Suzie’s House 112: Ready
Drew formed a fist, but managed to keep from pounding on his computer’s keyboard. An oath of an unsavory variety slipped out. Luckily, Ben was at school and everyone else was at work. At least, he thought everyone was at work until Vin tsked at him.
“You know, you could always let me take a crack at it. I’m every bit as good with a computer as you are.” He leaned against the doorjamb of the dining room where Drew worked. As Drew watched, Vin crossed his arms. He looked entirely too smug.
“I don’t think it’s the computer that’s going to find him. I think I’ll have to pound on some doors.” Drew pushed away from the table.
“Even better.” Vin grinned, uncrossing his arms and moving forward.
“Not on your life. Look what happened the last time I let you in on the case.”
“I’m alive, aren’t I?” Vin may have intended to sound re-assuring, but he rotated his shoulder and rubbed the bullet scar in his chest as he said it.
Drew glared at his friend. He could argue, but what was the point? Every time he tried, Vin or Suzie, and even Miranda would talk him into a corner. Including them in his work was wrong on so many levels, yet it kept happening. Drew sighed.
“Would you stop trying to protect me? I’m not like Suzie or Miranda. I was an expert consultant to begin with. I can handle myself.”
“We’re talking about the man who drove you off the road, walked up to you, and shot you in cold blood.”
“All the more reason to include me.” Vin’s eyes flashed anger and determination.
Drew supposed he could hardly argue. Wouldn’t he do the same in Vin’s place?
“Fine. You can come with me.” Drew powered down his computer. He grabbed his keys off the table as he stood.
“Great. Where are we going?”
“I think it’s time to pay Christina a visit.”
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T13: Thirteen Silly Recipes.
This week’s featured T13 post: Paige Tylerposted some fantastic Easter eggs.
If you’ve checked out my blog on days other than Thursday, then you know I post certain things each day of the week. For instance, every Wednesday my husband gives us a cock-eyed view of history. Every Friday I post an episode of a story about an FBI agent, an ad executive, and a private investigator living in a boarding house. Every Sunday I post a How To piece, generally a recipe. Some of those recipes have been… odd. Here are 13 of them.
1. Tie-dye eggs. This is from last week.
5. Microwave Cake. Also known as cake in a cup.
9. Caramelized Cinnamon Toast. I wasn’t really short on recipes I was trying to explain something to someone.
10. Easiest Crust in the World.
11. Hot Date Surprise. I’ll admit the rolls that come out aren’t all that silly, but isn’t the name great? I got it out of my grandmother’s recipe file.
12. Afterburner Hash
13. Yuck. This one isn’t my creation, so I’m not the one to name it.
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Chameleon@CoffeeBreak
Tamy~3 Sides of Crazy
Debbie@Like a Rose
PopArtDiva
Eaton Bennett
By George! It's a Jail Break!
Princess Charlotte, daughter of Prince George IV and Caroline of Brunswick, was ordered by her father to marry a man she could not tolerate. When she refused, her father replaced all her servants and brought her before a bishop. What is poor Charlotte to do?
Having resolved not to submit to her fathers demands, Charlotte did the only thing she could think to do. She ran away from home. Her own home no less. Leaving dad and the Bishop of Salisbury to wonder what had possessed her, Charlotte dashed to her room for a shawl and bonnet. From there it was a quick trip down the back stairs and across the courtyard to Charing Cross Road where she hired a hackney couch to take her mom’s house, Connaught Place.
Mom was at Blackheath for the day, so she sent a groom to fetch her home. She sent another groom to fetch Lord Brougham and a third to fetch her dinner. Charlotte was enjoying herself enormously. If she stopped to consider her situation, it didn’t bother her. Lord Brougham arrived, but before he had time to question Charlotte closely on what had happened, mother and Lady Charlotte Lindsey blew in. Dinner was announced shortly thereafter.
Just as Brougham was getting the full story, the first of many royal emissaries and advisers arrived from Carlton House. The Bishop, the Lord Chancellor, the Dukes of York and Sussex. They all told variations of the same message. “Charlotte, you are SO dead.” Charlotte wasn’t listening. She remained in high spirits throughout the evening. Mom was at her side the whole time, egging her on.
