anniemiz

Fun with Zombies in Asbury Park

Dunno where the current fascination with zombies originated (maybe something to do with this?  somehow I doubt it...not enough penetration into the public consciousness).  Doesn't this sound like fun?  Then again, the undead are so interesting, they can't help but be the life of the party.

Ba-dum tsssh!

Asbury Park is hosting the NJ Zombie Walk today at 5:00 p.m. rain or shine.  Check out the Boardwalk's facebook page (you don't need to be in facebook to see it) or read about it in The Asburied Park Press on the walk's website.  Registration (free) and pre-walk events start at 11:00 a.m.  Fresh out of zombie makeup?  No worries: you can use the free makeup at the walk or get a professional zombification for a $10 donation to somewhere or other. 

They have a mess of stuff scheduled.  Some especially inviting tidbits:

• at 6:30 p.m., post-walk, the Zombie Fest begins with a Thriller performance by Asbury Dance & Yoga
• 7:00 p.m. - zombie beauty pageant
• 10:00 p.m. - Zombie Walk Official After Party at Asbury Lanes ($10 cover)
• roller derby in Convention Hall: The Jersey Shore Roller Girls v. Montreal Roller Derby (I've never seen roller derby; a rather mild-mannered friend is interested in doing this, so now I'm curious)
• among the performances, Tragedy: The All Undead, Heavy Metal Bee Gees Tribute Band; this in itself sounds pretty darn worthy of consideration

Much of it seems kid-friendly, esp. the earlier stuff, e.g., Dan Zanes at the Paramount in the afternoon.

There's even a bloodmobile (mind you, it's where you give blood).

Sounds like a ton o' fun...I just heard about it so I don't know if it's going to happen with us although the only thing we have to do today is pick up a mess of cat litter and deliver it to the cat shelter.  It's PATCH in Pompton Lakes, NJ and it's an all-cat, no-kill, private shelter.  Felix, the cat on their linked front page, is so freaking cute I'm gonna try and steal the photo and post it here.

As an aside, this was originally a bmp image, which TypePad won't let me use, but I just Googled how to convert bmp to jpg, which TypePad does like, and it was easy as pie.  Here's the link about converting.  You just need Microsoft Paint, which is usually included in Accessories.  Some of the Google results involved downloading software, which I disprefer bco the risk of downloading narsty stuff along with the software, so I was pleased to find this very easy solution.

There is an embarrassment of riches wrt zombie lolcats with which to end this post.  This is one of the cutest widdle zombie lolcats:

 

The tongue in this picture really adds a certain je ne sais quoi:

All this time I thought cats were doing something completely different when they did this:

Well, just goes to show, you're never too old to learn.

 
 

DVD: A Bit of Fry & Laurie

There's not many things better than a good laugh and British comedies are some of the funniest and silliest things to watch.  I love Hugh Laurie.  He's funny, talented and attractive in a goofy/dorky kind of way.  With the huge popularity of House, I feel compelled to comment on the show.  Unfortunately, while House is an interesting character, I think the show as a whole is lame.  Every episode I've watched seems to be a variation on the 'Oh, House, you're such a maverick!' theme.

BTW, his scruffy look for House?  Meh.  But let's focus on what I do like.  I loved him and Stephen Fry in Jeeves & Wooster.

 

Now, J&W is humorous, but it's usually not ROFLMAO funny.  Still, I enjoyed it tremendously and wished there had been more seasons.

Now, Blackadder is hysterical.  If you're unfamiliar with it, here's a pretty good description from Wikipedia:

Although each series is set in a different time era, all follow the fortunes (or rather, misfortunes) of Edmund Blackadder (played by Atkinson), who in each is a member of a British family dynasty present at many significant periods and places in British history. Although the character is quite unintelligent in the first series, he is increasingly clever and perceptive in subsequent generations (while decreasing in social status). Each Blackadder though is a cynical, cowardly opportunist concerned with maintaining and increasing his own status and fortunes, regardless of his surroundings. In each series, Blackadder is usually a cynical (almost modern) voice puncturing the pretensions and stupidity of those around him, and what might — through modern eyes — be seen as the more ludicrous and insane follies of history (from the medieval religious witch-hunts and the petty whims and insanities of various British monarchs to the bloodshed and horror of World War I).

