in the EU due to VAT and overseas shipping), barometric pressure did something and now--

     --Now I have the kind of headache where you see spots.  I took something (ibuprofen is totally a thing) over an hour ago.  I might as well have had M&Ms.  Oh, this is fun.

     Meanwhile, per the Book of Face, Bernie Sanders has declared verbal war on the Koch brothers.  I say let's give 'em brickbats and fence off a block of demolished buildings in the Bronx or Brooklyn, and see the networks will televise it.  My money is on the Kochs; sure, they're older, but they're wily.  Maybe we can start a trend.  Indeed, it's cruel and favors the young and strong -- but it'll make a nice change, shake things up a little.  It's got to be better than having us expendable little folk fight for both sides as proxies.

     (Yes, yes, sure, the Koch brothers are Teh Eeeeeeevil.  Remember what C.S. Lewis said about robber barons vs. do-gooders? No?  Here ya go.)

"Compresssssed Air....Can Kill!"

     A safety message from a British in-factory radio station, 1970s, warning that compressed air isn't as benign as you might believe.  Clever production, carefully non-specific so as not to give fools any bright ideas.

     ...Meanwhile, Tam just reported that a survey has over 80% of respondents think there should be a law against "three-parent babies," with mitochrondrial DNA from a third source.  This is only useful to prevent certain birth defects, but I guess "tampering with nature" is (in their pea-sized brains) wrong or sinful...in a way that eyeglasses, dentistry, appendectomies or boob jobs is not.  Just like vaccination, amirite?  (Peanuts, out; correcting birth defects at the start, out; toy guns, right out -- but haul your measelly, mumpsy whelps off to $THEMEPARK and public school?  You betcha! It's your divine-issued right!

     Here, dimwit, play with a tank of high-pressure air.  Don't look directly at the nozzle!*

     ...Sometimes I'm not sure compressed air has done enough killing.  But it would mostly take out the idly curious instead of targeting nitwits anyway, so....
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* In the interests of safety and caution, I will point out that my intended-joking reference to laser safety does apply -- but you can do fatal harm with a strong-enough burst against skin.  And we're not even going to discuss deliberate and inadvertent projectiles.  Compressed air isn't a toy.

What, That Old Baggage?

Saddle up the drama lama, we'll ride it into town!
We'll get mad and mutter, "I'm-a gonna..." and at least we won't feel down.

Yes, saddle up the drama lama with the baggage of our years
Issues from Junior High and grade school un-huh, nunya business if there's tears.

Saddle up the drama lama, climb aboard and lope away
Rant and rave and wallow in feelings from dark night to full-bright day.

But just this time, I'm slightly wiser, I'll only ride a wee short way.

*  *  *

This is based on nothing online and nothing here at Roseholme Cottage or at work.  Some people do thrive on strife and conflict (and not always appropriately, Mr. James Bond!); some people only really feel alive when they're irked, annoyed or plan angry.  I grew up with a parent who, despite what I believe were huge efforts to the contrary, rode an emotional roller-coaster.  Having three clever, glib and stubborn children didn't do anything at all to help.  As a more-or-less grown-up, I can see the signs in other people; but at some level, I'm still the kid who can't stop it and usually manages to do or say the exact wrong thing.

     If you grew up around it, it's a darned easy roller-coaster to climb aboard.  I still succumb to the temptation occasionally myself, but these days I'm a chickenheart and try to make it just the kiddie ride, short and not too bumpy. (I suspect too many close calls with real-world danger may have burned me out on it.) It's difficult when someone wants to haul you back on board a real thrillride but I'd rather not go.  Is there an AA (or even AAA) for people with mood swings?

Sci-Fi Movie Props, Zeppelin Surplus...?

     Restoration Hardware, which is similar to a trip to a museum:

     Couldn't begin afford it (even if I had room for it) and, sadly, the not-always-well-sunk flathead Philips screws used to hold the nifty aluminum skin on the frame of the streamlined chair don't really resemble rivets on close inspection.  But it sure is pretty to look at.

Saturday Dinner

     We'd gone to Goose the Market before the furnace acted up, see?  And picked up small amounts of delightful deli-type meat: Black Forest Ham, sopressata, waygu bresaola....  It made for delicious snacks, but sliced transparently thin, even a little is a lot.

     Time had passed.  When you have thinly-sliced, salt-preseved meat in the fridge, it needs to to be wrapped up tightly and even then, it wants to dry out.  Last night, I found that we needed to finish off the bresaola, which is lovely Italian-style dried beef....

     ...Dried beef....  I realized there was only one way to proceed: SOS.  Creamed chipped beef on toast!

     I'm told Uncle Sam has been ruining this stuff for over a hundred years.  I don't know -- all I ever had was the kind Mom made (excellent!) and the version you find in the freezer case (not bad, in fact).

     White gravy is a kitchen staple, just fat, flour and milk.  You probably have the fixings right now.  I was low on butter, so I ended up about half that and half olive oil; added flour to make roux, cooked carefully over medium-low heat so the gravy stayed light (roux can go from white to very dark, depending on what you're after).  Once it looked bubbly-cooked and smelled toasty, I whisked in milk (and a little bit of dried shallot), got it barely to a boil, and backed off the heat, whisking madly all the while.  Then I alternated between snipping in the beef and stirring until it was all in.  After eight minutes or so, the gravy thickened up nicely, it smelled heavenly, and when poured over toast, it was ambrosia.  A bit salty -- the beef might've benefited from a quick rinse -- but it was better than any CCBOT or "SOS" I've ever had.  Tam licked her plate clean.

     (If you're wondering, a little over 2 tablespoons of the fat, about 2 tablespoons of flour and a cup and a half of milk.  Shallots, no more than a quarter of a medium onion's worth.  Each serving got a quick grind of mixed peppercorns and I added dried chives to mine.  You could make this with thin-sliced ham, too, or use it for sausage gravy; in the latter case, use the sausage grease for the fat, adding more butter or oil if needed.)