At length, The Bishop of Salisbury, who had gone back to Carlton House, returned with dad’s final message. “submit unconditionally.” This is what Charlotte feared most. Such submission would leave the door wide open to, in Charlotte’s view, a forced marriage. “They may wear me out by ill-treatment and may represent that I have changed my mind and consented.”
(more…)
Are You Having Problems Leaving Comments?
It’s getting to the point where I cringe every time I see this screen. The vast majority of the time if I see this, it means I’m not going to be able to leave a comment.
I’ve tried everything. I’ve used every part of the form that could conceivably be applied to me. No go. I cleared out my cookies. I made sure my pop ups were set right. Nothing I do seems to make a difference.
Am I the only one having trouble with this? Have you struggled to leave comments? Are you having trouble leaving them with me? If you tried to leave a comment and couldn’t, please email me at AliceAudreyJ at yahoo dot com.
Hudson River Plane; Salvage
Ever wonder how they rescued the plane that landed in the Hudson River? Apparently they trucked it through East Rutherford NJ.
Tie Dye Eggs
My kids love these. We tend to do them year round, not just Easter.
Hard boiled eggs
food coloring
Crack the hard boiled eggs. The more cracks, the more lines of color there will be.
Place the eggs in a stain resistant container. Drop several droplets of color directly on the egg. Place in refrigerator. More colors are fun, but they tend to turn to brown if you let several collect for long at the bottom of the container.
More time makes thicker lines. Less time makes thinner. If soaked in water, the lines will be thicker and some of the color will seep through in a dappled pattern.
Notes to self: They are easier to peel when cold eggs are peeled under hot water. And the air sack that makes it easier to get under the membrane is in the thick end.
Click the picture to go to the hub
If you did a recipe or a food photo today, leave your link in the comments and I’ll link to you here in a week or so.
genefaith with Reviewed a steamboat dinner! Seriously cool.
Kristen with a snazzy pilaf recipe
Tamy with Chicken Curry
Sherrie with Applesauce Cake
angela with Breakfast Casserole
Rosidah with a picture of pastries on a great plate
infinitygoods with an old post of a Chicken Tomato Salad recipe
Jannet with a picture of kimchi
Lost and Found
Jack: Tonic!
Jill: Tonic!
Gin: Meeeooooowww!
Jack: Here boy! Here, Tonic!
Jill: Tooooonic!
Gin: Meeeooooowww!
Jack: Wait! Look at this!
Jill: Yellow paint, just like he walked through before he disappeared. He’s been kidnapped!
Today’s theme is Stripes
Previously in Jack and Jill Sold!
Saturday photo scavenger hunt
The rules for Photohunt can be found here.
Be sure to visit the home page.
Suzie’s House 111: Meanwhile, Back at the House
Ben came out of court firmly established in his mother’s household, considering his father ended up in jail. Suzie, Ben, and Drew are on their way home now.
Miranda slammed into the kitchen at a quarter to five. She had her briefcase under one arm, a box of promo materials under the other, her cell phone in her teeth, and no idea what she was going to cook.
Pizza? But Ben had said something about not liking pizza anymore. She couldn’t say she blamed him considering the way his father served it for every meal.
Today was the court day too, wasn’t it? Whatever the verdict, no one would want pizza today. She done Chinese take out too often, too. There wasn’t a restaurant in town she could rely on today, and she didn’t have time to make her specialty – pasta salad. It was going to have to be one of Suzie’s pre-made deals.
Miranda dumped her loads, including the cell phone, on the table. It didn’t seem nearly as big and out of control there. Good enough. She turned to the refrigerator, checking out both the fridge section and the freezer.
No muffin batter. Shoot. They weren’t going to be having muffins tonight. Nothing in the way of left overs either. The freezer didn’t look much better. They were down to one last Pyrex container of spaghetti sauce. How had Suzie let it slide so far?
Of course. It was because of everything Suzie had been dealing with. Why hadn’t Miranda noticed before?