The lives of each of the Blackadders are also entwined with their servants, all from the Baldrick family line (played by Tony Robinson). Each generation acts as the dogsbody to their respective Blackadder. They decrease in intelligence (and in personal hygiene standards) just as their masters' intellect increases. Each Blackadder and Baldrick are also saddled with the company of a dim-witted aristocrat whose presence Blackadder must somehow tolerate. This role was taken in the first two series by Lord Percy Percy (Tim McInnerny), in the third series by Prince George, Prince Regent, and in the fourth by Lieutenant George, the latter two played by Hugh Laurie.

I laughed so much watching this show.  I especially like Laurie as the exceedingly foppish and foolish Prince Regent.

There's an episode with a sidestory of the prince being without his manservant and so he ends up having to put his pants on himself.  That's a favorite, along with the one where he learns how to give a speech.  Prolly my fave episode is the one about The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Besides all these laughfests, there was A Bit of Fry & Laurie, a comedy sketch show.  I've just started watching it (on DVDs borrowed through the oft-recommended-here inter-library loan system) and sometimes I'm still laughing at one joke only to miss the next one.  They dress up a lot, which is always fun.  (Seems like a career requirement for British actors to dress up in drag at least once.  Works for me.)

Laurie is actually an accomplished musician and he quite rightly wastes this talent by performing horrible yet funny, i.e., horribly funny, songs.  In one episode he gives us the Cliffs Notes version of my hero, Bruce Springsteen; there's so little to it, yet it's so funny.

So, if you like to laugh at silly stuff, I recommend A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Blackadder.  Happy giggling!

Vacay By The Bay

I meant to be back blogging, but our intarwebbery connection is all kinds of funky so I've not been able to log on enough.  I'm not sure what's going on; the current theory is that there's something wrong w/the wireless adapter in my laptop, which is the pc that was used to set up the wireless for Kevin & my pc's.  I hope to resolve that soon.  Being w/o a connection to world wide webbery is like having withdrawal symptoms.  It's not pretty.

Kevin & I had a lot of fun in San Francisco a coupla weeks ago.  He had some conference to go to there for a couple of days, so I tagged along and we added a couple more days.  We got there Tuesday afternoon and left Saturday morning.  Kevin was conferring all day Wednesday and part of Thursday, so we only had Tuesday evening, Thursday afternoon and Friday together there.

Kev often moans and groans about how I sleep in.  What can I say?  I'm not a morning person.  I've tried and tried to be a morning person and I stink at it.  I don't even mean especially early; 9:00 AM is pretty darn early for me.  So anyway Kevin expressed his concern, on several occasions pre-vacation, that I'd end up snoozing the days away in SF.  Well, not to worry.  I did snooze in a bit on Wednesday and Thursday, but I packed  our time together full of stuff.

Tuesday evening we walked down to and waddled along Fisherman's Wharf.  Checked out the sea lions.  Had dinner.  Then dessert at some chocolate store which I can't locate on the web at the moment.  Walked around some more.  Then back to our hotel.  Our hotel, btw, was very much businessperson-oriented.  It's the one Kevin's company encourages them to use bc they have some kind of membership thingie w/the hotel, plus there's a reduced rate for the conference attendees, etc., etc..  I'd never stayed in such a focussed hotel.  You go in, there are staff there at a front desk, but you can pretty much check yourself in at a kiosk.  The rooms are very small and very utilitarian.  Double bed.  Shower, no tub.  Our view was of an alley; I doubt other views were much better.  Desk with all kinds of hookups.  Fridge with bottled water and a bottled water station with refillable plastic bottles on each floor.  A lounge area with pcs and printers.  Wireless everywhere.  Sun deck on the roof.  Small gym.  Separate entance to the restaurant next door.  Even though it was very streamlined and businesslike, I kinda liked it.  You come, you go, you do your thing, you call the guy at the front if you need anything and they take care of it, etc.  I like that, which is weird bc I also like staying at cozy little B&Bs.  Anyway.  Moving on.

