Look Out Below!

     When I got home from work Monday, I found this:

      A big branch, one I had noticed was dead and was planning to call our tree guy to remove, had fallen off and landed partially on the garage roof.  Plenty tired, I rolled it off and figured I could clean off whatever else was up there on the 4th.

     When I was leaving for work Tuesday, I looked back at the garage before closing the overhead door -- and there was a nice, bright patch of sunlight just to one side of the person-door!  Yes, a stubby limb of the branch (or is it the other way around?) had punched through the roof, shingles, roofing felt, surprisingly-thin OSB and all.

     It took ninety minutes (and a call to my boss) before I had a tarp over the hole.  It's got to cross the roof peak, or it's useless to keep the rain out.  That took a lot of tarp, six concrete half-blocks (up a ladder.  With a bad knee.  There's a trick to it), a long piece of rope and improvised ground anchors. 

     Afterward, I was soaked to the skin; while doing the work, I was perspiring so heavily I had to get Tam to bring out a roll of paper toweling: there was so much sweat in my left eye that I couldn't keep it open long enough to navigate and the right one was almost as bad.  That convinced me to put my hat on before continuing.  It took a good half-hour to get cleaned up and dried off; nothing I'd been wearing was dry enough for work.

     Work went well enough but once home, I fell asleep on the couch after a microwaved dinner.  Barely got awake enough to unfold the futon and put on my nightgown and enjoyed seven blissful hours of slumber before Huck realized it was 0600 and he was going to starve to death unless he was fed immediately.

Leftover Steak, Leftover Salad: Steak Salad!

     Down in South America and around the Pacific, they make ceviche, which would be sushi if it wasn't for the citrus juice or other acid, which as-good-as* cooks the fish, and if it had fewer ingredients.  By the time the dish had worked its way as far north as Mexico, some clever cook had looked at carne apache, and dreamed up a beef version of ceviche.

     One of the Broad Ripple brewpubs has had a "ceviche salad" on the menu for years.  It's good, but it uses cooked beef, which is more suited to pub fare.  (I don't know if they cook it ahead of time or keep it sliced in thin strips and ready to go on the grill; either way would be quick and safe).  I like it, and have kept the notion filed away for trying at home.

     Monday night, I had leftover rare steak and leftover salad with plenty of fixings; on Sunday, I taken Tamara to the grocery hungry and ended up cooking three steaks for the two of us that evening. Steak number three was left over.  Grilled steak keeps well for a short time; I ziplock-bagged it, squeezed out the air and put it in the freezer.

     So there I was, thawing steak in the microwave (ours has a "thaw" function that works pretty well).  I fried a strip of bacon while the steak was thawing.  Once thawed, I sliced the still-cold steak into strips about 1/8" by 1/4" by an inch, browned it quickly in the bacon fat and set it on paper towel on a plate under a saucepan lid to drain.

     The salad was a "spring greens" blend, to which I added celery, carrots, sliced green onion, red bell pepper, cherry tomatoes and black olives.  I snipped up the greens with scissors -- I love greens, but there's no need to munch through a whole leaf at a time! --added the cut-up veggies, dressed (a good Italian), added the steak and mixed like a madwoman.

     It was marvelous!  The steak still had plenty of the grilled flavor and aroma, and all the freezing, thawing and recooking had only made it more tender.  It's a dice roll whenever you do something like that, but it worked out nicely this time.
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* In terms of flavor, that is.  Wikipedia goes on about the risks, which are the same as the risks for sushi.

It's A Flame War

     Modern voting patterns, that is.  "Vote for crazy, vote for the person who most makes the other side the most angry.  Just don't vote for more of the same old same old."  It explains a lot.

The Grapevine & the Fox: A Parable

     ...A slightly fractured parable.

     One day a beautiful bunch of grapes hanging from a Grapevine on a tree limb high over a trail saw a Fox approach.  The grapes were ready to burst with juice and the Grapevine longed for them to be eaten.  The Fox stopped and gazed up at the grapes, tongue lolling.