Because in the past Suzie dealt with her tension by cooking. Lately, she hadn’t been. She’d had a man to help her ease her worries. Miranda wanted to help.
But not in the kitchen. Everyone knew Miranda wasn’t good in the kitchen.
She pulled out a good sized pot, and a stack of ramen noodle packages. Four? Or Five? Better make is Six, just in case. No, wait. If she started it now then it would be nothing but mush by the time everyone came home. She put the pot back, then brought it out again.
If not ramen noodle soup, how about refrigerator soup? It worked for Suzie. Miranda filled the pot with water, then started tossing stuff in. Beans, rice, potatoes, left over brats, frozen spinach. This could work. It really could.
She was eyeing a sweet potato when she heard the knock at the door.
She hesitated. There was no one else home. What if it was Joseph O’Connor? Would she be able to take him out the way Suzie had gotten his brother Sean? Just to be safe Miranda pulled out the biggest frying pan before answering the door.
“Gene!” It was Ben’s friend. He looked at the pan in her hand and almost smiled. If it weren’t for the damage done to his face he probably would have laughed. She put the pan down quick. “Gene, what happened to you?
“Nothing.” He pulled away from her fingertips, tucking his head down as if doing so would hide the black eye or the swollen jaw.
“You can’t tell me that’s nothing.” Miranda grabbed hold of his arm and dragged him into the kitchen, closing and locking the door behind him. “Tell me…” She stopped herself. Much as she would dearly love to ask for all the gory details, she knew it would do no good, just as she knew he had most likely been knocked around by his father. Ben hadn’t broken any confidentialities, but he’d hinted around enough for Miranda to figure it out. So she bit her tongue. She knew what it was like to have parents you couldn’t talk about.
“I said it’s nothing. All right? It’s doesn’t mean anything.”
“All right. So what do you think?” She gestured toward the soup on the stove. “Edible?”
He shuffled close to it, leaned over the pot, looked at the glop out of the corners of his eyes, and sniffed loudly.
“Doesn’t look good, but it smells all right.”
“It doesn’t look good?” Miranda’s pride rose, but before she bit his head off, she looked in the pot herself. He was right. It didn’t look all that appetizing. “Think you could choke it down anyway?”
“Maybe.” His lip tightened, but he still looked hopeful, like he’d actually like to eat it.
“Well, then you might as well stay for supper. Actually, you can probably stay the night, though Ben isn’t back from court yet.” She managed to sound pretty casual, which was a good thing. Nothing would send a kid like him running faster than a do gooder.
“Even on a week night?” He eyes her dubiously.
“Didn’t you stay over most of last week?”
Gene looked away guiltily. She knew for a fact he’d spent more time at Suzie’s house than at home.
“Don’t worry about it.” She slugged his arm gently. “Suzie will understand.”
Gene’s smile wobbled, but stayed, and filled with gratitude and relief.
“There is a price, however.”
There, the smile flickered out in a quite little death. Miranda didn’t worry. It would be back.
“You have to help me cook.”
“All right.” The grin came back and the words rushed out with relief. Taking it for permission, he opened the refrigerator and poked around. “You know something, Ms. Bailey? You’re pretty cool.”
Miranda grinned. He was just a kid. Still. It was nice to be appreciated.
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T13: Thirteen Stray Thoughts
My pick of last week’s T13’s is Angel’s list of what she would say to her teenage self.
In case you didn’t see my notice in my comment last week, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with Blogger lately. There are some blogs that won’t let me comment at all. There seems to be a pattern to it, but Im not sure what it is yet, just that a pop up captcha does it every time. If I can’t comment on yours, I’m sorry.
This is just what’s on my mind.
1. What was it the boy said this morning? I need to start another one of those “things my kids said” lists. Otherwise I’ll never remember this great stuff. Oh, yeah, now I remember:
2. “Mom, I know what super power you would have if you could have one. The ability to close the refrigerator door with just your mind.” Apparently words aren’t enough.
3. Got one set of taxes emailed, another efiled, and the last dropped in the mail today. Why doesn’t if feel like I got anything done?