Kevin conferred all day next day, all through dinner.  True to my nature, I slept in a bit.  Before I headed out that day, I called the Marine Mammal Center that oversees the care of the sea lions at Pier 39.  The day before when we had been watching the sea lions, there was one youngish sea lion all by himself, far away from any other sea lion.  He didn't move much, which wasn't unusual bc they were all lying around like lazy layabouts.  But something didn't seem right with this fella.  When he did move, he moved differently from the others.  He moved using his rear more than his front.  The others moved by raising their front and using their front appendages to go forward.  This guy kinda moved like a half-inchworm (i.e., like he was half inchworm, not that he was a half-inch worm).  I figured the Center must know about it bc it seemed quite obvious that there are a lot of people and agencies concerned about the sea lions, but then I thought, what if everyone wondering about that sea lion figured someone else must have said something, but no one did?  So I called.  And yes, they were aware of and were watching that sea lion.  The woman I spoke with very kindly answered my questions, providing a little insight into caring for those sea lions.  IIUC, it's very difficult to get to a sea lion that's out there on the floating docks.  It's much easier if they beach themselves, but they kinda have to get themselves in a good position to receive help.

So I waddled up a big long street -- I think it was Market St. -- up to where it meets Van Ness.  I was going to see a play thereabouts, but wanted to stop somewhere for a nice dinner and then stop in at the main library branch for a program before going to the play.  The dinner pickings got slimmer the further up the street I went.  There was always a donut or fast food place, but I was on vacation and wanted someone to wait on me, dammit.  But first things first: it was early evening and it was cold.  I rummaged in my tote bag only to find that I had left my coat at the hotel.  I was not turning around, but figured it should be easy enough to find a place to buy an inexpensive light coat.  Not true; light coats were hard to come by.  I finally found a cheapo place called Gold Diggers that had about 5 light coats, one of which fit me.  It didn't match and I wouldn't have bought it otherwise, seeing as I didn't like it, but it kept me warm.

I took my mismatched self over to The Market Street Grill at the Hotel Whitcomb aka the Ramada.  It was pretty nice for a Ramada; looks like it's an old hotel bought up by the Ramada chain.  I felt fairly underdressed, but the few others there (it was early for dinner: five o'clock) didn't look very fancy, although their clothes matched.  I enjoyed my meal so much I that I decided to linger and skip the library program.  I started w/a mushroom bisque that had a small piece of seared salmon and a grilled shrimp in the middle of the bisque.  There was also a thin swirl of something white -- cream? -- in the bisque.  I decided right away to eat a little of everything so I would have room for a little of everything.  Next was a chicken pepperdalle (sp?).   Wide, sturdy homemade noodles, chicken, tiny vegetable cuts, raisins (I think), and some other yummy stuff in a thin to medium white sauce.  Finished up w/a nice pot o' tea and something chocolate and decadent (okay, I almost finished that).  I had a table near the window, allowing me to people-watch the leaving-work crowd when I wasn't enjoying my book.  I enjoyed being waited on, including the waiter flourishing the napkin onto my lap.  That works.

Having skipped the library program, I did take a few minutes to waddle through the main branch.  Quite overwhelming, compared to my little libraries.  Then I noodled over to the theatre, which was a small affair, at least physically speaking; don't know about its reputation, draws, etc..  Small is often very nice.  Pretty much every seat is a good seat, you can see the actors' expressions, it feels intimate, etc.  The play, 'Take Me Out', was fun.  Obviously, I'm not a big theatre person bc I hadn't heard of it even though it won the 2003 Tony Award for Best Play (along w/a coupla other Tonys).  I'll further embarrass myself as a non-aficionado of the theatre by noting that one of the most memorable things about my night at the theatre was that there was NO line at the womens' restroom during intermission (me and one other woman used the bathroom during the break), but there was QUITE the line at the mens' room.  Women take soooo fucking long in the bathroom.  If you're peeing, just get in and get out.  There's nothing to agonize over in there.  You can smooth your top down over your butt once you're out of the stall and that way you can even stand up tall and straight as you look at yourself sideways in the mirror as you perform the smoothing ritual.  You know what I'm talking about.

Okay, that's enough vacation chat for now.  More later, but bottom line: we really enjoyed our time there, short though it was.  Pictures will be up after I figure out what my freakin' internet problem is.

You Catch My Meaning

Happy Mother's Day to me.  Yes, yes, I know I haven't any children, at least not of the usual variety, and that I'm only being treated to a lovely Mother's Day bc Kevin uses the cats as an excuse to treat me nicely.  Thank goodness for the cats bc otherwise I'd be getting HMD cards from the plants...at least the ones I haven't let die from neglect.  HMD wishes from thriving, happy, content cats is a much better situation.