     The Fox was far below, and the Grapevine did its slow, vegetative best to uncoil and drop lower.  The Fox jumped but came far short.  The grapes swayed in the breeze, slowly lowering; the Fox tried a running leap, the grapes kept dropping, but they never came close enough.  The Fox tried and tried, and finally stalked off, head high, tail in the air.

     The Grapevine looked after the Fox in disgust.

     "What an idiot I have been, wearing myself out to try to get a toothless old fox to eat my lovely ripe grapes and scatter the seeds.  Foxes don't even like grapes."

     And it coiled itself back up, slowly and scornfully.

     There are many who pretend to despise that which is beyond their reach.

That Went Well

     Steak grilled over hardwood charcoal (with a little truffle butter I needed to use up), sweet corn roasted in its own dampened husk over the coals, baked potato and salad: all the food I cooked was ordered over the Internet and delivered to my door fresh, and as good as if I had picked out out myself.

     Tasty, and well worth the Sun King "Sunlight" cream ale I had with it, a very rare indulgence.  (Grape tomatoes and radish enhancing the salad, I already had on hand.)

Living In The Future?

     Just ordered the makings of a grilled steak dinner from Amazon Prime Now.  We'll see how it works out.

Maryland Newsroom Shooting

     It didn't happen out of the blue; the shooter had a long-running grudge against the newspaper (since a 2012 report on a harassment suit against him) and when discussing filing a restraining order, one of the staff had told the paper's attorneys that "this is a guy who will shoot us."

     He used a shotgun, not an "assault weapon."  He was almost certainly legally prohibited from possessing firearms.

     Maryland's gun laws are strict; the Giffords Law Center seems to have taken over from the Brady people on handing out letter grades and they rate Maryland A-, just like New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and a few other states.

     But the paper never filed a restraining order; the killer was able to walk right up to what are described as the "glass doors" of the newsroom with a longarm and shoot them to smithereens, which suggests that physical security was inadequate.

     Blame the gun?  Shotguns are one of the most widely-owned and least-expensive firearms in the United States.

     Blame the law?  Maryland has nearly every law gun-controllers might want.  It didn't stop him.

     Blame the paper?  --True, they made an inadequate response to a known threat -- but newsrooms deal with angry people bearing grudges every week, if not daily.  It's been a part of the "background noise" of the news business for decades and winnowing the real threats from the idly irked or harmlessly loony is difficult if not impossible.*

     Blame the NRA?  They didn't put the shotgun in his hand; and if he was indeed prohibited from owning guns as a result of his criminal history or a restraining order, that's a law the NRA is happy to see enforced.

     I don't have any easy answers and I'm not about to test the ire of concerned people by offering "thoughts and prayers."  This is an outrage; murders are always an outrage, always a tragedy.  I don't think there are any nice, neat ways to prevent them.

     We can expect the usual arguments to be thrown back and forth.
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* My workplace puts a greater emphasis on security than many others in the news business -- but we've got bigger budgets.  The dreadful calculus is that you get as much of the security your bosses think you need as your employer can afford.

Here We Are

    Well, that was fun -- Tam showed up at my work noonish and I drove her over to the orthopedic specialist, so she'd have a (nominally) responsible adult around if they decided to get really interventionist about her collarbone.  We arrived at the office with a comfortable ten-minute margin, only to be told by the I-couldn't-care-less young woman at the counter that Tam's appointment was still forty minutes away, at 1:10 p.m. rather than 12:40, "And they're all at lunch, anyway."

     Tam checked the Official Text on her phone, which still read: Appointment, 12:40.  Okay, there's always slippage.

     Lunch sounded like a pretty good idea to me, so I asked, "Where do people go for lunch around here?"

     Miss Congeniality reluctantly admitted there was a cafeteria on the ground floor.  I gathered up my things -- hat, purse, cane -- and as Tam and I turned to go, it suddenly dawned on on the medical recptionist that we were, in fact, leaving, and she chided us, "If you leave now, I can't keep you checked in and if anyone gets back from lunch early, you'll miss out."

