Vivian has a birthday

From right to left we see Taylor, Barrett (little Bob), Carolyn, Bubbe (Mrs Phred), Vivian, Riley, Warren and Brooke...If you were counting, that's seven grandchildren and a grandmother.

Barret contemplates the upcoming soccer game.

Vivian has blue eyes. She is two. I remember taking the train up and back several times to help paint the addition two years ago when Vivian was just an upcoming event. She was shy at first but eventually got accustomed to Bubbe.

Bubbe with Brooke and Riley.

Barrett is second from the left.

Bubbe and Vivian.

Marie Selby Botanical Garden

Sarasota, Florida

So... Joe the Plumber is running for Congress in Ohio. My cousin is Danny the Electrician. Here's what Danny had to say about Greece, "They can't print their own money? What were they thinking?" I'd like to see him in charge of the Federal Reserve...

Carolyn (AKA sunshinecruiser) came to visit us this week. She was fun. We went to lunch on the beach at O'Leary's and then to the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. We know her from social networking, specifically the "Women's RV Forum" of which Mrs. Phred is a member.

Somehow the botanical gardens brought back old memories of Japan, 20 years after the war. I'm reading "The Last Great Victory" which deals with Japan in July/August of 1945. There were a lot of "ultras" who wanted to fight to the death and derail the surrender and attempted very disorganized  multiple uncoordinated coup d' e'tauhs at the very end after the bombs were dropped...I visited Japan about 30 times from 1965 to 1968 in support of moving stuff from here to there. It was before they exploded into consumer goods and way before they crashed and burned with a huge real estate bubble.

In 1965 we stayed overnight in a hotel near the Tachikawa air force base. The Red Guards would fly red balloons at the end of the runway to complicate the landing. There were a couple of crashed and burned transports at the end of the runway. I gave my flight suits to the hotel maids to wash. They washed them with fibreglass curtains which created a very itchy situation. I have always wondered if that was deliberate.

The military exchange rate back then was 360 yen to a dollar, while the free market rate was 180 yen. Now a dollar will buy about 70 yen. I bought a 150CC Honda motorcycle, brand new, for $150. We flew it back in an empty C-124. I was very impressed with it's quality which included a little tool kit under the seat.Another time I bought something called a Hibaci Pot which was like a very heavy ceramic barbeque smoker. 

Once we took off from Tachikawa and passed by beautiful Mount Fuji. As we got out to sea, all the engines started to misfire. We aborted and returned to Japan. It turned out that each engine had 32 spark plugs and 16 cylinders. All of the spark plugs were only in finger tight and they had all begun to fall out of the engines.

The C-124 had the largest piston driven engines ever placed on any aircraft. The same engine was also used on the postwar B-36 bomber.

I went in for my 12th of my 20 radiation treatments today. The doctor says that I might be feeling fatigued but I'm not feeling it. It's 83 degrees again today. The sky is blue with pretty puffy white clouds. The air smells really fine...

Someone left a bunch of  strawberries on our doorsteps today. I chopped up half of them, added some sugar and put them in the freezer.Strawberry shortcake in the future...

The Myakka River

West of Sarasota

Spoonbills eat algae and crustaceans that contain pigments called carotenoids. These pigments are found in the brine shrimp and blue-green algae that the birds eat. Enzymes in the liver break down the carotenoids into the pink and orange pigment molecules deposited in the feathers, bill, and legs of the spoonbils.

People also eat foods containing carotenoids. There is beta-carotene in carrots and lycopene in watermelon. Most people do not eat enough of these carotenoids to turn their skin very pink or orange.However, Bennett reports that uncle Doctor Leon Kruger, in an attempt to improve his vision, ate so many carrots that he developed carotenoid poisoning and was hospitalised after he turned bright orange.

Once I worked in the Biology Department at Florida State University. There was a woman biologist there named Dr. Pate. Dr. Pate got a grant from the US Army to study botulism, so she paid locals to trap turkey vultures for her. I think turkey vultures are beautiful flyers. Dr. Pate was curious about why vultures could eat so much rotten meat without getting sick.

Dr. Pate would give her vultures more and more botulism until their heads fell down on their chests. She called this "the limberneck"...after the turkey vultures got "the limberneck" Dr. Pate had to buy more vultures to replace them because they weren't really any good after that.

Mrs. Phred and Sunshine Cruiser are going to take me to the Botanical Gardens tomorrow after my radiation. so I should be able to get some nice pictures.

Tonight's Menu

 When cooking for yourself, for a friend, or for a small soiree, it is important to use the utmost quality of food and drink. It is important to be considerate to guests and provide necessary silverware and platters, handkerchiefs, glasses, and, of course, proper etiquette. While courtesy is something you must pick up on your own, I intend to offer what little I can to start you on your way to creating the perfect, delecterble evening....Hannibal Lecter, M.D.

So  thought we might start with a simple salad.

• A base layer of baby spinach leaves
• Cherry tomatoes
• Raisins
• Mandarin orange wedges
• Pine nuts
• French goat cheese
• Topped off with raspberry walnut vinaigrette dressing.

For a starch we will have wild rice.

The main course will be codfish covered with chopped macadamia nuts and drizzled with butter and lemon.

We'll wash all that down with a cheap savignoun blanc, preceded by a goose pate and crackers. 

I do all the cooking around here. Mrs. Phred washes dishes and I put them away....a fair division...

Communal Living

People can be strange.

We're in a community of older people with only a few children here and there.

It's gated so you begin to feel OK about leaving the doors unlocked and not chaining up the bikes.

Two weeks ago someone "keyed" our poor old Toyota and about eight other cars and RVs in our immediate vicinity.

Last night someone spray painted several mobile home on our little street. One neighbor had purchased a motion-activated  video camera when his electrical service was mysteriously disconnected multiple times.

The playback shows a 70 year old neighbor woman timestamped at 4AM with a spray can in her hand. Go figure. Alcoholism and insanity? Kind of a crappy and sad way to end up...no wisdom involved...Maybe we'll go back to Alaska this summer...it's beautiful and the fishing is good....or maybe Portugal?