When he told his sailor stories

She could feel the ocean foam rise

She saw its raging glory

But he had always told the truth, Lord, he was an honest man

And Brandy does her best to understand

So, yes, having a lovely day.  It's beautiful outside, if a bit cold.  Typing here while I listen to what I call my 'gay songs' on iTunes, e.g., Brewer & Shipley's "One Toke Over the Line", The Foundations' "Build Me Up Buttercup", and "Don't Pull Your Love" from Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds.  OMG, while I was at the link for "Don't Pull Your Love" it started playing the song while I'm already listening to my gay songs -- at top volume!  Double gayness!  All at top volume!  Anyway, this is a bunch of lame yet fun songs that Kevin downloaded from iTunes and that I unabashedly enjoy so much that he made me a gay songs folder.  Any day now, I expect Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me with Science" to show up in the folder.

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe

I'd been married long time ago

Where did you come from where did you go

Where did you come from Cotton-Eye Joe

It's actually since  morphed into simply miscellaneous songs I like that Kevin downloads on a one-off kind of basis when he just likes the one song (bc for some reason I don't do downloads, I just take what I like of what he downloads).  E.g., I wouldn't say "Hurricane" or "Cold Hard Bitch" are gay songs, so it isn't really a folder of exclusively gay songs.

he said he could i

dentify

the guilty

maaaaaaaaan

And right now, one of my favorite songs is playing, Ben E. King's "Stand By Me".  It's a sweet love song with a bit of sugar in it, what with all those strings, although I wouldn't say it's gay.

And the moon is the only light we'll see

No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid

Just as long as you stand, stand by me.

Now, when I say these are 'gay' songs, I mean 'gay' as in gay, not gay gay, that is, not really gay.  I tend to avoid using 'gay' in this way bc I think others might be offended, and justifiably so, by the usage.  Sometimes I think it's similar to how people generally say 'mentally challened' or the like instead of saying 'retarded', like we used to say when I was younger.  Or maybe it's like even further back in the day when people said 'colored' instead of 'black' or 'African American'.  It's kind of like an uncouth guilty semantic pleasure.

I said to the

undertaker

I said, 'Undertaker

please drive slow"

Anyway, the other day at work, I was chatting with a co-worker (CW) and a friend/patron (C) about something or other and I said that something or someone was 'so gay'.  I forgot about what or whom I was speaking.  So C jokingly said she was offended, but that really, she agreed; and CW said she knew exactly what I meant.  I said pretty much what I said just above, i.e., how I don't use certain terms in polite company (sorry, CW and C) and CW said, 'Yes, it's kind of like "retard", but you would never really call a mentally challenged person "retard".'  Which is true.  And I would never walk up to a gay person and say, 'You're so gay' (unless we were really close and it was a running joke or something like that).

I search myself

I want you to find me

I forget myself

I want you to remind me

You can probably tell that I have reservations -- even within accepting company -- about using 'gay' this way.  Thing is, it so perfectly expresses what I mean!  When I say that I think 'Muskrat Love' is so gay (so very gay, in fact, that it didn't make it into my merely gay iTunes folder), I think many, if not most, people understand me to mean that I think the song is lame and cheesy, but that I don't think the song has anything to do with anyone's sexuality.

And now he's tickling her fancy

Rubbing her toes

Muzzle to muzzle, now anything goes

As they wriggle, and Sue starts to giggle.

I imagine  using 'gay' this way has its origins in stereotypical conceptions of homosexuality.  So, the question is, should I stop using this term bc it might be offensive to some?  What if gay people use the very same term to mean the very same thing as I do?  Is it okay for them to use it that way, but not me bc I'm not gay?  Is it okay to use it this way with others who also use it, wort anyone's -- i.e., speakers' or listeners' -- sexuality?  I have a feeling that the answer will be that things like context, the speaker, etc. matter and that I shouldn't use 'gay' in this way.

All this being said, the song currently playing -- "It's Raining Men" -- is totally gay.

St. Patrick's Day

The third Saturday of each month finds Kevin and I either at our house or our friend, Carol's house.  We take turns hosting each other for dinner.  Carol suggested the standing dinner date with the idea that we'd add other local yokels here and there.  We haven't done that yet, but it's a great idea.  This past Saturday, St. Patrick's Day, was our turn to host.  Last month, Carol cooked a delicious corned beef dinner in anticipation of the green day.

We continued the Irish theme: salmon, peas, carrots, potatoes (I like my plural potatoes with an 'e', TYVM), soda bread, seed cake and (as a backup dessert bc I'd never made seed cake before) a strawberry Boston cream pie (a cake, really).