4. I should write something. I always feel worth while when I’m writing.
5. Except I’m already way late on closing Patrica McLinn’s contest.
6. I’d be done now if I hadn’t lost the stupid file. So now I’m scrambling to recover data.
7. As soon as that’s done I should I need to revise Moving In and get it back to my editor.
8. But I also need to subit that query for Zackly Right, which is way over due.
9. Every time I think about that query I cringe.
10. Is it even possible to make a good query for that particular book? I’m beginning to think not.
11. The Boy wants to quit school and get a regular job right now. He’s in Jr. High. He admits he can’t stand to plan ahead. What am I going to do with him?
12. I need to write Suzie’s House for tomorrow.
13. And to finish this list. Wonder what I’ll do first.
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As always, I welcome the link to your Thursday Thirteen in my comments as well as in Mr. Linky.
Nicholas
jenn
On a limb with Claudia
Ms Menozzi
WriterCarmen
Angeleque Ford
Mozi Esme
Susan Helene Gottfried
Becky68
Happily Retired Gal
SmallReflections
By George! What's Charlotte's Beef?
Previously in By George! Mr. Al left a little cliff hanger regarding the marriage of Princess Charlotte. With her father, George IV, pushing one of his drinking buddies on her and her mother sensing and opportunity to get under George’s skin, Charlotte is certainly put on the spot.
While desiring to remain in England was the public face of Princess Charlotte’s refusal to marry William, there were other issues as well. Williams drinking was but one. One of Charlotte’s biggest beefs was one that had long bedeviled her mother. She wasn’t getting invited to the really interesting parties. Oh, there were teas with the Queen, things of that sort, but, dammit! Why was William being invited to the hot ticket parties and not taking her along? A word from him and she could easily be included. But he wouldn’t do it. He obviously didn’t care.
On June 10 1814, Prince William got stink faced at the Ascot Races and returned to London hanging on to the outside of a stage couch. Charlotte was appalled. Why didn’t he invite her? Everyone in the Smart Set would have been at Ascot. And Williams behavior. Why, he was…acting like her father when he was that age! The wedding was definitely off.
To make sure it was officially off she had a meeting with William at Warwick House on June 16. She stated, in the presence of a witness, that she had no desire to wed him. The marriage was off and he could do as he pleased. He “left the house in much agitation.” To make sure he got the message, she put it in writing. “I now consider our engagement to be totally and forever at an end.” She wrote in a lengthy blow-off letter.
(more…)
eMail Imbalance
Mr. Al tends to write long letters. Surprised? *grin* They are, of course, very entertaining and enjoyable letters, but it isn’t unheard of for him to go on for 15 paragraphs. We aren’t talking dinky paragraphs either.
This is all fine and well until it’s time for whomever he emailed to reply. For some silly reason, some of his correspondents seem to think they need to write equally long and witty emails in reply. If you’ve read By George! then you have some idea of what a challenge this can be. As a result the replies tend to come slowly.
He’s told people not to bother trying to write long. Simply a sentence saying the email was appreciated would do. But no. It doesn’t feel right to merely enjoy and say “thanks.” I have no problem with this. In fact, I tend to simply grin across the table and say “thanks” rather than bothering to reply in email, and have been known to send him email with no more than a word or two. I do, however, try to keep reasonably even in frequency with those who email me.
So what can you do? You can’t expect him to write shorter. Would you believe him and send short replies? Would you struggle to keep up? Would you let the emails linger in the email box? Would you shrug an not worry about it?
Just curious.
Table Setting: A Progression
To continue from last week:
I asked my mother, who used to teach Meal Management courses on campus, what the biggest, hairiest, most intimidating table setting might be. I’m looking for something I can use to scare the hero of a book I’m thinking about writing. She said something along the lines of Russian or European style would likely do the trick.
Frankly, I don’t find European all that intimidating. They baby you along with wait staff that hands you what you need when you need it, and all you have to do with the array of silverware around your plate is work your way from the outside in using a bit of common sense. Still, she managed to point out some finer points.
As I mentioned last week, where things go might be determined by the style of service you chose, but the specific pieces used are determined by the menu. I’m going to walk you through a meal with the following menu:
- First course: Soup. Note underliner plate under bowl and bowl plate. It stays there until the main course.
