Superstitious?

You've been warned. No one really knows why the day has such a bad reputation, so ignore it and get on with your life. My life today involves packing for a warm climate, one of the happier chores.  We're leaving this unseasonably chilly weather behind and leaded south to Palm Springs for a short vacation.

We'll have lots of company at the little Palm Springs Airport tomorrow, as this is the start of the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, drawing 250,000 people. Affectionately dubbed "Oldchella" because it attracts so many baby boomers.  Getting the rental car will surely be an exercise in patience, but once that's done, we head out of town to Desert Hot Springs. We're staying at an old spa motel where we've never been-- a dicey proposition but the website and reviews looked good. I made the reservation almost a year ago and was lucky to get anything. Then back to Palm Springs for the rest of the time.  We are staying right in town, and can walk most everywhere.

We're looking forward to the usual things-- nothing as exciting as Beyonce at Oldchella, but relaxing, like desert hikes and a drive to Shields Date Garden. Oh yes, this time I this booked a "celebrity bus tour" of Palm Springs.  It sounded like fun-- you get to peer over hedges and fences at homes once owned by Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.

I'm taking my laptop, and if I don't get too lazy will check in with some photos along the way.  Have a good weekend!

Here a tweet, there a tweet

Twitter is nothing more than a social media "micro" blogging service with a 280 character per tweet limit. But apparently enough to communicate complex issues of state, American domestic policy and foreign affairs.

I noticed that since 2009,  I've written 2,669 "macro" blog posts-- surely enough words to solve all the problems of the world by now. That is, if I didn't waste time writing about things like Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day.  Yes, April 12th.

Desert perfection

I was just about to write another boring post complaining about the weather, then Amanda came to the rescue this morning with another picture of Nova on their desert trip.  And if that doesn't make you smile, nothing will.

Busy doing nothing

Honestly, this new pastime seems to be bringing out my OCD tendencies.  I got obsessed with freehand drawing this castle, and of course couldn't get the perspective exactly right on those battlement things. 

Ditto, here's a William Morris design that you could mess with endlessly and never be done.  Perfect for the OCD personality. Well, this awful weather has to improve sometime, then I'll be too busy working outside to have much time to sit and doodle.

Despite my portrayal of self as a cross between Martha Stewart and Picasso, I spend an inordinate amount of time doing plain old housework.  The other day when I lifted this rug to clean, the vinyl pad had adhered like glue to the wood floor. That unfortunate discovery launched a big hands and knees job with a plastic ice scraper, stiff brush and wood floor cleaner.

Poor, poor pitiful me.

From desert to rain forest

It's amazing, isn't it, how far you can travel in just two hours on an plane?  We had a short but sweet visit with the desert campers Saturday afternoon. They headed back home to the Methow Valley early Sunday.  They had a great time, although after several nights of dry camping seemed happy being back in the super-saturated Northwest. It rained all weekend, but fortunately the big windstorm never materialized.

We heard about some cool desert adventures, especially canoe camping on Lake Powell.  They had the full national park crowd hiking experience at Bryce and Zion.  And of course, one of the big highlights was visiting with Aunt Marji and Grandpa in North Las Vegas. No surprise, The Strip just wasn't their thing, and walking through the stinky, smoky-smelling casinos provided a memorable teaching moment. Both girls declared over dinner "We will NEVER smoke cigarettes," and we said, "Amen to that!"

Back to school and work for everyone today.  Amanda starts her new second job as a District School nurse, commuting to the town of Pateros on Thursdays. We are proud of her, but their busy family life is about to get even busier.

Always so hard saying goodbye to these sweet faces, but we'll see them again soon. 

Chung King

This is what passed for "Chinese food" when we were kids. It seems unbelievable, but I didn't eat in a real Chinese restaurant until I was in my 20's. I remember having sweet and sour pork with that sticky orange sauce and thought it was delicious.

In the 1950's, fast food hadn't really been invented yet, we lived in a small town and families seldom ate out. It was just too expensive. John says he remembers having Chinese food once or twice growing up, but he lived in the metropolis of Columbus, Ohio. 

Mom was a good home cook, but frugal by necessity. She had to feed a family of five on a shoestring, at a time when groceries were a significant part of the household budget. With mayo and celery, she would stretch a single can of tuna into five sandwiches or make a supper casserole: mushroom soup, canned peas, crushed potato chips. Oh, I still remember that smell.

Mom also made us many good things from scratch and especially liked baking, but like most housewives of that generation, she took full advantage of the convenience of canned and processed food.  The meal I dreaded most was canned chow mein with those crispy noodles. Something about the combination of hard noodle with the slimy canned vegetables and weird brown sauce. John says his mother also made it, and being a supremely picky eater, he probably refused to eat it. But believe it or not, he likes these crunchy noodles.

Because I love him, I bought a bag and said I'd make him some old-fashioned chow mein. We have stir fry at least once a week, always with brown rice. The chicken chow mein recipe on this bag had more crunchy vegetables like celery, water chestnuts and bean sprouts, so I thought I'd try it.

 

Stir fry isn't hard to make but it's definitely hands on cooking, so you have to enjoy messing around the kitchen.

 I always fry the chicken pieces first in a very hot wok...

 Then the vegetables get a quick stir fry...

 Finally the cooked chicken goes back, along with the sauce to thicken up...

 And then, a crazy expensive pile of bean sprouts.

It was good and John liked it. I skipped the hard noodles.

Well, the weekend is almost here and it looks like a doozy. A big rain and windstorm predicted tomorrow, right about the time Amanda and family return to Seattle.  But today is the calm before the storm, dry and 65 degrees, so I took a steak of of the freezer to christen the new grill.  A little break from all the chopped up, braised and stewed food we've been eating lately.