I've had this cookbook for ages, The Art of Irish Cooking, by Monica Sheridan.  That's where all the recipes came from, except the salmon recipe, which was Kevin working his usual magic.  First, I tried a lamb stew recipe, but it was just a bit too realistic.   The bones stayed on the meat chunks and you ended up needing a knife, fork and spoon to eat the thing.  Also, it was kinda bland.

Now, for those of you mocking the title of the book, here's a quote about the book:

Apart from its practical value, The Art of Irish Cooking will come as a shock to any benighted folk who may still think of Ireland as a primitive country where the people subsist mainly on potatoes, porridge, and buttermilk. The many Americans who come to visit us each year are, of course, familiar with the real Ireland: a modern democracy with a fast-growing economy, the world's highest calorie-intake, and a vigorous, healthy population.

That excerpt is from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's website, although I don't know who wrote the blurb: the library, a reviewer, the publisher?  Anyhoo, this guy loves the book:

One of my favorite Irish cookbooks is by Monica Sheridan, the Julia Child of Irish Television, called "The Art of Irish Cooking" published in 1965.  It has been long out-of-print  but if you get a chance to grab a copy, do so.  She talks about traditional cooking without any of the "spicing up" that we see in modern interpretations of Irish baking although she does experiment a bit with recipes. 

Now, I believe the first excerpt is referring to a 1996 version; the original is almost as old as myself; that's the copy I have.  Perhaps the 1996 version was substantially revised; that would certainly account for the supposed shock value mentioned in the first blurb.  I certainly hope the newer version was a little more explicit with the instructions.  The seed cake recipe says, 'Bake at 3750 for 1 hour.  Reduce the heat toward the end of the baking time.'  Reduce the heat to what?  And when?  That's kinda typical of recipes throughout the book.  A tad frustrating.

The salmon recipes in the book were a little dull, so I aksed asked Kevin to just work his piscine mojo.  He's much better with fish than I am.  He's more particular about how long it cooks, how to cook it, etc. etc.  We usually have salmon fillets; here we had steaks.  They were delicious!   Fillets seem so wimpy in comparison.  I miss salmon steaks!

The original carrot and pea recipes used very little and no water, respectively.  I tried them out at dinner during the week.  The original carrots turned out badly, so I nixed that recipe.  The peas turned out fine, but I decided to nix it anyway.  So, in the end, I ended up boiling the carrots, the peas and the potatoes.  Can cooking get more Irish than that?  Surely not.  You see the resultant meal in the picture.

Previous pictures have featured Kevin's maternal grandmother's Bavarian china.  This time, we used a set of dishes my mother gave us.  They're from Avon.  Yes, the Avon of Avon Lady fame.  Back in the day, my mother was a big Avon person.  Not so much makeup bc she didn't wear much, although, when I was very young I remember her buying lipstick.  The samples were these tiny, tiny lipsticks which were so much fun to play with!  Then she moved on to buying just stuff.  If you're not familiar with Avon's non-makeup stuff, they sell lots of different stuff, some of it designed to be collected.  That's how these dishes were.  They're dark red glass and called the 'Cape Cod' collection.  Holy moley, there's even a book about it.  I think they're supposed to evoke the colors and styles of Olde Newe Englande.  Anyway, my mother bought every piece she could.  She pretty much covered everything.  Everything.  Between the two dish sets, we have a closet stuffed to bursting with china. We don't have china hutches (cut us some slack, we've only been married 13 years and lived in this house for about 11 years), so it's all stuffed into a dining room closet.  Eventually, I'd like to redo the dining room, including getting rid of that closet and either buying or having built in china hutches.  I do like built in stuff.

And finally, we see Carol enjoying her Irish meal (edited: photo deleted).  I took pictures of Kevin, but the fire in the fireplace was behind him and that blurred the picture, making it look like the overkill soft focus they always use on Barbara Walters.

Now, I'd like to get back to that first excerpt about the cookbook and its implied disparagement of traditional Irish foods.  Firstly, there is no food greater than which can be consumed than the potato.  I've waxed lovingly about the potato here before, although I can't seem to find it.  Secondly, is there anything better for breakfast than a bowl of porridge?  Yes: two bowls of porridge.  And so on.