     No lunch, then.  We picked chairs in the waiting room and sat down.  The only other person there had rolled in on her own chair, so there were plenty of choices.  Over the next few minutes, more and more people showed up, one with her cellphone notifications set on maximum volume, which charmed Tam.

     What we didn't know -- from the evidence later, what no one in the waiting room knew -- was that the extra half-hour was for X-rays, which has its own waiting room across the hall but which is all "walk-in;" and they stagger their lunches, so the work never stops.

     So one after another, patients were parceled out to exam rooms, nurses did the usual pulse and blood pressure checks, Physician's Assistants followed for intake and imaging review...and sent them, one-by-one, across the hall for the X-rays that should have been shot when they first showed up.  Why the Muse of Unhelpfulness at the intake counter was unaware of this -- or at least didn't stoop to mentioning it -- remains a mystery.

      The doctor says Tam is healing well.  Handstands are still out of the question but she's on track to be back to normal, probably before summer ends.

Taking Tam To The Doctor

     It's Tam's follow-up appointment with the orthopedic specialist today.  Hopes are high but your positive thoughts would be appreciated.  Has her collarbone started to knit up?  She'll know a little bit after noon today.  She'll likely still be stuck wearing a sling for the next few weeks either way, but progress is progress.

     My next ortho appointment is still a couple of weeks away and it's anyone's guess what they'll say.  Still using a cane most of the time; at this point, I can't even fake it well enough to visit a big-box store without limping and needing a cart to hang on to.  I can just about get through our neighborhood grocery store without limping much, if I don't dawdle.  Ice packs every night and during that day when possible, but my darned knee still feels hotter to the touch than the rest of me.

They Have Convinced Me

     One of Indiana's Senatorial seats is up for election this year.  Democrat incumbent Joe "Almost a Blue Dog" Donnely and Republican challenger Mike "The Working Man's Pal" Braun (and their various Committees To Support...)  are continuing to wage negative campaigns, focused on the alleged venality and duplicity of their opponent far more than their own qualifications to serve. Both men are sons of the wealthy families, working hard to seem like "plain old guys" and entirely blind to the source (or even the existence) of the crease in their slacks and the shine on their shoes.

     After months of it, I have come to the conclusion they're both right: neither of them are to be trusted with anything with a bigger budget or payroll than a lemonade stand.  I'm taking each man at his word about the other: the United States Congress is the last place either one should be.

     The Libertarian Party of Indiana is running someone: Lucy M. Brenton.  She's good on the issues, a right-down-the-middle Libertarian.  She's raised a passel of children, which I figure is probably better preparation for serving in the Senate than being the boss's son.

     Does she stand a chance?  Not if you don't vote for her!  Why throw your vote away on some guy who hasn't even got the decency to be who he is, and instead plays at being someone like you?  You can do better: vote for someone who is at least an outsider to the political power structure, someone who is most likely to go off to D.C., do her homework and vote her principles!

Yes, It's Monday

     Another weekend of big plans and small achievements is past, my knee is swollen and painful despite sleeping with an ice pack on it, and I've got to go do physical therapy again.

     I'd like to be cheerful and upbeat -- and I'll probably manage, at least a little, for the sake of those around me, but I'm feeling more beat-up than upbeat.

Farewell To Jack The Cat

     He was 26. He was a long-haired, gray and white feral tomcat who lived next door. He would always "talk" to me and often came to the fence to be petted. He loved attention, and would purr and smooth on your hand for as long as you'd let him.

     He came up on our front porch this afternoon, talking away, and I went out to pet him. His fur had gotten very matted over the winter and he'd been getting thinner and thinner, despite our neighbor feeding him every day. The neighbor came over soon after and remarked he'd been to see the neighbor on the other side of her yesterday. She said he hadn't been eating much recently. He was a little shaky as he walked around.  But he burbled and purred as we petted him.

     My neighbor called several hours later. She'd found Jack curled up in her garage, in pain and unhappy. She took him to the vet. He died there, with her petting him.

      We'll all miss Jack. He couldn't stand to be indoors for very long at a stretch but he was a good cat. I'm glad he visited me to say goodbye.