Second: Fish course – since I’m not using a special fork to get into crab or lobster parts, it needs to be a fin fish like salmon.
Third course: Sorbet to cleans palate.
Fourth: Main course.
Fifth: Salad
Sixth: Dessert and coffee. Coffee is often served separately in the living room.
In a real meal, the plates you are about to see would already have food on them as they arrived. On the left of each set is the way the setting will look at the beginning of the course, when the food arrives. On the right is how the guest should leave things right before the servants remove the used items in preparation for the next course.
Soup
I like this course the best for intimidating my hero. Can’t you see a country bumpkin confronted by this array stop to wonder what he’s supposed to do? Good think it comes first, at a time when he will likely be most vulnerable.
Fish
Now imagine he grabbed the bread plate to the right instead of to the left. This would cause a domino effect all the way down the table to either side so the person on the right would have no plate and the one to the left would have an extra. He gets over that just in time for fish. Yes, I can see this working.
Sorbet
I could have him wondering about now if the meal is over. He’s already had soup and fish, and this thing can sometimes come across as a bit like desert. BTW, isn’t that a pretty sorbet cup? If someone told him it’s to “cleanse the pallet” can’t you see him swishing it around in his mouth?
Main Course:
At least by now things should start looking familiar and he should have picked up the rhythm of things, including the way you leave your silverware angled across the plate when you’re done.
Salad:
Just for fun, let’s pretend the servants have it in for him and didn’t give him a fork. Here’ he was so sure he knew what he was doing, but can he be sure the lack of utensil isn’t his fault?
I think this could work. What do you think? Would you find a dinner like this intimidating?
Ginger Yams/Sweet Potatoes
This is one my mother invented. I think I’m going to try the technique on regular mashed potatoes.
Yams or sweet potatoes
2 slices candied ginger for each yam
salt to taste
Peel and slice the yams. Boil them in a pot with enough water to cover the bottom third. bring to boil with a lid on. Drop in the candied ginger and a pinch of salt. Simmer until soft. At my elevation with eighth on an inch slices it took about 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Poor off any excess. I didn’t have any excess left and would have been down to a burn if they had taken any longer, but I had some boil over. Place in food processor. Use the chopping blade. Run in bursts until smooth. Serve I had steam coming out of the top as I worked. It has a buttery, delicate taste.
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If you did a recipe or a food photo today, leave your link in the comments and I’ll link to you here in a week or so.
Sherrie with Peanut Butter Fudge
Tamy with Stuffed Meatloaf
genefaith with pictures of Pak Pret Khaay
Kristen with how to make homemade instant oatmeal packets
Elaine with a recipe for snicker doodles and a little story.
Emily with a redipe for Praline Biscuits
Sold
Jill: Oh no! Look at my hands! And you’re hands too! They’re covered in paint. Why didn’t you tell me the paint was wet?
Jack: I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.
Jill: Well you better think about it now. Anything we touch is going to get yellow paint all over it.
Jill: Did you just hear something just now?
Jack: Not a thing.
Jill: Hey, where’s Tonic?
(ten minutes earlier:)
Veronica: What a nice dog. Oh? For sale? Here. I’ll give you all I have with me for him. Come on doggie. You belong to me now.
Today’s theme is hands. Last week was yellow and the week before was four.
Previously in Jack and Jill Wet Paint
saturday photo scavenger hunt
The rules for Photohunt can be found here.
Be sure to visit the home page.
Suzie’s House 110: Where the Apple Falls
Dad stood up fast. He had the guilty look to him, the way he swung his head around looking at the floor like he forgot something. The only thing Ben could think was that he’d been the one to cut Mom’s lawyer’s break lines.
A cold shiver went down Ben’s back. Until this moment a part of him still believed Dad wouldn’t really hurt him. He wanted to hurt Mom, sure, but to go out of his way to hurt Ben… but if the lawyer had awarded him custody, he’d have had Ben put away in the funny farm for sure. There was nothing good about Ben’s dad.
(more…)