I would like to try the seed cake again.  I've looked at online recipes and they use something called 'caster sugar', which sounds like it's finer than regular sugar, but not so fine as confectioner's sugar.  Hmmm.  I admit that one of the reasons I chose the seed cake is bc Miss Marple proclaimed her love of a good seed cake in the BBC version of Agatha Christie's At Bertram's Hotel.   In the book, it was actually Lady Selina who declared, 'Seed cake?  I haven't eaten seed cake in years.  Is it real seed cake?'  But in the BBC movie, it was Joan Hickson as Miss Marple (important note: the 'Miss Marple' link shows the actor currently playing her; although she's truer to character and much, much better overall than Margaret Rutherford, Geraldine McEwan is not as good as Hickson, IMHO) who said the line and eventually decided to have some seed cake.  And that convinced me to find out about this seed cake.  Imagine my surprise when it was in the Irish cookbook.  I'm not sure what seed cake is supposed to taste like, never having had it.  My version was okay, but it could have been better.  It was a little browner at the edges than I'd like, but had to wait until the middle was done.  Perhaps I should have reduced the heat earlier.  No doubt I'll try it again.  It seems like quite the thing to have with a nice cuppa.

The Wurst of Times

Yes, another post about wursts.  Kevin and I went to yet another Oktoberfest, this one in June at Germania Park in Dover, NJ.  Kevin wore his Rhein Fire shirt to express his solidarity with and support of that NFL Europe team.  NFL Europe is the cutest little league, with six teams, only one of which - Amsterdam - is not a German team.  The others, besides the Fire, are Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt and Hamburg.  The World Bowl consists of the top two of the six duking it out.  That's it.

There were other teams from other countries - I recall teams from Scotand, Spain, England - but they all pooped out.

When you watch NFL Europe on TV, it might look like the stadium's packed.  When they pan out you can see that they just squoze all the fans into a coupla small areas.

Kevin took up the Fire's cause, I think, simply because he liked the name.  Or maybe it was Die Pyromaniacs.  Why aren't there any hott male cheerleaders?  More and more women watch football...why not give the female (hetero) fans something to ogle?  Life is so unfair sometimes.  I favored the Claymores, only bc I liked that name.

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Enough about hott young things...on to the important stuff  What did we eat?  Kevin had the platter: a brat, potato salad and sauerkraut.  The brat was tasty.  I'm not a big fan of this kind of potato salad and this was prolly one of my least favorite versions.  Kraut?  Can't remember it, so I guess it was indifferent,

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I had a bauernwurst sandwich.  Totally digging the bauernwurst since having it for the first time recently.  The bread?  Eh.  Dunno why they bother bc it's not toasted or warm or anything...it's just there.  So I ditched the bread.

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Hmmm, how did I not take a picture of dessert?  I had some kinda apple pastry thing.  Kevin had the cheese version.  Although these were commercially made, they were much better than the commercially made ones at the other Oktobrfest.  Well, I should say I don't what exactly these things should be like, i.e., I dunno what the ideal apple strudel would taste like; just saying what I liked.

The music here was much better than the other joint.  Again, I don't know what the ideal Oktoberfest music would be; I just thought the band here had their act down very well and were more polished and fuller-sounding than the other band.

In other old world music news, next Wednesday evening, July 19 marks The Triumphant Return of Gene Menalski & the G-Men to Boonton's Summer Concerts in the Park series.  Socrates Cafe is cancelled in honor of Gene!

Very Excited...

...about this.  I think it's outside...what a great day for it.

To The Racetrack We Did Go

Kevin and I went to the track this past weekend.  I've made it this far in life w/o ever going to the races.  We assumed it would be thoroughbred racing; it was harness racing. Much fun.

I didn't know how to bet.  I still don't, really, but I muddled through on Saturday.  We bet on 8 races.  I lost a variety of bets in the first 6 races: mostly shows and wins and a trifecta.  After losing the trifecta, I stuck to shows.  I was betting the odds and the reviewer's notes.  Then I changed my strategy, such as it was.

I decided, 'That's it.  Screw the odds.  Screw the reviewer.  This isn't working.'  I wasn't looking to finance my retirement, but I also didn't want to be A Complete And Total Loser for the night.  The brochure listed the last 6 or so races for each horse and the details of their run.  It also showed who came in win, place and show in each of those 6 races.  I scanned those results, looking for each horse in Saturday's 7th and 8th races.  I got a vague idea of which names showed up most frequenly in those prior races.  Based on that - plus, which horse names I liked, naturlich - I placed my bets on horses to show.

