Earth Moves and Water Crashes

With everything happening in Japan, it seems so trivial to write about....well, about anything, really. The events of the past few days truly have boggled minds and left us all in a swirling mass of 'holy crap'. I'm not one for 'doomsday' mentality but yee gads, folks, this is really something.

I learned a lot from these events - for example, how tsunamis can do a lot of damage even when you're not near the 'main' wave action. Santa Cruz harbor has been hit pretty hard - and it was the realization that it was the sudden 'out and in' motion of the water, repeated throughout the day, that caused boats to come loose from their moorings and send them crashing into each other. Also caused docks to come loose, sending more boats loose and crashing....and sinking. Amazing to watch and this 'video age' we live in sure gives a lot of new experiences to world events. Really incredible footage out there on YouTube and/or Internet news in general.

Next we wait to see what happens with the various nuclear reactors that they are unable to cool down. When I read a couple minutes ago that they were resorting to pouring sea water onto two of them - an action that is clearly desperate because they will corrode and be rendered unusable likely ever again - it really made me pause a bit and think 'wow, God....is that you? Is this some message we're supposed to be getting about the state of 'affairs' in our world at the moment? 'Cuz seriously, there's been quite a bit of drama lately - and I, for one, am listening'. At this point, that's about all I can do, pretty much. How fast does radiation travel? They say we (California) will be 'at risk' if those reactors fail and leak. What do we do? Anything? We're 'inland' sort of - but there's water all around us - the Delta isn't too far away....really....

And the economic impact of these recent events is yet another thing that is yet to be realized. Another blow to a suffering, stagnating global economy that seems to suffer yet another 'are you kidding me' every time 'recovery' seems on the horizon.

This is what it's like to live through a time that will be told in the history books (or history e-books when all students have text readers vs. paper books) for generations. The Great Recession is what it's being called....

I'll wrap up my gloom and doom post by saying the days off were awesome. Had a great shopping day on Friday - stayed away from any place I didn't have a gift card - still spent a little bit but not too bad. Decided to use the knife return money to purchase a Cuisinart food processor - it was on sale for 50% off - I've been using the one that is part of the blender but it really doesn't hold enough. My new one will sit proudly on the counter next to my Kitchen Aid stand mixer (Tangerine Orange) and I know I will use it.

I'm reading the 'As Always, Julia' book - the letters between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto - and am loving it. It's like a blog - and I sometimes have to remind myself that this was in the 1950's - so they were typing every word on those huge, bulky non-electric typewriters. The more I read about cooking, the more I want to cook! The lasagna was FANTASTIC and my only disappointment is that I froze 1/2 the sauce and really should have just made another tray of lasagna and froze that instead. Had enough of everything to do that and am not sure why I decided to just freeze the sauce. But oh well. It was delicious and was even better as leftover! In the book, they talk a lot about cooking gadgets - and both agree that you can get away without a lot of those 'gadgets' as long as you have a great set of knives. Now that we have a great set, I couldn't agree more -

They also talk a lot about frozen foods - which were just 'new' back then. What a concept - to actually prepare vegetables fresh (vs. steaming in a bag in the microwave like we do now)....so much more 'work' in those days to prepare a meal. But that's part of the fun - at least, these days, it is!

Funny coincidence - I was watching Two Fat Ladies right before starting to read the book. And Fat Ladies talked about a 'mooly' (spelled phonetically) and I told myself I needed to look that up - it's like a 'bowl' with 'plates' on the bottom and you put stuff into it and turn the handle and 'grind' stuff or 'grate' stuff with it. And within the second paragraph of the book, they talked about Moulie's - how convenient they were. Guess that was like the 1950's version of a 'food processor', sort of? Need to look for one - but would have trouble finding where to store it at the moment. (And since I just got a really great food processor, what's the point? But Moulie's look easier for quick things you need to grate or mash).

H. worked again today - was out the door and got there by 8AM - which is even more remarkable considering he'd lost an hour of sleep. We went to bed at midnight and he was still up. But he made it! He's working 10 hours a week for now - and that's plenty.

It's approaching 5 - which is actually 4. I'll torture myself like that for a few days and then I'll get over it - it is nice to be on the same time zone as my Arizona family. But losing an hour always sucks. No matter how people try to jazz it up, it is hard and really makes the next week even more of a challenge. If I get up at 4 tomorrow, I will be getting up at 3. If I wanted to attempt to get up earlier....well....that's just insane. So I'd better start sorting through the massive pile of 'stuff' I brought home to sort through - five days always stretch ahead as if anything is possible. And as always, the 'stuff' I brought home is waiting until the absolute last possible minute.

Oh well. Monday will be here soon enough.