In the 7th, I bet on The Chosen One to show.  Doesn't that sound like a confident name?  And he won!  In the 8th, I bet on Stk Mkt Wiz and Daylon Trooper, both to show.  And both excellently named horses.  And Daylon Trooper won!  Stk Mkt Wiz didn't win anything.

Kevin won a little something in those last two races, too, but we'd had enough overall losing after 8 races.  All in all, our win-loss ratio was pretty poor, although we didn't lose our shirts...and thank goodness for that, although I'm always up for Topless Kevin.

There was, shall we say, an interesting spectrum of society at the track.  The vast majority were men.  Lots of smokers.  With the new non-smoking law, smokers have to smoke outside...yet they managed to stink up the great out of doors.  How a non-smoker kisses a smoker, I just don't know.  It's like kissing an ashtray.  Ugh.

Lots of beer.  I guess the combined stench of beer and cigs is worse than cigs alone.  A fair amount of unabashed belching.

Lots of swearing and lamenting of losses.  Ya gotta go w/a certain amount of discretionary money and the expectation that you're gonna lose.  But I'm still a newbie...betting on the horses isn't a hobby.  Although I am curious about my new strategy and I do wonder how my emergent horse sense woulda fared if I'd continued to bet.

I haven't much personal experience with horses.  I've prolly ridden 2-3 times, always on vacations, and always on very easygoing horses.  I think someday I'd like (among the many things I'd like someday) to learn how to really ride a horse and maybe even own or partially own one.  Our vet's daughter is off at college and they're looking for someone to temporarily take over their part of the horse.  Apparently, it's not good for horses to not get ridden.  Unfortunately, this horse has a good amount of giddy-up and requires an experienced rider.  It's not that close, anyway, so I prolly wouldn't ride it as often as I or it would need.

But hmmmm...that's got me thinking.  There must be some place in NJ where we could go for an easy horse ride, maybe as part of a group like on vacations.  I'm going to look into that right now and maybe we'll do that this weekend.

Here, Catch This Pole

I've decided to change Sunday Cat Blogging to Monday Cat Blogging.  I'm giving myself the weekends off from blogging.  Not that it's very hard, it's actually kinda fun, but I thought I should spend my weekends doing other stuff w/myself or w/Kevin or w/friends.  I had such a nice time last weekend, I want to keep it up!

Unfortunately, such was not the case this past weekend.  I worked Saturday and Sunday, covering for a co-worker.  Kevin had to work from home on Saturday, so we wouldn't have been able to do anything together anyway.  He manages a puter system and every once in a while all the group's systems run disaster recovery drills to ensure that the systems run in case of a disaster that prevents people from having access to the main data bank.  That's what he was doing this weekend.

I also felt like I was coming down with a cold or flu, so I was subpar anyway.  I still feel that way; I'm hoping it will just fizzle out instead of progressing into a full blown cold or flu.  I don't have time for that!

And it was a rainy weekend, too.  The paper has this Saturday feature, '48 hours', that highlights different stuff to do on the weekend.  There was the Bonnie Brae Scottish Festival on Saturday that woulda been fun, had it not been rainy (although it's prolly more authentically Scottish w/the rain) and had we not been working.  There were going to be Highland games - including caber tossing! - which woulda been fun to see.  And some authentic and hopefully homemade shortbread woulda been most welcome.

In last weekend's 'fun' post I mentioned how I'm almost at my wit's end trying to locate a purveyor of good nutroll.  A fellow cat shelter volunteer, also of Polish descent, might have a line on something for me.  I'll keep you posted.  Maybe next time I update you, I'll have a slice of nutroll in one hand and a nice cuppa in the other hand.  A girl can dream.

Fun

It turned out to be a great weekend, weather-wise and fun-wise.  We started with a party at our former neighbors' new home.  This picture is kinda dark, but from left, Lorayne, Celeste, Allison and Vanessa.  The party was for Lorayne and Mark's twins' 4th birthday.  Lorayne, Celeste and Vanessa used to live next to us: Lorayne and Mark to the right of us, Celeste and Shaun to the left, and Vanessa and Ron behind us.  We miss them!  Allison is a longtime friend of Lorayne's and she lives about 10 minutes away.

On Sunday, we went to the Deutscher Club in Clark.  We had never been there before, but we saw in the paper's weekend section that they were having their annual Fruhlingfest and that it's open to the public.  Kevin's never turned down the opportunity to drink German beer and eat a wurst or two, so off we went.

We were ravenous by the time we got there, so we parked ourselves in the ol' biergarten and shared a platter: 1 bratwurst, 1 bauernwurst, sauerkraut, potato salad and a roll.  The wursts were good.  I'd never had a bauernwurst before; it reminded me very much of kielbasa.  I'm not a big fan of German potato salad; it always seems so vinegary.  This version was probably the least vinegary potato salad I've ever had.  It was pretty hot out for May, but it was nice under the oak trees.

We moseyed over to where the band was playing.  They were okay.  They played a weird mix of music: some modern, some German, some polka maybe and even the chicken dance.

We walked around a bit, checking the place out, then moseyed back over for some dessert.  Kevin had hazelnut cake, which he thought was pretty good and tasted quite fresh.  I was disappointed that they had run out of strudel.  I had apple crumb cake instead.  I have to admit that I was disappointed; I was hoping to try some homemade strudel or any homemade ethnic dessert.  The desserts were not homemade, though, and I guess they really couldn't be with the volume of people they were serving.

See, what you need are enough ladies.  Old ladies who know how to make this stuff from scratch...none of this canned apple filling crap...and who know how to make it, but they couldn't tell you how to make it bc they just make it with some of this, some of that, etc.  Alas, I imagine the world is running low on such ladies.

What I would give for a good nut roll!  There was a place in town, the European Bakery, that had nut and poppyseed rolls for the holidays and special orders.  Mmmmm!  So good!  Everything those people made was so good...I even liked stuff I didn't like!  Unfortunately, they closed; I think they went back to Poland; I'm not sure.  The bottom line is that they're gone.  Now, there's a Polish deli in Lake Hiawatha...but no nut rolls.  Ever.  No special orders.  Not even at holidays!  WTF?  Pffft.

Anyway, back to the Fruhlingfest.  Yeah, so Kevin seems to think that my taking one stinking year of German 24 years ago qualifies me to translate stuff for him.  I prolly guessed right about half the time; seems a new word looks enough like some other word to suggest, along with the context, what the new word might mean; 'Sprudel Quelle' had me completely stumped.  I finally remembered that Kevin has some German in him and if either of us should be able to figure out what things mean, it's him!  It's so far back, though, that I tend to forget it; I think of him and his family as very much American.  It's kinduv interesting - and weird - bc either his greatgrandfather or great-greatgrandfather changed their surname to make it sound less German.  Not sure why; maybe bco anti-German sentiment (it was sometime during the second half of the 1800s)?  maybe bco general anti-immigrant sentiment?  Anyway, weird bc they changed it from 'Walz' to 'Waltz', which doesn't seem like much of a change at all.

Once we finished completely mangling the language, we headed off to the Presby Iris Gardens in Montclair.

I woulduv liked to take more pictures, but my camera battery pooped out and I didn't have the spare with me.  Last year, someone vandalized some of the beds.  Some of the flowers yanked out of the ground traced all the way back to the 1600s.  Fortunately, the gardeners there were able to successfully replant most, if not all, of them.  There are some very rare varieties in this garden; I think there may even be some varieties that exist only in this garden.  The gardens are at peak right now, so it was a good day to visit.

We then decided to catch a movie.  We saw 'Over the Hedge'; I'm a fan of the comic strip.  The movie was okay.  Not as funny as the strip.  Recently, Sammy the squirrel changed to Hammy the squirrel in the strip and I couldn't figure out why.  Apparently, they needed a different name for Sammy in the movie bc there's another Sammy the squirrel in town.  Bummer.  Sammy the squirrel is so much better than Hammy the squirrel.  Anyway, Sammy/Hammy is the best character in the movie.  Bruce Willis as RJ?  I dunno.  But William Shatner as the overly dramatic father possum?  Brilliant!  I expected RJ to be less active, more laid back.  He's a total shlub in the strip and even when he does something, he does it very lazily and makes it all look so easy.  In the movie, he's dashing here and there and doing all kinds of crazy stuff.  Well, I suppose one can't complain about comic strip characters not living up to one's expectations.

Monday was a lazy day, all around.  A little gardening, a little grilling, a little blogging....  Just a coupla weeks ago I was moaning about how chilly it still was some days, yet this weekend was so humid.  Ick.  Monday was especially humid for the cats; they just lay sprawled out all day long.  It was too hot to curl up into themselves in their usual furball shape.

And that was my lovely weekend.  I gotta try to have more fun weekends this summer!